GigaScience Press is a winner of the inaugural Crossref Metadata Awards, recognising efforts in scholarly publishing metadata completeness and enrichment in their journal, GigaByte. Thanks to River Valley Technology’s state-of-the-art publishing platform, the journal was selected amongst over the nearly 150,000 journals from 22,000 members using Crossref infrastructure for having the highest metadata completeness in the small publishers category.  Presented for the first time at the Crossref Midyear ...

What does a person with an eating disorder look like? The picture may not be as clear-cut as many people think. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis led a groundbreaking study with an important lesson: Eating disorders don’t discriminate. “There’s been a perception that eating disorders mostly affect thin, white women,” said Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences. “Our study of college students dispels that myth.” The study, funded by a National Institute of Mental Health grant, surveyed 29,951 students from 26 colleges and universities, including ...

New Haven, Conn. — A sweeping new study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) reveals stark disparities in life expectancy across U.S. states and Washington, D.C. over the past century – offering new insights into how a region’s public health policies, social conditions, and environmental factors can shape people’s lifespans. Analyzing more than 179 million deaths between 1969 and 2020, the multi-institutional research team traced life expectancy trends by birth cohort — a more precise measure for following the life experiences of a population than traditional year-by-year summaries of mortality, which ...

A sweeping 26-country study reveals a consistent gap in trust toward climate scientists based on political ideology, with right-leaning individuals reporting lower trust than their left-leaning counterparts. The divide is especially stark in wealthier democracies and English-speaking nations, according to the research, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology (link is external and opens in a new window). The findings expand on past studies focused primarily on Western, English-speaking contexts. “While climate scientists ...

Imagine you are playing the guitar—each pluck of a string creates a sound wave that vibrates and interacts with other waves. Now shrink that idea down to a small single molecule, and instead of sound waves, picture vibrations that carry heat. A team of engineers and materials scientists in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering at CU Boulder has recently discovered that these tiny thermal vibrations, otherwise known as phonons, can interfere with each other just like musical notes—either amplifying or canceling each other, depending on how a molecule is "strung" together. Phonon ...

The burden of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias in China is higher than in most countries and increasing at a faster rate than the global average, according to a new study published May 7, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Siyu Liu and Daoying Geng of Fudan University, China. Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (ADD) are an increasingly serious global health issue, with rates rising worldwide. There is currently a lack of understanding of the disease burden and risk factors of ADD specifically in China, despite being one of the countries ...

Most of India’s snow leopard population live in a remote region in the north of the country, where they co-exist alongside rural communities, according to a study publishing May 7, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Pankaj Raina at Union Territory of Ladakh's Department of Wildlife Protection, and colleagues. To effectively conserve wild carnivores, researchers need accurate data on their population size and distribution. However, gathering this data has proved particularly challenging for snow leopards (Panthera uncia) because of their shy nature and preference for remote, rugged terrain. Researchers assessed the population size and distribution of snow leopards ...

Although our general tendency to be curious may decrease with age, our situational or "state" curiosity might actually increase across the lifespan, which might help boost well-being and cognitive outcomes in older age Article URL: https://plos.io/3SatjAg Article title: Curiosity across the adult lifespan: Age-related differences in state and trait curiosity Author countries: U.S., Germany Funding: National Institutes of Health (National Institute on Aging) Award Number R01AG044335 to AC: https://www.nia.nih.gov/ Leverhulme ...

People displaying high problematic (excessive and dependent) social media use are more likely to engage with and believe fake news Article URL: https://plos.io/3EFkKKP Article title: Problematic social media use is associated with believing in and engaging with fake news Author countries: U.S. Funding: DM and MDM received funding for this research from the Michigan State University Trifecta Initiative for Interdisciplinary Health Research. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. END ...

Better physical health probably follows religious and spiritual engagement, rather than vice versa, per six year longitudinal U.S. study aiming to tease out this relationship Article URL: https://plos.io/42vnJyK Article title: “Which comes first”: Religious/spiritual engagement or health? Initial observations from longitudinal analyses Author countries: U.S. Funding: Dr. Neal Krause received funding for Wave 1 of this study (Grant ID: 40077), and Dr. Gail Ironson received funding for Wave 2 of this study (Grant ID: 61430), from ...

Excess weight, including overweight and obesity, is linked with experiencing Long Covid neurological symptoms including headaches, vertigo, sleep problems and depression, per meta-analysis of studies comprising almost 140,000 total participants Article URL: https://plos.io/4lNLY2G Article title: Excess weight is associated with neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms in post-COVID-19 condition: A systematic review and meta-analysis Author countries: Brazil, Australia, China Funding: This research received a grant from the ...

What is the trick to aging successfully? If you’re curious about learning the answer, you might already be on the right track, according to an international team of psychologists including several from UCLA. Their research shows that some forms of curiosity can increase well into old age and suggests that older adults who maintain curiosity and want to learn new things relevant to their interests may be able to offset or even prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Conversely, those who show muted curiosity and disinterest may be at risk for dementia. The finding contradicts prior research that showed that curiosity ...

In Reddit posts about climate change, just 1 in 25 links are to scientific sources - versus mass media and social media sources - evidencing the lack of science-based debate. #### Article URL: https://plos.io/4jZKIYA Article Title: The role of science in the climate change discussions on Reddit Author Countries: Austria, Italy Funding: The authors acknowledge support from the Lagrange Project of the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation (ISI Foundation, to PC, MT, KK, DP, YM) funded by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Torino (Fondazione CRT), Italy. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, ...

4 in 10 mpox social media memes spread misinformation or stigmatize minorities, though the majority are accurate and promote awareness, per analysis of 200 memes circulated during the global public health emergency. 4 in 10 mpox social media memes spread misinformation or stigmatize minorities, though the majority are accurate and promote awareness, per analysis of 200 memes circulated during the global public health emergency.  #### Article URL: https://plos.io/42ZABMv Article Title: Short communication: Mpox memes, the gift that conceals a blade Author Countries: Uganda Funding: The authors received no specific funding ...

(Saunderstown, RI — May 7, 2025) In a groundbreaking study published today in Science Advances, researchers from Ocean Discovery League reveal that only a minuscule fraction of the deep seafloor has been imaged. Despite covering 66% of Earth's surface, the deep ocean remains largely unexplored. The study, "How Little We've Seen: A Visual Coverage Estimate of the Deep Seafloor," is the first to document that, in decades of deep-sea exploration, humans have observed less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor. This total area is roughly the size of Rhode Island or one-tenth the size of ...

Current treatments to prevent organ transplant rejection focus mainly on suppressing T cells, part of the adaptive immune system. However, the innate immune system—the body’s first line of defense that triggers early inflammation after transplantation—has largely remained untargeted by modern therapies. In a new study, researchers from Mass General Brigham identified a natural “brake” within the innate immune system: the inhibitory receptor Siglec-E (SigE) and its human counterparts, Siglec-7 and Siglec-9. This receptor helps prevent overactivation of immune cells that drive rejection. When this brake ...

A majority of individuals who are deaf or have hearing loss face significant communication barriers when accessing care through the National Health Service (NHS), with nearly two-thirds of patients missing half or more of vital information shared during appointments. A team of patients, clinicians, researchers and charity representatives, led by the University of Cambridge and the British Society of Audiology, surveyed over 550 people who are deaf or have hearing loss about their experiences with the NHS – making it the largest study of its kind. Their findings, reported in the journal PLOS ...

A team of researchers at Texas A&M University and the University of Georgia (UGA) has received more than $4 million from federal and non-governmental organizations to support research on Chagas disease prevalence, diagnostics and treatment to benefit both dogs and humans. Chagas disease is a tropical illness caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is most commonly spread by the fecal matter of triatomine bugs — also known as “kissing bugs” because they bite their hosts to feed on blood. The disease — common in humans and dogs — often goes unnoticed in early stages, but ...

Imagine concrete healing its own cracks like human skin recovering from a cut. That’s the vision behind the latest research of Dr. Congrui Grace Jin, published in Materials Today Communications.  Addressing one of the most persistent and expensive problems in construction, Jin, an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Technology and Industrial Distribution, has taken inspiration from nature to develop a synthetic lichen system to enable concrete to self-repair. Concrete is the most widely used building material on Earth, yet it suffers from the dangerous flaw of cracking easily. These cracks, big or small, can lead to catastrophic structural failure, ...

Tens of millions of people in Africa are infected by parasitic worms that cause lymphatic filariasis (also called elephantiasis), a disease that leads to severe swelling and deformities of the limbs and genitals. Despite widespread treatment programs that have successfully reduced the risk of contracting lymphatic filariasis, hundreds of millions of people remain vulnerable to the infection. A small clinical trial in Cote d’Ivoire, led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, shows that the anti-parasitic drug moxidectin – currently approved to ...

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (May 7, 2025)  -- An observational study among 2,272 mother-child pairs in Finland found that infants had 44% lower odds of developing food allergies at 12 months if their mother consumed fresh avocado during pregnancy, after adjusting for other lifestyle, delivery, and maternal health factors. Decades of research have explored the relationship between maternal diet and allergic outcomes in infants, but this is the first published study to link avocados in the maternal diet to ...

An inexpensive paper sensor along with a smartphone-based reader developed by a Washington State University-led team can rapidly provide information on a person’s personal smoke exposure during wildfire season. The sensor can provide valuable information for firefighters and others to clarify just how much harmful pollution they might inhale during smoky conditions. The researchers, including from University of Washington and University of Georgia, report on their work in the journal, ACS Applied ...

About The Study: In this phase 3 study, mRNA-1083, an investigational, multicomponent vaccine against seasonal influenza and SARS-CoV-2, met noninferiority criteria and induced higher immune responses than recommended standard care influenza (standard and high dose) and COVID-19 vaccines against all 4 influenza strains (among those ages 50-64), the 3 clinically relevant influenza strains (among those age 65 and older), and SARS-CoV-2 (all ages), with an acceptable tolerability and safety profile. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Amanda K. Rudman Spergel, MD, email Amanda.RudmanSpergel@modernatx.com. To ...

Life depends on genes being switched on and off at exactly the right time. Even the simplest living organisms do this, but usually over short distances across the DNA sequence, with the on/off switch typically right next to a gene. This basic form of genomic regulation is probably as old as life on Earth.  A new study published today in Nature by researchers at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and the Centre Nacional d’Anàlisi Genòmica (CNAG) finds that the ability to control genes from far away, over many tens of thousands of DNA letters, evolved between 650 and 700 million years ...

Climate change's disproportionate burden on youth  Climate extremes, including heatwaves, crop failures, river floods, tropical cyclones, wildfires and droughts, will intensify with continued atmospheric warming. Today’s children will endure more climate extremes then any previous generation.   “In 2021, we demonstrated how children are to face disproportionate increases in extreme event exposure – especially in low-income countries. Now, we examined where the cumulative exposure to climate extremes across one’s lifetime will far exceed that which would have ...