When a reporter with the Sierra Club magazine asked Graham Peaslee, a physicist at the University of Notre Dame, to test several different samples of unused menstrual underwear for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in 2019, the results fueled concern over chemical exposure in feminine hygiene products — which ultimately ended up in a $5 million lawsuit against the period and incontinence underwear brand Thinx. Then in 2023, the New York Times asked Peaslee to test 44 additional period and incontinence products for PFAS, a class of toxic fluorinated compounds inherently repellent to oil, water, soil and stains, and ...

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA — A new study from researchers at the Indiana University Paul H. O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the University of Notre Dame shows that per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAS)—also known as “forever chemicals”—can be found in reusable feminine hygiene products. The pilot study provides information that will be useful for consumers, regulators, and manufacturers. Published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, the article, “Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in reusable ...

Miami (July 22, 2025) – The Bronchiectasis and NTM Association announced today that four abstracts using Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry data were presented at the World Bronchiectasis Conference, held July 14-17, 2025, in Brisbane, Australia. The abstracts are: “The Impact of Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI) Use on Exacerbation Rates in Patients with Bronchiectasis: An Analysis of the US Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry,” which examined the impact proton pump inhibitor use has on exacerbation and hospital stay frequency and disease severity. “High frequency chest ...

Mental illnesses are thought to be caused by both biological and environmental factors in complex interaction. Among the environmental contributors are a wide range of social, economic, and demographic factors known as “social determinants.” Adam Skinner and colleagues used dynamic Bayesian network analysis to infer the complex causal networks that link social determinants to mental health in a nationally representative sample, consisting of around 25,000 participants in the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The authors identified variables that directly ...

Cells called astrocytes are about as abundant in the brain as neurons, but scientists have spent much less time figuring out how they contribute to brain functions. A novel study by MIT researchers at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory shows that one function appears to be maintaining the chemical conditions necessary for groups of neurons to team up to encode information. Specifically, the neuroscientists showed that when they knocked out the ability of astrocytes in the visual cortex of mice to produce a protein called “GABA transporter 3 (Gat3),” neurons there became less able as a group to represent ...

Brace yourself for a new source of online disinformation: AIPasta. Research has demonstrated that generative AI can produce persuasive content. Meanwhile, so-called CopyPasta campaigns take advantage of the “repetitive truth” effect by repeating the exact same text over and over until it seems more likely to be true by those who encounter it many times. Saloni Dash and colleagues explore how these two strategies can be combined into what the authors term “AIPasta.” In AIPasta campaigns, AI can be used to produce many slightly different versions of the same message, giving the public ...

Airborne particulate matter represents a silent but pervasive threat to our health, infiltrating our homes, workplaces, and public spaces alike. Air filters are often our primary defense against these microscopic pollutants, which include pollen, dust, and smoke. However, conventional air filters suffer from a fundamental weakness: they rely on extremely weak adhesive forces (van der Waals interactions) to capture particles. These forces are often insufficient to effectively trap and retain fine particles, leading to poor filtration performance and the release ...

Bacterial cell division, a process wherein a single cell divides to form two identical daughter cells, represents one of the most essential biological processes. Understanding the precise mechanism behind this dynamic process can help in the development of targeted ways to inhibit bacterial proliferation. The process of cell division involves multiple proteins and their complex interactions. FtsZ protein molecules polymerize to form protofibrils that further associate into a ring-like structure called the Z-ring. Z-ring formation is a crucial step in the cell division process, facilitated by multiple FtsZ-associated proteins. ZapA is one such protein, which ...

To manage increasingly complex manufacturing systems, involving material flows across numerous transporters, machines, and storage locations, the semiconductors and display fabrication industries have implemented automated material handling systems (AMHSs). AMHSs typically involve complex manufacturing steps and control logic, and digital twin models have emerged as a promising solution to enhance the visibility, predictability, and responsiveness of production and material handling operation systems. However, digital twins don’t always fully reflect reality, potentially affecting production performance ...

Colon cancer remains a major global health concern, ranking third among the most diagnosed cancers and leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. One critical factor that makes treating colon cancer challenging is the presence of cancer stem cells. Though typically present in small populations, these powerful cells drive tumor growth, resist standard treatments, and often contribute to relapse. They achieve this through their “stemness,” a set of properties that enable these cells to self-renew ...

To the point Grackles trained to be more flexible were better at foraging afterward: They ate more foods and used more foraging techniques. Investigating their cognitive abilities in the wild shows how flexibility impacts their ability to adapt to human-modified environments. Behavioral flexibility is not the primary facilitator of a range expansion: Although high levels of flexibility were found in two successful urban bird species, only one is rapidly expanding is range. This suggests that flexibility alone does not ...

Researchers have conducted the world’s biggest ever bird survey, recording 971 different species living in forests and cattle pastures across the South American country of Colombia. This represents almost 10% of the world’s birds. They combined the results, gathered over a decade, with information on each species’ sensitivity to habitat conversion to find that the biodiversity loss caused by clearing rainforest for cattle pasture is on average 60% worse than previously thought. Until now, understanding the biodiversity impact of land-use change has generally involved ...

An antibody treatment developed at Stanford Medicine successfully prepared patients for stem cell transplants without toxic busulfan chemotherapy or radiation, a phase 1 clinical trial has shown. While the researchers tested the protocol on patients with Fanconi anemia, a genetic disease that makes standard stem cell transplant extremely risky, they expect it may also work for patients with other genetic diseases that require stem cell transplants. “We were able to treat these really fragile patients with a new, ...

By sparking the immune system into action, radiation therapy makes certain tumors that resist immunotherapy susceptible to the treatment, leading to positive outcomes for patients, according to new research by investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and the Netherlands Cancer Institute. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health. In the study, published July 22 in Nature Cancer, investigators dove deep into the molecular biology of non-small cell lung cancer to pinpoint what happens on ...

ARLINGTON, Va. (July 22, 2025) – Afro-descendant peoples in four Amazon countries show remarkable achievements in environmental stewardship, according to new research from Conservation International, published today in Nature Communications Earth and Environment. The study assessed Afro-descendant lands in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Suriname, finding significantly lower rates of deforestation and larger quantities of both biodiversity and irrecoverable carbon (the carbon that, if lost due to ...

New York, NY [July 22, 2025]—A study by investigators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in collaboration with colleagues from Rabin Medical Center in Israel and other collaborators, suggests that even the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models can make surprisingly simple mistakes when faced with complex medical ethics scenarios. The findings, which raise important questions about how and when to rely on large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, in health care settings, were reported in the July 22 online issue of NPJ Digital Medicine [10.1038/s41746-025-01792-y]. The research team was inspired by Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, Fast and ...

EMBL-EBI scientists and collaborators at Heidelberg University have developed CORNETO, a new computational tool that uses machine learning to gain meaningful insights from complex biological data. CORNETO enables users to extract molecular networks – maps of how genes, proteins, and signalling pathways interact – by combining experimental data from different samples and conditions with prior biological knowledge, such as signalling or metabolic networks. This can help us to better understand the mechanisms that ...

NEW YORK, New York, USA, 22 July 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press interview published in Brain Medicine today, Dr. Hamilton Se-Hwee Oh reveals groundbreaking insights into the complex dialogue between our brains and bodies that fundamentally shapes aging, depression, and neurodegenerative disease. Working at Mount Sinai's prestigious Brain-Body Institute and Ronald M. Loeb Center for Alzheimer's Disease in New York City, Dr. Oh bridges multiple scientific disciplines to decode ...

It has long been established that emotions reflect in our voice – this helps us communicate more purposefully and gives listeners cues as to how they should interpret what we say. But what emotions predominate in complaints – and how do they differ between groups? Researchers in Switzerland and Canada investigated and published their findings in Frontiers in Communication. “Complaining is differentiated from neutral speech by changes in vocal expression. Complainers tend to change their intonation, pitch, rhythm, and emphasis, making them sound more emotive and expressive,” ...

NEW YORK, NY – July 21, 2025 – A new study by NYU Langone Health researchers found that the shutdown of a significant fossil fuel pollution source near Pittsburgh, PA, resulted in immediate improvements in respiratory health. The study is available online starting July 22 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, a journal of the American Thoracic Society. Assessing data from nearby local and federal air quality monitors, the researchers tracked the air pollution health effects on residents near the Shenango plant before and after its closure in 2016. Results showed that within the first few ...

Kyoto, Japan --  During the midday Friday prayer hours on 28 March 2025, a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck central Myanmar along the Sagaing Fault. With an epicenter close to Mandalay, the country's second-largest city, it was the most powerful earthquake to strike Myanmar in more than a century and the second deadliest in its modern history. The cause was a strike-slip fault, in which two masses of earth "slip" past each other horizontally along a vertical fault plane. To an observer, it would look like the ground were split in two along a defined line, with both sides being wrenched past each other ...

Researchers have decoded the chromosome-level genome of Houttuynia cordata, an important East Asian medicinal plant known for its strong flavor and wide pharmacological use. This species was found to be decaploid, containing ten sets of chromosomes, and has undergone multiple genome duplications during evolution. The team identified significantly expanded gene families involved in the biosynthesis of medicinal alkaloids, including STR, DDC, 6OMT, and 4OMT. High expression of these genes in root and rhizome tissues supports their vital role in alkaloid accumulation. This study not only unveils ...

LA JOLLA, CA—In living organisms today, complex molecules like RNA and DNA are constructed with the help of enzymes. So how did these molecules form before life (and enzymes) existed? Why did some molecules end up as the building blocks of life and not others? A new study by Scripps Research scientists helps answer these longstanding questions. The results, published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie on June 27, 2025, show how ribose may have become the sugar of choice for RNA development. They found that ribose binds to phosphate—another molecular ...

Patients prescribed drugs to help them lose weight may experience a rebound in weight gain after halting their prescription, finds a meta-analysis published in BMC Medicine. The study, which analyses data for patients receiving weight loss drugs across 11 randomised trials, suggests that while the amount of weight regain varies depending on the specific drug, there is a broad trend in associated weight regain after the course of medication concluded. Six anti-obesity medications (AOMs) have been approved by the US FDA for use in assisting with weight loss, including orlistat, ...

New York, NY (July 21, 2025) — Exposure to a class of synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—often called “forever chemicals”—may increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new study led by Mount Sinai researchers. The findings were published today in eBioMedicine. The team conducted a nested case-control study (an observational study that is conducted within a larger cohort study) within BioMe, a large, electronic health record-linked research database comprising ...