Why did life on Earth choose alpha amino acids as the building blocks of proteins? A new study suggests the answer lies in the stability of their inter-molecular interactions. Researchers found that primitive peptide-like molecules made from alpha backbones formed more durable, compartment-like structures than their longer beta counterparts, giving them a potential evolutionary advantage. The findings propose an assembly-driven model for the origins of life, offering fresh insight into how chemistry shaped biology. A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sheds light on one of life’s greatest mysteries: ...

A team of MIT geochemists has unearthed new evidence in very old rocks suggesting that some of the first animals on Earth were likely ancestors of the modern sea sponge.  In a study appearing today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers report that they have identified “chemical fossils” that may have been left by ancient sponges in rocks that are more than 541 million years old. A chemical fossil is a remnant of a biomolecule that originated from a living organism that has since been buried, transformed, and preserved in sediment, sometimes for hundreds of millions of years.  The newly identified chemical fossils are special types ...

The next time you watch your dog visit the same places around your yard or notice that your cat seems to explore a new area every time it ventures outside, consider this: you might be witnessing an ancient evolutionary strategy in action. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of September 29, 2025 reveals that wild canids have, on average, both a greater density of travel routeways and a greater probability of routeway usage than wild felids. Led by University of Maryland researchers, the ...

At the 18th World Congress on Polyphenols Applications, which will be held in Malta on October 2-3, 2025, Iprona and Polyphenols Applications will announce a global call to action, inviting researchers to strengthen the quality and reproducibility of polyphenol science. Through this initiative, ElderCraft®, a polyphenol-standardised European black elderberry (Sambucus nigra) water extract, is now available at no cost to qualified academic and clinical research groups worldwide. ElderCraft® is a polyphenol and anthocyanin-rich extract, sourced exclusively from ...

For patients with recurrent retroperitoneal sarcomas that cannot be treated surgically, treatment choices are limited. These tumors can grow quite large in the abdomen adjacent to vital organs or enmeshed within the bowel. Given their radioresistant nature they require high doses of radiation that risk damaging healthy nearby tissue. Once patients have undergone an initial radiation course, doctors are often left with no safe radiation treatment option. But a pilot study from Fox Chase Cancer Center, presented at the 2025 American ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Electric space heating systems and appliances like water heaters can help American homeowners reduce their energy use, and possibly their utility bills, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State. The researchers set out to identify the most important factors driving U.S. on-site residential energy consumption, which the team said accounts for approximately 21% of primary energy consumption in the country and is more complex than commercial energy use. They found that electric heating systems like heat pumps, compared to systems that rely on natural gas and oil, had the largest impact on reducing on-site energy ...

Landing a job traditionally meant polishing a resume, printing extra copies and sitting across from a hiring manager. Today, the first “person” to evaluate you might not be a person at all — it could be a chatbot powered by artificial intelligence. These automated systems can ask questions, score responses and even recommend who gets hired. Rice University’s Tianjun Sun has received a National Science Foundation award to lead a two-year collaborative project with the University of Florida examining how AI interview systems work — and how to make them more fair. For employers, chatbot interviews promise consistency ...

SAN FRANCISCO, September 29, 2025 — A new phase III clinical trial finds that intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) and proton beam therapy resulted in similar quality-of-life outcomes and low rates of side effects for people with locally advanced oropharyngeal cancer. The TORPEdO trial, a randomized study conducted across the United Kingdom, found no meaningful differences between the treatments in patient-reported quality of life, swallowing function or feeding tube dependence at one year. Both advanced radiation approaches resulted in excellent ...

SAN FRANCISCO, September 29, 2025 — Radiation therapy could be an underused tool to reduce pelvic relapse risk for patients with locally advanced, muscle-invasive bladder cancer, according to results of a new phase III randomized trial. In the study, moderate doses of radiation therapy after bladder removal surgery sharply cut the rates of cancer returning in the pelvis without adding serious side effects. Findings of the Bladder Adjuvant RadioTherapy (BART) trial conducted at centers across India will be presented today at the American Society ...

Intensity-modulated radiotherapy is as good as proton beam therapy for treating people with head and neck cancer, according to the results of a Cancer Research UK-funded clinical trial. The TORPEdO trial funded by Cancer Research UK and The Taylor Family Foundation, led by The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and sponsored by the Institute of Cancer Research, London, compared two forms of highly targeted radiotherapy for head and neck cancer – proton beam therapy (PBT) and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Presented at the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California, the initial results of ...

Collaborative research by the University of Tokyo and RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research has led to the development of a new method for simultaneously synthesizing all transfer RNA (tRNA) required for protein synthesis in a reconstituted translation system in vitro. Currently, humans rely on living organisms (bacteria, yeast, plants, and animals) for the production of pharmaceuticals and food. However, living organisms are susceptible to environmental changes, breeding improvements require time, and ...

Keith Renshaw, Senior Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education, Office of the Provost, received funding for: “VISR 3.0: Learning Management System Development and Implementation.” This project aims to train employees within a wide variety of agencies in a) identifying service members, veterans, and family members; b) screening for suicide risk; and c) providing appropriate referrals and/or interventions as needed. VISR was first piloted in 2020, with good success. From 2022-2023, Renshaw led a follow-up project dubbed “VISR 2.0” focused on evaluating VISR’s broader impact and identifying ways to increase the scale of the program. Results ...

Yang Receives Funding For Welfare & Poverty Mapping Project Ruixin Yang, Associate Professor, Geography Geoinformation Science, College of Science, received funding for: “Welfare and Poverty Mapping with Satellite-Derived Data, Spatial Analysis and Machine Learning Application.” The objective of this consultancy is to provide technical and advisory support in: processing satellite imagery and geospatial datasets; designing and implementing machine learning models for spatial analysis; and supporting ...

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States. The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) will host a free webinar on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, at 2:00 pm ET, examining the biological factors that contribute to suicide risk and what can be done to strengthen prevention efforts. The event will be hosted by Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., President & CEO of BBRF and host of the Emmy® nominated television series Healthy Minds. Featured speaker, Steven Lamontagne, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Experimental Therapeutics and Pathophysiology Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), will ...

As we approach the first anniversary of flooding from Hurricane Helene that devastated parts of North Carolina, the anesthesia department from the Medical University of South Carolina is sharing how it responded to one effect of that flooding: the disruption of the IV fluid supply chain. “The culture in anesthesia is to be prepared for everything,” said Carlee A. Clark, M.D., lead author of the MUSC study published in A&A Practice. The journal is for doctors working in anesthesia and pain medicine, focusing on short, peer-reviewed articles on innovative treatments and solutions.  The anesthesia team was prepared for an IV fluid supply shortage. Previous publications ...

In the near future, you may not need to touch a keypad to select a tip or pay for large purchases. All it may take is a swipe, tap or other quick gesture. Hygienic tips The innovation utilizes near-field communication (NFC), the short-range wireless technology embedded in smartphones, payment cards and terminals, passports and key fobs. UBC computer scientists say it could help prevent the spread of germs through touchpads, speed up transactions, and improve accessibility for users unable to press buttons. Researchers debuted ...

Does walking influence how people process sensory information, like sounds, from the environment? In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Liyu Cao, from Zhejiang University, and Barbara Händel, from University of Würzburg, explored whether walking direction influences how people process sounds.  Thirty volunteers walked in an eight-shaped path as they listened to a continuous stream of sound with changing intensities while researchers collected recordings of brain activity. People had stronger neural responses to sound while walking as opposed to standing or walking in place. These responses changed to the same degree as manipulations to sound intensity. ...

In May 2018, the European Union (EU) implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a major component of EU privacy law. Privacy regulations like the GDPR have long been criticized by the online advertising industry as harmful to the digital economy. Critics argue that stricter privacy laws reduce online tracking, disrupt targeted advertising, and, as a result, weaken the ability of publishers and content creators to generate revenue and maintain free, high-quality content for users. But since its implementation, little attention has been directed to understanding the regulation’s ...

Dr. Amar Kishan, professor and executive vice chair of radiation oncology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and co-director of the cancer molecular imaging, nanotechnology and theranostics program at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been named the recipient of the 2025 Steven A. Leibel Memorial Award, one of the most distinguished honors in radiation oncology.  Presented by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the American Board of Radiology (ABR) Foundation, the award recognizes outstanding principal investigators within the first decade of their careers following board certification. Kishan was selected for ...

At the Final Palaeolithic site of Mühlheim-Dietesheim, Germany, archaeologists from Aarhus University found traces of a blue residue on a stone artifact dating back around 13,000 years. Using a suite of cutting-edge scientific analyses, they confirmed the traces were from the vivid blue mineral pigment azurite, previously unseen in Europe’s Palaeolithic art.  “This challenges what we thought we knew about Palaeolithic pigment use”, sais Dr. Izzy Wisher, the lead author of the study.  Until now, scholars believed Palaeolithic artists predominantly used red and black pigments – practically no other colours ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — A new international study led by Mayo Clinic researchers has identified a genetic factor that may explain why some patients with colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver experience more severe liver damage after chemotherapy. For patients with colorectal liver metastases, surgery offers the best chance of long-term survival. To improve outcomes, many patients receive chemotherapy before surgery. While this approach can shrink tumors to make them more operable, one potential side effect is injury to the liver. Until now, it hasn't been clear why certain patients' livers are more ...

The legendary tale of the business leader who had an epiphany that fundamentally changed his or her professional journey — turning hobbies, small observations or frustrations into billion-dollar ideas — is well known. Julia Child writing her first cookbook at 50 and becoming a famous chef; Sara Blakely channeling frustration with undergarments to develop Spanx; Jeff Bezos leaving a successful Wall Street investment career to get in on the booming growth of the internet … the list goes on. Epiphanies — sudden realizations that transform how people see ...

Images Beyond the sneezing and itchy eyes, high pollen seasons are now linked to a significant increase in suicide risk.   A new University of Michigan study found a 7.4% jump in deaths, suggesting the physical discomfort of allergies may trigger a deeper, more dangerous despair, an overlooked factor in suicide prevention.   The study indicates that allergies' physiological effects, such as poor sleep and mental distress, may contribute to this increased risk.   "A small shock could have a big effect ...

Determining the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics. New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), have narrowed down the possibilities for one of the leading dark matter candidates: weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). “While we always hope to discover a new particle, it is important for particle physics that we are able to set bounds on what the dark matter might actually be,” said UC Santa Barbara experimental ...

Groundbreaking scientific findings on how swirling matter can form stars, planets and supermassive black holes earned a team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University the 2025 John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society (APS). The winning team includes Fatima Ebrahimi, Erik Gilson, Hantao Ji and Yin Wang, as well as Princeton University’s Jeremy ...