Good news, everyone!

A collaborative team led by researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully developed advanced semiconductor-based radiation detectors, significantly improving their performance for use in extreme environments.

People who are goal-oriented tend to have better outcomes in life partly because having a "sense of purpose" is a skill that can yield positive results.

Many vaccines work by introducing a protein to the body that resembles part of a virus. Ideally, the immune system will produce long-lasting antibodies recognizing that specific virus, thereby providing protection.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening genetic disease affecting multiple organ systems, with pancreatic dysfunction representing a critical and often overlooked complication. A recent study published in eGastroenterology introduces young rabbits with CF as a novel and accessible model to study CF-related pancreatic endocrine pathology. This model offers an unprecedented opportunity to deepen our understanding of CF-related diabetes (CFRD), a condition affecting up to 50% of adults with CF.

Smaller than a strawberry seed, this tiny signal amplifier was produced by the European Space Agency to fill a missing link in current technology, helping to make future radar-observing and telecommunications space missions feasible.

According to new research, the earliest seeds of structures may have been laid down by gravitational waves sloshing around in the infant universe.

Researchers are using new technologies, including AI, as well as contributions from citizen scientists, to improve how we monitor and protect increasingly threatened habitats and species across Europe.

In the future, charging stations along freeways, in parking lots or at logistics centers will have to deliver much more power in a short space of time than they do today. For this reason, new charging stations can no longer simply be connected to the low voltage power grid.

Our sun is a lonely star. At least half the stars in our galaxy have binary companions. This was nicely illustrated in the Star Wars movie trilogy where Luke Skywalker watched two suns set on the horizon as seen from his home planet Tatooine. Now imagine three suns in the sky. This is the story for a system that once contained three co-orbiting stars.

For Medicaid beneficiaries with schizophrenia, delivery of mental health care through telehealth (telemental health care) diffused rapidly after onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study published online Jan. 16 in JAMA Network Open.

Bone pain. Joint pain. Bone swelling. These are symptoms that about 1,000 people in the United States begin to feel each year shortly before being diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of cancer that starts in the bones. Although any age can develop osteosarcoma, approximately half of diagnosed cases are in children and adolescents.

Megakaryocytes (MKs), known for their role in platelet production, have emerged as critical players in immune responses, showcasing versatility in both physiological and pathological contexts. Recent advances in technology have unveiled the diverse immune functions of MKs, which express immune sensors and participate in immune activities, thus expanding their traditional role beyond hemostasis and coagulation.

Our genes contain all the instructions our body needs to function, but their expression must be finely regulated to guarantee that each cell performs its role optimally. This is where DNA and RNA epigenetics come in: a series of mechanisms that act as "markers" on genes, to control their activity without modifying the DNA or RNA sequence itself.

Researchers at University of Tsukuba conducted a detailed investigation on exercise-induced arterial adaptations (changes in arterial structure and function associated with sport-specific demands) among college baseball players.

Trained health care professionals (THCPs), including medical assistants, respiratory therapists, and nurses, with artificial intelligence (AI) assistance can achieve lung ultrasound (LUS) images with diagnostic quality that does not differ significantly from that achieved by experts, according to a study published online Jan. 15 in JAMA Cardiology.

A significant overall reduction in the prevalence of episiotomy in France from 2010 to 2021 has not been followed by an overall increase in obstetric anal sphincter injury (OASI), according to a study published online Jan. 14 in PLOS Medicine.

Researchers analyzed the genetic connection of retinal cells and several neuropsychiatric disorders. By combining different datasets, they found that schizophrenia risk genes were associated with specific neurons in the retina. The involved risk genes suggest an impairment of synapse biology, so the ability of neurons to communicate with each other. This impairment might also be present in the brains of schizophrenia patients.

Directly measuring soil carbon rather than relying on predictive models can provide hard evidence of how much carbon is being stored, allowing for better assessments of confidence in carbon markets for croplands, according to a study co-authored by Yale School of the Environment scientists and recently published in Environmental Research Letters.

A new study shows that screenings of a locally-produced narrative film about parenting led to a significant reduction in physical violence against children.

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have uncovered how a molecule found on certain bacteria may drive blood clotting in sepsis, a life-threatening condition that causes about 8 million deaths per year.

Michigan State University researchers—along with colleagues at the University of Florida, citizen scientists and their "truffle dogs"—have discovered two new species of truffle. The research was published in the journal Mycologia and featured on its cover.

An article published in the journal Scientific Reports describes how researchers analyzed biofilm produced by bacteria found in the El Medano hot springs, located in Chile in the central Andes, and concluded that one of its key ingredients can be used to develop natural additives for the pharmaceutical and food industries.

Appropriate use criteria (AUC) for the use of amyloid and tau positron emission tomography (PET) have been issued by the Alzheimer's Association and the Society for Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging and published online Jan. 8 in both Alzheimer's & Dementia and the Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

Researchers at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging are at the forefront of advancing dementia research with groundbreaking work on a condition known as LATE, or "limbic predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy."

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image shows the planet Jupiter in a color composite of ultraviolet wavelengths. Released on Nov. 3, 2023, in honor of Jupiter reaching opposition, which occurs when the planet and the sun are in opposite sides of the sky, this view of the gas giant planet includes the iconic, massive storm called the "Great Red Spot."

A completely new way of treating type 1 diabetes is being tested at Uppsala University Hospital. Patients are being offered transplants of genetically modified insulin-producing cells and the initial results are promising. We put a few questions to Per-Ola Carlsson, Professor of Medical Cell Biology, who is leading the study.

Neural network models that are able to make decisions or store memories have long captured scientists' imaginations. In these models, a hallmark of the computation being performed by the network is the presence of stereotyped sequences of activity, akin to one-way paths. This idea was pioneered by John Hopfield, who was notably co-awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. Whether one-way activity paths are used in the brain, however, has been unknown.

By editing the polymers of discarded plastics, chemists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a way to generate new macromolecules with more valuable properties than those of the starting material. Upcycling may help remedy the roughly 450 million tons of plastic discarded worldwide annually, of which only 9% gets recycled; the rest is incinerated or winds up in landfills, oceans or elsewhere.

Six planets grace the sky this month in what's known as a planetary parade, and most can be seen with the naked eye.

In the open-label phase 2 LITESPARK-003 study, led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Toni Choueiri, MD, researchers investigated for the first time the combination of cabozantinib, an anti-angiogenic agent, plus belzutifan, a first-in-class HIF-2α inhibitor. The findings are published in The Lancet Oncology journal.

The search for answers to Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders remains one of the most pressing goals in brain research. Maciej J. Stawikowski, Ph.D., an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science, believes the key may lie in understanding how cholesterol and other lipids move through cells and affect their communication.

The so-called Funnel Beaker Culture (4000–2800 BCE) represents the first phase in Southern Scandinavia/northern Germany in which people were agriculturalists and kept livestock. The lifestyle of these farmers has been a subject of research for decades. However, up to now, a mystery has remained regarding the preferred plant food ingredients, especially those beyond cereals, and which product was made from cereal grain.

A team of engineers at the California Institute of Technology, working with colleagues from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Princeton University, has developed what they have named polycatenated architected materials (PAMs) that can be used as wireframe elements to create novel 3D structures with interesting properties.

As an embryo grows, there is a continuous stream of communication between cells to form tissues and organs. Cells need to read numerous cues from their environment, and these may be chemical or mechanical in nature. However, these alone cannot explain collective cell migration, and a large body of evidence suggests that movement may also happen in response to embryonic electrical fields. How and where these fields are established within embryos was unclear until now.

Left and right circularly polarized light, where the electromagnetic waves spiral in a clockwise and counterclockwise manner as they travel, plays a crucial role in a wide range of applications, from enhancing medical imaging techniques to enabling advanced communication technologies. However, generating circularly polarized light often requires complex and bulky optical set-ups, which hinders its use in systems with space constraints.

Scientists from A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore (A*STAR GIS) have uncovered that a key enzyme—P4HA1 prolyl hydroxylase, is strongly induced in CD8+ T cells in solid cancer, the primary immune cells involved in combating cancer. P4HA1 causes disruptions in energy production within the cells, which leads to weaker immune cells that are less able to fight cancer and form long-lasting anti-cancer immunity, highlighting P4HA1 as a promising target for treating solid tumors.

A research team at POSTECH has developed a technology that surpasses the constraints of traditional imaging methods, providing stable and highly accurate cell visualization. Their findings are published in Nature Communications.

The EU's medicines watchdog on Friday gave the thumbs up to two new vaccines against the bluetongue virus which struck parts of Europe from late 2023, infecting thousands of sheep, goats and cattle.

The initial radiation of vascular land plants, evidenced by increases in both diversity and morphological disparity during the Silurian and Devonian periods, is considered plant terrestrialization, which can be seen as the terrestrial equivalent of the Cambrian explosion of marine animals. During this period, novel structures such as tracheids, stomata, leaves, roots, and secondary xylem evolved. However, the evolution of life-history strategies in early land plants remains poorly understood.

So-called "infinite-layer" nickelate materials, characterized by their unique crystal and electronic structures, exhibit significant potential as high-temperature superconductors. Studying these materials remains challenging for researchers; they have only been synthesized as thin films and then "capped" with a protective layer that could alter properties of the nickelate layered system.

An international team led by Prof. John Speakman from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences derived a predictive model by combining classical statistics and machine learning for total energy expenditure, providing a more objective way to assess the validity of food intake records.

They are two of Florida's most iconic waterbirds, who look and behave similarly, but it turns out the anhinga and the double-crested cormorant are quite different, new research from the University of Miami indicates.

At the start of a new year, many people think about making positive changes in their lives, such as improving physical fitness or learning a particular skill. Astronauts on the International Space Station work all year to maintain a high level of performance while adapting to changes in their physical fitness, cognitive ability, sensory perception, and other functions during spaceflight.

The most vulnerable phase of a plant's life is the short time period that follows germination. During this phase, the newly emerged seedling relies on the maternal parent to provision the food that is required for initial growth. A recent study from the Plant Physiology Laboratory at the University of Guam has determined that cycad seeds offer a unique approach for boosting seedling performance, and the results have been published in the January issue of the journal HortScience.

Snails have a reputation for being slow, with poor eyes that can barely see the world around them.

Existing computer systems have separate data processing and storage devices, making them inefficient for processing complex data like AI. A KAIST research team has developed a memristor-based integrated system similar to the way our brain processes information. It is now ready for application in various devices, including smart security cameras, allowing them to recognize suspicious activity immediately without having to rely on remote cloud servers, and medical devices with which it can help analyze health data in real time.

The search for long-lost shipwrecks, downed aircraft and even rare species of coral and fish could become easier thanks to an image enhancement technology developed by James Cook University researchers.

In its early days, the quirky tech startup known as Google adopted a visionary corporate credo: "Don't be evil." That later evolved into the motto: "Do the right thing," reflecting the idealistic ambitions of the company's founders that its technology could be a force for good.

In recent years, electronics engineers worldwide have been trying to develop new hardware that could further boost the speed and efficiency of wireless communications. Digitally programmable metasurfaces, advanced artificial materials engineered to manipulate the properties of electromagnetic waves, have been found to be particularly promising for the transmission of wireless data.

General Motors will be banned for five years from disclosing data that it collects from drivers to consumer reporting agencies as part of a settlement with the government to resolve claims that the automaker shared such data without consumers' permission.

Researchers have developed a fast and accurate flexible optical skin that can be used to read Braille. The advance could not only improve access to information for people who are blind but also help move us closer to a future where accessible and adaptable technology can benefit everyone.

Armed with a 3D concrete printer, careful measuring tools, and just the right ingredients, a team at The University of New Mexico has worked hard to design the construction building blocks of the future. Now, their bendable concrete material design is officially patented.

Aviation currently contributes to about 4% of the global warming that has been observed. As demand for flights is likely to continue to increase, researchers and governments are looking for solutions to make aviation climate-neutral by 2050 at the latest.

A NIMS research team fabricated heat-resistant steel test specimens using laser powder bed fusion (LPBF)—a form of metal 3D printing—and subjected them to creep testing for up to 10,000 hours. The results demonstrated that LPBF significantly extended the creep lives of the specimens, achieving at least a 10-fold increase over heat-resistant steel produced through conventional heat-treatment processes. The research is published in the journal Additive Manufacturing.

Artificial intelligence (AI) once seemed like a fantastical construct of science fiction, enabling characters to deploy spacecraft to neighboring galaxies with a casual command. Humanoid AIs even served as companions to otherwise lonely characters. Now, in the very real 21st century, AI is becoming part of everyday life, with tools like chatbots available and useful for everyday tasks like answering questions, improving writing, and solving mathematical equations.

A complex sense of touch for individuals living with spinal cord injuries is a step closer to reality. A study published in Science, paves the way for complex touch sensations through brain stimulation while using an extracorporeal bionic limb, that is attached to a chair or wheelchair. The paper is titled "Tactile edges and motion via patterned microstimulation of the human somatosensory cortex."

Boxing, the "sweet science," is a theater of skill, power and drama that has captivated audiences for centuries. Yet, behind the allure of championship nights and historic rivalries lies a persistent shadow—controversial decisions that spark cries of "robbery."

Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) have achieved a significant breakthrough in electronic packaging technology by developing an innovative nanocrystalline (NC) copper material that enables direct copper-to-copper bonding at lower temperatures. This advancement opens new possibilities for advanced chip design, which is crucial for many next-generation technologies.

Autonomous underwater robots, such as ocean gliders, can autonomously navigate the ocean for several weeks. Their sensors measure parameters like temperature, pressure, salinity, oxygen concentration, and currents. Capable of diving to depths of up to 1,000 meters, they facilitate measurements that are challenging to achieve with research vessels.

Reservoir computing (RC) is a powerful machine learning module designed to handle tasks involving time-based or sequential data, such as tracking patterns over time or analyzing sequences. It is widely used in areas such as finance, robotics, speech recognition, weather forecasting, natural language processing, and predicting complex nonlinear dynamical systems. What sets RC apart is its efficiency―it delivers powerful results with much lower training costs compared to other methods.