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Tea (Camellia sinensis) is one of the world's most widely consumed beverages, and the size of young buds directly influences both yield and quality. Larger buds can increase leaf mass, while different tea types require specific bud-to-leaf ratios to meet processing standards. However, the genetic regulators controlling bud size have remained poorly understood, limiting breeding progress.

Earlier this year, researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Penn created a first-of-its-kind drug customized to a unique genetic mutation to save an infant named Baby KJ from dying of a rare liver disorder.

A high-tech mapping team from CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, has produced an incredible new view of one of Tasmania's most iconic natural features and Australia's deepest lake, Lake St Clair in Tasmania's central highlands.

A joint research team from the Institute of Geochemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGCAS) and Shandong University has for the first time identified crystalline hematite (α-Fe2O3) and maghemite (γ-Fe2O3) formed by a major impact event in lunar soil samples retrieved by China's Chang'e-6 mission from the South Pole–Aitken (SPA) Basin. This finding, published in Science Advances on November 14, provides direct sample-based evidence of highly oxidized materials on the lunar surface.

A collaborative European research team led by physicists from Slovak Academy of Sciences has theorized a new approach to control spin currents in graphene by coupling it to a ferroelectric In2Se3 monolayer. Using first-principles and tight-binding simulations, the researcher showed that the ferroelectric switching of In2Se3 can reverse the direction of the spin current in graphene acting as an electrical spin switch. This discovery offers a novel pathway toward energy-efficient, nonvolatile, and magnet-free spintronic devices, marking a key step toward the fabrication of next-generation spin-based logic and memory systems to control spin textures.

Researchers have announced the rediscovery of Moema claudiae, a species of seasonal killifish in Bolivia that was previously thought to be possibly extinct. This rediscovery provides new hope for the conservation of this unique fish and the diverse wetland habitats of the region.

A leading bioethicist at Hiroshima University is calling for an anticipatory, rather than reactive, approach to ethics after a Japanese government panel in August backed a report that brings the country a step closer to becoming the first in the world to allow research on human embryos created from stem cell–derived sperm and eggs.

It was a foggy October afternoon on the central California coast when the Marine Mammal Center got a call on their public hotline: there were distressed cries coming from the frigid waters in Morro Bay.

A McGill University-led research team has demonstrated the feasibility of a sustainable and cost-effective way to desalinate seawater. The method—thermally driven reverse osmosis (TDRO)—uses a piston-based system powered by low-grade heat from solar thermal, geothermal heat and other sources of renewable energy to produce fresh water.

Satellite-based Earth observation provides a unique and powerful tool in tracking climate adaptation, an international study involving University of Galway researchers has shown.

One person's side effect could be another person's treatment if we expand our perspective on small molecule drug targets, according to a new study published November 5, 2025, in npj Precision Oncology.

The world's first automatic and adaptive, dual-mode light-emitting diode (LED)-based optical wireless power transmission system, that operates seamlessly under both dark and bright lighting conditions, has been developed by scientists at Science Tokyo. The system, along with artificial intelligence-powered image recognition, can efficiently power multiple devices in order without interruption. Because it is LED-based, it offers a low-cost and safe solution ideal for building sustainable indoor Internet of Things infrastructure.

The internet, libraries and bookshops are full of plans and advice on how to lose weight, from fad diets to intense exercise routines. But there could be another route to keeping the pounds away, and that's with a gut bacterium called Turicibacter.

A global review of tiny sea animals called foraminifera has identified 57 new living species, including three from NZ waters. The NZ-led research team used DNA sequencing and physical structure to describe types of foraminifera living in the seafloor sediments of coastal and shallow offshore areas. The paper is published in the journal Micropaleontology.

Natural gas—one of the planet's most abundant energy sources—is primarily composed of methane, ethane, and propane. While it is widely burned for energy, producing greenhouse gas emissions, scientists and industries have long sought ways to directly convert these hydrocarbons into valuable chemicals. However, their extreme stability and low reactivity have posed a formidable challenge, limiting their use as sustainable feedstocks for the chemical industry.

QUT researchers have identified why some materials can block heat more effectively, which is a key feature for energy conversion, insulation and gas storage.

Most poverty-fighting efforts focus on meeting basic material needs, such as food and shelter. But this overlooks the psychological and cultural factors that shape how people take action in their lives.

Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is normally a one-way street. In a digital light processing (DLP) printer, a structured pattern is projected onto a layer of liquid resin, which cures and solidifies. This builds an object up, layer-by-layer. But if the print isn't exactly right, there's no easy way to fix it after the fact: it usually ends up in the trash.

Understanding how the brain learns and applies rules is the key to unraveling the neural basis of flexible behavior. A new study from the University of Toyama, Japan, reveals that our ability to follow procedural rules is encoded in the evolving dynamics of neuronal activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC).

A research team from the Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology (APM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made significant progress in precisely measuring the vibrational-rotational spectra of hydrogen molecular ions (HD⁺).

Melanoma remains one of the hardest skin cancers to diagnose because it often mimics harmless moles or lesions. While most artificial intelligence (AI) tools rely on dermoscopic images alone, they often overlook crucial patient information (like age, gender, or where on the body the lesion appears) that can improve diagnostic accuracy. This highlights the importance of multimodal fusion models that can enable high precision diagnosis.

Using a network of synchronized sensors, a new system provides energy and meteorological data every tenth of a second to more accurately predict the performance of solar plants.

Support from family, friends and partners can influence a person's behaviors around firearms, with more support corresponding to a reduction in unsafe behaviors, according to Rutgers Health researchers.

Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have uncovered unexpected traces of bacteria within brain tumors. This discovery offers new insights into the environment in which brain tumors grow and sets the stage for future studies seeking to improve treatment outcomes.

New research found that restricting calories dramatically rewires proteins in rat skeletal muscle, causing molecular changes that boost insulin sensitivity—crucial for blood sugar control in older adults, say scientists at the University of Michigan and the University of Sydney.

New research from the University of Waterloo is making inroads on one of the biggest problems in theoretical computer science. But the way to do it, according to Cameron Seth, a Ph.D. researcher working in the field of algorithmic approximation, is by breaking the problem down into smaller pieces.

Hole-selective self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are ultrathin organic films that play a crucial role in modern optoelectronic devices, particularly in perovskite and silicon-perovskite tandem solar cells. However, their inherent instability often compromises operational performance of the device.

An international research team led by the University of Bayreuth has developed an innovative method for producing green hydrogen directly from seawater—without the use of additional reagents. The researchers report their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

In a discovery that could shift labor and delivery practices around the world, researchers at Michigan State University have found that the effectiveness of oxytocin—a common medication used to induce or speed up labor—depends on the time of day it's administered, especially for patients with gestational diabetes.

Researchers from Stockholm University have—for the first time ever—managed to successfully isolate and sequence RNA molecules from Ice Age woolly mammoths. These RNA sequences are the oldest ever recovered and come from mammoth tissue preserved in the Siberian permafrost for nearly 40,000 years.

What is thought to be the world's largest-known spider's web, housing tens of thousands of arachnids, has been discovered in a cave on the Albanian-Greek border.

Do people respond differently to digital animals compared to real ones?

New results from a multicenter clinical trial show that combining immunotherapy drugs nivolumab and ipilimumab significantly improves treatment response in patients with advanced and difficult-to-treat cancers. The trial results have been pre-published in JAMA Oncology, accompanied by a commentary emphasizing the significance of the findings.

A research team affiliated with UNIST has introduced a gel-like material that could extend the lifespan and enhance the safety of high-voltage electric vehicle (EV) batteries designed for long-distance driving.

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have discovered how mammalian cells prevent the gradual buildup of harmful mutations in mitochondrial DNA, the small but vital genome that powers every cell. The study, published in Science Advances, explains how mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) maintains its integrity despite its uniparental mode of inheritance and rapid mutation rate.

Yale School of Medicine (YSM) researchers have made key breakthroughs in understanding how to treat fibrotic diseases such as scleroderma and graft-versus-host disease.

Getting time on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the dream of many astronomers. The most powerful space telescope currently in our arsenal, the JWST has been in operation for almost four years at this point, after a long and tumultuous development time.

Even after factoring in student loan payments, completing a college degree continues to pay off, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis' Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School.

Researchers at the Kennedy Institute have provided the most comprehensive overview to date of how the distinctive segmented nucleus of neutrophils influences their function in health and disease.

This week, the White House announced a deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to lower the cost of their GLP-1 weight loss drugs, Wegovy and Zepbound. The move could significantly expand access to these treatments for people with diabetes and obesity.

A hormone known for regulating energy balance also helps the body cope with influenza by triggering protective responses in the brain, a study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers shows.

At the 2024 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), one competitor did so well that it would have been awarded the Silver Prize, except for one thing: it was an AI system. This was the first time AI had achieved a medal-level performance in the competition's history. In a paper published in the journal Nature, researchers detail the technology behind this remarkable achievement.

Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have revealed a previously overlooked layer of genetic variation that could help explain why people experience disease differently, and why some treatments work better for certain populations.

The formula powering aqueous zinc-iodine batteries has been brought under the microscope, with researchers from the University of Adelaide finding a way to enhance their performance.

The social interactions Western Australian magpies experience in their first year of life affects their intelligence, according to a new study.

New research from The University of Manchester has found that areas with higher community resilience experience better health—including lower rates of drugs, alcohol and suicide deaths—even when those areas face significant deprivation.

Robots could soon be able to autonomously complete search and rescue missions, inspections, complex maintenance operations and various other real-world tasks. To do this, however, they should be able to smoothly navigate unknown and complex environments without breaking down or getting stuck, which would require human intervention.

Researchers at Aalto University have demonstrated single-shot tensor computing at the speed of light, a remarkable step towards next-generation artificial general intelligence hardware powered by optical computation rather than electronics.

Big tech platforms, including TikTok and Netflix, are all looking to add video podcasts to their content, a rapidly growing format that attracts a young audience prized by advertisers and where YouTube dominates.

A pair of swiveling, human-like robotic arms, built for physical artificial intelligence research, mirror the motions of an operator in a VR headset twirling his hands like a magician.

We rely on batteries now more than ever, from our phones and laptops to electric vehicles. But the ones powering today's technologies aren't without their shortcomings. They can be expensive, flammable, and they rely on increasingly in-demand materials that must be mined and processed.

Picture dusk falling somewhere in the Solomon Islands. A fisher's skiff glides home using a whisper-quiet electric outboard motor. In the Cook Islands, a big battery steadies the island grid. In Papua New Guinea's highlands, solar kits bring electric light to homes for the first time.

When it comes to navigating their surroundings, machines have a natural disadvantage compared to humans. To help hone the visual perception abilities they need to understand the world, researchers have developed a novel training dataset for improving spatial awareness in robots.

In the 1980s when micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) were first created, computer engineers were excited by the idea that these new devices that combine electrical and mechanical components at the microscale could be used to build miniature robots.

In his research, Professor Marko Huhtanen from the University of Oulu, who specializes in applied and computational mathematics, introduces a new method for compressing images. This technique combines several well-known compression methods, leveraging their best features. The study has been published in IEEE Signal Processing Letters.

Researchers have achieved a new level of control over the atomic structure of a family of materials known as halide perovskites, creating a finely tuned "energy sandwich" that could transform how solar cells, LEDs and lasers are made.

Imagine if your bank could move money for you with only the slightest of digital nods for your approval. Or that could tell you that you're overspending but more importantly know how to address that overspending and put you on better financial footing.

A new study shows that lithium—a critical element used in rechargeable batteries and susceptible to supply chain disruption—can be recovered from battery waste using an electrochemically driven recovery process. The method has been tested on commonly used types of lithium-containing batteries and demonstrates economic viability with the potential to simplify operations, minimize costs and increase the sustainability and attractiveness of the recovery process for commercial use.

Near-infrared (NIR) photon detection and object recognition are crucial technologies for all-weather target identification. Conventional NIR detection systems that rely on photodetectors and von Neumann computing algorithms are energy inefficient. Artificial sensory neurons based on infrared-sensitive volatile memristors offer a promising solution.