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Every year, Australia experiences a summer monsoon characterized by the reversal of winds, heavy rainfall, and flooding. In 2024–2025, however, the Australian summer monsoon (ASM) was the latest on record since measurements began in 1957. The monsoon's timely arrival is critical for Northern Australia. It dictates water security for communities, drives pasture growth for the vital cattle industry, and signals the end of the high bushfire risk period.

Around the world, governments and businesses are talking more and more about the need to move from today's "take, make, waste" economy to a circular one, where products are designed to last, materials stay in use, and waste is dramatically reduced. On paper, the case is compelling: recent assessments show that shifting to a circular economy offers both a major climate opportunity and a significant economic one. A study from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre finds that "reduction, reuse and recovery" measures could cut Europe's heavy industrial emissions by up to 231 million tonnes of CO₂ each year, and global analyses estimate that circular models could generate around $4.5 trillion in value by 2030).

Researchers and doctors are beginning to modernize asthma treatment using innovative therapies.

Patients with atopic dermatitis (AD) report a desire for climate-health education, which is infrequently addressed by clinicians, according to a research letter published online Jan. 20 in JMIR Dermatology.

Maintaining harm reduction services in the Australian Capital Territory could deliver more than $250 million in health and societal benefits between 2026 and 2030 and avert dozens of overdose deaths, according to new analysis led by Burnet Institute.

A new strategy that combines two types of PET scans can guide personalized radiotherapy for head and neck cancers, according to new research the published in Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Moving beyond the "one-size-fits-all approach," this research shows that treatment can be biologically tailored in a clinically feasible way with the potential to improve patient outcomes.

If you pack school lunchboxes for your children, you'll know it can sometimes feel like a real slog. It needs to be easy to prepare, nutritious and something children will actually eat. On top of this, there is increasing awareness it should be friendly for the environment and not generate food and plastic waste.

In the drylands of Benin, West Africa, livestock farming is under growing pressure. These vast, hot landscapes cover roughly 70% of the country's land area. Their sparse pastures and scattered trees sustain around six million grazing animals, including 2.5 million cattle, one million sheep and 2.4 million goats which walk with herders over long distances in search of food and water.

Month after month, Patricia Hunter and other members of the Nursing Home Reform Coalition logged onto video calls with congressional representatives, seeking support for a proposed federal rule setting minimum staff levels for nursing homes. Finally, after decades of advocacy, the Biden administration in 2023 tackled the problem of perennial understaffing of long-term care facilities.

California marked a milestone this month with the return of an uninterrupted Highway 1 through the perilous yet spectacular cliffs of Big Sur. The famed coastal road had been closed for more than three years after two major landslides buried the two-lane highway, and it took unprecedented engineering might and precarious debris removal to once again connect northern Big Sur with its southern neighbors.

Multimodal ultrasound (MMU) is feasible for the diagnosis of neurogenic bladder (NB) in pediatric patients, according to a study published online Jan. 17 in Scientific Reports.

A new report from Penn State's Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) highlights the role colleges and universities can play in improving student outcomes by identifying financial insecurity early, and building coordinated support systems across counseling centers, academic units and community partners.

Cleansing has long been an important part of hygiene rituals across cultures. Nowadays, cleansing remains an essential part of daily skincare routines, helping to remove sweat, makeup and old skin cells.

New research shows that the mere smell of predators is enough to change deer behavior and limit browsing damage to tree saplings. The findings, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, offer a potential tool for forest recovery and highlight the important role large predators play.

Fungi are the hidden architects of our ecosystems, acting as everything from helpful partners for plants to aggressive decomposers that recycle dead wood. However, many fungi don't stick to just one job; they can switch lifestyles depending on their environment. Understanding this flexibility is vital for predicting how forests and farms will react to climate change.

Autistic adults who took part in an adapted group-based program in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) reported reduced stress and improved ability to cope with everyday challenges. These findings come from a new study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Autism in Adulthood.

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in the world. According to the World Health Organization, around 50 million people live with epilepsy, a condition marked by recurring seizures that can also affect mood, memory, and day-to-day thinking. While many medications can reduce seizures, up to 40% of patients don't respond well enough, and today's drugs generally don't stop the condition from worsening over time.

A new study using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) has revealed that the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago caused only a modest decline in shark and ray species. The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, challenge previous understandings of how severely this mass extinction affected life in the oceans.

Fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) can dramatically improve cancer treatment, suggest two groundbreaking studies published in the Nature Medicine journal. The first study shows that the toxic side effects of drugs to treat kidney cancer could be eliminated with FMT. The second study suggests FMT is effective in improving the response to immunotherapy in patients with lung cancer and melanoma.

A team of engineers and scientists has shown for the first time that a hard-X-ray cavity can provide net X-ray gain, with X-ray pulses being circulated between crystal mirrors and amplified in the process, much like happens with an optical laser. The result of the proof-of-concept at European XFEL is a particularly coherent, laser-like light of a quality that is unprecedented in the hard X-ray spectrum.

Malaria remains the most deadly parasitic disease in the world. Although it is not endemic to countries such as Spain, imported cases are diagnosed each year in people returning from areas where the infection is common. These patients can rapidly progress to severe forms of the disease, but detecting which patients are at higher risk is not always easy, especially in settings where clinical experience is limited and initial symptoms are non-specific.

Bone and skeletal injuries cause extensive and long-term functional impairments worldwide. In a new study, researchers at Lund University in Sweden show how a cell-free cartilage structure can safely guide bone repair without triggering strong immune responses. The transplant has been successfully tested in animal models, and the next step is to evaluate the tissue engineering approach in humans. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Legal efforts to tackle excessive personal information collection by social media giants could transcend international boundaries if nations moved away from a focus on assessing competition using the value of data, a new study says.

National Taiwan University researchers have developed an ultrahigh-solid-loading (83 vol%) yet highly flowable suspension for 3D printing that produces ceramic parts with extremely low shrinkage and 100% density, overcoming a major barrier in precision ceramic manufacturing.

While current clinical trials for cardiac regeneration using induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) employ immunosuppressive regimens used in heart transplants, the precise immunosuppressive regimen needed remains elusive. Now, researchers have identified optimized immunosuppressive strategies that allow transplanted iPSC-CMs to survive without immune rejection in non-human primates. These findings advance the clinical potential of regenerative therapies for severe heart failure, addressing a major challenge in translating stem cell science into effective human treatments.

When a family breaks up, many children lose their stable home and have to adjust to living between several households. This lifestyle can be exhausting for the child and can exacerbate stress and health problems associated with separation.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most prevalent tumors and a leading cause of cancer-related mortality. Despite advances achieved in recent years, resistance to available treatments remains one of the main clinical challenges, particularly in advanced stages of the disease.

Researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC), in collaboration with the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC), have led the most extensive observational study to date of runaway massive stars, which includes an analysis of the rotation and binarity of these stars in our galaxy.

No ears, no problem. The tobacco hornworm caterpillar, a common garden pest, can actually detect airborne sound via microscopic hairs on its body, according to a team of faculty and graduate students at Binghamton University. The research could have implications for improving microphone technology.

A relatively simple statistical analysis method can more accurately predict the risk of landslides caused by heavy rain, according to a study coordinated by Brazilian researchers affiliated with the Institute of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at the University of São Paulo (ICMC-USP) in São Carlos and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The researchers have validated their strategy based on a real event.

Thyme, rosemary, and lavender have long been associated with natural medicine. Today, however, these aromatic plants are increasingly being studied by researchers. "In an era of ever-increasing microbial resistance to antibiotics, there is a growing emphasis on the need to introduce antimicrobial products into therapy to which microbes have not yet developed resistance," says Dr. Malwina Brożyna from Wroclaw Medical University. For nearly a decade, she has been researching the properties of essential oils and their therapeutic potential."

Switching to biodegradable plastics could slash toxic pollution by more than a third and dramatically reduce global waste by mid-century, but only if cities and companies invest in the right disposal systems, a Yale School of the Environment study found. Without proper composting facilities, biodegradable plastics could double greenhouse gas emissions.

In a critical advance for climate resilience, researchers from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed an AI model that can predict dangerous convective storms—including Black Rainstorms, thunderstorms and extreme heavy rainfall like those that have hit Hong Kong—up to four hours before they strike. This world-first technology, developed in collaboration with national meteorological institutions and powered by satellite data and advanced deep diffusion technology, improves forecast accuracy by over 15% at the 48-kilometer spatial scale compared with existing systems. This breakthrough strengthens the overall accuracy of the national weather forecasting system and promises to transform early warning systems for vulnerable communities across Asia.

Researchers at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA published a step-by-step framework for determining the three-dimensional positions and elemental identities of atoms in amorphous materials. These solids, such as glass, lack the repeating atomic patterns seen in a crystal. The team analyzed realistically simulated electron-microscope data and tested how each step affected accuracy.

A new study led by researchers at the UNC School of Medicine and Cartesian Therapeutics, found that immunotherapy can help people with generalized myasthenia gravis, a disease where the body accidentally attacks the cells that help your nerves and muscles work together, causing variable muscle weakness and fatigue.

Building things so small that they are smaller than the width of a human hair was previously achieved by using a method called two-photon polymerization, also known as 2PP—today's state-of-the-art in 3D micro- and nanofabrication. Tiny sculptures such as a miniature replica of the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal made the headlines.

Power sources used in devices found in or around biological tissue must be flexible and nontoxic, while still powerful enough to support demanding technologies such as medical devices or soft robotics. To achieve this balance, researchers at Penn State are taking inspiration from a "shocking" place—electric eels.

Google is empowering its Chrome browser with the ability to alter imagery and a virtual assistant to help with online tasks as part of its push to turbocharge its digital services with more artificial intelligence technology.

As an emerging technology in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), graph neural networks (GNNs) are deep learning models designed to process graph-structured data. Currently, GNNs are effective at capturing relationships between nodes and edges in data, but often overlook higher-order, complex connections. To address this challenge, a research team at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has developed a new heterogeneous graph attention network, revolutionizing the modeling of complex relationships in graph-structured data. This innovation is poised to break through AI application limitations in fields such as neuroscience, logistics, computer vision and biology.

Penn Engineers have developed a novel design for solar-powered data centers that will orbit Earth and could realistically scale to meet the growing demand for AI computing while reducing the environmental impact of data centers.

Sweden plans to ban mobile phones from primary and middle schools in order to ensure that children can focus on learning in the classroom, the government said on Wednesday.

Britain's competition watchdog said Wednesday that Google should give news sites and content creators the choice to opt out of having their online content scraped to feed its AI overviews.

When Daniel Graham, an associate professor in the University of Virginia School of Data Science, talks about the future of intelligent systems, he does not begin with the usual vocabulary of cybersecurity or threat mitigation. Instead, he focuses on quality assurance and on how to build digital and physical systems we can trust.

How inconvenient would it be if you had to manually transfer every contact and photo from scratch every time you switched to a new smartphone? Current artificial intelligence (AI) models face a similar predicament. Whenever a superior new AI model—such as a new version of ChatGPT—emerges, it has to be retrained with massive amounts of data and at a high cost to acquire specialized knowledge in specific fields. Now a Korean research team has developed a "knowledge transplantation" technology between AI models that can resolve this inefficiency.

The European Union said Tuesday it's stepping in to make sure Google gives rival AI companies and search engines access to Gemini AI services and data as required by the bloc's flagship digital rulebook.

While popular AI models such as ChatGPT are trained on language or photographs, new models created by researchers from the Polymathic AI collaboration are trained using real scientific datasets. The models are already using knowledge from one field to address seemingly completely different problems in another.

As the new robot called Sprout walks around a Manhattan office, nodding its rectangular head, lifting its windshield wiper-like "eyebrows" and offering to shake your hand with its grippers, it looks nothing like the sleek and intimidating humanoids built by companies like Tesla.

Researchers are continuing to make progress on developing a new synthetic material that behaves like biological muscle, an advancement that could provide a path to soft robotics, prosthetic devices and advanced human-machine interfaces. Their research, recently published in Advanced Functional Materials, demonstrates a hydrogel-based actuator system that combines movement, control and fuel delivery in a single integrated platform.

Ikea is expanding. But this time it's not with new physical stores. The home design company is entering the virtual world.

Sodium-ion batteries are considered a promising, sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries. However, high storage losses during the first charging cycle have slowed down their development so far. Researchers at the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) have now developed a design for anodes that combines efficiency and high storage capacity.

From subarctic to subtropical, Japan's varied climates present a challenge for energy-saving housing design. Adding the projected effects of climate change, with temperatures estimated to rise from 1.5 to 3.5°C by the close of the century, there currently is not a standard, one-size-fits-all solution. Therefore, climate-based building design solutions that consider regional differences, thermal comfort, and net-zero carbon goals are urgently needed.

Drivers whose car insurance rates are based on data of their driving habits and who then also got tips about improving them were less likely to speed, brake hard, or rapidly accelerate than those who didn't participate in the program, according to a recent test by a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Their work was published in Accident Analysis & Prevention.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are known for their impressive ability to convert sunlight into energy, their low production costs and their lightweight design. They may well be the rising stars of renewable energy, but they are not yet as common as traditional solar panels. PSCs are also notoriously fragile and can break when heated during manufacturing.

Concrete structures like roads and bridges require nondestructive testing methods to identify interior defects without destroying their structure. Most methods send sound waves into the material and capture the waves that echo back to create images of what's inside and find defects. This process is similar to ultrasounds used to see inside the human body.