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Researchers at the University of Liège have identified a key genetic regulator that enables macrophages to reach full maturity and preserve the health of our organs. The MafB factor, a veritable "molecular switch," activates or deactivates certain genes at the right time and in the right place, leading to the production of macrophages responsible for defending our body and supporting the functioning of our organs. Without MafB, macrophages can become dysfunctional, no longer performing their beneficial roles properly. The work appears in the journal Immunity.

Thanks to Fink, a software package created by two CNRS engineers, it is now possible to track millions of transient celestial phenomena observed in the sky by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, in real time and with unprecedented precision. Minutes after each image is taken, Fink receives, processes, enriches, and cross-references the data with existing datasets. This allows even the faintest variations in detected light to be characterized with remarkable accuracy. The data is then stored, classified, and shared with users—scientists and astronomy enthusiasts—in a concise and targeted manner.

The gilthead seabream, a species of commercial interest that migrates seasonally, does not form independent local populations in the northwestern Mediterranean but instead constitutes a single, functionally connected population on a large scale. Individuals spend the summer feeding in the coastal lagoons of the Gulf of Lion and, every autumn, undertake reproductive migrations of hundreds of kilometers to shared spawning grounds in the open sea, mainly in the Marseille region, but also in areas of the Catalan coast. They repeat this pattern year after year.

Researchers have found a way to fabricate film-thin membranes imbued with super strength that could extend the durability of decarbonization technologies. Chemical engineers at The University of Queensland are harnessing an intricate building technique to produce the hyper-thin film membranes that boost the reliability, efficiency, and lifespan of key clean energy systems. The research is published in Nature Synthesis.

A team of scientists from the U.S. has discovered that acetate, a simple molecule involved in how our bodies create energy, can significantly increase long-term memory in female mice. The researchers were looking for a direct link between metabolism and memory, specifically, how the fuels our bodies use (like acetate) can change the way our brain cells work.

In a world-first discovery, researchers have found an electrical shark deterrent used at Cocos (Keeling) Islands was effective at reducing the number of fish taken off fishing hooks by sharks—a process known as depredation. The study, led by The University of Western Australia's Dr. Jonathan Mitchell and published in Marine and Freshwater Research, is the first of its kind globally to document the results of testing a deterrent to reduce depredation.

Tiny changes at the atomic scale can determine the future of clean energy. In a new study, Tohoku University researchers have revealed how the precise coordination environment surrounding a single cobalt atom dramatically influences its catalytic behavior in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR)—a key process in fuel cells and sustainable hydrogen peroxide production.

A new CRISPR-based tool that is directly used on patients' cancer cells can identify genes and regulatory elements driving acute myeloid leukemia (AML), an aggressive blood cancer affecting the bone marrow and blood. This first-of-its-kind approach reveals how individual patient cells respond to genetic changes and makes it easier to identify drug targets and understand why some cancers stop responding to treatment. The findings were published today in Molecular Cell, by researchers from Penn Medicine and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

Although drug overdose deaths declined in the U.S. last year, the rate of substance use disorder is rising, and the problem remains undertreated: Fewer than one in five people with substance use disorder report that they've received any treatment for it. An especially vulnerable group are those who use substances and do not have stable housing, who research shows are both far more likely to experience overdose and much less likely to receive treatment for their condition compared to those who have secure housing.

There's a common assumption that if someone starts learning a language when they are very young, they will quickly become fluent. Many people also assume that it will become much harder to learn a language if they start later in life.

Sea level can temporarily change for a variety of reasons—atmospheric pressure shifts and water accumulation from wind and storms, for example—which can cause flooding in coastal communities and affect maritime industry operations. The key to mitigating the effects of short-term sea level variation is accurate prediction that provides ample warning time to affected areas.

Scientists have identified a new way to distinguish healthy guts from diseased ones and track how some illnesses progress by measuring how gut bacteria interact with one another. According to a study published in Science, a collaboration between scientists at Rutgers University, Universidad de Granada in Spain and Princeton University found that healthy and diseased gut microbiomes behave like two distinct ecological states, driven not by individual microbes but by how entire bacterial communities compete and cooperate.

Anyone who has seen a hummingbird poking her beak deep into a trumpet creeper blossom, or a honeyeater using its brush-tipped tongue to extract nectar from eucalyptus flowers, has witnessed something that, from a human perspective, is rather remarkable. Although many bird species avoid sugar-rich foods, others survive almost entirely on sugar-rich nectar or fruit, processing massive sugar loads without developing the diseases that such diets cause in people and other animals.

Heart rate is an important sign of fetal health, yet few technologies exist to easily and inexpensively track fetal heart rates outside of doctors' offices. This can create risks for pregnancies in low-resource regions where doctors are far away or inaccessible.

In the search for more, new and cleaner sources of energy, a largely untapped resource is emerging: natural hydrogen.

Researchers from the University of Oxford, Nanjing Agricultural University, and Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (Chinese Academy of Sciences) have finally identified the master regulator in plants that balances root and shoot growth when nutrients are limited. In field trials, rice plants with an improved version of the gene had yield increases of up to 24%. The breakthrough, published today (26 February) in the journal Science, could ultimately improve global crop yields while reducing dependence on synthetic fertilizers.

A new national study shows that while many emergency medical services (EMS) agencies across the United States are well-equipped to care for children, important gaps remain in training, quality improvement, and coordination of care before young patients reach the hospital. The study, published this week in Annals of Emergency Medicine, is part of the National Prehospital Pediatric Readiness Project (PPRP), a nationwide effort to improve emergency care for children in ambulances and other out-of-hospital settings.

Why does your dog rush to "help" when you are searching for something, while your cat seems… eh, less concerned? New research suggests that this difference may stem from deep evolutionary roots—and that, in certain situations, dogs behave more similarly to young children than to cats.

A newly published study co-authored by University of South Florida alum Louis Coticchio and USF integrative biologist Deby Cassill challenges long-standing assumptions about the brown recluse spider, finding the species is both far less common in Florida and far less aggressive than public perception suggests.

An international clinical trial has found that an oral form of semaglutide, a widely used diabetes drug, reduced the risk of serious heart failure events in people with type 2 diabetes who already had heart failure. The findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, come from a large randomized trial of nearly 9,650 adults who have both type 2 diabetes and either cardiovascular disease or chronic kidney disease. Researchers followed participants for nearly four years as part of the Semaglutide Cardiovascular Outcomes, or SOUL, Trial. The results are from a secondary analysis of those data.

Could a Moroccan cave hold a crucial piece of the puzzle of human origins? Hominin fossils dating back 773,000 years discovered in the country are bringing new evidence to the debate about the last common ancestor of present-day humans (Homo sapiens), Neanderthals and Denisovans. The discovery points to a long evolutionary history in north Africa, much earlier than modern Homo sapiens. It also supports Africa's central role in the major stages that shaped the human species.

A study by the University of New Hampshire challenges common assumptions about aging and intimacy, revealing that many single adults aged 60 to 83 continue to prioritize sexual activity in their romantic relationships—underscoring the enduring significance of sex for older adults.

Scientists have developed a new edge-of-field water-treatment system that reduces the load of excess nutrients washing into waterways from farm drainage systems. Their method combines a woodchip bioreactor with a two-step biochar water-treatment module. A one-year field trial demonstrated that the system reduced both nitrogen and phosphorus runoff from farmland.

The applications of ultrathin, conductive films such as those made of graphene have many applications, but it's been thought their efficacy is limited to absorbing only half of the incidental light at best. A research group in China has now shown that absorption can be as high as 82.8% at light grazing angles nearly parallel to the film. This could not only significantly improve design efficiencies but sheds light on light-matter interactions at sizes much lower than the light's wavelength. Their work has been published in Physical Review Letters.

EPFL researchers have developed preclinical models for invasive lobular carcinoma and trialed a new drug. It slows tumor growth effectively by targeting specific features of the disease and opening the door to future clinical trials. The study is published in Cancer Research.

Use of chat and text services has surged since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Rachel Joy Voth Schrag, a UT Arlington professor of social work. Understanding how survivors use these digital channels, she said, is critical for ensuring hotline advocates have the tools they need to support survivor and family safety. New research from The University of Texas at Arlington shows that these digital hotlines are changing how survivors of domestic and sexual violence access safety planning and support.

A research team led by Professor Ki-Young Lee at the College of Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University, has uncovered a previously unrecognized tumor-intrinsic role of the immune checkpoint molecule PD-L1, providing new mechanistic insight into lung cancer progression.

Researchers from the Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized Medicine (CAMP), an interdisciplinary research group (IRG) of Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and National University of Singapore (NUS), have developed a first-of-its-kind rapid, non-destructive method to monitor iron flux—the movement and rate at which cells take in, store, use and release iron—in mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), which can provide insights within a minute on the cell's ability to grow cartilage tissue for cartilage repair.

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) can cause more serious liver conditions, such as liver failure. A new study, led by Lund University in Sweden, presents new data that may lead to better disease management and prevention in the future. The international research team identified an altered expression of specific genes in samples from individuals with obesity, MASLD and liver fibrosis.

Researchers from Skoltech have published a paper in the journal Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena presenting an analysis of steady propagating combustion waves—from slow flames to supersonic detonation waves. The study relies on the authors' mathematical model, which captures the key physical properties of complex combustion processes and yields accurate analytical and numerical solutions. The findings are important for understanding the physical mechanisms behind the transition from deflagration to detonation, as well as for developing safer engines, fuel combustion systems, and protection against unwanted explosions in industrial settings.

Nature does it again! The natural world has a knack for giving us the blueprints for some useful technologies, and the humble sea urchin is the latest contributor. Scientists have designed a new class of smart sensors by mimicking the internal architecture found in their spines.

Adolescents are chronically sleep deprived on school days, which negatively impacts their well-being and ability to learn. A new study conducted by the University of Zurich and the University Children's Hospital Zurich reveals that a flexible start to the school day can improve adolescents' sleep, health, and academic performance. The paper is published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

A research team from Mannheim, Göttingen, Varna, and Princeton has discovered in animal studies with mice that the growth factor recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) can significantly improve cognitive and social problems in Primrose syndrome. Primrose syndrome is a very rare and severe disease caused by changes in the ZBTB20 control gene. The study, which has now been published in JCI Insight, provides the first evidence that an already approved drug could counteract the severe neurological symptoms of this rare disease.

For the first time, a team of US researchers has used sensors containing highly excited Rydberg atoms to detect signals from an ordinary handheld radio. Through a careful approach to demodulating the incoming signals, Noah Schlossberger and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were able to recover audio encoded in multiple public radio channels, with promising implications for everyday uses in consumer electronics. The research has been published in Physical Review Applied.

Organ donation after the heart stops beating, a practice called donation after circulatory death, has gone from rare to routine in the United States, a new study shows. This shift over the past 25 years, aided by technological advances, is helping to meet the growing demand for transplants, the authors say. A report on the findings is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A new academic study suggests that global IT strategies are often adapted at local level—and that understanding why requires paying close attention to culture, not just systems and structures. Published in the Qualitative Research Journal, the research by Dr. Godfried B Adaba of the Royal Docks School of Business and Law at the University of East London introduces a clearer, more structured way of studying complex digital change.

On the computer screens, the mouse brain is shown from several angles. Then you click, and a small area of the brain is highlighted in color. With the next click, something happens to the color markers. The marked areas change slightly in tone and a couple of new areas light up. With the next clicks, they change a little more, and then a little more again.

A novel quantitative PET- and MRI-based imaging approach can objectively identify a recently recognized type of dementia—limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy, or LATE—that is often mistaken as Alzheimer's disease. This research, published online in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, may enable earlier differentiation of LATE and Alzheimer's disease, or their co-existence in the clinic, guiding targeted diagnostic work-up and personalized care for dementia patients.

Training police officers with a virtual-reality game can significantly improve their ability to regulate stress, even in realistic, high-pressure situations. The VR game, developed at the Donders Institute at Radboud University, has already been integrated into several police training programs.

Use of cosmetic surgery by patients of underrepresented racial/ethnic minority patient groups has increased substantially in recent years—well beyond their relative increase in the US population, reports a study in the March issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

A research team affiliated with UNIST has unveiled an innovative, cost-effective biosensor capable of being washed and reused, paving the way for more accessible liquid biopsy diagnostics. This new platform aims to reduce the high costs and complexity associated with traditional cancer detection methods. The study was published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical.

Reasoning large language models (LLMs) are designed to solve complex problems by breaking them down into a series of smaller steps. These powerful models are particularly good at challenging tasks like advanced programming and multistep planning. But developing reasoning models demands an enormous amount of computation and energy due to inefficiencies in the training process. While a few of the high-power processors continuously work through complicated queries, others in the group sit idle.

Adelaide University researchers have initiated the development of a world-first cybersecurity system designed to protect drones from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. The new study led by the Industrial AI Research Center and published in the journal Computers & Industrial Engineering, paves the way for safer and more resilient unmanned aerial systems (UAS) that are less vulnerable to hacking, signal disruption and malicious software.

A battery's positive end (cathode) and negative end (anode) are two vital components that largely define how well it can perform. In particular, researchers have focused on improving the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of cathode design, since they can account for a significant amount of the costs for producing lithium batteries.

Africa's freight corridors, long dominated by diesel trucks and constrained by unreliable power grids, are emerging as a new frontier in the global shift toward clean logistics, with solar-powered charging hubs designed specifically for heavy-duty electric trucks.

As solar energy is rapidly becoming the world's largest renewable power source, new research from McGill University offers a clearer picture of how much land that growth could require and how smarter choices could mitigate solar energy's land footprint. "Solar photovoltaics are poised to become the largest renewable energy source globally by 2029, but both data and methods are lacking to understand the consequences of large-scale growth to land," said Sarah Marie Jordaan, Associate Professor in McGill's Department of Civil Engineering jointly appointed at the Trottier Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design (TISED) and the Department of Civil Engineering, and Director of the Energy Technology and Policy Assessment (ETAPA) research group.

The Care Bears taught a generation of kids that sharing is caring, but not everyone has carried this principle into adulthood. Researchers at Michigan State University have found a new angle to promote cooperation: artificial intelligence (AI). The results of this study, titled "Promoting cooperation in the public goods game using artificial intelligent agents," are published in npj Complexity.

E pluribus unum—"out of many, one"—is not only a motto for the United States; it's a good credo for microrobots. A research collaboration between Cornell and the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems has shown how a swarm of microrobots spinning on a water surface can together generate the fluidic torque needed to manipulate passive structures without any physical contact. This collective behavior was demonstrated to operate gears and move objects, with the aim of eventually performing microscale tasks and biomedical procedures.

A new glove with more than three dozen actuators across all five fingers and the palm, developed by Cornell researchers, aims to reduce swelling for people suffering from edema. The glove, known as EdemaFlex, was proven safe for unsupervised home use in a seven-participant study, with hand volume decreasing by up to 25% after one 30-minute session.

Pyrochlore oxides—a class of advanced dielectric materials—represent a promising next-generation approach to efficient energy storage. Their structural flexibility and tunable chemical composition make them prime candidates for dielectric energy storage applications.

Green hydrogen is considered to be an important part of the global climate transition, especially as a fuel and energy carrier for heavy transport and industry. However, large-scale green hydrogen production requires sustainable ways of managing water resources to avoid giving rise to water shortages and conflicts with agriculture over access. This has been shown in a unique study from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, that connects local water supply with a range of scenarios for future hydrogen needs in Europe.

As the electric vehicle era enters full scale, demand is increasing for batteries that can travel farther and last longer. Lithium-metal batteries have been attracting attention as a next-generation technology capable of surpassing the capacity limits of existing lithium-ion batteries. However, during the charging process, needle-shaped crystals called dendrites grow, shortening battery life and increasing the risk of fire, which has been identified as the biggest obstacle to commercialization. A Korean research team has developed a key technology that can solve this challenge.

Since the UK rejoined Horizon Europe in 2024, cross-border research with UK partners has been delivering safer, smarter, more sustainable technologies for everyday life. On a test track in southern Germany, engineers watch as an automated vehicle drives through simulated heavy rain. As the vehicle pushes through sheets of water and poor visibility, researchers are recreating one of the toughest sensing challenges for automated driving.

A research team affiliated with UNIST has announced the successful development of a novel semiconductor circuit capable of generating high-quality clock signals with significantly reduced noise levels. This innovation combines a compact design with low power consumption, addressing critical challenges in high-speed communication and computing technologies.

Crystalline silicon solar cells currently dominate the global photovoltaic industry, with tunnel oxide passivating contact (TOPCon) technology—a type of architecture within this product segment—rapidly gaining market share due to its cost-effectiveness and compatibility with existing manufacturing processes.

Enzymatic biofuel cells can act as self-powered wearable biosensors by converting chemicals in body fluids into electricity; however, manufacturing challenges have prevented their widespread adoption. Now, researchers from Japan have developed water-based 'enzyme inks' that enable single-step screen printing of complete biofuel cells onto paper substrates. The printed electrodes demonstrated superior performance and stability compared to those made using conventional methods, paving the way for mass-produced, battery-free wearable health monitors. The findings are published in the journal ACS Applied Engineering Materials.

The automatic detection of surface-level irregularities—defects or anomalies—in 3D data is of significant interest for various real-world purposes, such as industrial quality inspection, infrastructure monitoring, robotics, and autonomous systems. However, collecting annotated defect examples at a large scale is costly, and existing 3D anomaly detection methods either require templates or heavy memory, multiple inference passes, and brittle heuristic clustering. These shortcomings limit real-life deployment.

ANSTO has made progress on a more cost-effective way to produce the medical radioisotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), with less enrichment of uranium-235 (U-235) and producing less waste. ANSTO supplies the Australian medical community with molybdenum-99, the precursor of technetium 99m, which is one of the most commonly used nuclear diagnostic imaging agents for the diagnosis of cancer, heart disease, organ structure and function, and supports other medical applications.