Reporting world updates to you
Breathwork while listening to music may induce a blissful state in practitioners, accompanied by changes in blood flow to emotion-processing brain regions, according to a study published August 27, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Amy Amla Kartar from the Colasanti Lab in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience…
A new survey-based study suggests that the “unhappiness hump” — a widely documented rise in worry, stress, and depression with age that peaks in midlife and then declines — may have disappeared, perhaps due to declining mental health among younger people. David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College, U.S., and colleagues present…
Osaka, Japan — A joint research team from Japan has observed “heavy fermions,” electrons with dramatically enhanced mass, exhibiting quantum entanglement governed by the Planckian time – the fundamental unit of time in quantum mechanics. This discovery opens up exciting possibilities for harnessing this phenomenon in solid-state materials to develop…
Opioids like morphine are widely used in medical practice due to their powerful pain-relieving effects. However, they carry the risk of serious adverse effects such as respiratory depression and drug dependence. For this reason, Japan has strict regulations in place to ensure that these medications are prescribed only by authorized…
A systematic review analyzed associations of high-concentration delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) cannabis products with mental health outcomes. The review found that high-concentration THC products are associated with unfavorable mental health outcomes, particularly for psychosis or schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder (CUD). However, there are limitations to currently available evidence and the researchers…
Weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are used by over 15 million adults in the U.S., or 4.5% of the population. Despite their effectiveness, they have drawbacks. Their effect may not last after discontinuing use, and side effects including osteoporosis and muscle loss have raised concerns about long-term harms.…
A fading sense of smell can be one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease even before cognitive impairments manifest. Research by scientists at DZNE and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) sheds new light on this phenomenon, pointing to a significant role for the brain’s immune response, which seems to fatally attack…
One shot of an RSV vaccine protects adults ages 60 or older from RSV-associated hospitalization and critical illness during two consecutive RSV seasons, according to a study published in JAMA on August 30 by the IVY Network research group. RSV causes substantial seasonal illness during fall and winter in the U.S., with…
A set of bones belonging to sauropods, as long-necked dinosaurs are called, found in the municipality of Ibirá in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, reveals that the region was conducive to a bone disease that was fatal to these animals. Supported by FAPESP, the researchers found signs of osteomyelitis,…
Under high-emission scenarios, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a key system of ocean currents that also includes the Gulf Stream, could shut down after the year 2100. This is the conclusion of a new study, with contributions by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The shutdown would…
Researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute have released a landmark review tracing four decades of changes in pelagic sargassum – free-floating brown seaweed that plays a vital role in the Atlantic Ocean ecosystem. Once thought to be primarily confined to the nutrient-poor waters of the Sargasso Sea,…
NASA research has shown that cell-like compartments called vesicles could form naturally in the lakes of Saturn’s moon Titan. Titan is the only world apart from Earth that is known to have liquid on its surface. However, Titan’s lakes and seas are not filled with water. Instead, they contain liquid…
More than 5,000 planets have been discovered beyond our solar system, allowing scientists to explore planetary evolution and consider the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Now, a UC Riverside study published in Physical Review D suggests that these “exoplanets” could also serve as tools to investigate dark matter. The researchers examined…
An international team of astronomers, led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Cosmic Frontier Center, has identified the most distant black hole ever confirmed. It and the galaxy it calls home, CAPERS-LRD-z9, are present 500 million years after the Big Bang. That places it 13.3 billion years into the…
In 2009, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is shaped like a hand. i> X-rays from Chandra have been combined with radio data obtained by the Australian Telescope Compact Array to reveal new structures. At the center of this image is…
A new treatment has been shown to significantly lower blood pressure in people whose levels stay dangerously high, despite taking several existing medicines, according to the results of a Phase III clinical trial led by a UCL Professor. Globally around 1.3 billion people have high blood pressure (hypertension), and in…
Beta blockers—drugs commonly prescribed for a range of cardiac conditions, including heart attacks—provide no clinical benefit for patients who have had an uncomplicated myocardial infarction with preserved heart function. Beta blockers have been the standard treatment for these patients for 40 years. This is a breakthrough discovery from the “REBOOT…
A new Stanford study challenges the decades-old view that the rise of land plants half a billion years ago dramatically changed the shapes of rivers. Rivers generally come in two styles: braided, where multiple channels flow around sandy bars, and meandering, where a single channel cuts S-curves across a landscape.…
As Great Salt Lake’s levels continue to sag, yet another strange phenomenon has surfaced, offering Utah scientists more opportunities to plumb the vast saline lake’s secrets. Phragmites-covered mounds in recent years have appeared on the drying playa off the lake’s southeast shore. After several years of scratching their heads, University…
A new research perspective was recently published in Aging, titled “Exercise as a geroprotector: focusing on epigenetic aging.” In this perspective, led by Takuji Kawamura from Tohoku University, researchers reviewed existing evidence from scientific studies showing that regular exercise, physical activity, and fitness may influence epigenetic aging and potentially reverse…
The blood pressure lowering effect of nitrate-rich beetroot juice in older people may be due to specific changes in their oral microbiome, according to the largest study of its kind. Researchers at the University of Exeter conducted the study, published in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, comparing responses…
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have spotted a contradiction in worldwide wildfire trends: Despite a 26 percent decline in total burned area from 2002 to 2021, the number of people exposed to wildfires has surged by nearly 40 percent. The study, published on August 21 in…
In a new study, scientists at the University of Missouri looked deep into the universe and found something unexpected. Using infrared images taken from NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), they identified 300 objects that were brighter than they should be. “These mysterious objects are candidate galaxies in the…
A study led by Jenny Frediani at Stockholm University has revealed a planet-forming disk with a strikingly unusual chemical composition: an unexpectedly high abundance of carbon dioxide (CO2) in regions where Earth-like planets may one day form. The discovery, made using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), challenges long-standing assumptions…
New research published in the journal Science reveals the Red Planet’s mantle preserves a record of its violent beginnings. The inside of Mars isn’t smooth and uniform like familiar textbook illustrations. Instead, new research reveals it’s chunky — more like a Rocky Road brownie than a neat slice of Millionaire’s…
The world’s most unusual dinosaur is even stranger than first realized… Research published in Nature on August 27 reports that Spicomellus afer had a tail weapon more than 30 million years before any other ankylosaur, as well as a unique bony collar ringed with meter-long spikes sticking out from either…
A team of computer scientists led by the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a new artificial intelligence platform that automatically seeks out “questionable” scientific journals. The study, published Aug. 27 in the journal “Science Advances,” tackles an alarming trend in the world of research. Daniel Acuña, lead author of…
When genetic testing reveals a rare DNA mutation, doctors and patients are frequently left in the dark about what it actually means. Now, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a powerful new way to determine whether a patient with a mutation is likely to…
When injured, cells have well-regulated responses to promote healing. These include a long-studied self-destruction process that cleans up dead and damaged cells as well as a more recently identified phenomenon that helps older cells revert to what appears to be a younger state to help grow back healthy tissue. Now,…
Over the past 50 years, rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes have soared, while sperm quality has plummeted. Driving these changes could be the increasing popularity of ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to a range of poor health outcomes. However, scientists still aren’t sure whether it’s the industrial nature…
