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High levels of cholesterol in the bloodstream can lead to hypercholesterolemia, a condition that damages arteries and raises the risk of heart disease. Now, researchers from the University of Barcelona and the University of Oregon have developed a promising new approach to control cholesterol levels, offering a potential new way…
Kidney stones are known for causing severe, often debilitating pain. They can disrupt daily life and frequently send people to the emergency room. In the United States, about 1 in 11 people will develop kidney stones, and nearly half of them will experience another episode later on. A large new…
Chronic stress is widely known to throw digestion off balance, leading to symptoms like diarrhea or constipation. New findings set to be presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2026 suggest that eating late at night may make these problems worse, with potential effects on both digestive function and the gut…
Scientists at Stellenbosch University (SU) have uncovered the first evidence of a rare group of phenolic compounds known as flavoalkaloids in Cannabis leaves, adding a surprising new dimension to the plant’s chemistry. Phenolic compounds, particularly flavonoids, are already highly valued in medicine for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-carcinogenic effects. This…
Fat cells, known as adipocytes, are not just passive storage units for excess weight. They play an active role in managing how the body uses and stores energy. Inside these cells, fat is packed into structures called lipid droplets, which act as fuel reserves the body can draw on when…
Researchers at the University of Melbourne have, for the first time, explained how Australia’s famous Twelve Apostles were created. Their findings show that movements of tectonic plates over millions of years gradually lifted and tilted these massive rock formations out of the ocean. Until now, scientists had only a limited…
A major new study drawing on decades of ocean data has found clear evidence that heat from the deep ocean is shifting toward Antarctica. This change poses a growing threat to the continent’s delicate ice shelves, which line its coast and help stabilize the ice sheet. Researchers led by the…
Alzheimer’s disease is often described in numbers, with millions of people affected, cases rising quickly, and costs reaching into the trillions. For families, however, the experience is deeply personal. “It’s a slow bereavement,” says Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Nicholas Tonks, whose mother lived with Alzheimer’s. “You lose the person…
A large study published in The BMJ suggests that aerobic activities such as walking, cycling, and swimming are the most effective exercises for people with knee osteoarthritis. These activities were found to provide the greatest improvements in pain, physical function, walking ability, and overall quality of life. Researchers note that…
Psychologists have long debated whether the human mind can be explained by a single, unified theory or if different functions such as attention and memory must be studied separately. Now, artificial intelligence (AI) is entering that debate, offering a new way to explore how the mind works. In July 2025,…
An international team of researchers, including scientists from Paderborn University, has reached an important milestone on the path toward a quantum internet. For the first time, they successfully teleported the polarization state of a single photon from one quantum dot to another that was physically separated. In simple terms, this…
Smell shapes how we experience the world every day. It helps us detect hazards, adds depth to flavor, and connects strongly to memory and emotion. Despite its importance, scientists have struggled to fully understand how this sense works at a biological level. “Olfaction is super-mysterious,” said Sandeep (Robert) Datta, professor…
Cytotoxic T lymphocytes act as the immune system’s specialized “killer” cells, seeking out and eliminating infected or cancerous cells with remarkable precision. Their effectiveness depends on a tightly controlled contact point called the “immune synapse,” where they release toxic molecules that destroy the target while leaving surrounding healthy cells unharmed.…
Scientists have, for the first time, clearly captured a subduction zone in the act of breaking apart. These zones form where one tectonic plate sinks beneath another, and they are responsible for some of the most powerful geological events on Earth. The new findings, published in Science Advances, offer a…
Archaeologists have uncovered six previously unknown Bronze Age mining sites in Extremadura in southwestern Spain. The discoveries were made during a February survey led by researchers from the Maritime Encounters program at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. These sites could help answer a long-standing question about where the metal…
Modern cells are highly intricate systems. They contain internal scaffolding, tightly controlled chemical processes, and genetic instructions that guide nearly everything they do. This complexity allows them to survive in diverse environments and compete based on their fitness. In contrast, the earliest cell-like structures were extremely simple. These primitive compartments…
A newly identified species of ancient snake, Vasuki indicus, may rank among the largest snakes to ever exist. The massive reptile lived around 47 million years ago in what is now Gujarat, India, according to research published in Scientific Reports. Scientists estimate it reached an extraordinary length of about 11…
Scientists have known for nearly a century that the universe is expanding, but the exact rate of that expansion is still uncertain. This ongoing debate has even raised questions about the standard model of cosmology. Now, researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), and the…
Defining where the Milky Way ends has always been challenging because its disk does not stop abruptly — it gradually fades into space. Now, for the first time, an international team of astronomers has pinpointed the boundary of the Galaxy’s star-forming disk by examining the ages of stars. Their findings…
A medication that has been around for decades and used to treat several conditions, including a chronic parasitic infection, is now emerging as a potential option for patients with a different and far rarer disease. Early findings suggest the drug could help people with Bachmann-Bupp syndrome (BABS), a life-threatening genetic…
A new study from MIT indicates that a cancer-causing chemical found in some medications and in drinking water contaminated by industrial activity may pose a much greater risk to children than to adults. In experiments with mice, researchers discovered that young animals exposed to water containing this compound, called NDMA,…
NASA’s Curiosity rover has identified a wide range of organic molecules on Mars, including compounds that scientists consider key ingredients for the origin of life on Earth. The discovery comes from a chemical experiment carried out on another planet for the first time. Results show that the Martian surface is…
One of the defining breakthroughs that set quantum physics apart from classical physics was the realization that matter behaves very differently at extremely small scales. Among the most important discoveries was wave-particle duality, the idea that particles can also act like waves. This concept became widely known through the double-slit…
Researchers at MIT have identified an unexpected effect in optical physics that could lead to a faster and more detailed way to image living tissue. Under specific conditions, what normally looks like a scattered and disordered laser signal can reorganize itself into a narrow, highly focused “pencil beam.” With this…
Why do some dreams feel vivid and lifelike, while others are confusing or hard to remember? New research from the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca suggests that the answer lies in a mix of personal traits and shared life experiences, both of which influence what we see and feel…
Scientists are still working to understand why Neanderthals went extinct while Homo sapiens established a lasting presence in Europe. The answer is not simple. It likely involves several overlapping factors, but a new study using techniques inspired by digital ecology is offering a clearer picture. The research was led by…
Scientists have achieved a significant breakthrough in their effort to understand dark energy by completing observations for the full target area of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)’s 3D map of the universe. The project wrapped up ahead of schedule and delivered far more data than originally anticipated. This map…
Researchers in Brazil have found that a simple vitamin D supplement may help chemotherapy work better in women with breast cancer. The study, carried out at the Botucatu School of Medicine at São Paulo State University (FMB-UNESP), suggests that low doses of the vitamin could improve treatment outcomes and potentially…
In quantum materials, electronic order rarely forms in a smooth, uniform way. Instead, it often appears as complex patterns that vary from one region to another. One well-known example is the charge density wave (CDW), a state in which electrons organize into repeating patterns at low temperatures. While CDWs have…
Researchers at the University of Utah have identified an enzyme called PapB that can reshape therapeutic peptides, a class of protein-like drugs, by linking their ends together into tight rings. This process, known as macrocyclization, creates compact structures that can improve how these medicines perform in the body. The discovery…
