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The widely used diabetes drug metformin changes blood metal levels in humans. The Kobe University study is an important step in understanding the drug’s many actions and designing better ones in the future. Metformin is the most widely prescribed diabetes drug in the world. Apart from lowering blood sugar levels,…
Certain brain cells are responsible for coordinating smooth, controlled movements of the body. But when those cells are constantly overactivated for weeks on end, they degenerate and ultimately die. This new observation made by scientists at Gladstone Institutes may help explain what goes awry in the brains of people with…
You are mostly but not entirely human. If we crunch the numbers, 8 percent of your genome actually comes from viruses that got stranded there. This viral detritus is a souvenir from our evolutionary past, a reminder that viruses have been with us from the very beginning. Usually, this 8…
The future of plastic recycling may soon get much less complicated, frustrating and tedious. In a new study, Northwestern University chemists have introduced a new plastic upcycling process that can drastically reduce — or perhaps even fully bypass — the laborious chore of pre-sorting mixed plastic waste. The process harnesses…
Too little snowfall is now also shaking the foundations of some of the world’s most resilient ‘water towers’, a new study led by the Pellicciotti group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) shows. After establishing a monitoring network on a new benchmark glacier in central Tajikistan, the…
One of the first parts of the brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease is the entorhinal cortex — a region that plays a big role in memory, spatial navigation, and the brain’s internal mapping system. With support from the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases Research Award Fund (ARDRAF), Fralin…
The textbook picture of how planets form – serene, flat discs of cosmic dust – has just received a significant cosmic twist. New research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is set to reshape this long-held view. An international team of scientists, wielding the formidable power of the Atacama Large…
Scientists have devised a new method for mapping the spottiness of distant stars by using observations from NASA missions of orbiting planets crossing their stars’ faces. The model builds on a technique researchers have used for decades to study star spots. By improving astronomers’ understanding of spotty stars, the new…
Science News from research organizations Date: September 2, 2025 Source: NASA Summary: NASA’s SPHEREx joined Webb and Hubble in studying interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, gathering data on its size, chemistry, and physical traits. While harmless to Earth, the comet provides scientists a rare opportunity to learn more about solar system wanderers.…
A first-of-its-kind, federally funded clinical trial has shown it’s possible to identify breast cancer survivors who are at higher risk of their cancer coming back due to the presence of dormant cancer cells and to effectively treat these cells with repurposed, existing drugs. The research, led by scientists from the…
Science News from research organizations Date: September 2, 2025 Source: NASA Summary: Webb, Hubble, and SPHEREx are joining forces to study the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, revealing details about its structure and chemistry. The comet isn’t dangerous, but it’s offering scientists a rare chance to explore material from outside our solar…
Insomnia patients taking cannabis-based medical products reported better quality sleep after up to 18 months of treatment, according to a study published August 27 in the open-access journal PLOS Mental Health by Arushika Aggarwal from Imperial College London, U.K., and colleagues. About one out of every three people has some…
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.…
