From Italy and the World

Chronic inflammatory bowel disease is challenging to treat and carries a risk of complications, including the development of bowel cancer. Young people are particularly affected: when genetic predisposition and certain factors coincide, diseases such as ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease usually manifest between the ages of 15 and 29 —…

New research led by the University of Sydney adds to our understanding of how rapidly rising sea levels due to climate change foreshadow the end of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. The findings suggest the reef can withstand rising sea levels in isolation but is vulnerable to…

Lenses are the most widely used optical devices. Camera lens or objectives, for example, produce a sharp photo or video by directing light at a focal point. The speed of evolution made in the field of optics in recent decades is exemplified by the transformation of conventional bulky cameras into…

Aortic valve narrowing (aortic stenosis) with concomitant cardiac amyloidosis is a severe heart disease of old age that is associated with a high risk of death. Until now, treatment has consisted of valve replacement, while the deposits in the heart muscle, known as amyloidosis, often remain untreated. An international research…

Every five minutes, 50 people are bitten by a snake worldwide; four will be permanently disabled and one will die. In the time-critical situation following a bite, identifying the snake venom making its way through your system is vital to saving lives and providing the best treatment. Most approaches to…

Global warming is continuously advancing. How quickly this will happen can now be predicted more accurately than ever before, thanks to a method developed by climate researcher Gottfried Kirchengast and his team at the University of Graz. For the first time, this method enables reliable monitoring of the Paris climate…

Flooding in coastal communities is happening far more often than previously thought, according to a new study from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study also found major flaws with the widely used approach of using marine water level data to capture…

Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have provided new clues about how the exoplanet WASP-121b has formed and where it might have originated in the disc of gas and dust around its star. These insights stem from the detection of multiple key molecules: water vapour, carbon monoxide, silicon…

A trial of an interactive game that trains people to alter their brain waves has shown promise as a treatment for nerve pain — offering hope for a new generation of drug-free treatments. The PainWaive technology, developed by UNSW Sydney researchers, teaches users how to regulate abnormal brain activity linked…

Denitrification in tiny anoxic pockets on sand grains could account for up to one-third of total nitrogen loss in silicate shelf sands. Some microbes living on sand grains use up all the oxygen around them. Their neighbors, left without oxygen, make the best of it: They use nitrate in the…

Human-AI interactions are well understood in terms of trust and companionship. However, the role of attachment and experiences in such relationships is not entirely clear. In a new breakthrough, researchers from Waseda University have devised a novel self-report scale and highlighted the concepts of attachment anxiety and avoidance toward AI.…

As artificial intelligence and smart devices continue to evolve, machine vision is taking an increasingly pivotal role as a key enabler of modern technologies. Unfortunately, despite much progress, machine vision systems still face a major problem: processing the enormous amounts of visual data generated every second requires substantial power, storage,…

What happens inside your brain when you hear a steady rhythm or musical tone? According to a new study from Aarhus University and the University of Oxford, your brain doesn’t just hear it — it reorganizes itself in real time. Every beep, tone and new sound you hear travels from…

Making a discovery with the potential for innovative applications in pharmaceutical development, a West Virginia University microbiology student has found a long sought-after fungus that produces effects similar to the semisynthetic drug LSD, which is used to treat conditions like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction. Corinne Hazel, of Delaware,…

Antimicrobial resistance directly causes more than 1 million deaths every year and contributes to more than 35 million more, according to the World Health Organization. Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus sp., 2 gram-positive pathogens highly likely to develop resistance to known treatments, can cause dangerous hospital-acquired and community-acquired infections. This week…

A team of Washington State University-led researchers has recreated the world’s oldest synthetic pigment, called Egyptian blue, which was used in ancient Egypt about 5,000 years ago. Reporting in the journal, NPJ Heritage Science, the researchers used a variety of raw materials and heating times to develop 12 recipes for…

A new way of thinking about Alzheimer’s disease has yielded a discovery that could be the key to stopping the cognitive decline seen in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. University of Virginia School of Medicine scientists have been investigating the possibility that Alzheimer’s is caused, at least in part, by…

An emerging technology to make lithium-ion batteries safer and more powerful involves using solid rather than liquid electrolytes, the materials that make it possible for ions to move through the device to generate power. A team of University of Texas at Dallas researchers and their colleagues have discovered that the…

The 2025 hurricane season officially begins on June 1, and it’s forecast to be more active than ever, with potentially devastating storms whose heavy rainfall and powerful storm surges cause dangerous coastal flooding. Extreme water levels — like the 15 feet of flooding Floridians saw during Hurricane Helene in 2024…

Researchers from the University of Rochester and University of California, Santa Barbara, engineered a laser device smaller than a penny that they say could power everything from the LiDAR systems used in self-driving vehicles to gravitational wave detection, one of the most delicate experiments in existence to observe and understand…

A protein that gives fleas their bounce has been used to boot out bacteria cells, with lab results demonstrating the material’s potential for preventing medical implant infection. The collaborative study led by researchers at RMIT University in Australia is the first reported use of antibacterial coatings made from resilin-mimetic proteins…

An average of more than 1 million acres of idled farmland a year is a significant contributor to a growing dust problem in California that has implications for millions of residents’ health and the state’s climate. A new study published in Communications Earth and Environment by UC Merced professors Adeyemi…

New research from Colorado State University and Cornell University shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado’s grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and — particularly during dry years — increase plant growth by about 20% or more compared to open fields. The findings were published…

A newly published study finds that California’s Salton Sea emits hydrogen sulfide, a toxic and foul-smelling gas, at rates that regularly exceed the state’s air quality standards. The presence of these emissions in communities surrounding the Salton Sea are “vastly underestimated” by government air-quality monitoring systems, the researchers found. The…