Science

A combination of intermittent fasting and administering Wnt3a proteins to a bone injury can rejuvenate bone repair in aged mice.

Emerging adults reported more frequent social media use, more active and passive social media behaviors, and lower vaccine uptake compared to middle-aged adults. While stronger COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy beliefs were linked to lower vaccine uptake across all participants, this relationship was unexpectedly stronger for individuals with less social media use and behaviors, potentially reflecting influences from alternative information sources. Additionally, active social media behaviors were associated with stronger COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy beliefs but not with vaccine uptake.

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A UAB research has characterised in detail how polymer-based commercial tea bags release millions of nanoplastics and microplastics when infused. The study shows for the first time the capacity of these particles to be absorbed by human intestinal cells, and are thus able to reach the bloodstream and spread throughout the body.

Abstract: The evolution of medical reasoning is deeply intertwined with philosophical thought, beginning with Aristotle’s foundational work in deductive logic. Aristotle’s principles significantly influenced early medical practice, shaping the works of Galen and Avicenna, who made empirical observations that expanded clinical knowledge. During the Enlightenment, both inductive reasoning, as advocated by Francis Bacon, and deductive methods, as stressed by René Descartes, significantly advanced medical reasoning. These approaches proved insufficient when it came to handling uncertainty and variability in medical outcomes. Nineteenth-century figures like William Osler advanced a probabilistic understanding of medicine. Karl Popper’s 20th-century hypothetico-deductive method, which introduced the concept of falsifiability and transformed scientific inquiry into a rigorous process of hypothesis testing, is a fundamental aspect of evidence-based medicine (EBM). EBM emerged as the dominant paradigm, combining empirical research, clinical expertise, and statistical inference to guide medical decisions. Looking forward, Bayesian reasoning offers a further refinement in medical reasoning. By incorporating prior knowledge and continuously updating probabilities with new evidence, Bayesianism addresses the limitations of frequentist methods and offers a more dynamic and adaptable framework for clinical decision making. As medical reasoning evolves, understanding this philosophical lineage is essential to navigating the future of patient care, where evidence must be both rigorously tested and individually tailored.

Researchers found viruses infect bacteria and other microorganisms in acid mine drainage and may control microbial diversity in these extreme environments.

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Measuring mitochondrial respiration in frozen tissue samples provides the first comprehensive atlas of how aging affects mitochondrial function in mice.

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DNA from organisms that live on plants, which is usually discarded when analysing plant genomes, can be used to gain insights into plant-pathogen interactions.

All of statistics and much of science depends on probability — an astonishing achievement, considering no one’s really sure what it is.

Researchers found mice have special neurons that sense disturbances to their fur, causing them to shake and groom themselves when wet.

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Throughout history, poets, scholars, and scientists have acknowledged the profound link between sleep and psychological well-being. The wisdom of “sleep on it”, ingrained in both Western and Eastern traditions, highlights the crucial role sleep plays in restoring and enhancing cognitive functions. In today’s fast-paced, highly-interconnected, technology-driven world, where cognitive demands are ever-growing, quality sleep has become both more vital and more elusive. This collection delves into the evolving role of sleep in maintaining psychological well-being amidst contemporary challenges. It brings together a diverse array of behavioral and brain imaging studies from researchers across the globe, focusing on three key areas: the beneficial effects of sleep on learning and education, the detrimental consequences of sleep disruption on mental health, and the rising prevalence of sleep disruption in vulnerable populations. These studies offer compelling insights, revealing, for instance, how sleep consolidates conceptual networks of knowledge, how sleep disruption can signal suicidal tendencies a month before suicide attempts, and how heatwaves negatively affect infant sleep. This body of work not only underscores the cognitive benefits of sleep but also illuminates how contemporary challenges—such as climate change, poverty, and shift work—undermine sleep health. It calls for targeted interventions to improve sleep health and psychological well-being in response to these contemporary challenges, urging scholars and policymakers to prioritize sleep health as a foundational element in building a healthier, more resilient society.

This paper addresses the problem of determining the optimum shape for a beer glass that minimizes the heat transfer while the liquid is consumed, thereby keeping it cold for as long as possible. The proposed solution avoids the use of insulating materials. The glass is modeled as a body of revolution generated by a smooth curve, constructed from a material with negligible thermal resistance, but insulated at the base. The ordinary differential equation describing the problem is derived from the first law of Thermodynamics applied to a control volume encompassing the liquid. This is an inverse optimization problem, aiming to find the shape of the glass (represented by curve $S$) that minimizes the heat transfer rate. In contrast, the direct problem aims to determine the heat transfer rate for a given geometry. The solution obtained here is analytic, and the resulting function describing the relation between height ans radius of the glass, is in closed form, providing a family of optimal glass shapes that can be manufactured by conventional methods. Special attention is payed to the dimensions and the capacity of the resulting shapes.

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A new class of magnetism called altermagnetism has been imaged for the first time in a new study. The findings could lead to the development of new magnetic memory devices with the potential to increase operation speeds of up to a thousand times.

Brain structure can tell us a lot about reading skills. Importantly, though, the brain is malleable — it changes when we learn a new skill or practice an already acquired one.

A new randomized controlled trial reports the impacts of guaranteed income—regular cash payments with no strings attached—to low-income households in Compton, California on an extensive list of outcomes including labor supply, income, spending, debt, and psychological well-being.

Scientists have revolutionized diamond synthesis with a groundbreaking method that creates diamonds at room temperature and pressure.

Scientists trained an AI algorithm to categorize distant galaxies using volunteer classifications. Their model could improve the accuracy of galactic IDs.

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Connections in the Americas between dogs and people began 12,000 years ago, researchers report.

How the brain processes concepts is influenced by contextual information, such as what a person is seeing, suggests new study.

In bioelectronics breakthrough, scientists have created soft, flexible semiconductors.

Posting this as I find it astonishing how nature invented electrical motors with gearshift way before humans did.

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A new computational approach helps find heat-stable molecules capable of fighting bacterial infections.

AbstractThe effect of degree of roast on resulting caffeine content in brewed coffee has been extensively researched, but conflicting methodologies and results have muddled development of a general conclusion. In this study, 30 unique combinations of green coffee variety, degree of roast, and brew time were investigated regarding extraction yield and caffeine content. An AeroPress brewer was used to prepare brew samples using a 15:1 mass ratio of brew water to ground coffee. Refractometry and HPLC were respectively used to measure extraction yield and caffeine content of brewed samples. Scanning electron microscopy was used to measure porosity of roasted seeds and showed increasing porosity with the degree of roast. Extraction yields generally decreased for roast batches with roasting mass losses greater than (\sim)12–14%, and caffeine concentrations in 10-min brews decreased for roast batches with drop temperatures greater than (\sim)400–420 (^{\circ })F. Under identical brewing conditions, caffeine concentrations in brewed samples were generally lower for dark roasts than light and medium roasts. However, at identical extraction yields, dark roasts generally exhibited higher caffeine concentrations than lighter roasted coffees. It is likely that the volatilization or decomposition of soluble compounds and increased porosity due to roasting act as competing mechanisms that determine compound concentrations in resulting brews.

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Scientists have broken the record for the world’s thinnest pasta with a new “nanopasta” that measures just 372 nanometers, which is 200 times thinner than a strand of human hair. Britton, Beatrice et al.

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The paper, in a very funny but serious way, makes a strong case for the relative uselessness of the index finger, and it's recommendation for amputation if it's at all damaged and impeding existence.

Discoveries about a young ancestor's teeth may shed light on the upward trend in brain size over millennia.

According to Khamis, this is the first time that the African native smaller mealworms' ability to decompose plastics has been recorded.

Males of the four Ptiloris species, a group within the birds of paradise native to Australia and New Guinea, have long fascinated biologists as well as female birds with their courtship displays. A male repeatedly fans out dark satiny wing feathers into a curved arc. He sways his head rhythmically and opens his mouth to a soundtrack of short, sharp thwacking sounds.

A 1930s-era breakthrough is helping physicists understand how quantum threads could weave together into a holographic space-time fabric.

Two rabies epidemics in animals spurred a state health emergency in Texas and a program that oversees annual mass wildlife vaccination. Millions of doses have been distributed since the ‘90s.

Researchers have designed a robotic “artificial skin” that is as unique as the team’s animal inspiration—the platypus. Created by collaborators between China’s Tsinghua University and the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, the dual-sensory system can interpret information not just from direct physical touch, but also through detecting electrostatic changes in the air around it.

“The decision to end the cooperation agreement was taken in December 2023 when CERN’s Council passed a resolution “to terminate the International Cooperation Agreement between CERN and the Russian Federation, together with all related protocols and addenda, with effect from 30 November 2024; To terminate … all other agreements and experiment memoranda of understanding allowing the participation of the Russian Federation and its national institutes in the CERN scientific programme, with effect from 30 November 2024; AFFIRMS That these measures concern the relationship between CERN and Russian and Belarusian institutes and do not affect the relationship with scientists of Russian nationality affiliated with other institutes.” The cooperation agreement with Belarus will come to an end on 27 June, before the Russian one ends.”