Liberal Blogosphere

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:53:28 +0000

Long-term oyster reef restoration shows clear success in murky waters

Study of one of the world’s largest projects in Chesapeake Bay’s Harris Creek finds that restored reefs with complex structure support larger resident fish, sustain high oyster cover, and outperform harvested areas 6–10 years later

University of Maryland Baltimore County

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Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) intern Liliana Bowman (right), a co-author on a new study highlighting the long-term success of oyster reef restoration efforts in the Chesapeake Bay, records sonar videos with SERC biologist Rob Aguilar.

Credit: Matthew Ogburn/SERC

Large-scale oyster reef restoration in the Chesapeake Bay is successfully creating three-dimensional habitats that support larger, more diverse fish communities, according to new research from scientists at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The study, published today in Ecosphere, provides compelling evidence that restoration efforts are shifting underwater ecosystems from communities dominated by small, transient schooling fish to those supporting larger, resident species.

The research focused on Harris Creek, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, one of the world's largest oyster restoration projects, covering approximately 1.4 square kilometers. By combining underwater video with high-resolution imaging sonar, the team evaluated reef habitat and "nekton"—free-swimming animals like fish and turtles—six to 10 years after restoration was completed.

"Oyster restoration is important for lots of different stakeholders in Chesapeake Bay, so we wanted to know precisely how it influences reef habitat and the fish and crabs that use that habitat," says Allison Tracy, the study's lead author and assistant professor of marine biotechnology with UMBC at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology. "Large-scale oyster reef restoration in Chesapeake Bay has been a success,” Tracy adds, “and our study adds new and important metrics of success for one of the most high-profile sites in the project."

Completing the picture

The findings reveal that the restoration method matters. Reefs restored using a stone substrate plus juvenile oysters attached to adult oyster shells (called “spat-on-shell”) exhibited the highest habitat scores, showing greater vertical relief and structural complexity than reefs restored with spat-on-shell alone or reefs that had been continuously harvested. Restored reefs supported fewer total fish but significantly larger individual fish, with the highest abundance of fish exceeding 30 centimeters in length found on reefs restored with stone.

"The remote monitoring tools in this study make it unique," Tracy explains. "We combined a simple but effective GoPro-based method for studying reef habitat with an elegant, high-tech survey of animals using sonar. We looked at reef-associated animals through many different lenses to get a complete picture of the community of finfish, crabs, and rays."

The sonar data revealed a fundamental shift in how animals use these habitats. While harvested reefs and unrestored areas were dominated by small, schooling fish moving quickly through the water column, restored reefs supported more species that live and feed near the bottom. This suggests that the complex three-dimensional structure created by restored oyster reefs provides refuge and foraging opportunities for larger, commercially and ecologically valuable species.

"One of the key takeaways is that large fish in particular are taking notice of restored oyster reefs," Tracy notes. "Harris Creek is one of the most valuable case studies of oyster restoration in the world. It was a great opportunity to study how animals use these reefs."

Reef restoration efforts pay off

The timing of the study proved crucial to understanding restoration success. By surveying reefs at least seven years post-restoration, the researchers could assess long-term outcomes rather than immediate responses. The results indicate that Harris Creek's restored reefs are self-sustaining, maintaining high oyster cover and structural complexity years after construction.

"This project was a powerful combination of scientists from different institutions and career stages," Tracy adds. "We used the team's mix of expertise to carry out a unique and important study."

The research connects to broader efforts to restore Chesapeake Bay's oyster populations, which are at only 3 percent of historic levels due to overharvesting, disease, and environmental stressors. The study aligns with recent findings from NOAA and other collaborators, including current study co-author Jay Lazar, on large-scale oyster restoration success across the Bay system.

“Official monitoring of the large-scale restoration efforts only takes place three and six years after restoration, but studying these reefs in the long term is needed to ensure that they continue to support oyster populations and provide habitat for other animals,” says Matthew Ogburn, senior author on the new paper and a senior scientist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. “This study shows that underwater video can help fill this need.”

The study's innovative approach—merging accessible video technology with sophisticated sonar imaging—offers a template for monitoring subtidal reefs in murky estuaries where traditional sampling methods face limitations. As restoration efforts expand globally, these remote sensing tools could help managers assess habitat quality and ecosystem services more efficiently and cost-effectively.

By studying reef habitat years after restoration, "we expected to be able to see how the efforts paid off—and they did pay off," Tracy says. The findings suggest that investing in structural complexity—particularly through substrate enhancement with stone and protecting restored reefs from harvest—can accelerate the return of valuable fish communities and support the long-term health of the Chesapeake Bay.

Allison Tracy,

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:52:37 +0000

Largest neuroimaging study of bulimia nervosa finds structural brain differences linked to diagnosis and binge-eating severity

The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine

image:

Cortical surface area and subcortical volume lower in people with bulimia nervosa compared with controls.

Credit: Laura Berner, PhD

New York, NY (September 16, 2026) – Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found that individuals with bulimia nervosa have structural differences in brain regions involved in reward and motivation, as well as social and sensory processing, and that more frequent binge eating is associated with more widespread differences in brain structure, according to research published today in JAMA Psychiatry.

Bulimia nervosa is the second most common eating disorder in the world, characterized by recurrent binge eating and compensatory behaviors. Compared to other psychiatric illnesses, little is known about its neurobiology and previous neuroimaging studies have generally included small numbers of participants and produced inconsistent findings.

Laura A. Berner, PhD, Director of the Center for Computational Psychiatry at Mount Sinai, and colleagues from the global ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) consortium analyzed MRI brain scans from 369 females with bulimia nervosa and 417 females without an eating disorder across 17 international cohorts. In comparison to individuals without an eating disorder, those with bulimia nervosa had lower volume of the nucleus accumbens – a brain region involved in processing reward and motivation. They also had lower surface area in regions of the temporal cortex – a brain area involved in sensory and social processing. More frequent binge eating was associated with lower surface area in additional regions involved in cognitive control, reward value estimation, awareness of bodily signals, and processing and regulating emotions. In contrast, the frequency of compensatory behaviors—the measure currently used to define bulimia nervosa severity—was not associated with brain structure.

The findings suggest that specific symptoms, like binge eating, may have distinct neurobiological correlates. Because the study examined participants at a single point in time, longitudinal research is needed to determine whether these differences precede or follow illness onset.

“This study gives us the clearest evidence to date that bulimia nervosa is associated with reproducible differences in brain structure. We were surprised that the differences we identified in the brain’s outer layer involved a structural feature that is largely established early in development,” said Berner. “Our findings raise important questions about whether some of these brain differences could be markers of vulnerability to developing the illness. At the same time, the findings should not be interpreted to mean that the brain is fixed, or that a person’s outcome is predetermined. We are excited about the next steps: understanding what these findings mean for the function of the affected brain circuits, and how these insights can ultimately help us identify better targets for prevention and treatment.”

###

To request a copy of the paper or to schedule an interview with Dr. Berner, please contact Mount Sinai’s Senior Director of Media and Public Affairs, Elizabeth Dowling, at elizabeth.dowling@mountsinai.org or at 212 241-9200.

Journal

JAMA Psychiatry

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Structural Brain Correlates of Bulimia Nervosa Diagnosis and Symptom Severity: A Coordinated ENIGMA-Eating Disorders Working Group Analysis

Article Publication Date

16-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:52:11 +0000

Your gut makes a molecule that fights a leading cause of food poisoning

Michigan State University

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This photo of Campylobacter was taken of the intestine of a chicken.

Credit: Michigan State University DiRita lab

What if something produced naturally by your gut bacteria could help fight a dangerous foodborne pathogen?

Researchers in Michigan State University’s Department of Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology may have found just such a substance. Academic Research Specialist Ritam Sinha and Rudolph Hugh Endowed Professor and Department Chair Victor DiRita and colleagues discovered that a molecule called indole can inhibit the growth of Campylobacter jejuni, a leading cause of food poisoning worldwide.

Their study, published in Science Advances, builds on years of research in the DiRita lab aimed at understanding how C. jejuni, known to researchers as Campy, manages to thrive in the gut and cause disease.

“Campylobacter is the most common cause of bacterial foodborne illness in the United States, but we still know much less about it than we do about other gut pathogens,” DiRita said. “This study gives us a better understanding of the mechanisms that allow Campylobacter to cause disease, but what’s particularly interesting is that we identified a molecule produced by the gut microbiome that can inhibit its growth. That opens up the possibility of finding creative new ways to limit infection.”

When inflammation changes the gut

Previous research from the DiRita lab offered an important clue about the conditions Campy needs to succeed. Using a ferret model developed by Sinha, the researchers found that intestinal inflammation appears to help Campy grow during infection.

That presented an interesting puzzle. Inflammation is part of the body’s response to infection, but in this case, it seemed to be creating an environment that benefited the pathogen. To understand why, the researchers developed a mouse model in which they could temporarily induce intestinal inflammation and study how it changed the conditions inside the gut.

One of the changes they found involved indole, a molecule produced when certain members of the gut microbiome break down tryptophan, an amino acid found in the diet. Indole is naturally present in the intestinal tract of both humans and mice.

When the researchers examined the microbial communities in the mice, one particular change caught their attention.

“We found a significant decrease in the bacteria that produce indole, so we wondered whether indole levels might be lower as well,” Sinha said. “When we analyzed indole in the mouse gut, we confirmed this hypothesis.”

The researchers then tested whether the loss of indole was simply a consequence of inflammation or whether it might be directly contributing to Campy’s success. When they exposed Campy to concentrations of indole similar to those naturally found in the gut, its growth was inhibited. Further experiments showed that indole interferes with Campy’s respiration and metabolism, making it more difficult for the bacterium to generate and use the energy it needs to grow.

In other words, inflammation appeared to be doing more than changing the gut environment. By reducing indole-producing microbes and consequently lowering indole levels, it was weakening one of the ways the gut microbiome helps keep Campy in check.

Harnessing a natural defense

Next, the researchers wanted to know if they could take advantage of the natural protection provided by indole.

When they increased indole levels in mice, Campy colonization decreased significantly. They also tested Escherichia coli Nissle 1917, a probiotic bacterium that naturally produces indole, and found that it also reduced Campy colonization. To determine whether indole was responsible for the effect, the researchers compared the probiotic with a version that could no longer produce indole. Lo and behold, that version did not provide the same protection against Campy.

The results raise the possibility that indole, indole-producing microbes or other approaches that support the microbiome’s natural defenses could someday provide another way to limit Campy infection. That possibility is especially important as antibiotic resistance in Campy makes some infections increasingly difficult to treat.

The findings are pointing the researchers toward new questions. The team plans to explore whether dietary approaches could be used to influence the gut environment in ways that help control infection. They also want to understand an apparent contradiction at the heart of their discovery: If indole is already naturally present in the human gut and can inhibit Campy, how does the pathogen overcome that protection well enough to cause disease?

As a result, the researchers now plan to investigate how Campy interacts with indole during a more natural infection and whether the pathogen changes the gut environment in ways that help it overcome indole’s effects.

“We’re still doing a lot of basic research, but that is the foundation for any new therapeutic approaches that we or others might develop,” DiRita said. “With increasing levels of antibiotic resistance in Campylobacter, this work is pointing us toward innovative, non-antibiotic ways of controlling infection.”

This research was supported by the Michigan State University Rudolph Hugh Endowment.

By Debbie Walton

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aei6934 SPAGYRIC HERBALISM

Japanese Hinoki root essential oil may support better sleep at home

Pilot study suggests an underused forestry resource could offer new value in aroma-based relaxation products

Kyushu University

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Hinoki roots contain aromatic compounds and can be used to produce essential oils. This study examined the potential of essential oil derived from these roots to support sleep in middle-aged women, while exploring a higher-value use of an underused forestry resource.

Credit: Kuniyoshi Shimizu/Kyushu University

Fukuoka, Japan—Sleep problems are common in middle age, particularly among women in their 40s and 50s. In a new study published on September 1, 2026, in the Journal of Wood Science, researchers explored whether essential oils derived from Hinoki (Chamaecyparis obtusa), known as Japanese cypress, roots could help improve sleep quality. Participants reported fewer nighttime awakenings, improved morning feelings, and brain-wave patterns suggesting smoother sleep onset.

Hinoki is widely used as timber in Japan, but its roots are often left unused after logging. These roots contain aromatic compounds and can be used to produce essential oils. Although essential oils derived from Hinoki branches and leaves have been studied previously, much less is known about those obtained from its roots.

“We wanted to address two questions: whether essential oil production could add value to underused Hinoki roots and whether that oil could improve sleep,” says Associate Professor Kuniyoshi Shimizu from Kyushu University’s Faculty of Agriculture. “In our earlier work, we examined sleep quality over a single day in a laboratory-like setting. However, sleep is strongly influenced by daily routines and the home environment. Therefore, we decided to examine the effect of repeated use over two weeks in participants’ own bedrooms using both subjective assessments and physiological measurements.”

Twelve Japanese women aged 35–60 years took part in a single-blind crossover study. Each participant used Hinoki root essential oil for two weeks and an unscented control for two weeks. At bedtime, participants placed three drops of the oil in a paper cup, inhaled the aroma for 10 seconds, and then left the cup about 30 cm from their nose while they slept. Their sleep was monitored using a wearable brain-wave headband, a smartwatch, and a questionnaire completed each morning.

Repeated use of Hinoki root essential oil was associated with favorable changes in several measures of sleep. By day 13, participants reported feeling less sleepy upon waking and more recovered from fatigue than when using the control. Smartwatch measurements also showed fewer nighttime awakenings. Brain-wave recordings further indicated that, after seven days of using the Hinoki essential oil, participants showed greater delta-wave activity around sleep onset, a pattern consistent with a smoother transition into deeper sleep. Participants rated the Hinoki aroma as more relaxing, comfortable, likable, elegant, nostalgic, and woody than the control.

“By combining physiological measurements with participants’ subjective assessments, we were able to examine sleep from multiple perspectives under everyday home conditions, which was an important aspect of this study,” emphasizes Shimizu. “Our findings suggest that repeated use of Hinoki root essential oil at home may support sleep initiation, sleep continuity, and feeling refreshed in the morning.”

One possible application is the development of Hinoki root-based aroma products for use in bedrooms or other relaxation settings. Because the study used a simple method—placing a small amount of essential oil near the bed—it may also provide a useful model for evaluating aromatic materials under everyday home conditions. More broadly, the findings may encourage the use of Hinoki roots and other forestry residues as higher-value materials rather than leaving them underused. Further research would be needed to determine appropriate products, doses, and usage conditions.

###

For more information about this research, see "Sleep improvement by Kagawa Hinoki root volatiles in middle-aged women: a home-based pilot study” Fadilla Zennifa, Akiko Isa, Erika Tomimatsu, Yanli Xu, Ryuma Taki, Hiroo Yasutomi, Naotoshi Yasumori, Kuniyoshi Shimizu, Journal of Wood Science, https://doi.org/10.1186/s10086-026-02296-3

About Kyushu University
Founded in 1911, Kyushu University is one of Japan's leading research-oriented institutes of higher education, consistently ranking as one of the top ten Japanese universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the QS World Rankings. The university is one of the seven national universities in Japan, located in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu—the most southwestern of Japan’s four main islands with a population and land size slightly larger than Belgium. Kyushu U’s multiple campuses—home to around 19,000 students and 8000 faculty and staff—are located around Fukuoka City, a coastal metropolis that is frequently ranked among the world's most livable cities and historically known as Japan's gateway to Asia. Through its VISION 2030, Kyushu U will “drive social change with integrative knowledge.” By fusing the spectrum of knowledge, from the humanities and arts to engineering and medical sciences, Kyushu U will strengthen its research in the key areas of decarbonization, medicine and health, and environment and food, to tackle society’s most pressing issues.

Journal

Journal of Wood Science

Most powerful laser in US funded for another 5 years

The U.S. National Science Foundation provides $33M to make key upgrades and keep the laser in service for a growing group of U.S. and international users

University of Michigan

Photos in the ZEUS laser facility

Key takeaways

Anticipated upgrades include a larger target chamber to enable new kinds of experiments, beam smoothing to reach full power and AI integration.
The NSF ZEUS laser facility explores physics on quantum and cosmic scales, with applications in medicine and national security.
NSF ZEUS is run by the University of Michigan, and an independent panel selects experiments proposed by scientists from the U.S. and around the world.

The most powerful laser in the United States received $33 million in its second round of operations funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, helping the University of Michigan Engineering team make crucial upgrades and run roughly 150 weeks of experiments for laser and plasma science teams from across the U.S. and around the world.

Already, the team has run 72 weeks of experiments designed by researchers outside U-M—exploring a range of topics, from the extremes of physics to fundamentals that could underpin practical applications. On the practical side, researchers explore how to use laser systems to generate X-rays capable of imaging soft tissues at low doses, or produce particle beams that could be used to fight cancer or discover nuclear weapons materials hidden in cargo.

In what is known as laboratory astrophysics, the NSF ZEUS facility can recreate tiny versions of the physics at the edges of black holes and surfaces of neutron stars. It also probes the quantum realm, testing out how well the theory of quantum electrodynamics holds up in these extreme conditions.

"With this renewal, we can continue rebuilding U.S. leadership in laser science, serving a growing community of researchers who explore the extremes of light and matter as well as the new technologies those findings could enable," said Louise Willingale, director of the ZEUS laser facility.

The ZEUS team shifted into operations mode in 2024, when the facility had matched the power of the previous most powerful U.S. laser at one petawatt, or a quadrillion watts. Research groups around the world submit proposals for experiments, which are selected by an independent review panel. Last year, ZEUS established an advisory user group that provides feedback to shape future upgrade plans and ensure the facility delivers what users need and expect.

Ramping up the power

During the previous operation period, the ZEUS team continued increasing the laser's power, hitting 2 petwatts in April 2025. ZEUS achieves its high power by adding energy to a stretched pulse, about 3 feet in length, and then shrinking it down to a short pulse, about 0.007 millimeters long.

To reach ZEUS's design power of 3 petawatts, expected early in this operation period, the team has been working to make the beam more uniform. This prevents hotspots that might otherwise pit or permanently darken the million-dollar optical components that compress, transport or concentrate the laser pulse. This risk is why the team has been cautious in raising the power.

"At full power, NSF ZEUS will unlock a new class of experiments that cannot be done anywhere else in the United States," said NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate Head Tie Luo. "Researchers across the country will use this versatile facility to test some of the most promising and innovative ideas involving light-matter interactions, plasma physics and the quantum properties of vacuum itself."

Preparing for solid targets at high power

Another key upgrade is in the short-focal-length target area, also known as target area two, which houses experiments that need ZEUS's highest intensities. The other two target areas focus light over longer distances.

The intense laser pulse hitting solid targets, such as metal foil, produces particles and X-rays. Rather than making particle and X-ray beams with conventional particle accelerators, which require very large rooms, laser physicists are demonstrating equally powerful tabletop particle accelerators, and findings from ZEUS can help advance that technology.

ZEUS originally reused the short-focal-length target chamber designed for its predecessor, HERCULES, which maxed out at 0.5 petawatts because of its smaller beam diameter. In addition to the larger target chamber, the team will use a technique to remove stray energy that runs ahead of the main laser pulse, making experiments cleaner and easier to interpret.

"The upgraded ZEUS Target Area Two will enable a wide range of cutting-edge experiments," said Anatoly Maksimchuk, a research scientist in electrical engineering and computer science who leads the renovation and designed the beam-transport system and interaction chamber. "With its combination of high intensity, high contrast and three-pulse capabilities, Target Area Two will provide a unique experimental platform bridging high-field laser physics and laboratory astrophysics."

AI and machine learning integration

In this second operations period, the ZEUS team is integrating AI and machine learning tools to optimize laser operations. For example, the spot where the laser pulse focuses inside the target chamber needs to be extremely precise in order to overlap with another laser pulse or an electron beam.

Because the laser pulses travel hundreds of meters through the lab, temperature variations and vibrations can make them drift. To combat this problem, the team will send bursts of low-power pulses just ahead of the main pulse, using an AI model to predict any offset and adjust a mirror in the system to put the main pulse in the right place.

AI could also help analyze data sets generated through ZEUS experiments. The data are complex and influenced by many factors, including laser characteristics, target design, and experimental configurations. To make the most of AI's ability to pick out connections overlooked by humans, the team will prepare the data sets to be easily ingested by AI models.

Advancing American laser science

To help improve American laser science more broadly, ZEUS researchers are partners on a project led by the University of Nevada, Reno, to better understand extreme lasers and the data they generate.

Looking further ahead, ZEUS is also helping train researchers who could eventually operate a proposed 25-petawatt, two-beam laser facility. The proposed project, known as NSF OPAL, is an exploratory effort led by the University of Rochester. If built, it would represent a major expansion of U.S. high-power laser capabilities. The highest-power laser currently operating is Europe's 10-petawatt Extreme Light Infrastructure.

ZEUS is housed in the Gérard Mourou Center for Ultrafast Optical Science, named for the center's founder, a Nobel laureate who co-invented the laser pulse amplification approach that the world's most powerful lasers rely on today.

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:49:28 +0000

Antiproton storage and transport records achieved

Heinrich-Heine University Duesseldorf

image:

Successful storage of antiprotons in the BASE-STEP trap. The graphic shows the number of antiprotons held in the trap and indicates when various trap operations were undertaken during the experiment period, including the transport on 24 March 2026. The particles remained safely stored after the transport; on day 27, just one antiproton annihilated during a particle extraction test. (Fig.: HHU/Marcel Leonhardt)

Credit: HHU/Marcel Leonhardt

In March 2026, scientists succeeded in transporting antiprotons by road for the first time in a purpose-built trap loaded on a truck. The BASE collaboration, which realised this experiment at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva under the lead of Professor Dr Stefan Ulmer and Dr Christian Smorra from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU), now presents its findings and experiences from this pioneering experiment in the scientific journal Nature. Among other things, they report that it was possible to store antiprotons in a mobile transport vessel for more than a month for the first time ever.

Comparing protons – the positively charged components of an atomic nucleus – with antiprotons – their antimatter counterparts – is one of the most promising methods for seeking differences between matter and antimatter. Any identified difference in their mass or magnetic moment could point to the potential origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry that can be observed in the cosmos.

So-called ultra-high vacuum Penning traps enable such high-precision measurements of the protons and antiprotons confined in them. The BASE (Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment) research collaboration designed and now operates a trap of this kind – known as BASE-STEP – at CERN, or more precisely the “Antimatter Factory” (AMF) there. The AMF is the only facility worldwide where low-energy antiprotons can be produced, stored and studied.

Professor Stefan Ulmer, holder of the Chair of Quantum Technologies and Fundamental Symmetries at HHU, is the founder and spokesperson of BASE, and co-author of the new study in Nature: “In recent years, we have already achieved precision measurements of the intrinsic magnetic moment of both types of particles with an accuracy of 0.3 ppb for protons and 1.6 ppb for antiprotons.” The abbreviation ppb stands for parts per billion and equates to 1x10-9. To date, however, comparisons of the obtained data on protons and antiprotons have not yet identified any difference within the achievable measurement accuracy.

Dr Christian Smorra, BASE-STEP principal investigator and corresponding author of the study: “We cannot improve the level of measurement accuracy any further at the AMF as facility operation causes magnetic-field fluctuations, which affect our measuring equipment. We can only find better conditions outside CERN. And so the idea of the mobile open BASE-STEP trap was born: We will transport the antiprotons to another location with a high-precision laboratory in order to achieve an at least 100-fold improvement in precision.”

Following the success of the proton transport in October 2024 (corresponding publication in Nature in May 2025), the BASE team then succeeded in using the same trap to transport antiprotons in March 2026. A total of 92 of these particles were extracted from the AMF and stored in BASE-STEP. The trap was then loaded onto a truck and driven around the CERN site for half an hour, covering a distance of approx. eight kilometres. The team then also succeeded in unloading the trap again without losing even one of the stored antiprotons.

Marcel Leonhardt, doctoral researcher in physics at HHU and lead author of the study: “We then continued to observe the antiprotons. We were able to store and manipulate them in a controlled manner for more than a month in total.” He also highlights a special achievement: “It is particularly important to realise an extremely good vacuum in a mobile trap for long-term storage to ensure that the antiprotons are not lost through collisions with other particles. In a world first for an open trap system into which antiprotons can be injected and subsequently extracted again, we achieved a vacuum of better than 2.2x10-18 mbar throughout the storage period – a substantially better figure than our own design target of 1x10-16 mbar.”

One destination for the stored antiprotons is the high-precision laboratory currently being established at HHU by Ulmer’s team to enable comparison measurements of protons and antiprotons. “We completed a successful dress rehearsal with the transport in March and were able to demonstrate that our idea works. Our next target is to make the trap sufficiently autonomous to allow a ten-hour transport from Geneva to Düsseldorf,” states Dr Smorra.

Professor Ulmer on the background to the research: “Our goal is to answer one of the most fundamental questions in physics: Why does a universe filled with matter exist? If an asymmetry between matter and antimatter were to exist, then a minute amount more matter than antimatter may have been produced during the Big Bang, meaning that a net excess of matter remained while the antimatter annihilated in full.”

You can read more about the antimatter transport in the title story of issue 2/2026 of the HHU Magazine:
https://www.hhu.de/fileadmin/redaktion/ZUV/Abteilung_Kommunikation/Uni-Magazin/RZ_HHU_MAGAZINE_2-26.pdf

The BASE collaboration and BASE-STEP

Established in 2012 and based at the Antimatter Factory (AMF) at CERN, research institutes in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are involved in the BASE collaboration, including:

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:48:30 +0000

Without bacteria or chemicals: How methanol and formaldehyde form abiotically in nature

Heidelberg scientists demonstrate a chemical process during which lignin is converted into these two compounds by iron and reactive oxygen species

Heidelberg University
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image:
The photo taken on Kauai Island (Hawaii) shows the interplay of iron oxide-rich soils, water, vegetation and higher temperatures – conditions that may generally favor the abiotic formation of methanol and formaldehyde described in the study. The shot arose during another field campaign and is not part of the study.
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Credit: Photo: Frank Keppler

The biopolymer lignin – one of the most important carbon reservoirs in plants and soils – not only decays through fungi or bacteria but can also be chemically attacked by iron linked with reactive oxygen species, without the involvement of microorganisms. When this happens, the lignin is converted into methanol and subsequently into formaldehyde. That is shown by a study conducted at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Earth Sciences. The researchers also proved that this conversion takes place in natural soils – solely through wetting and without adding chemicals. This form of lignin degradation shines a light on a previously overlooked abiotic process that is related to Earth’s carbon cycle and can have implications for trace gas fluxes and atmospheric chemistry.
Lignin constitutes a considerable part of terrestrial non-fossil organic carbon, and gives wood and other plant matter their solidity. Characteristic of the biopolymer are so-called methoxy groups (–OCH₃). The compounds methanol and formaldehyde are, above all, known as important industrial chemicals but they also develop naturally and, in the soil, serve as carbon and energy sources for microorganisms. It was previously not known that an iron-induced process of lignin decay can be an important source of both compounds. Iron minerals are natural components of many soils and also reactive oxygen species – oxygen-containing molecules with very high chemical reactivity – can form there, particularly under changing environmental conditions.
When reactive iron-oxygen species attack lignin without the involvement of microorganisms, the methoxy groups (–OCH₃) are directly released from the biopolymer. Previously known decay pathways only liberate the methyl share of such groups. In the course of demethoxylation, methanol and subsequently formaldehyde are already formed under natural conditions. “The reaction takes place at ambient temperature and under normal pressure in water, and will only intensify at higher temperatures. So far it has only been known from industry – using temperatures of over 285 degrees Celsius, with higher pressure and in a hydrogen atmosphere,” explains Dr. Jonas Hädeler from the Institute of Earth Sciences, who carried out the laboratory experiments in the biogeochemistry research group led by Prof. Dr. Frank Keppler.
The researchers followed the reaction pathway directly with isotope-marked molecules, where individual atoms are replaced by heavier variants. The methoxy group is cleaved as a unit and thereby forms the methanol – unlike with processes in which only methyl groups are removed. Quantum chemical calculations by Prof. Dr. Peter Comba’s working group support the results of the laboratory experiments. “They indicate the lowest energy barrier for cleavage of the whole methoxy group – which is, in chemical terms, the most favorable of the reactive pathways investigated. That exactly matches the experimental observations,” explains Prof. Comba, whose research is based at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Inorganic Chemistry.
Experiments by the Heidelberg researchers in sterilized soil samples show that the process occurs in natural soils: methanol and then formaldehyde formed through wetting alone – without the addition of iron or reactive oxygen species. Methanol formation also continued through several wetting-drying cycles. It did not occur when the methoxy groups had been deliberately removed in advance. By contrast, considerably less methanol is found in untreated, biologically active soils, as microorganisms rapidly consume it. “Hence it primarily functions as an intermediate product linking abiotic chemistry and microbial metabolism,” Dr. Hädeler says.
“It surprised us that the compounds methanol and formaldehyde can also be released entirely chemically from lignin-rich organic materials,” Prof. Keppler underlines. If they enter the atmosphere, they influence photochemical reactions there and the atmospheric chemistry. Experiments at differing temperatures show that their formation increases with rising temperatures. “What this means in the climate context is something further field studies will have to clarify,” says the Heidelberg earth scientist, whose research focuses on where small carbon compounds like methanol originate from in the environment. Furthermore, the current research findings might be interesting in the near future for using lignin as a by-product of the paper industry.
Also participating in the investigations were, besides the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, the Heidelberg Center for the Environment and the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing of Heidelberg University. The research was funded by the German Research Foundation and in the context of the Max Planck School “Matter to Life”, which is sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space and the Max Planck Society. The results appeared in “Nature Communications”.
DOI
10.1038/s41467-026-76679-x
Article Title
Iron-induced demethoxylation of lignin as an important source for methanol and its oxidation products in the environment
Article Publication Date
13-Aug-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:48:00 +0000

Maynooth University researchers build a world-first DNA computer published in Nature

Maynooth University
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Pictured are three members of the five-person Maynooth University (MU) DNA computing research team: undergraduate researcher Janet Adio, alongside Prof Damien Woods and Dr Abeer Eshra of the Department of Computer Science's Hamilton Institute at MU.
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Credit: Maynooth University

Researchers at Maynooth University (MU) have developed a first-of-its-kind DNA computer, described as one of the most complex and fastest molecular computers yet reported.
The breakthrough, published in the flagship journal Nature, demonstrates a molecular computer made from strands of DNA that can perform multiplication, division and addition. Unlike conventional computers that run on silicon chips, the system is a collection of interacting DNA strands in water without a continuous electricity supply and needing only a little heat to kick-start the computation.
The research points to new possibilities for long-term data storage, energy-efficient computation and, in time, molecular systems that could operate inside cells for applications such as disease detection.
Professor Damien Woods of Maynooth University’s Hamilton Institute said the work opens a new direction for computing: “Silicon-based computers use so much energy – 23% of Ireland’s electricity goes into computing and data storage. We’ve been blinkered by only seeing one type of computer, but there are other examples around us, including our brain.”
Dr Abeer Eshra, Assistant Professor and computer scientist at MU’s Hamilton Institute, who conducted many of the experiments, said: “A small droplet of liquid contains billions, and sometimes trillions, of DNA strands. These strands interact with one another to produce a result.”
MU’s leadership in DNA computing is supported by a €4 million European Innovation Council grant led by Professor Woods. The DISCO project, DNA-based infrastructure for Storage and Computation, aims to develop new ways to compute and store data using DNA technology.
The team created the DNA computer by adding a small drop of water and salt to a test tube, together with short pieces of DNA and a longer DNA scaffold. The recipe is heated and then cooled, allowing the DNA to perform a computation. “The molecules interact, form a structure and that structure is the answer,” said Professor Woods. “One key innovation is that the system naturally finds that answer without needing continuous energy inputs,“ he added.
The researchers ran ten programmes, including 100-bit computations. One experiment added numbers in the range of about 11 million to 34 million taking up to 14 hours to reach a result, while a calculation of 10 plus 3 took only 30 seconds.
The Maynooth University DNA computer was shown to be robust and reusable, performing up to 25 different calculations in a row. “The reaction happens fast in the test tube, but not as fast as silicon, nor is it intended to be. But compared to other DNA computers, ours is the fastest,” said Dr Eshra, joint first author of the Nature study alongside Dr Tristan Stérin. The paper's co-authors also included Senior Research Fellow Dr Constantine Evans and undergraduate researcher Janet Adio.
Prof Woods added that the research is part of a broader effort to explore alternative forms of computing: “This is blue skies science. We don’t know where the future is going to take us.”
Journal
Nature
DOI
10.1038/s41586-026-10996-5
Method of Research
News article
Novel database reveals hidden diversity and potential of deep-sea microbes

Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
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Bioinformatician Greg Gavelis analyzes samples at Bigelow Laboratory.
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Credit: Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences

The ocean’s aphotic zone — the dark, high-pressure region below the surface, where sunlight cannot reach — is home to a vast wealth of microbial life.
Yet scientists know relatively little about the genetic makeup, growth, and function of many of these enigmatic organisms.
To help close that knowledge gap, scientists at Bigelow Laboratory’s Single Cell Genomics Center (SCGC) spearheaded Global Ocean Reference Genomes Dark (GORG-Dark), the first global atlas of single-cell microbes living in the aphotic ocean.
The resource contains more than 9,600 genomes from individual microbial cells collected across a broad range of depths and locations, including the Mariana Trench and the Antarctic — the ocean's deepest and coldest regions.
A new publication in Cell demonstrates the resource's power, using its vast genome collection to uncover surprising insights into the distribution and capabilities of these previously understudied deep-sea microbes.
"By turning uncultivated microorganisms from Earth's largest and least understood habitat into a shared, single-cell-resolved genomic catalog, GORG-Dark gives us a powerful resource to explore microbial ecology, evolution, and biotechnology,” said Tianyi Chang, first author and former postdoctoral researcher at Bigelow Laboratory.
Along with Chang, the study features a broad array of current and former Bigelow Laboratory postdoctoral researchers, including Alaina Weinheimer, Maria Pachiadaki, and Keir Macartney. Postdoctoral researchers having the opportunity to publish their work in a prestigious journal speaks to the strength of postdoctoral training and opportunities at Bigelow Laboratory, which is a core focus of the institution’s education program.
To create GORG-Dark, Bigelow Laboratory’s Center for Aquatic Cytometry isolated individual cells from ocean samples, measured their size, and estimated their DNA content. The team then used technologies and data tools developed by SCGC to sequence individual cells' genomes.
“This approach allows us to link a genome to a specific cell,” said Gregory Gavelis, a bioinformatician at the SCGC. “This precision enables researchers to study, in detail, some of the rarest things in the world.”
The SCGC’s growing wealth of genomic data has contributed to several recent publications, including a recent study revealing shifts in microbial communities as Maine’s kelp forests decline.
GORG-Dark was the second phase of a larger initiative that began with GORG-Tropics, an effort to sequence genomes from microbes living in the sunlit ocean.
Extending the effort into the deep ocean provides a critical baseline for understanding an environment that could face unprecedented changes as human activities move farther down the water column.
“It is critical to understand what’s down there before we change it,” Gavelis said.
Using the new database, the researchers identified unexpected functions and capabilities among some of the ocean’s most abundant microorganisms.
For example, they found widespread genetic potential for chemoautotrophy, a process like photosynthesis, but instead of sunlight, organisms use inorganic chemicals to fuel their growth. They found this capability even among the deepest sampled regions, highlighting the potential importance of deep-sea microbial communities to global carbon and nutrient cycles.
The researchers also identified genes associated with producing specialized compounds with potential pharmaceutical and blue biotechnology applications. These findings offer new opportunities to investigate the deep ocean as a source of discoveries that could improve human health.
“The fact that we were able to use this vast amount of data from across the deep ocean is really exciting,” said Weinheimer, a postdoctoral researcher at Bigelow Laboratory. “It unlocks a lot of research to have individual cellular genomes all the way to the bottom of the sea.”
This groundbreaking work and the GORG-Dark database were made possible by a grant to Bigelow Laboratory from the Simons Foundation, leveraging samples of opportunity collected from multiple collaborators across the globe. SCGC’s founding director, Dr. Ramunas Stepanauskas, led this study, building from his deep expertise in the genomics of the ocean’s microbes since he began working at Bigelow Laboratory in 2005. Now director emeritus of SCGC and an adjunct scientist with Bigelow Laboratory, collaboration on uncovering the diversity and potential of microbial life continues with Stepanauskas in his new role at Aalborg University.
Journal
Cell
DOI
10.1016/j.cell.2026.08.036
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
Reducing excessive boundary-layer mixing helps ocean models recover internal lee waves

Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

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KPP Boundary-Layer Mixing Regulates Nonhydrostatic Internal Lee Waves over a Supercritical Sill
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Credit: Xuefeng Zhang

When stratified ocean currents flow across steep underwater topography, they can generate internal lee waves. These waves help transfer tidal energy into turbulence and mixing, making them an important part of the ocean's internal energy pathway.
However, even high-resolution ocean models cannot resolve every turbulent motion and must rely on parameterizations for unresolved vertical mixing. A new study published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters shows that if this parameterized mixing becomes too strong, it can interfere with wave motions that the model is already capable of resolving.
Using the widely applied K-profile parameterization (KPP), the researchers simulated stratified tidal flow over a supercritical sill. The standard KPP configuration produced strong surface- and bottom-boundary-layer mixing near the sill crest. This weakened local stratification and strongly suppressed the downstream lee-wave signal.
"The key message is not that ocean models should use less mixing everywhere," says Prof. Xuefeng Zhang from Hainan Tropical Ocean University, China, corresponding author of the study. "The problem arises when parameterized boundary-layer mixing becomes strong enough to alter the stratification in the wave-generation region before a resolved lee wave can fully develop."
The lee-wave response was particularly sensitive to the critical bulk Richardson number, Ric. Reducing Ric from 0.3 to 0.03 weakened excessive boundary-layer mixing, partly restored stratification near the sill crest, and produced a much clearer downstream wave signal. By comparison, changes in the empirical turbulent-shear coefficient, Cv, had a much smaller effect within the tested range.
Additional experiments showed that the excessive damping came mainly from the KPP surface and bottom boundary-layer components rather than from its interior mixing formulation. Yet completely removing boundary-layer mixing was not a practical solution. In a realistic shallow-sea simulation, doing so caused insufficient upper-ocean mixing and larger temperature errors. Reducing Ric instead improved the simulated thermal structure while retaining the mixing needed by the regional ocean.
A supplementary inverse physics-informed neural network analysis also recovered a parameter pair close to the reduced-Ric experiment, providing an additional consistency check within the synthetic sensitivity ensemble.
The findings suggest that turbulence parameterizations should be evaluated together with model resolution and the physical processes being explicitly resolved. As ocean models move toward finer scales, excessive subgrid mixing may otherwise smooth out the very dynamics that higher resolution is intended to capture.
Journal
Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters
DOI
10.1016/j.aosl.2026.100886
Article Title
Effects of K-profile parameterization on nonhydrostatic internal lee waves over a supercritical sill: The role of boundary-layer mixing

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:12:10 +0000

Four Host Nations gift SFU's Burnaby campus Indigenous place names

Simon Fraser University
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Signage at Simon Fraser University displaying new Indigenous place names for its campus in Burnaby, British Columbia.
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Credit: Simon Fraser University

“Our language carries our history, our knowledge and our connection to these lands. Seeing these names reflected across Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus is an important recognition of the enduring presence of its Host Nations.”
These words from Chief Wayne Sparrow of the Musqueam Indian Band speak to the significance of the four Host Nations gifting Indigenous place names for the campus and four more culturally significant locations on Burnaby Mountain – believed to be the most extensive collaboration with Host Nations – during a naming ceremony today.
Working in partnership with the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations and Indigenous members of the university community, SFU is grateful to receive and uphold Indigenous names in the two languages spoken by the Host Nations: hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh.
“These names are gifts that carry meaning and responsibility, and we hope they encourage students, faculty, staff and visitors to learn more about the lands they are on and the Nations who have cared for them since time immemorial,” says Sparrow. “We appreciate SFU’s commitment to working in relationship with the Host Nations and to ensuring our languages and histories have a lasting and visible place on campus.”
xʷtatəl̕ləm ʔə ƛ̓ səltaɬ sme:nt / Xwta7ltáw̓txw tl’a Lheḵw’lhúḵw’aytn are the new names for SFU Burnaby campus, meaning “learning place” and “learning house” on Burnaby Mountain in each language, respectively.
“The name Xwta7ltáw̓txw tl’a Lheḵw’lhúḵw’aytn (learning house of Burnaby Mountain) carries both our sníchim (language) and our connection to this land, so that every person who steps onto this campus understands whose territory they stand on,” says Sxwíxwtn Wilson Williams, chairperson, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation). “This gift reflects our relationship with SFU and the decades of shared commitment to education, and this ceremony marks an important step in a partnership we know will only grow stronger into the future.”
"It has been a journey of many years to arrive here, and I am grateful and honoured that today, we are celebrating the gifts of names from the four Host Nations upon which xʷtatəl̕ləm ʔə ƛ̓ səltaɬ sme:nt (hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓) / Xwta7ltáw̓txw tl’a Lheḵw’lhúḵw’aytn (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh), Burnaby campus, sits," says SFU President Joy Johnson.
"Over the course of our conversations with Host Nations and the Indigenous community at SFU, I learned so much about the two languages traditionally spoken by our Host Nations, and SFU's responsibility to continue recognizing their languages, histories and ongoing presence on these lands. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this work and I look forward to hearing these names spoken all across our campus moving forward."
All five locations were identified as significant to Indigenous faculty, staff, students and the community. The place-naming project was led by an Indigenous naming committee, called the SFU Indigenous Naming Family.
"I am deeply honoured by the ongoing partnership between our Nation and Simon Fraser University to bestow hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ names across SFU’s Burnaby campus. In hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓, Burnaby Mountain is known as səltaɬ and is of immense cultural significance to our Nation. Embedding our language and culture here strengthens the presence of səlilwətaɬ across our traditional territory while also sharing valuable knowledge with SFU students, staff, and visitors,” says Chief Justin George, səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation).
“My sincere gratitude goes to Gabriel George Sr., Director of our Language, Culture, and Protocol (LCP) Department, Michelle Goerge, LCP Deputy Director, and their dedicated team for working alongside SFU leadership to bring these names forward. As we approach the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, this important work demonstrates SFU’s meaningful commitment to walking a better path forward alongside the four Host Nations."
At the opening of SFU’s Burnaby campus in 1965, the Host Nations were not engaged or consulted, and their history and connection was not recognized. Today, the university seeks to redress that history and unlock the Indigenous connections and histories across its three campuses and establish an enduring connection between Host Nations and settlers and newcomers by reminding the community of the history where they are situated.
“To my knowledge, I haven’t seen a naming process involving four nations before. This is precedent setting. SFU receiving the gifts of these Indigenous names for key locations on campus ensures Indigenous presence and language are woven into the fabric of the university,” says Chris (Syeta’x̱tn) Lewis, Indigenous Executive Lead at SFU. “They demonstrate that Indigenous people and ways of being belong at SFU. It’s important to understand that names are earned and not given lightly. This is a testament to the relational work the university has done with the Host Nations over the last decade or so.”
This Indigenous naming project supports SFU’s commitment to advance Truth and Reconciliation, a priority under the university’s What’s Next strategic plan, and a meaningful action in partnership with Indigenous peoples to create safe, welcoming places for Indigenous students, staff and faculty to learn, teach and work.
With the Burnaby campus naming work complete, it is our goal to continue this work on our other campuses: Surrey and Vancouver.
To learn more about this initiative, including a video on the significance of this partnership with the four Host Nations and pronunciation guides, visit SFU’s Indigenous Naming website.

New Indigenous names bestowed at SFU

hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓

xʷtatəl̕ləm ʔə ƛ̓ səltaɬ sme:nt
SFU Burnaby Campus
Translation: Learning place of Burnaby Mountain
sƛ̓exənew̓txʷ
First Peoples’ Gathering House
Translation: Feast/local gathering house

q̓pəθətew̓txʷ
Indigenous Student Centre
Translation: Gather house or room
xʷəlməxʷaʔɬ tatəl̕ew̓txʷ
Indigenous Curriculum Resource Centre
Translation: Place of learning of the Indigenous Peoples
spən̓əm
Indigenous Garden
Translation: The garden and what is planted in it

Sḵwx̱wú7mesh

Xwta7ltáw̓txw tl’a Lheḵw’lhúḵw’aytn
SFU Burnaby Campus
Translation: Learning house of Burnaby Mountain
Tl’e7enḵáw̓txw
First Peoples’ Gathering House
Translation: Ceremony house
Ḵxwúsemay̓aḵin
Indigenous Student Centre
Translat
Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:35:29 +0000
Blast exposure in military associated with conditions like seizures, stroke years later

American Academy of Neurology
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Highlights:
- Exposure to high-level blasts among military veterans is associated with an increased risk of conditions such as seizures, neuropathy and stroke years later.
- The study does not prove that exposure to blasts causes these conditions; it only shows an association.
- The study involved 36,641 veterans who had received care at the Veterans Health Administration.
- The findings support monitoring people with high-level blast exposure for the development of cardiovascular, metabolic, neurological and other conditions, according to the study author.
MINNEAPOLIS — Exposure to high-level blasts from incoming explosive devices or land mines among military veterans is associated with an increased risk of several conditions such as seizures, neuropathy and stroke years later, according to a study published September 16, 2026, in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that exposure to blasts causes these conditions; it only shows an association.
“Blast exposure is often viewed through the lens of acute injury and brain health, but our findings reinforce that blast exposure is a whole-body problem with health implications that extend well beyond the time of exposure,” said study author Sarah L. Martindale, PhD, of the Salisbury VA Health Care System in North Carolina. “In this study, veterans with a history of high-level blast exposure were more likely to be diagnosed with a range of neurological, respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic conditions years later.”
The study involved 36,641 veterans who received care at the Veterans Health Administration for at least two years during the study after leaving military service. The participants completed a survey on exposure to blasts and then were followed for up to 10 years. The researchers also looked at participants’ occupations to determine exposure to low-level blasts from outgoing munitions such as heavy artillery or shoulder-fired weapons.
A total of 11% of participants reported exposure to at least one high-level blast and 17% were in an occupation with a high risk of low-level blasts. About 5% had both exposures.
Researchers found that exposure to high-level blasts was associated with increased likelihood of many conditions, including hepatitis B and C, seizures, diabetes, stroke, neuropathy, high cholesterol and the lung diseases chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
For seizures, 3.92% of veterans reported exposure to high-level blasts compared to 1.88% of those with no blast exposure. For neuropathy, prevalence was 11.41% of those with exposure compared to 7.75% of those who did not report blast exposure. For stroke, 2.03% of veterans exposed to high-level blasts compared to 1.62% of those with no exposure.
Once researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect the prevalence of these conditions, such as age, sex and total number of days deployed, they found that veterans with high-level blast exposure were 79% more likely to have a seizure diagnosis, 38% more likely to be diagnosed with neuropathy and 35% more likely to have a stroke diagnosis..
For low-level blast exposure, researchers found that service members were less likely to be diagnosed with conditions such as diabetes, high cholesterol and Crohn’s disease. However, Martindale noted that several factors could have affected these findings, including that many of the participants were relatively young at the start of the study and the follow-up period may not have been long enough for conditions to develop. She said the absence of elevated risk from low-level exposure in this study should not be interpreted as evidence that low-level exposure to blasts has no long-term physical health consequences.
“Understanding a veteran’s history of blast exposure may give us another piece of the puzzle when considering their long-term health risks and how those risks should be monitored over time,” Martindale said.
A limitation of the study was that exposure to high-level blasts was reported by participants and no information was available about the intensity of the blast, type and severity of injuries or treatment. Also, information on diagnosis of conditions was limited to cases documented through the VA health care system after the survey. Diagnoses occurring before the start of the study or outside the VA system were not captured.
The study was supported by the Salisbury VA Health Care System, Naval Health Research Center, VA Puget Sound Health Care System and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine.
Discover more about brain health at BrainHealth.com, a free public resource from the American Academy of Neurology. It offers a website, podcast, and books, connecting you with trusted information from the world’s leading experts in brain health. Follow BrainHealth.com on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
The American Academy of Neurology is the leading voice in brain health. As the world’s largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals with more than 44,000 members, the AAN provides access to the latest news, science and research affecting neurology for patients, caregivers, physicians and professionals alike. The AAN’s mission is to enhance member career fulfillment and promote brain health for all. A neurologist is a doctor who specializes in the diagnosis, care and treatment of brain, spinal cord and nervous system diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, concussion, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, headache and migraine.
Explore the latest in neurological disease and brain health, from the minds at the AAN at AAN.com or find us on Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Journal
Neurology
Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:34:16 +0000
Gender representation key to women’s job interest, study suggests

The research comprised analyses of a series of questionnaire experiments

Emory University
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Women make up about half the U.S. population, yet remain in the minority in many professions, such as politics, technology, science and academia.
A key reason for this disparity is that women prefer to work in fields with more female representation, suggests new research by psychologists at Emory University. The journal PLOS One published the findings.
The research comprised analyses of a series of questionnaire experiments, including some involving hypothetical advertisements for employment.
The results showed the effect of gender demographics on responses of participants was robust, particularly among women. Women were more likely to express interest in jobs portrayed as having more female representation — even when the required abilities specified by the ads were ones stereotypically associated with men.
“Some people may think of gender representation as mostly symbolic — that it’s simply nice for women to see themselves represented in a field,” says Stella Lourenco, Emory professor of psychology and first author of the study. “What we found is that gender representation is more consequential. It is perhaps a primary reason women decide whether to enter a particular occupation in the first place.”
Co-authors of the study include Arber Tasimi, Emory assistant professor of psychology; Kylee Novick, who did the work as an Emory undergraduate student of psychology and has since graduated; and Ryno Kruger, who worked on the project as an Emory graduate student and is currently an assistant professor of psychology at Brigham Young University.
Lingering disparities
One hundred years ago, most women in the United States did not work outside the home. Their workplace presence kept growing over the decades, however, as societal norms changed and more doors began opening for the female sex.
By 2023, 77% of prime working-age women held jobs outside the home, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Women have forged careers in many fields where their numbers were once few. And yet, large disparities in gender representation remain in many crucial sectors.
Research has shown that an array of factors likely account for this phenomenon.
‘Brilliance’ vs ‘dedication’
Recent work, for instance, supports the field-specific ability beliefs (FAB) theory. FAB posits that female underrepresentation in a field may reflect societal stereotypes that link men, but not women, with “brilliance,” or intrinsic aptitude. In this scenario, women may feel unwelcome in fields believed to emphasize brilliance, such as philosophy, economics and science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
On the flip side, FAB posits that women may feel more welcome in fields such as education and nursing, reflecting a stereotype that women are better suited to fields perceived to require more dedication and diligence than brilliance.
Research has also delved into potential impacts on women’s career choices of what has been called “masculinity contest culture.” The term applies to fields, such as technology, perceived to emphasize stereotypical male traits of aggressiveness, assertiveness, independence, ambition and competitiveness.
“We wanted to tease out to what extent current gender representation matters to women’s career preferences,” Lourenco says. “Does it matter more than perceptions about what it takes to succeed in a particular field and the workplace culture associated with it?”
Inherent beliefs
The researchers recruited U.S. participants for a series of studies on the online testing platform Prolific. A total of 1,680 adults, ages 18 to 64, participated, including 851 women and 829 men.
In the first study, a group of participants were presented with an occupation and asked to use a sliding scale to estimate the gender ratio within that occupation. The results showed that participants’ average estimates significantly correlated with actual gender representation across 60 different fields.
To assess their inherent beliefs about these fields, participants were asked to respond to a series of statements on a sliding scale, from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Examples of these statements include:
- “This job requires a special aptitude that just can’t be taught.”
- “With the appropriate training and resources, I feel like I would belong in this occupation.”
- “In this job, one person’s loss is another person’s gain.”
They were also asked to respond on a sliding scale of “not at all similar” to “very similar” to the question:
- “How similar do you think you are to the other people who hold this occupation?”
Analysis of the results largely supported previous research, suggesting that beliefs about brilliance, dedication and the culture of the workplace contribute to people’s interest in different jobs. Women showed a preference for jobs associated with dedication; while men showed a preference for those emphasizing brilliance and competition.
The results also extended the work by showing the importance of perceived gender demographics, particularly among women. The greater the expected female representation, the higher women’s anticipated belonging, even after accounting for effects of FAB and, in some cases, for masculinity contest culture and ratings of their feelings of similarity to prototypical characteristics of individuals within the field.
Hypothetical ads
In a separate study, participants were presented with hypothetical job advertisements that either emphasized the need for brilliance or dedication in the role. The ads also provided explicit information about the male-female distribution in each job. Participants were asked to rate their interest in applying for each position and their anticipated sense of belonging if they got the job.
Strikingly, anticipated belonging among women participants was even higher for a female-dominated job that emphasized brilliance compared to a male-dominated job that emphasized dedication.
In this experiment, men’s ratings of an anticipated sense of belong for hypothetical jobs were largely unaffected by either messaging of brilliance versus dedication or by gender representation.
Percentage matters
In another study, the researchers did a quantitative test of how gender demographics may shape interest and a sense of belonging for future employment. Participants were presented with hypothetical job advertisements that included the ratio of male versus female colleagues.
The higher the ratio of women in the female-dominated jobs, the stronger the women’s ratings were for belonging. Men also expressed greater anticipated belonging for jobs with their gender majority, although they showed less variation in anticipated belonging as a function of gender ratio.
A self-reinforcing cycle
Throughout the studies, women’s responses consistently placed a higher value on female representation compared to other variables in the job advertisements.
“One hypothesis is that gender representation may be a proxy for workplace climate,” Lourenco says, signaling expectations about support, inclusivity and competitiveness.
For example, she says, women may believe that fields represented by fewer women are also more likely to be fields with masculine-stereotyped competitive culture.
“Gender representation is often spoken of simply as a result of women choosing not to work in a particular field,” Lourenco adds. “Our work suggests that gender representation is also an important underlying cause of fewer women choosing to work in certain fields. It’s really a self-reinforcing cycle. Today’s gender representation likely plays a role in shaping tomorrow’s gender representation.”
The work was funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.
Journal
PLOS One
DOI
NATURE IS AN ANARCHIST
Rich neighborhoods more likely to burn

Wealthy enclaves at higher risk, but bounce back faster

University of California - Riverside
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Firefighters battling a blaze that consumed a house.
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Credit: Ada Be

Frequently located on hillsides and in canyons surrounded by wildlands, rich neighborhoods are more likely to catch fire. However, a UC Riverside study shows they are also likely to recover faster than lower-income areas.
Unlike most fire research focused on wildland blazes or single catastrophic events, the UCR study represents one of the most comprehensive looks at the unique dynamics of fires in cities.
Published in the journal NPJ Urban Sustainability, the study examined 141 fires across the U.S. going back to 1984. Combining these records with population, development, climate, and demographic data offered a more in-depth understanding of the lead-up to and aftermath of fires.
The results show that risk of fire in cities is not distributed randomly. “These urban fires consistently occur in suburban, high-income, owner-occupied development,” said UCR postdoctoral researcher in urban ecology and study author Dion Kucera. “That hasn’t changed in more than 40 years.”
According to the study, neighborhoods with substantially higher median incomes had about 30% higher odds of fire exposure.
One of the study's most critical findings for city planners is what precedes these fires. It’s not long-term drought, but rather a short, intense drying of the environment in the six months prior. “That suggests three- to six-month moisture measures may be more important for city managers trying to identify periods of heightened risk, rather than longer-term drought assessments,” Kucera said.
Once a neighborhood burns, recovery can be slow. The researchers measured whether vegetation and surface temperatures returned to their pre-fire ranges during the following five years. For most places, they did not.
About 78% of severely burned areas failed to return to their pre-fire temperature range within five years, while 73% failed to recover their previous level of greenness. In general, burned urban areas became hotter and less green, with the effects persisting for years.
Income emerged as an important factor in recovery as well. Higher-income neighborhoods tended to recover their pre-fire temperatures more quickly and experienced smaller losses in vegetation.
The results suggest that understanding urban fire requires looking at the social characteristics of the places that burn. With these factors in mind, the researchers found important regional differences. Nationally, neighborhoods with higher proportions of white residents had lower odds of experiencing fire. In California and other dry parts of the West, however, that relationship was reversed, with white as well as Black populations experiencing greater odds of exposure.
The study also found that urban fires behave differently from fires in wildlands. While wildland fires have been growing both larger and more frequent, the number of fires reaching urban areas did not show a clear increase over the study period.
There was, however, evidence that the amount of urban land burned is increasing. The trend was heavily influenced by especially destructive fire years, suggesting that extreme years may be driving greater losses even without an increase in the overall number of fires.
These findings could have implications for how communities prepare for fire and how insurers assess risk, though the study did not examine insurance markets directly. Kucera said additional research should explore those questions.
More broadly, he argues that scientists need to stop treating fires that enter developed areas as simply extensions of wildland fire. Cities have their own patterns of exposure and recovery, shaped by where people build, who lives there, and the resources they have available.
“The urban fire problem isn’t just structured by climate like it is in wildlands,” Kucera said. “Adapting to the growing intensity of urban fires requires looking beyond the forest and into the social fabric of our cities.”
Journal
npj Urban Sustainability
DOI
10.1038/s42949-026-00455-5
Article Title
Increasing burned area and unequal ecological recovery in U.S. urban-intersecting fires

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:27:45 +0000

BIDEN DEEP STATE
US officials suppressed warnings over flawed covid vaccine safety algorithm

Investigation reignites questions about what steps were taken to safeguard public health from any unintended consequences of the vaccination rollout

BMJ Group
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US health officials knowingly relied on a compromised algorithm to detect signals of harm from mRNA covid-19 vaccines and silenced efforts to fix it, finds an investigation published by The BMJ today.

The findings are based on government emails released under the Freedom of Information Act and in response to US Senate investigators, as well as exclusive interviews with public health officials and other scientists by investigative journalist David Willman.

Before rolling out covid-19 vaccines in December 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assured healthcare professionals and the public that its Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) could quickly spot any potentially harmful reactions following vaccination.

The CDC planned to use two “data mining” techniques: “proportional reporting ratios” (PRRs) and an “empirical bayesian” method provided by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which operated VAERS jointly with the CDC. The two agencies planned to share and discuss results.

But according to a letter by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, the agency did not perform PRR analyses until 2022, and both CDC and FDA “chose to rely” entirely on FDA’s bayesian method.
The BMJ can reveal that the FDA’s algorithm failed to signal a potential relationship between mRNA covid vaccination and myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), pericarditis (inflammation of the fluid-filled sac around the heart), Bell’s palsy, tinnitus, and other reported disorders owing to a flaw in the detection methodology.
The problem arose because over 90% of initial VAERS reports were for the new mRNA covid vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna. If both vaccines elevated the risk of an adverse event like myocarditis in roughly equal amounts, however, the “observed” frequency and “expected” frequency would be similar, resulting in no automated alert.
Internal records show that FDA officials were aware of this limitation before and during the pandemic. Government documents also show that CDC officials were informed during rollout of the vaccines.
In early 2021, FDA medical officer Dr Ana Szarfman, working with statistician William DuMouchel, who had developed the bayesian algorithm, warned top officials about the flaw and proposed an updated algorithm that flagged signals. But Szarfman was asked to “cease and desist.” Meanwhile, officials continued to cite the lack of system alerts while reassuring clinicians and the public of the vaccines' safety.
When the CDC finally ran PRR analyses in 2022, CDC director Walensky said results revealed “no additional unexpected safety signals.” Yet the analyses - examined by The BMJ - show hundreds of adverse events that met the agency’s alert criteria, including myocarditis, pericarditis, Bell’s palsy, and tinnitus, which the FDA’s bayesian method had not triggered.
In October 2023, the FDA’s pharmacovigilance chief acknowledged in an email to colleagues that the agency knew - as the vaccines had rolled out more than two years earlier - of the detection deficiency, but did not respond to requests for comment.
Approached by The BMJ, Szarfman insisted that she had not sought to undermine public support for the covid vaccines. Expressing frustration, she noted, “Very few people understand the statistics. That’s the problem.”
DuMouchel said he could not explain officials’ resistance to switch to the updated method, stating, “I think that they were wrong.” He also regretted that FDA officials rejected Szarfman's proposed fixes for VAERS, adding, “If they had paid attention to Ana, they would have done better.”
Journal
The BMJ
DOI
10.1136/bmj-2026-100806
Method of Research
News article
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
US officials knew covid vaccine safety system was flawed—but suppressed the FDA doctor who alerted them
Article Publication Date
16-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 01:18:30 +0000

KAIST develops microbially produced adhesive materials from glucose instead of petroleum

Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee's team (Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering) engineered the metabolic pathways of E. coli to produce polymers from glucose for adhesive applications

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
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Schematic summary of the study
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Credit: KAIST

KAIST researchers have demonstrated the potential of using microorganisms to produce a bio-based alternative to petroleum-derived materials for hot-melt adhesives. These heat-activated glues are widely used in packaging, furniture, electronics, and automobiles. Using Escherichia coli, the team produced a new polymer from glucose and demonstrated adhesive performance and thermal properties that support its potential use as a hot-melt adhesive.
KAIST (President Choongsik Bae) announced on September 17 that a research team led by Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering developed a microbial cell factory by engineering E. coli to produce the new aromatic polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) polymers from glucose for adhesive applications.
The research team applied systems metabolic engineering, an approach that redesigns a microorganism's overall metabolism to produce a target compound, to re-engineer the metabolic pathways of E. coli. Through this approach, the researchers successfully produced two new adhesive materials from glucose, poly(4HB-co-PhLA) and poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA), both belonging to the PHA family of biodegradable polymers.
Adhesives are essential materials used in a wide range of industries, including packaging materials, electronics, automobiles, and construction materials. In particular, hot-melt adhesives (HMAs) are solid adhesives that are melted with heat for bonding and then solidify as they cool. Because they do not require separate organic solvents and enable rapid bonding, they are widely used in industry.
However, most hot-melt adhesives currently in use are based on petroleum-derived polymers such as ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA). Although they offer excellent adhesive performance, most do not readily degrade in nature and can cause waste and microplastic problems. In particular, even when biodegradable packaging materials are used, if the adhesive does not degrade, the biodegradability and recyclability of the entire product may be reduced.
To address this problem, the research team focused on PHA, a type of biodegradable plastic produced by microorganisms. PHA can be produced by microorganisms using renewable feedstocks such as glucose. It also has the advantage that properties such as polymer flexibility, strength, and heat resistance can be adjusted in various ways depending on which components are included and in what proportions.
Using this principle, the research team incorporated 4-hydroxybutyrate (4HB) and phenyllactate (PhLA) into a single polymer. 4HB contributes to the material’s softness and adhesion, while PhLA increases the material’s rigidity and heat resistance. When the research team varied the relative proportions of the two components, the thermal properties and adhesive performance of the polymers also changed. In particular, polymers containing approximately 24–34 mol% 4HB showed excellent adhesive performance.
The research team designed intracellular metabolic pathways so that E. coli consumes glucose, produces 4HB and PhLA on its own, and then links them together into polymers.
To address metabolic imbalances that arise when multiple monomers are produced simultaneously, the team adjusted the strength and timing of gene expression, added a CoA transferase to facilitate the reactions, and used a genome-scale metabolic model to identify and optimize metabolic pathways associated with insufficient precursor supply and production bottlenecks.
As a result, through fed-batch fermentation, in which nutrients are continuously supplied during microbial cultivation, the team successfully produced 10.2 g of poly(4HB-co-PhLA) per liter of culture medium. By additionally introducing a biosynthetic pathway for producing 3HB, the team successfully produced up to 52.8 g/L of poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA).
The research team also tested whether the produced polymers could be used as hot-melt adhesives.
In a lap shear adhesion test using stainless steel as the substrate, poly(4HB-co-PhLA) recorded a lap-shear strength of 4.58 MPa. This is higher than the 4.20 MPa achieved by a commercial EVA adhesive. Poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA) also showed performance comparable to EVA in a wood adhesion test.
In addition, poly(4HB-co-PhLA) retained a substantial level of adhesive strength even after repeated melting and rebonding. The incorporation of the PhLA component improved heat resistance.
Furthermore, after treatment with lipase, an enzyme that breaks down fats, surface damage to the polymers was observed, while the molecular weight and overall mass of the polymers also decreased. These results indicate that the newly developed aromatic PHA can be degraded by enzymes.
This study is significant not only for the development of an eco-friendly adhesive but also for demonstrating the potential of metabolic engineering to produce functional materials with tunable properties. Going forward, this approach could be extended into a biomanufacturing technology that tunes polymer properties, such as adhesion strength, flexibility, and heat resistance, to meet specific application needs, and produces such materials using microorganisms.
The approach also makes it possible to produce functional polymers that have traditionally been produced through petrochemical processes, from renewable feedstocks such as glucose instead. This is expected to serve as a sustainable production technology not only for adhesives but for a wide range of functional polymer materials going forward.
Distinguished Professor Sang Yup Lee said, “This study demonstrates that by engineering microbial metabolism, it is possible to go beyond simply producing polymers and directly produce functional materials,” adding, “In the future, by utilizing various non-natural monomers and microbial cell factories, this approach could be expanded into biomanufacturing technologies for the sustainable production not only of petroleum-based adhesive alternatives but also of a wide range of functional polymers.”
The study, co-authored by Ph.D. student Minju Kang, Dr. Youngjoon Lee, and Dr. Gi Bae Kim of the KAIST Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, was published online on July 20 in the international journal Nature Communications.
※ Paper title: Synthesis of poly(4HB-co-PhLA) and poly(3HB-co-4HB-co-PhLA) as sustainable hot-melt adhesives using engineered Escherichia coli. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-75809-9
※ Author information: Minju Kang (KAIST), Youngjoon Lee (KAIST), Gi Bae Kim (KAIST), Sang Yup Lee (KAIST, corresponding author)
This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea through a grant funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. (Grant No. 2022M3J5A1056117).
Aged microplastics can reshape how pharmaceuticals break down during wastewater treatment
Surface radicals on weathered plastic particles accelerate carbamazepine degradation in UV-based treatment systems, but may also increase the formation of some more toxic intermediate products

Shenyang Agricultural University Collaborative Journals
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Oxidant-dependent carbamazepine transformation: how aged microplastics modulate degradation pathways in UV-AOPs
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Credit: Yuhui Wang, Xiaochao Zhou, Zhenyang Xu, Hang Liu, Xiaohui Wang, & Tingting Zhang

Microplastics in wastewater may do more than simply carry pollutants. A new study shows that aged microplastics can actively alter the chemical reactions used to remove pharmaceutical contaminants during advanced wastewater treatment, accelerating pollutant degradation while also changing the abundance of potentially harmful transformation products.
Researchers investigated how aged polyamide microplastics affect the breakdown of carbamazepine, a widely used pharmaceutical frequently detected in surface water, wastewater, and even drinking water. The team examined three ultraviolet-based advanced oxidation processes, known as UV/PMS, UV/H₂O₂, and UV/Cl, which use ultraviolet light and oxidants to generate highly reactive chemical species that destroy organic contaminants.
“Our results show that aged microplastics should not always be regarded as passive particles during wastewater treatment,” said corresponding author Xiaohui Wang of Beijing University of Chemical Technology. “Their aged surfaces can participate in chemical reactions, increase the production of reactive species, and ultimately influence both pollutant removal and the products formed during treatment.”
The researchers found that aging caused environmentally persistent free radicals, or EPFRs, to develop on the surface of polyamide microplastics. These surface radicals promoted electron transfer and enhanced the formation of reactive species, particularly hydroxyl radicals and singlet oxygen.
As a result, aged microplastics increased the observed degradation rate constant of carbamazepine by 1.2 to 1.8 times across the three treatment systems. The largest relative enhancement occurred in the UV/Cl system, where the degradation rate constant increased by about 1.8 times.
However, faster disappearance of the original pharmaceutical does not necessarily mean lower environmental risk.
Using mass spectrometry, the researchers identified numerous transformation products and found that aged microplastics increased the abundance of several intermediates. The fundamental degradation pathways remained broadly similar, involving reactions such as hydroxylation, oxidation, ring condensation, and ring cleavage, but the distribution of the resulting products changed.
Toxicity modeling further indicated that some transformation products were more toxic to aquatic organisms than the original carbamazepine molecule. In particular, TP 194 showed substantially higher acute and chronic toxicity, while several other intermediates were classified as harmful or toxic. Structural analysis suggested that removal of the amide group, hydroxyl substitution, and formation of unsaturated rings could contribute to increased toxicity.
The study also showed that wastewater chemistry matters. Nitrate promoted carbamazepine degradation in all three systems, while bicarbonate and humic acid generally inhibited it. The influence of chloride depended on its concentration and the oxidation system being used.
The findings highlight the need to consider microplastics as chemically active components of wastewater treatment environments, rather than inert contaminants. They also suggest that evaluating treatment efficiency solely by measuring the disappearance of a parent pollutant may overlook changes in transformation-product toxicity.
The authors note that the experiments were conducted under controlled laboratory conditions and used only polyamide microplastics. Future studies will need to test a broader range of plastics and verify these effects in complex, environmentally realistic waters.

===
Journal reference: Wang Y, Zhou X, Xu Z, Liu H, Wang X, et al. 2026. Oxidant-dependent carbamazepine transformation: how aged microplastics modulate degradation pathways in UV-AOPs. New Contaminants 2: e024 doi: 10.48130/newcontam-0026-0021
https://www.maxapress.com/article/doi/10.48130/newcontam-0026-0021
===
About the Journal:
New Contaminants (e-ISSN 3069-7603) is an open-access journal focusing on research related to emerging pollutants and their remediation.
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Journal
New Contaminants
Summit heralds growth of movement to reframe aging into health care, agetech, financial services

The Gerontological Society of America
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A September 16 summit hosted by the National Center to Reframe Aging — the leader of the movement to transform how we think and talk about aging — brought together thought leaders, federal representatives, and professionals across multiple sectors who are reshaping the narrative around aging to improve health and well-being across the lifespan.
Nearly 1,000 in-person and virtual attendees convened at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, for Summit 2026: The Movement to Reframe Aging.
Several panels shared the successful outcomes from partnerships across the aging services network and state multisector plans on aging, while presenters also identified a roadmap for reaching new sectors. These include health care, where communication shapes how people understand aging, health, capacity, and care, and can influence decisions and outcomes; technology and agetech, where the people designing products and services make choices about who they are for and what they communicate about people at different ages; and financial services, which can help people plan for opportunity, work, contribution, and well-being across longer lives.
National Center Executive Director Patricia M. “Trish” D'Antonio, BSPharm, MS, MBA, BCGP, said that people are finding better ways to communicate, organizations are using reframing as a strategy, and a more complete story of aging is becoming part of the institutions that shape our lives.
“What we are doing is working. Reframing aging is a communication strategy that organizations in many sectors can apply to improve understanding and advance better outcomes for all of us as we age. And when one sector uses that strategy well, it creates examples, language, and momentum that another sector can adopt,” D’Antonio said. “They may come with a communication challenge: reaching a broader audience, improving a service, explaining an initiative, or showing the value of a program or product. That is our opportunity.”
Rani Snyder, MPA, the president of The John A. Hartford Foundation, delivered the summit’s keynote and announced two new awards. Presented by the National Center to Reframe Aging and sponsored by The John A. Hartford Foundation, the Reframing Aging Journalism and Culture Impact Awards will recognize excellence in reporting and storytelling that shape how aging is understood. The awards honor journalists, editors, storytellers, and organizations advancing accurate, productive narratives that counter stereotypes and reflect meaningful lives as we age.
“These awards will showcase journalism and organizational initiatives that demonstrate the power of accurate, productive communication about aging,” said Rani E. Snyder, president of The John A. Hartford Foundation. “Elevating successful approaches inspires others to adopt reframing aging principles and contribute to stronger policies, programs and communities for all of us as we age.”
Nominations for the awards will open in mid-2027.
###
The National Center to Reframe Aging leads the movement to transform how we think and talk about aging. As the architect of proven communication strategies, the National Center equips organizations and individuals with actionable resources to advance initiatives that benefit us all as we age. Led by the Gerontological Society of America, the National Center acts on behalf of and amplifies efforts of the Leaders of Aging Organizations collective. Support for the National Center comes from The John A. Hartford Foundation and The SCAN Foundation.
The Gerontological Society of America (GSA), founded in 1945, is the oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization focused on aging. It serves more than 6,000 members in over 60 countries. GSA’s vision, meaningful lives as we age, is supported by its mission to foster excellence, innovation, and collaboration to advance aging research, education, practice, and policy. GSA is home to the National Academy on an Aging Society (a nonpartisan public policy institute) and the National Center to Reframe Aging.

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:06:45 +0000

Study challenges estimates used to guide Atlantic menhaden fishing

Reanalysis of a historic tagging study could help managers better balance commercial harvests with the needs of coastal food webs

University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science
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Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) form large schools in the Atlantic Ocean and bay areas. Photo: NOAA Fisheries
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Credit: NOAA Fisheries

Virginia Key, Fl. — Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) supports a major commercial fishery along the U.S. East Coast and serves as essential prey for fishes, seabirds, and marine mammals, may be less able to sustain fishing pressure than some assessments suggest. A new study finds that a key estimate of deaths from natural causes was substantially overstated, potentially making the population appear more productive than its biology supports.
Led by Jerald Ault, professor emeritus at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, with co-author Jiangang Luo, a scientist at the Rosenstiel School’s Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, the study revisits a landmark federal tagging experiment. The research, published in the journal Fisheries Research, examines how historical records and assumptions about tag recovery influence estimates used to guide fisheries management.
Why it matters
Managers rely on population assessments to determine how much fishing a species can sustain. A central input is natural mortality, the rate at which fish die from causes other than fishing. Setting that rate too high can underestimate fishing’s impact and overestimate the size of the breeding population, leading to overly optimistic harvest advice.
“Getting this number right matters for both the fishery and the coastal ecosystems that depend on menhaden,” said Ault. “If natural mortality is set too high, the population can appear able to support more fishing than its biology allows.”
The researchers estimated a natural mortality rate of 0.50 per year, less than half the 1.17 estimate reported in a 2019 reanalysis by Liljestrand et al., which was incorporated into the SEDAR 69 benchmark stock assessment by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. The new result was also substantially below the corrected value of 0.92 adopted in a 2025 stock assessment update.
Ault and Luo returned to original records from a federal tagging program conducted from 1966 through 1971 along the Atlantic coast, from Massachusetts to Florida. The experiment involved more than 1 million tagged menhaden and more than 100,000 recovered tags.
Over approximately three years, they reconstructed two versions of the historical data, checked release and recovery counts, rebuilt fishing-effort records and examined how tags were detected at fish-processing plants.
“Our investigation identified discrepancies involving the numbers of released and recovered tagged fish, reconstruction of historical fishing effort, treatment of tag-detection efficiency at processing plants, and aspects of the statistical model,” said Ault.
A critical issue was the performance of magnets used to recover metal tags from harvested fish. Detection varied widely among plants and over time. After correcting the underlying records, the researchers found that accounting for this variation was the principal reason their mortality estimate differed from earlier analyses.
Models that allowed tag-detection efficiency to vary by location and month better matched the recovery records. Both reconstructed datasets produced natural mortality estimates near 0.50 per year. Additional computer simulations tested uncertainty in the assumptions, with the best-fitting results consistently supporting a similar value.
The estimate also aligned with earlier research and biological evidence showing that Atlantic menhaden historically lived at least 10 years.
The findings concern a historical estimate, rather than a newly observed change in survival. The authors recommend that future assessments evaluate natural mortality values centered at 0.50 per year while accounting for uncertainty. The study does not establish a new catch limit.
“If natural mortality is high, fishing appears to account for a smaller share of population change. If it is closer to 0.5, as this study and earlier historical estimates suggest, fishing may account for a larger share of the losses,” added Ault. “For a species that is both heavily harvested and ecologically central, that distinction matters not only to the menhaden fishery but to the many managed predators that rely on menhaden.”
The study titled “Investigation of Atlantic menhaden mortality rates” was published on September 16, 2026 in the journal Fisheries Research. The authors are Jerald S. Ault and Jiangang Luo of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School.
About the University of Miami and Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science
The University of Miami is a private research university and academic health system with a distinct geographic capacity to connect institutions, individuals, and ideas across the hemisphere and around the world. The University’s vibrant academic community comprises 12 schools and colleges serving more than 19,000 undergraduate and graduate students in more than 180 majors and programs. Located within one of the most dynamic and multicultural cities in the world, the University is building new bridges across geographic, cultural, and intellectual borders, bringing a passion for scholarly excellence, a spirit of innovation, and a commitment to tackling the challenges facing our world. The University of Miami is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU).
Founded in 1943, the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science is one of the world’s premier research institutions in the continental United States. The School’s basic and applied research programs seek to improve understanding and prediction of Earth’s geological, oceanic, and atmospheric systems by focusing on four key pillars:
*Saving lives through better forecasting of extreme weather and seismic events.
*Feeding the world by developing sustainable wild fisheries and aquaculture programs.
*Unlocking ocean secrets through research on climate, weather, energy and medicine.
*Preserving marine species, including endangered sharks and other fish, as well as protecting and restoring threatened coral reefs. www.earth.miami.edu.

Journal
Fisheries Research

The depths of the ocean aren’t immune to human debris

A survey of the never-before-seen sea floor of a submarine canyon found plastic and other waste, indicating that it is not as distant as it may seem

PLOS
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Examples of deep-sea litter found in the Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon. (A) Medium-sized plastic wrapper, 2,109 m. (B) Rubber boot, 2,598 m. (C) Food wrapper, 1,920 m. (D) Snack wrapper, 3,231 m. (E) Tissue paper wrapper, 3,814 m. (F) Sediment-filled plastic bag, 3,739 m. (G) Highly degraded plastic fragment, 3,709 m. (H) Nylon cord with a hook, 1,949 m. (I) White plastic cup and bag (arrows), 3,243 m. Scale bars: 10 cm. All images courtesy of Schmidt Ocean Institute/ ROV SuBastian (CC BY 4.0), expedition FKt250712.
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Credit: Teso et al., 2026, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

It’s no secret that plastic and other human trash are a problem for marine life, but our understanding has long focused on the ocean’s surface. Now, a more complete picture is coming into focus, revealing that even some of our planet’s greatest depths have become home to our debris. As described in a study published on September 16, 2026 in the open access journal PLOS One, an international team led by Dr. Daniel Lauretta of Argentina’s natural science museum surveyed the Mar Del Plata Submarine Canyon in the southwestern Atlantic, finding that our trash has accumulated in a part of the planet we typically consider pristine.
The ocean’s depths remain one of Earth’s greatest unknowns, but as the fish swims—or as the debris sinks—the sea floor is not all that distant. On average, our oceans are just a few miles deep, and thus, not so far from human influence. This study, which took place in summer of 2025, marked the first time scientists had taken images of the seafloor within the Mar Del Plata Submarine Canyon. They documented approximately 40 species that may be new to science but also some more familiar sights.
Across 10 of the 17 dives with a remotely operated submersible, the researchers saw 29 identifiably manmade objects. The vast majority were plastic, along with a few rubber items. They ranged from fishing gear to plastic bags and food wrappers and even a boot. Some were buried in the sediment, while others were trapped in rocks or still drifting. The researchers observed more litter inside the canyon compared to the surrounding area, suggesting the geography and currents funneled these items into the fissure.
Researchers observed some animals also interacted with the waste. Mobile creatures like crustaceans had transient interactions while more stationary creatures—like starfish and corals—had attached to some debris, often partially subsumed plastic packaging and fishing ropes. Though life was present, the team cautioned that we can’t assume these objects are suitable habitats.
This is not the only time scientists have found traces of our trash so far below the surface. Just a few months before the expeditions in the Mar Del Plata Submarine Canyon, a plastic bag was found in the Mariana Trench, the planet’s deepest fissure. The sinking of organic material is essential to life beyond the reaches of sunlight, but this new study adds to emerging evidence that nutrients aren’t the only matter pulled to the ocean floor.
The authors add: "Unveiling a species previously unknown to science in the endless darkness of the deep sea may be one of the most extraordinary experiences a marine biologist can have."

Author interview: https://plos.io/4ys71Nz
In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/3UwaXhS
Citation: Teso V, Urteaga D, Bozzano G, Bigatti G, Brogger MI, Brusa F, et al. (2026) Out of sight, hidden into the deep: Marine litter in the Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon (southwestern Atlantic) revealed by ROV survey. PLoS One 21(9): e0357098. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0357098
Author countries: Argentina, Ecuador, USA.
Funding: The oceanographic expedition FKt250712 was funded by the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI), the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census Programme (https://oceancensus.org/), CORDAP Coral Accelerator Program under Award No. CAP-2023–1502, and the AZARA Foundation. Funding was also provided by PICT 2020-1169 (Agencia I+D+I), PICT 2020-1215 (Agencia I+D+I), PIBAA 2022-0410 (CONICET), PIBAA 2022-0433 (CONICET), PIP 2022-0277 (CONICET), and Fundación ProyectoSub. All funders have no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Harvesting hot electrons could break solar panel barrier

University of Groningen
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The visual abstract of the paper in ACS Energy Letters, showing how two synergetic effects create a delay in the loss of energy from hot electrons:
1) The Hot Phonon Bottleneck
2) Band-filling, resulting in the Burnstein-Moss effect

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Credit: ACS Energy Letters

Physics predicts that no more than 33 percent of the solar energy that falls on a solar panel can be converted into electricity. However, experiments and simulations by scientists at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) revealed a way to harvest extra energy from ‘hot electrons’, which could break this barrier.
When light falls on a solar panel, the energy of the photons brings electrons in the solar cell material into an excited state, thus transferring the energy to them. This reaction can free an electron from the solar cell material and create a voltage.
However, very energetic photons give the electrons extra energy, producing ‘hot electrons’. In theory, the extra energy these hot electrons carry could increase the voltage. In practice, the extra energy is lost as heat in a matter of picoseconds (0,000000000001 second). ‘This means that the energy is lost before the hot electron exits the solar cell material’, says Jan Anton Koster, Professor of Physics of Novel Semiconductors and Devices at the University of Groningen.
Scepticism about the claims
However, in an experimental setup, his colleague Maria Antonietta Loi, professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics, managed to produce a delay in heat loss by hot electrons. She created a solar cell material called tin-based perovskite, and observed that the loss of extra energy is slowed down to nanoseconds, roughly a factor of 1,000. ‘The measurements were clear, but we didn’t understand the physics behind this’, says Koster. This led others in the field to question this claim. ‘We even started to doubt the measurements ourselves’, he admits.
In order to solve this conundrum, Koster and his PhD student Tim Faber used simulations to study the physics of this energy loss. They found that in perovskite solar cells, two different mechanisms combine to extend the time it takes hot electrons to lose the extra energy.
Nanosecond range
When energy is lost as heat, the environment surrounding the electrons will become warmer. Koster and Faber realised that this lingering heat can be reabsorbed by the electrons. ‘When we added this well-known process called Hot Phonon Bottleneck to the simulations, it slowed the loss of energy, but not enough to explain our measurements.’ This required adding a second mechanism to the simulation.
The extra energy of hot electrons can bring them into a number of excited states. Energy loss means that the excited state is reduced to a lower energy level in discrete steps. However, when the different steps in this process are already occupied, the way down to the lowest energy level is more difficult and takes more time. This is called the Burstein-Moss effect. Koster: ‘When we added this process to the simulation as well, we saw that energy loss was now in the nanosecond range, as seen in the experiments by Maria Loi.’
As both of these processes are present in tin-based perovskite solar cells, Koster and his team finally understood why the energy loss of hot electrons was slowed down. There are many other questions that still need answers, but in theory, this discovery could allow the creation of more efficient solar cells, beyond the theoretical limit of 33 percent.
Reference: Tim Faber et al.: The Physics of Ultra-Long Cooling Times in Metal Halide Perovskites. ACS Energy Letters, 11 September 2026.
Journal
ACS Energy Letters
DOI
10.1021/acsenergylett.6c00547
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
The Physics of Ultra-Long Cooling Times in Metal Halide Perovskites

Conserving just 35% of U.S. waterways could sustain freshwater biodiversity

Study evaluated resilience and protected status of rivers and streams across the contiguous US

PLOS
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The Ashuelot River in New Hampshire drains over 400 square miles of mostly forest and forested wetlands before meeting the Connecticut River.
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Credit: Jerry Monkman/ Ecophotography, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

By evaluating the health of waterways across the US, researchers have identified about one-third of rivers and streams that, if conserved and restored, could sustain the nation’s freshwater biodiversity in the face of habitat degradation and climate change. Mark Anderson of the Nature Conservancy, US, led the new study, published September 16, 2026, in the open access journal PLOS One.
During the past century, streams and lakes in the US have deteriorated, as more than 150,000 dams have fragmented river networks, and changes to the landscape and groundwater usage have altered how and where the water flows. Many freshwater species are now in rapid decline, exacerbated by the impacts of climate change.
To address this crisis, The Nature Conservancy worked with 66 freshwater conservationists to map out freshwater networks in the contiguous US and evaluate their resilience to degradation. Each watershed was scored based on its connectivity, condition, water availability and naturalness of flow, and checked against local surveys of freshwater biodiversity. They put together a patchwork of rivers and streams – named the Freshwater Resilient and Connected Network – that covers 35% of the lower 48 states but could preserve our freshwater biodiversity. Conserving this network will be challenging, however, as currently, only 6% of the area is both protected and resilient, and 14% needs both protection and restoration.
The analysis also showed that of the 5.2 million miles of rivers and streams in the contiguous US, 33% rated as above-average for resilience. While rivers that are above average should continue to support similar patterns of biodiversity in the future, those just above average may still require restoration. These networks are concentrated in the Pacific Coast, the Northern Rocky Mountains, Great Lake areas in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Northern Maine and coastal regions along the southeastern US and the Gulf of Mexico. Vulnerable or below-average river networks made up 15% of those miles and were concentrated in the Southwest deserts, lower New England, the shortgrass prairie east of the Rocky Mountains and the agricultural lands of the midwestern states.
The study provides a solid foundation for conservation efforts to sustain biodiversity in freshwater systems and provides a clear picture of the challenges ahead. Researchers said the analysis has already been used to identify dams for removal, prioritize land protection in key headwaters and improve conditions in river systems that need restoration. The team acknowledges the maps do not take into account human needs, but data representing human dimensions could be combined with this analysis to identify them.
The authors add: “Resilience to climate changes adds important context to our efforts to conserve freshwater biodiversity. We hope our study will help our state, federal, Tribal and other conservation partners make investments where they have the greatest chance to succeed into the future.”

In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4Ae7W6j
Citation: Anderson MG, Olivero AP, Barnett AR, Khoury ML, Martin EH (2026) A freshwater resilient and connected network to sustain biodiversity under a changing climate. PLoS One 21(9): e0351782. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0351782
Author countries: USA.
Funding: Anonymous Donor, Volgenau Foundation, Kia America, and Enterprise Mobility Fund. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

The Lower Pecos River is fed by a regional aquifer sustaining a unique and biodiverse ecosystem and critical inflows to the lower Rio G

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:00:22 +0000

The Local Costs of Remote Sensing: Examining the Ethics of Laser Scanning in Tropical Forests

Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
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Laser scanning, often referred to as Lidar, has rapidly transformed how tropical forest regions are studied, monitored, and understood across academic disciplines. The technology enables researchers to peer through dense forest canopy, rapidly providing high resolution scans of the landscape below. This growing observational power is central to the scientific value of remote sensing technologies, but also brings into focus the conditions, interests, and power structures under which they are used.
Now in a new paper in Nature Ecology and Evolution, an international team of researchers argues that the visibility brought by high-resolution remote sensing may result in the loss of what have long been cultural refuges against dominant powers, and that ethical considerations should be integral to research planning when using such data.
“Remote sensing research has often been framed as a technical exercise to support more efficient management and observation,” says Patrick Roberts, director of the Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI GEA), and corresponding author of the study. “Yet, mapping is never only a technical practice, and decisions about what is revealed, how, where are inherently ethical and political.”
The new paper acknowledges the value of remote sensing but argues that while discipline-specific ethical discussions around the technology have occurred, they have tended to focus on technicalities of research and data presentation rather than whether and under what conditions to map. The authors organize these considerations into three broad areas:
Knowledge, access, and control – who decides when to map, why, and who controls the data?
Population rights, exposure and dispossession – how might this data be used to ‘expose’ communities, marginalized groups in society, or resources for extraction?
The material costs of seeing – how might the process of remote sensing, in turn, contribute to the climatic and environmental impacts it is seeking to prevent?
“These issues challenge us to think about the oft-promoted but simplistic idea of mapping ‘for the greater good,’” says Gabriel Hes of the University of Toulouse, lead author of the current paper. “Whose ‘greater good’ are we talking about and are forest mapping technologies reinforcing imbalances in knowledge production, political power and environmental impacts? In this paper, we urge our colleagues to reflect on the ethical costs of their methods, considering the potential intersectional impacts (on race, age, gender, wealth, class) of high-resolution mapping of tropical forests.”
“We are not arguing that remote sensing is inherently ‘bad’,” Roberts adds, “indeed it has been used by local communities to safeguard their territories and rights. Rather, we urge consideration by scientists of the varied ethical dimensions impacting their research whether they carry out mapping on local, regional or global scales.”
The authors conclude with a framework for helping researchers decide when mapping is inappropriate. In reframing environmental science as an asset for transformative change, they hope that these considerations will ensure that tropical forest mapping best serves the needs of those impacted most by the current global ecological crisis.
Journal
Nature Ecology & Evolution
DOI
10.1038/s41559-026-03187-y
Method of Research
Commentary/editorial
Article Title
The ethical costs of remotely sensing tropical forest understories
Article Publication Date
16-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:56:07 +0000

Food & drink manufacturers can greatly improve sustainability and healthiness of their products with small changes – Oxford research

University of Oxford
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The authors looked at the foods sold in the UK by 44 major food and beverage manufacturers – that account for approximately 50% of the UK food retail market – and assigned scores for nutrition and sustainability per 100g to each product. They found significant variation in similar products between different manufacturers. For instance, a ready meal from one manufacturer might be much less nutritious and sustainable than a similar bar at another manufacturer.
The authors then looked at what might happen if the manufacturers swapped some of their least nutritious and sustainable products with products that had closer to average scores and found significant potential for improvement. And for many manufacturers, more than half the potential improvements were achieved by changing 10% or less of their product line.
Two well-known British supermarkets, whose own brands collectively account for 28.9% of sales value in this analysis, have some of the largest scope to improve their scores for both environment and nutrition, the authors find. But manufacturers with narrow product ranges, such as snack and energy drink manufacturers, generally have lower scope to improve their scores.
“Ours is the first study we are aware of to assess the capacity for food & beverage manufacturers to support nutrition and environmental sustainability through changes within their existing product portfolios,” explains lead author Eleanor Hammond, who conducted the research while working at the University of Oxford.
“If food systems are to transition to more nutritious and environmentally sustainable outcomes, food manufacturers are going to have to change the products they sell. This change can either be driven by food & beverage manufacturers, or imposed on them by government policy. Our findings show manufacturers can get a head start on this necessary transition by making small changes to their product portfolios today,” says co-author Dr Michael Clark, Associate Professor, Sustainable Food Solutions at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
The timing of the study is significant as the UK Government is under pressure to bring forward legislation requiring mandatory reporting on the nutrition of UK food and beverage products. “Our study demonstrates how the UK Government could monitor both sustainability and nutritional outcomes together. It could also be used for ESG reporting and support regulatory frameworks such as the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive,” says Dr Clark.
Journal
Nature Food
DOI
10.1038/s43016-026-01420-2
Method of Research
Observational study
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Publication Date
16-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:55:46 +0000

Policy instruments are never neutral — they shape ideas, actors, and change

ECNU Review of Education
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When education systems introduce a new test, school-evaluation framework, performance indicator, or accreditation procedure, the change may appear technical. Yet such tools do much more than implement decisions already made. Indeed, they define what counts as a policy problem, establish which knowledge is credible, allocate roles to different actors, and shape how schools and education systems are governed.
That is the central message of a new scoping review published online on August 1, 2026, in ECNU Review of Education. Luís Miguel Carvalho and Catarina Gonçalves, of the Institute of Education, University of Lisbon, examined 42 peer-reviewed articles published between 2005 and 2023. Their study maps research in the sociology of policy instruments in education and asks what this perspective reveals about contemporary policy and educational change.
The sociology of policy instruments treats instruments as both technical and social devices. Legislation, contracts, assessments, benchmarks, indicators, funding mechanisms, and communication platforms embody specific values and assumptions about the relationship between government, education professionals, learners, and society. Studying them therefore makes it possible to see how power operates through apparently technical and practical arrangements.
According to the literature reviewed, researchers have concentrated especially on performance-based instruments such as PISA, national large-scale assessments, school evaluation and self-evaluation, indicators, standards, and accreditation. This focus reflects a broader shift toward governance through comparison, data, and performance-oriented accountability. The review also finds growing attention to European education governance, global intergovernmental organizations, private companies, and intermediary actors working between national policy and local practice.
The authors organize existing knowledge around three dimensions: the institutional ideas embedded in instruments, the trajectories instruments follow as they are designed and used, and the effects they generate. Instruments do not simply travel unchanged from policymaking centers to schools. National traditions, political interests, professional identities, and local conditions can lead to adoption, opposition, hybridization, or the creation of new tools. Similar instruments may therefore take quite different forms in different systems.
The review identifies six recurring effects. Instruments can legitimize certain actors and coalitions, reorganize political spaces and timelines, privilege certain forms of knowledge and expertise, gather actors around common issues, produce hybrid policies when several tools and governing logics interact, and generate unintended consequences. For example, comparative assessments may strengthen the authority of international organizations and structure national debate, while indicators designed to inform policy can become simplified rankings. Performance tools intended to encourage innovation may also intensify supervision or standardize practice.
“Studies on policy instruments are well suited to address the complexity of education policy: the multiple policy scales as interdependent contexts, the variety of individual and collective actors involved, and the various governance patterns, ranging from state-oriented to market-oriented regimes, and from norm-based governance patterns to performance-oriented ones”, said Carvalho and Gonçalves.
The study also identifies important gaps. The evidence base remains strongly centered on Europe, and researchers have paid less attention to combinations of multiple instruments. The authors call for a broader geo-cultural range of studies, clearer theoretical foundations, and more systematic explanations of why the same instrument follows different trajectories in different settings.
For policymakers and education leaders, the findings offer a practical caution: choosing a policy instrument is itself a political decision. A test, indicator, contract, or platform may affect not only whether a policy achieves its goals, but also what goals appear legitimate, who gains authority, and which realities remain visible or become obscured. For researchers, the review provides a map of a developing field and a framework for examining the complex links between technical devices, institutional change, and power in education.
Journal
ECNU Review of Education
DOI
10.1177/20965311261467767
Method of Research
Literature review
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Research on Policy Instruments in Education, 2005-2023: A Scoping Review

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:54:16 +0000

The high cost of climate change on worker productivity

Study quantifies the price of heat stress for workers around the world

University of California - Davis
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A cotton trailer outfitted with benches and a sunshade offers farmworkers a reprieve from the sun as they take a break from picking cantaloupe melons in Firebaugh, Calif.
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Credit: Joe Proudman/UC Davis

As the climate warms, people are more exposed to heat stress, which depresses their productivity and the global economy. A study from the University of California, Davis, quantifies the cost of heat stress on global labor.
The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, estimates that each ton of carbon dioxide emitted in 2025 cost $41 in lost productivity.
Highly populated areas meeting critical thresholds for heat and humidity were particularly affected, the study found. This includes India, Nigeria, China and Pakistan, as well as countries in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
“Our study contributes to the body of evidence about what the real costs of climate change are,” said lead author Frances Moore, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “Based on these new numbers, labor is the second-largest contributor to the total social cost of carbon, just behind heat-related deaths.”
The social cost of carbon and its value
The social cost of carbon, or SC-CO2, is the quantifiable cost of one additional ton of CO2 emissions. The measurement is highly relevant for policy decisions related to cost-benefit analyses, infrastructure planning, utility regulation and carbon taxes.
The study lends strong support for a social cost of carbon value of $200, a value similar to that estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2023. Current federal guidance does not recognize the metric and discourages monetizing the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions in regulatory analysis. However, the study states “we can confidently rule out a SC-CO2 of zero or below.”
“We’re getting better and better at evaluating climate damages,” Moore said. “We’re getting more confident in the social cost of carbon, and it is a metric that should be used. This number is ready to help inform good climate policy analysis.”
Heat stress varies by region, job, A/C access
To reach their findings, the authors combined projections from a heat stress metric called the “wet-bulb globe temperature” (WBGT) with job and region-specific estimates of work intensity and outdoor exposure across different economic sectors. WBGT captures the physical risks of hot temperatures by accounting for weather variables that influence the body’s ability to dissipate heat, including humidity and wind speed.
Exposure to heat stress by both indoor and outdoor workers varied across the globe depending on the local environment, strenuousness of the work and access to shade and air conditioning.
Agricultural and construction laborers are far more exposed to heat than office or service workers because they often perform strenuous, outdoor work. However, indoor workers with minimal or no air conditioning also are at risk. For example, a dataset of residential air conditioning adoption in 33 countries showed A/C penetration rates ranging from 0% in South Sudan to 90% in Japan.
In addition to air conditioning, more shade, water, breaks and shifting work to cooler hours of the day when possible can protect workers from heat stress.
“Heat is very dangerous,” Moore said. “Employers and policymakers need to be treating it as the real health hazard that it is and thinking seriously about ways to mitigate those damages because we’re going to keep seeing more frequent, more intense heat extremes.”
The study’s additional authors include Iman Haqiqi, Uris Baldos, Matthew Huber and Thomas Hertel of Purdue University; Qinqin Kong and Lisa Rennels of Stanford University and Hamsa Ganapathi of UC Davis.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies Bass Fellowship, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship, National Institutes of Health, NASA, Stanford Energy Postdoctoral Fellowship and Precourt Institute for Energy.

A farmworker takes a drink of water while taking a break from harvesting cantaloupes in Firebaugh, Calif.
Credit
Joe Proudman/UC Davis

Journal
Nature Climate Change
DOI
10.1038/s41558-026-02749-z
Article Title
New labour and agricultural damages improve climate cost estimates'
Temperature measurement error may cause climate-impact studies to understate impacts by 15% or more

Wake Forest University
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When policymakers and city officials plan for climate change, they rely on economic studies showing how extreme heat impacts violent crime, public health, energy grids and crop yields.
However, a new study published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists reveals a hidden problem in that research: the temperatures used in many climate-impact studies can contain substantial measurement error, leading researchers to misestimate the true impacts of temperature and, on average, potentially understate climate impacts by at least 15%.
The study, co-authored by Wake Forest Assistant Professor of Economics Alex Yu and Distinguished Professor of Economics Richard Carson (UC San Diego), demonstrates that standard methods researchers use to construct temperature measures can introduce substantial measurement error that varies systematically across locations and geography.
Why temperature measurement can be inaccurate
Because physical weather stations are miles apart, researchers use statistical estimates of temperatures in specific cities, neighborhoods or farm fields. The study reveals that these best guesses or “proxies” carry substantial measurement errors that traditional statistical assumptions fail to capture:
Microclimate blindspots: In mountainous regions like Boulder, Colorado, standard weather proxies differed from actual temperatures by an average of nearly 15°F. In flatter, more densely monitored areas like Chicago, errors were as low as 1°F.
Distorting the temperature signal: Measurement errors can persist over time and vary systematically with local geography. When researchers apply these estimated temperatures to real-world outcomes—such as crime or heat-related illnesses—the resulting estimates can be biased upward or downward.
Larger than climate targets: For one commonly used weather proxy—temperature measurement errors averaged 3.3°F (1.85°C)—an error magnitude larger than the global Paris Climate Agreement warming limit of 1.5°C.
What this means for public policy
Using more than 20 million crime records, the researchers first estimated the relationship between extreme heat and violent crime using city-level crime and temperature data as a benchmark. They then aggregated both crime and temperature to the county level and estimated the same relationship, finding that the estimated effect of extreme heat became smaller at this coarser geographic scale.
"If climate-impact studies misestimate how severely extreme heat drives crime rates, crop loss, or health emergencies, policymakers may also misestimate the scale of the responses needed to address those impacts," said Yu.
Improving temperature measurement
The research doesn't just expose the problem; it provides practical guidance for researchers. No single temperature proxy works best everywhere: in areas with dense weather-station networks, nearby station measurements can outperform more complex gridded products, while gridded data may perform better where monitoring is sparse.
More broadly, the study highlights the value of better spatial monitoring of temperature. Expanding and maintaining dense weather-station networks—and more carefully matching temperature measurements to where people, farms, businesses and ecosystems are actually exposed—can reduce measurement error at its source.
About the researchers
Chu (Alex) Yu, Assistant Professor of Economics, Wake Forest University (yua@wfu.edu)
Richard T. Carson, Distinguished Professor of Economics, UC San Diego (rcarson@ucsd.edu)
Data and study availability:
The full study, "Mismeasured and Misunderstood: Unmasking the Temperature Proxy Problem in Climate Impact Estimates," is published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
DOI
10.1086/74210
Method of Research
News article
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Temperature measurement error may cause climate-impact studies to understate impacts by 15% or more
Article Publication Date
14-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:49:28 +0000

To read 2,000-year-old burned papyrus scrolls, scientists make and burn their own

Scientists team up to create and burn scrolls to test a new way to decipher those from Herculaneum

University of California - Berkeley
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A contemporary papyrus scroll before and after burning in a nearly oxygen-free chamber, which carbonized but did not destroy the material.
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Credit: Douglas Seiler

Douglas Seiler painstakingly sourced papyrus and reed pens from Egypt and traditional lampblack ink from Japan, then paid some high school students to inscribe the papyrus with lines from “Star Wars” and the Bible and a quote from the ‘60s sci-fi TV show “The Outer Limits.”
Seiler, an affiliate of Berkeley SETI, then rolled up the papyrus, placed it in a container inside a high-temperature furnace and burned it to a crisp.
The procedure replicated what happened to more than a thousand papyrus scrolls in a library in the Italian city of Herculaneum, when ash from Mount Vesuvius inundated the city in 79 C.E. and turned ancient learning — some likely unknown today — into brittle, carbonized husks. The eruption, which also buried nearby Pompeii, preserved for posterity the only known intact library from antiquity.
Seiler’s goal was to determine whether it’s possible to read the text on carbonized scrolls without unrolling them and reducing them to black dust. The key, he hypothesized, was that inks that contain lead would stand out when a scroll is scanned by an X-ray beam, and that computer algorithms could virtually unroll the scroll to reveal the hidden text.
In a paper published today (Sept. 16) in the journal PLOS ONE, Seiler and his collaborators, including a range of Berkeley experts, report that even minuscule amounts of lead in the ink make the letters readable by X-ray tomography, or X-ray CT. The lead absorbs up to 25 times the X-rays absorbed by the charred papyrus, making the inked letters stand out.
“With lead in the ink, you would get a huge friggin' signature, so you really need to be looking for scrolls with lead in them,” Seiler said. “They're having problems reading a lot of them because of the low contrast of carbon ink on carbon paper. We're relatively certain that if they start searching for lead, or they let us search for lead, it will help this whole process. This is the Holy Grail.”
In the paper, the researchers also showed that an inexpensive handheld X-ray fluorescence scanner can easily detect leaded ink in a burned scroll, providing a simple way to identify those scrolls that would be more easily deciphered using X-ray CT.
To date, only a few charred scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum have been virtually unrolled and read and none of them were tested for leaded ink. Though no one has systematically looked for leaded ink in the scrolls, at least one researcher found lead in the ink of a fragment that remained from earlier efforts to physically unroll some of them. Most of those attempts followed the scrolls’ discovery in 1752, but when unrolling mostly produced heaps of ashes, the Italian authorities called a halt to such efforts.
Of those physically unrolled, all have been texts unknown to scholars, many of them written by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, who lived in Herculaneum a century before the Vesuvius eruption. Currently, what remains of the library’s 1,800 or so scrolls and scroll fragments are housed in Italy, France and England.
“Almost everything from antiquity has been destroyed,” Seiler said. “There's very little left except papyrus that was in a dry climate or some works that were copied by scribes and transferred down. But some of the Herculaneum scrolls aren't copies. These are books directly from the ancient world frozen in time. They’re actually from Roman intellectual circles.”
“The value in this project is practically unquantifiable,” said Berkeley archaeology graduate student Leah Packard-Grams, who consulted on the project as a papyrologist. “The stakes are the largest in the history of Greek literature.”
As someone enamored of the ancient Greek and Roman world, Packard-Grams mourns the many lost works of philosophy, science and literature that disintegrated before they could be copied for posterity. She is now translating Greek and Egyptian writing on ancient papyri housed at UC Berkeley in the Center for the Tebtunis Papyri in the Bancroft Library. Unlike the Herculaneum papyri, these were preserved in the dry sands of Egypt. One set of fragments was written by a man named Dionysios, a school teacher and scribe-for-hire, who recorded his mundane daily activities, down to the costs of food he bought for his children along the canal.
“This is what drew me to papyrology — that I could read the words of ancient people not through a library book or through a Renaissance copy but actually sit down and know that someone wrote this letter to whomever, his father or something,” she said. “It's autograph history — not just from a book, but from what they were actually writing.”
Lucky for Seiler, Packard-Grams has studied the ink chemistry of Egyptian papyri in Berkeley’s collection. She has hopes that the composition of ink — traditionally made from soot, water and a binder like gum Arabic — can provide a signature allowing her to identify the author of a specific text. Any metals in the ink, accidental or purposely added, would help in this identification.
The Tebtunis papyri are fragments of scrolls dating from between 300 B.C.E. and 300 C.E. and were excavated for UC Berkeley 126 years ago at the site of the ancient city of Tebtunis. Using a hand-held X-ray fluorescence scanner, Packard-Grams confirmed that some of these scrolls — generally those inscribed after the first century C.E. — are written with ink containing lead and/or copper. That bodes well for finding lead in some of the Herculaneum scrolls.
“If we know that the Herculaneum papyri have lead in them — some of them do, some of them don't — then when they take the CT scan, they can scan it with a sensitivity for the element lead and we can see where the ink is,” she said. “As you unroll it, you can map the letters a lot more clearly.”
Seiler also tapped the expertise of retired Berkel

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:51:18 +0000

A sharper picture of a pandemic: new study uncovers the complex history of the plague after the Black Death

Estonian Research Council
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image:
Multiple burial of plague victims from Domat/Ems, Sogn Pieder (Switzerland) associated with the Plague of the Thirty Years’ War (c.1629–1631). Analyses of individual 24 yielded a full Yersinia pestis genome. Image credit: Archaeological Service of the Canton of Grisons.
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Credit: Image credit: Archaeological Service of the Canton of Grisons.

The Black Death is often remembered as a single catastrophic event that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing millions. Yet the disease did not disappear after that first devastating outbreak. For over four centuries, plague continued to return in recurring waves, reshaping communities, economies, and societies across Europe and beyond. A new study led by researchers at the University of Tartu sheds fresh light on this long and complex history by analysing the DNA of the plague bacterium preserved in archaeological human remains.
The researchers reconstructed 26 genomes of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for plague, from 11 archaeological sites in Estonia, Russia, England, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The samples span a period from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, covering much of the so-called Second Plague Pandemic.
The results reveal the complex history of plague with unprecedented resolution. Rather than persisting in a single location after the Black Death, plague repeatedly resurfaced in different parts of Europe over several centuries, seeding multiple new reservoirs. The researchers found evidence that plague was introduced multiple times into Estonia throughout much of the Second Plague Pandemic, showing that close connections with other parts of Europe also facilitated the spread of disease.
One of the study's most notable findings was evidence of a major expansion of plague lineages around 1450–1500. During this period, the bacterium diversified into three major branches that may have established new reservoirs in wild rodent populations.
The researchers speculate that climatic changes could have played a role. One possible factor is the Great Renaissance Drought. Modern studies have shown that climate strongly influences plague outbreaks among wild rodents, which serve as natural reservoirs of the disease.
“We found evidence for repeated introductions of plague into Estonia starting already in the late 14th century and identified several previously unknown genetic lineages, both in urban and rural settings” said senior author Prof. Kristiina Tambets.

More precise timeframe
One of the most innovative aspects of the study was a new method for assigning historical plague outbreaks to recovered plague genomes. The importance of this approach can be illustrated by comparing it with the COVID-19 pandemic. During the coronavirus crisis, scientists were able to track the spread of different variants because genome sequences came with precise collection dates. Historical pandemics are different: ancient remains are often dated only within broad radiocarbon intervals that can span more than a century.
“With COVID-19, scientists could reconstruct the spread of individual strains extremely well because the genomes came with precise timestamps. For historical pandemics, those timestamps are often missing or may cover more than 100 years, which limits our ability to interpret the genetic data,” the main author, Dr Marcel Keller, explained.
To overcome this challenge, the research team developed a method that improves the precision and accuracy of those intervals. By analysing the position of plague genomes on the bacterium's evolutionary tree, they were able to narrow down the likely dates of many samples and place them into a much clearer historical context.
The researchers then used these improved dates to reassess 64 previously published and 11 newly sequenced plague genomes. The result is the first systematic attempt to link nearly all currently available plague genomes from the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries with historically documented outbreaks.
“We were able to improve dating intervals for many samples, which allowed us to connect them to specific plague waves and outbreaks that were recorded in the respective towns or regions by chroniclers,” said historian and corresponding author Prof. Philip Slavin.
War helped spread disease
The study also highlights how strongly human activity shaped the course of plague epidemics. Newly analysed genomes provide additional evidence for outbreaks associated with the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the Great Northern War (c. 1700–1721). According to the researchers, plague frequently spread along the same routes used by armies, refugees and traders.
“We see how Yersinia pestis splits into new branches during periods of conflict and spreads along the routes travelled by troops and displaced populations,” said senior author Dr Christiana L. Scheib.
The findings offer new insights into plague outbreaks during the Great Northern War. In Tallinn, for example, plague caused casualties among Swedish and Russian troops as well as civilians during the 1710 siege.
More broadly, the research shows that plague was not a single historical disaster but a recurring threat that devastated cities and regions generation after generation.
Hedgehog coronaviruses may threaten cats more than humans, new study finds

Washington State University

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PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State University researchers have discovered how a group of coronaviruses circulating in hedgehogs invades host cells, a key to understanding their potential to jump between species and their risk of causing a pandemic in humans.
Known as Erinaceus coronaviruses, or ErinCoVs, the viruses have concerned scientists because of their close relation to the one that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, a severe respiratory disease that spreads mainly from camels to humans and kills about one-third of infected people. The researchers found the hedgehog viruses are unlikely to infect humans without first undergoing multiple genetic mutations, but they may pose more immediate risks to other animals, including cats. The findings were published in Nature Microbiology.
“Scientists have been aware of these viruses for a while, but for the first time, we were able to figure out how they infect cells,” said Michael Letko, a virologist in the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Health and senior author of the study. “That’s a crucial step for understanding what they can and can’t infect.”
Since first being detected more than a decade ago, the viruses have been found in high numbers of sampled hedgehogs in Europe and Asia, with studies finding infections in anywhere from about 10% in the United Kingdom to around 60% in Germany and Italy. The viruses don’t appear to cause serious disease in hedgehogs, but their widespread circulation increases the chances they could evolve over time.
Scientists have struggled to study the viruses because they have been unable to grow them in laboratory conditions. Using genetic data and laboratory models, the WSU-led team was able to recreate harmless but key parts of the viruses – like their spike proteins – and test how they interact with cells, without working with live viruses.
Like other coronaviruses, ErinCoVs rely on spike proteins to attach to receptors on the surface of host cells. The researchers identified aminopeptidase N, or APN, as the receptor used by the viruses to gain entry. It is the first time the receptor has been shown to be used by a betacoronavirus, the same group that includes MERS and SARS-CoV-2, the strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
Once the receptor was identified, researchers tested versions of APN from about 30 species to see where the viruses could gain entry. They found the viruses could not use the human version of APN, but they were able to use APN from a small number of other species, including cats, rats and elephant shrews – mouse-sized mammals native to Africa.
“When we see viruses that can get into multiple species, that’s something we pay attention to,” Letko said. “Each jump into a new host gives the pathogen more opportunities to pick up mutations that could change what it can infect.”
Significant mutations would still be needed for the viruses to use human receptors.
“In humans, there are multiple barriers at that receptor level,” said Victoria Jefferson, a co-first author on the study and a postdoctoral fellow studying in Letko’s Laboratory of Functional Viromics. “Those differences make it much harder for the virus to enter cells.”
While the risk to humans remains low, Letko and Jefferson said transmission between hedgehogs and other animal species could give the viruses opportunities to adapt over time. Cats could represent one possible pathway. In regions where hedgehogs are common, the animals frequently interact, creating opportunities for transmission. While infections in cats have not been confirmed, the findings suggest it is biologically plausible.
The study involved collaborators from 10 institutions worldwide, including Yale University, the National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center, the University of Toronto and several research institutes in Italy.
Journal
Nature Microbiology
DOI
10.1038/s41564-026-02447-8
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
'Aminopeptidase N is a receptor for hedgehog merbecoviruses'
Article Publication Date
16-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:47:41 +0000

Tiny beach-dwelling crustaceans are big-time sand movers, shaping the California coast

University of California - Santa Barbara

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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Stand on the damp sand on a California beach and chances are you’re standing on top of an active earthworks site. Sand hoppers (Megalorchestia spp.), the tiny, shrimp-like creatures commonly found eating away at kelp on the shore, have been found to move massive amounts of sand, excavating up to 50 kg (110 lbs) of sand per meter of shoreline per day.
“They have one of the highest rates of bioturbation of anything on the planet,” said UC Santa Barbara marine scientist David Hubbard, referring to the process of displacement of sediment by living organisms.
The sheer volume of sediment moved by these crustaceans, according to Hubbard and fellow coastal researchers, puts these amphipods on par with coastal longshore processes and some major Southern California rivers. Their findings, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, puts new perspectives on the roles of these and other sand-dwelling creatures in the physical processes that shape the coast.
The sandy beach’s tiny engineers
Though they may look stationary, sandy beaches act like rivers of sediment, constantly moving sand transported by waves, winds and currents along the coast. The beach is but one part of a bigger system called a littoral cell that cycles sediment from its sources, such as cliffs and dunes that back some beaches, or rivers and streams that carry sediment from coastal watersheds, or onshore processes that push sand from nearshore to the beach. Beaches serve as reservoirs for sand as it continues its way along the coast.
While coastal sediment transport processes are well known, the impact of the animals that live in this highly dynamic environment is less understood. It became an intriguing question for Tim Baxter, a physical geographer interested in interactions between wildlife and their physical environment in the coastal zone. When he moved from the UK to UCSB a few years ago to complete his postdoctoral work with geography professor Ian Walker, Baxter found in marine scientists Dave Hubbard, Kyle Emery and Jenny Dugan a complementary curiosity about sand hoppers. These tiny crustaceans burrow 10-30 cm (4-12 inches) into the sand, or hide under washed-up seaweed, emerging after dark to feed on kelp wrack.
“We combined our interests and started thinking about the abundance of sand hoppers around UCSB, but also across California,” said Baxter, who is now a research fellow at the University of Oxford. “That got us asking, how much are they digging? What are they contributing to the sediment system and sediment transport on these beaches?”
To find out, they devised a simple field experiment at Isla Vista Beach, a bluff-backed stretch of shore adjacent to the UCSB campus. After high tide on a summer night, when the waves had smoothed the sand and the tide had begun to recede, they sectioned off an array of sampling plots with metal frames in the sand hoppers’ preferred burrowing zone.
“They don’t like saturated sand that’s like liquid — their burrows collapse immediately,” Hubbard explained. “They don’t like the powdery dry sand above the high tide line. They like the Goldilocks sweet spot in between where the burrow will stay intact because the moisture in the sand is just right.” According to the paper, unlike burrowing animals that create a single burrow and reuse it, sand hoppers create fresh burrows every day in search of the perfect sand moisture, excavating sand that has been recently reworked by wind or wave action.
After waiting overnight to let the sand hoppers do their thing, the team went back to their plots to check on the mounds of sand left by all the burrowing action.
“When we came back in the morning, we couldn’t even see some of the frames,” Hubbard recalled. “They were completely buried, and we were so glad we had put flags next to them just in case.” Despite all the years studying these creatures close up, he was still slightly shocked at how much sand they could move overnight, he added.
After collecting and weighing the excavated sand, the researchers calculated that the sand hoppers had moved up to 50 kg of it, making these centimeter-long crustaceans among the most active sediment movers in the animal world.
“It was quite impressive and we weren’t really expecting that,” Baxter said. “I think for me that was the biggest shock.”
The findings add another dimension to the role of sand hoppers in the California coastal environment. Not only are they a fundamental part of the food web, eating kelp wrack and in turn becoming food for shorebirds and fish, their burrowing habits also cycle nutrients into the deeper layers of sand.
“There’s a huge churn,” Hubbard explained. “If food like kelp or carrion gets deposited on the beach, it’s going to get buried by them, which makes it available to a different group of organisms.” Additionally, the burrows aerate the sand, providing oxygen for aerobic microbial processes, he said.
The excavations also make the sediments more available for erosional processes, Baxter added, loosening the sand to be borne away by wind or water. “It potentially increases the roughness of the surface of beaches, which has implications for the formation of landforms such as coastal sand dunes.” Coastal dunes have lately become an important nature-based strategy for dealing with coastal flooding and sea level rise, as the self-building, self-healing landforms are able to take the force of increased wave and storm action.
The sheer amount of sand displaced by the sand hoppers, the researchers found by extrapolating their results across 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) of Southern California coastline, is comparable to the daily sediment loads of some major Southern California rivers and to longshore drift processes that move sand along the intertidal beach, Baxter said. While the field of biogeomorphology — which studies interactions between living things and their landscapes — has been gaining momentum in the last few decades, the activity of animals and plants on the landscape has still been relatively understudied compared to natural processes, he added.
“I think part of that is the influence of animals on these processes is seen as quite temporary, quite localized and small,” Baxter said. “What we are trying to show in this study is that actually these activities and interactions are operating on a lot larger scale and that their impacts are really worth highlighting.”
Article Title
Mega Mounders: Burrowing Talitrids (Megalorchestia spp.) Excavate Large Quantities of Sand on California Beaches
Article Publication Date
16-Sep-2026

Beach-burrowing beasties shovel more sand than any other animal on Earth

Millions of crustaceans shape California’s beaches: Here’s why their hard work matters

American Geophysical Union
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Dogs show human-like brain activity when they restrain themselves

When we tell a dog “no”, and it resists temptation, what happens in its brain?

Eötvös Loránd University
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When we tell a dog “no”, and it resists temptation, what happens in its brain? New research from the Department of Ethology at ELTE and the HUN-REN Research Centre of Natural Sciences suggests that dogs may do more than respond automatically: when they restrain their behaviour, their brains show a pattern of activity resembling the human neural signature of self-control.
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Credit: Photo: Gáti Oszkár Dániel

When we tell a dog “no”, and it resists temptation, what happens in its brain? New research from the Department of Ethology at ELTE and the HUN-REN Research Centre of Natural Sciences suggests that dogs may do more than respond automatically: when they restrain their behaviour, their brains show a pattern of activity resembling the human neural signature of self-control.
Survival and adaptation are not only about what we do, but our ability to stop ourselves at any given moment can also be almost as important. Think of a mouse that stops moving when a predator is nearby or a human who successfully gives up smoking after years of torturing their own health.
These examples illustrate that the capacity to stop a behaviour or resist a temptation can be achieved by different mechanisms. The freezing response of the mouse is ancient and automatic, whereas when a human gives up smoking, they must invoke conscious effort and willpower. In humans, this kind of self-control relies on the youngest part of the brain’s self-control system – the frontal lobes. When neural activity is measured with electroencephalography (EEG), their involvement is reflected in increased frontal “theta” waves.
What happens in dogs’ brains when their owner commands them to stop and restrain themselves? Dogs can learn not to grab things within reach even when they are interesting or to their taste. But do their brains solve this problem automatically or deliberately? Researchers from Budapest, Hungary, decided to tackle this question using awake, non-invasive EEG measurement.
“We measured 226 short EEG recordings, each around half a minute long, from fourteen dogs who for the duration of a recording were either obeying a command or idle” explains Iotchev from the HUN-REN Research Centre of Natural Sciences, “this data was then analyzed to see if within and across dogs, theta waves are more pronounced for recordings in which the animals were obeying the restraint command. The absence of such an effect would have left open the possibility that dogs obey commands automatically, but what we observed does not align with this interpretation -- during self-control situations, we instead observed EEG activity that resembles human theta in both frequency and localisation.”
The study was conducted under the supervision of Anna Kis and Márta Gácsi, who have investigated for many years how dogs could help us understand human conditions like ADHD or obesity. “Dogs live and age faster than humans but move in the same environments and adapt to the same social and physical challenges,” explains Gácsi. “This means that developmental and age-related factors associated with pathological conditions can be examined more time-efficiently than in human populations.”
Kis adds, “In humans, failures in the function of the frontal lobes play a role in both ADHD and abnormal weight gain. The ability to measure the EEG correlates of frontal lobe involvement in dogs will allow us to investigate just how close these conditions in dogs resemble their human counterparts and allow us to extrapolate better predictions for humans, too.”Iotchev places the findings within a bigger picture: “The frontal lobes of a dog have received surprisingly little attention so far, given how many people believe that their pawed companions have a rich inner life. We know a lot more about this part of the brain as it operates in the rat. As we have demonstrated that non-invasive EEG, which is cheaper and easier to implement than the fMRI measurement, can also be of use, this opens the door to many more future studies on mental processes and their neural substrate in the dog.”
The study is published in Animal Cognition, where it first appeared online on the 11th of August https://rdcu.be/fzvNa
Journal
Animal Cognition
DOI
10.1007/s10071-026-02096-8
Article Title
A human-like EEG signature of cognitive control in the domestic dog

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:45:22 +0000

Weeping whales: stillborn humpback whale grieving documented

Griffith University
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*May cause distress to viewers* This video, taken in 2025 off the southern Queensland coast in Australia, shows a humpback whale mother returning to the seafloor to her stillborn calf.
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Credit: Andy Mulville

Humpback whale mothers may experience grief when their calves die, a rare research observation led by Griffith University and Sea World Foundation has found.
In 2025, a female humpback whale – along with an escort whale – was observed off the southern Gold Coast who had given birth to a presumed deceased calf and remained with it for several hours and possibly even days.
Dr Olaf Meynecke, from Griffith University’s Whales and Climate Research Program, said post-mortem attentive behaviour in cetaceans had been documented predominantly amongst toothed whales and delphinids (known as odontocetes), but remained largely absent from research published on baleen whales, such as humpback whales.
"Unlike reports of toothed whales where mothers have been observed lifting their dead calves to the surface, this humpback whale mother showed prolonged post-mortem behaviour and attention towards her deceased calf under the surface,” Dr Meynecke said.
“She remained close to the calf, maintaining eye contact and positioning herself next to her calf over several hours and maybe even days.
“These observed behaviours were consistent with care-giving or nurturing actions and post-mortem attentive responses documented in socially complex mammals, and indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf.”
Cetaceans were some of the most charismatic marine species receiving regular widespread public attention.
Rescue Boat Captain Andrew Mulville from Sea World Foundation, who witnessed the event, said: “When I actually worked out what was happening, I was totally surprised.”
“At first sight, I thought it was just two whales resting on the surface, but their behaviour was unusual.
“It was definitely not what I was expecting to see out at sea that day.”
Dr Meynecke said while this observation in 2025 and others with deceased calves were incredibly sad, they were rare and added to the limited current understanding of the cognitive and emotional dimensions of death-related responses in baleen (filter-feeding) cetaceans.
“This case study highlights the need for continued systematic documentation of rare neonatal mortality events to better understand the cognitive, emotional, and evolutionary significance of post-mortem behaviour in large whales,” he said.
“Understanding how non-human animals responded to death provides insight into their emotional lives, social bonds, and cognitive capacities.”
The study ‘First documentation of humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) post-mortem attendance of a still born’ has been published in Discover Animals.
Journal
Discover Animals
DOI
10.1007/s44338-026-00232-9

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:44:23 +0000

Manuscripts-turned AI agents can now ‘talk’ to each other, make new discoveries

Papers, reimagined as AI collaborators

Stanford Medicine
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Since 1665, scholarly journals have stood as written record of scientific advancement — static words on a page, a reference written by people for other people to read. That’s about to change.
A team of Stanford Medicine researchers led by postdoctoral scholar Jiacheng Miao, PhD, and associate professor of biomedical data science James Zou, PhD, designed an artificial intelligence program called Paper2Agent that turns any scientific manuscript — including the text, figures and data — into an interactive AI agent that can chat about the paper and interact with other paper agents.
“For essentially all of human history, the way that we represent knowledge is in the form of these very passive artifacts,” Zou said. “In old times people carved knowledge into stones, and now we type knowledge into words on pages — but in some sense pages aren’t that much better.”
Zou is programming a major update to the centuries-old practice of manuscript publishing. “This is an opportunity to fundamentally reimagine what knowledge looks like. Instead of having only passive artifacts, why don’t we convert each static record into an active embodiment of knowledge?” Zou said. Think of it, he said, like a virtual author who knows how that knowledge is generated — one that’s capable of explaining it and extending it by connecting with other papers and initiating new collaborations.
A paper describing the AI work will publish on Sept. 16 in Nature. Zou is the senior author, and Miao is the lead author.
Manuscripts manifested
The paper agents can answer questions about the work, apply methods from the paper to new data and even engage in conversations with other paper agents. The transformation from paper to AI agent starts with a team of bustling AI “worker agents” that pore over a single published paper and any associated code and data. But they’re not just reading the paper. What’s the best way to learn? Do it yourself.
The agents try to reproduce the original research from scratch. In a virtual environment, the agents simulate the research documented in the paper, and through that process, they capture the know-how a reader would otherwise have to dig out manually, from reagents needed to the experimental setup and execution.
The agents store that knowledge using something called an MCP, or model context protocol.
“An MCP lets AI essentially represent a paper PDF in a form that’s easy for agents to access, almost like a filing system,” Zou said. Each section of the paper is stored in a different folder, while the introduction, methods, results and conclusion are all organized into a separate file that lives in a parent file of a given paper.
AI does the heavy lifting, but Zou and the other human authors still have a role. The manuscript won’t capture things like failed experiments or judgment calls behind experimental setups. So humans have to supply that context to the paper agent in conversational exchanges in which the agent can question the authors about the paper and research.
AI-to-AI collaboration
A “live action” embodiment of knowledge can be a boon for readers of scientific manuscripts who seek to deeply understand the research, but these paper whisperers can do something even more impressive. They can talk to each other. That kind of agent-to-agent collaboration could become a vast research network — one with potential to make real discoveries.
Zou and his team demonstrated the power of agent-to-agent collaboration by converting two unrelated papers into agents. One described a tool for predicting how genetic mutations affect the genome; the other described a genome-wide association study of the risk of developing attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. With both papers spun up into agents, the two began to find common ground. The genome prediction agent applied its knowledge to the ADHD dataset and flagged a molecular variant near a gene called MPHOSPH9 that’s associated with increased ADHD risk — a connection that, according to Zou, had not been reported before.
“In the past, if there are two research groups that publish two different papers, those two research groups have to somehow find each other,” Zou said. With paper agents, that overlap can surface without human legwork. Zou’s team chose these two initial papers and paired them for this demonstration, but the eventual goal, he said, is something closer to manuscript speed dating at scale: Millions of paper agents surfacing common ground among themselves and working together to produce new insights.
Checking knowledge as it’s built
Zou is careful to note that attribution still matters. Agents that extend a paper’s reach are meant to help disseminate the original researchers’ work, not obscure whose work it is. “It’s still important to attribute the final discoveries and reference them back to original papers and original human authors,” he said.
Zou also noted that the parameters under which agents collaborate — and make new discoveries — should be closely guided and monitored to ensure the agents’ collaborations prioritize safety and ethical research.
The team is still expanding what a paper agent can do, including working out how, at scale, thousands or millions of these agents might productively find each other. Right now, the team has created more than 100 paper agents, but eventually, Zou hopes most manuscripts will have an associated paper agent. “Millions of papers are published every year,” he said. “There’s enormous potential here.”
This work was supported by funding from the Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub.
# # #

About Stanford Medicine
Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu.

Journal
Nature
DOI
10.1038/s41586-026-11044-y SPACE/COSMOS
1840s space weather mystery finally solved
A 178-year-old mystery surrounding one of the earliest recorded examples of space weather affecting technology has been solved by an international research team

RMIT University
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RMIT University space weather expert, Associate Professor Brett Carter, at Melbourne Central Station. Half a world and nearly two centuries away from the orgininal event he helped uncover the truth of by invesitgating the archives.
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Credit: Michael Quin, RMIT University

A 178-year-old mystery surrounding one of the earliest recorded examples of space weather affecting technology has been solved by an international research team.
As some of the first electric telegraph networks were built in the 1840s, telegraph operators began to experience unexplained electrical effects caused by disturbances in the earth’s magnetic field.
Now archival investigations led by Lancaster University with scientists from RMIT University, the British Geological Survey, Natural Resources Canada, Baylor University and the UK's national space laboratory, RAL Space, have re-examined accounts of a train delayed almost two centuries ago in Exeter, England, when the sun’s energy disrupted the railway’s telegraph system.
What they found sheds new light on the earliest examples of space weather disrupting electric technology.
A brief history of solar weather disturbance ‘firsts’
A massive solar flare and coronal mass ejection in 1859, known as the Carrington Event, is one of the most famous early space weather events to affect technology.
It caused aurora borealis ‘northern lights’ as far south as Hawaii and Central America so bright that people could read newspapers by their light and gold miners mistook the glow for morning and began cooking breakfast shortly after midnight.
Telegraph systems worldwide failed, sparking lines gave electrical shocks to operators and even caught fire, and some systems even operated without batteries using only the geomagnetic current induced in the wires.
Years later, in the 1870s, an anonymous author writing in Nature published a study about "very intense magnetic disturbance" on 18 October 1841, interfering with train signals and delaying the 10:05pm departure from Exeter by 16 minutes. The timing of this account places it as the earliest known example of space weather affecting human technology.
However, the timing of this event has now been debunked by the team’s study, just published in the American Geophysical Union journal Space Weather.
A ghost train and the truth uncovered
RMIT University space weather expert, Associate Professor Brett Carter, who investigated the archives to help the team uncover the truth, said they found one critical problem – the railway line referenced in the account did not open until 1846, almost five years after the alleged 1841 incident.
"In this study, we effectively investigated what had to be a typo in a Nature paper from 1871. We know it was a typo because the Exeter-to-Starcross train line mentioned in that paper didn't exist until 1846, which is 5 years afterwards,” he said.
To uncover what really happened, the team combined evidence from railway timetables, historical newspapers, solar observations, auroral reports and digitised geomagnetic records.
Their investigation shows that the incident most likely took place on 18 October 1848, rather than 18 October 1841.
Carter says understanding the details of this period matters because it marked a crossing over point of no return in the inter-relationship between electronic technology and space weather.
"Understanding this historical event is important because the 1840s mark the intersection between the rise of our technological age and space weather, which has always been around,” Carter says.
“Since this line was crossed, humans have not looked back.”
The findings show that while the Exeter incident remains one of the earliest documented examples of space weather disrupting technology, it was not the first. The earliest credible report currently known is interference with telegraph systems on the Midland Railway in March 1847.
Space weather as a long-standing natural hazard
Study lead author, Professor Jim Wild from Lancaster University, said the study challenged notions that space weather is a modern challenge.
“What this research highlights is that space weather is not a new threat but a long-standing natural hazard. Society has been experiencing the effects of space weather on technology for almost as long as electrical technologies have existed,” Wild said.
"The Exeter train delay is a fascinating story because it sits right at the point where emerging technologies first began to encounter the realities of the space environment. By combining historical archives with scientific observations, we've been able to show that the

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:34:43 +0000

Climate change causes the Western Pacific Subtropical High stronger and more extreme

Science China Press

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This study develops a novel method to define the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) by using the joint probability distribution of geopotential height and vertical velocity, rather than relying on a fixed geopotential-height contour. The present method defines the WPSH boundary by using characteristic subsidence, thereby underscoring the dynamically active, weather-relevant body of the WPSH system.
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Credit: ©Science China Press

Researchers from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and the National University of Defense Technology have made new progress in understanding the response of the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) to anthropogenic climate change.
The WPSH is a vital component of the East Asian summer monsoon system. Variations in its intensity, coverage and position strongly modulate summer rainfall and temperature over East Asia. In recent years, a growing number of extreme precipitation and heatwave events have been linked to anomalous WPSH activities.
However, substantial uncertainty remains in previous studies assessing long-term changes in the WPSH under global warming. The canonical WPSH is defined using a fixed geopotential-height metric, which is widely used in operational practice and research but may produce a spurious strengthening trend of WPSH because warming tends to thicken the troposphere column. To solve the limitations of the canonical definition, various studies have developed alternative WPSH metrics, either thermodynamic or dynamic. They often yield inconsistent trends and spatial coverages of WPSH under climate change, without a consensus on the WPSH response to warming.
To address this issue, this study develops a new WPSH definition based on thermodynamic–dynamic synergy. The method uses the joint probability distribution frequency (JPDF) of geopotential height and vertical velocity to identify a dynamically constrained geopotential-height threshold. By linking the WPSH boundary to its characteristic descent motion, the new JPDF metric gets rid of the warming-induced mean increase in geopotential height while retaining the physical connection of the WPSH with weather anomalies. In essence, the JPDF metric does not simply track a high-pressure region or an anticyclonic circulation; instead, it identifies the WPSH’s main body characterized by organized subsidence that is physically tied to East Asian summer rainfall and temperature anomalies.
The results show that the JPDF metric captures the linkage of the WPSH to East Asian weather anomalies, including upward motion associated with rainbands, as well as subsidence associated with high-temperature anomalies. Various WPSH indices derived from JPDF, including those describing its covering area, intensity, western ridge point, northwestward extension and land-area coverage, all show stronger correlations with East Asian precipitation and temperature anomalies.
Using CMIP6 projection experiments, the study projects robust increases in WPSH’s area and intensity under future warming, accompanied by a northwestward extension of the WPSH boundary and increased coverage over East Asian land areas. These changes appear robust since they are supported by strong inter-model consensus, especially under medium- and high-emission scenarios.
Furthermore, the present study projects that record-breaking WPSH events will become more frequent, stronger and longer-lasting on the synoptic scales. Strong WPSH cases may extend farther toward inland East Asia, and become more likely to combine with large-scale high-pressure systems over Eurasia, increasing the risk of record persistent heatwaves and intense monsoon rainfall.
This work yields a physically consistent framework for diagnosing WPSH-related weather anomalies and assessing long-term WPSH changes under anthropogenic warming, thereby providing important evidence for future extreme-weather attribution, climate-model evaluation and climate-risk assessment in East Asia.
Journal
National Science Review
DOI
10.1093/nsr/nwag497

Compared with previous definitions, the JPDF-defined Western Pacific Subtropical High shows a closer spatial relationship with vertical motion, as well as temperature anomalies and precipitation anomalies over East Asia, indicating a stronger physical link with weather and climate impacts.
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Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:28:05 +0000

New species of egg-eating snake described from Harenna Forest in Ethiopia

Pensoft Publishers

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Male Dasypeltis albigularis sp. nov. from Manyate village, Harenna Forest, Ethiopia.
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Credit: Arthur Tiutenko et al., 2026.

A new species of snake that feeds exclusively on birds’ eggs has been described from the Harenna Forest in Ethiopia, one of the last substantial tracts of natural forest left in the Horn of Africa.
Named Dasypeltis albigularis, or the ‘White-throated Egg-eater’, the species belongs to a remarkable group of harmless African snakes that survive entirely on a diet of eggs, using specially adapted vertebrae in the throat to crack the shell before swallowing. It joins around 20 other known species in the genus Dasypeltis, most of which are notoriously difficult to tell apart, since many are uniformly black, brown or grey with few obvious external differences.
The research, published in the open-access journal Herpetozoa, was led by Arthur Tiutenko of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, together with colleagues at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and South Africa's National Museum in Bloemfontein. The new species is superficially similar to the so-called Montane Egg-eater, Dasypeltis atra, a black-coloured snake found in forests across East Africa, but genetic analysis of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA showed the two are as distinct from one another.
The investigation began when Dr Tiutenko acquired a juvenile female snake from a local collaborator in the Harenna Forest. “I received a juvenile female of an egg-eater that appeared to me to be an already known species, and I started looking for a male to breed it,” he explained. “As she grew to adult size, I noticed morphological differences.”
To test whether those differences reflected a genuine biological distinction, Dr Tiutenko paired the female with a male of the closely related species she resembled. “I crossed them nevertheless, to see how the offspring would turn out and how her characteristics would be inherited,” he said.
The resulting hybrid offspring displayed a mix of traits from both parents, providing early evidence that the Harenna Forest snake was something new. Confirming the discovery with a formal description ultimately took seven years, drawing on morphological comparisons, DNA sequencing and captive breeding observations.
Dasypeltis albigularis can be distinguished from its relatives by the pale, sometimes bluish-tinged skin visible between its scales and a distinctive white throat and belly - a feature reflected in its scientific name, which means “white-throated” in Latin. Unlike some of its relatives, it also appears to lack the ability to produce the rasping, hissing sound that many egg-eating snakes use to fend off predators by rubbing their scales together. Females of the new species reach up to 92 cm in length, somewhat smaller than D. atra and its other closest relatives.
The snake lives in dense forest between 1,500 and 1,700 metres above sea level, in an area whose undergrowth includes wild coffee plants, and feeds on the eggs of tree-nesting birds.
The description of Dasypeltis albigularis adds to a long list of species Dr Tiutenko has helped bring to scientific attention. “This is my 20th taxon that I have named and described,” he noted, adding that several more await formal publication: “I now have five or six species, and one subgenus, in the queue.”

A brown morph of Dasypeltis albigularis sp. nov. photographed in Manyate village, Harenna Forest, Ethiopia.
Credit
Abdulkadir M. Hussein

Dasypeltis albigularis sp. nov.
Credit
Arthur Tiutenko et al., 2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:23:57 +0000

Scientists are one step closer to healing tendon disease in people and animals

Study reveals how specialized tendon cells respond to changes in their physical environment, opening new possibilities for future research into tendon health and repair

Queen Mary University of London

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Tendon cells
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Credit: Queen Mary University of London

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London are now closer to understanding tendinopathy, a common condition that can cause persistent pain and impaired movement in people and many animals.
In recent research, published in Advanced Science, scientists identified a population of tendon cells that is particularly sensitive to changes in the physical environment around them, providing new insight into how tendon tissue may respond to the changes associated with ageing or injury.
Tendons are not made up of one uniform population of cells, instead they contain different regions with distinct physical environments. The researchers focused on cells within the interfascicular matrix (IFM) – the softer tissue that connects the collagen bundles, or fascicles, that make up a tendon.
The team successfully isolated and maintained populations of IFM cells and fascicular matrix (FM) cells, allowing them to compare how the two cell populations respond to changes in mechanical stiffness. While the prior were highly sensitive to their surroundings, the latter remained largely unchanged.
When exposed to stiff substrates, the IFM cells changed their internal structure, rapidly altered the expression of genes associated with tendon function and the extracellular matrix production, and showed a decline in their ability to proliferate. Importantly, when IFM cells were returned to softer, IFM-like substrates, their morphology and ability to proliferate recovered, while some of the changes in gene expression were also restored.
“Our findings show that different tendon cells can respond very differently to changes in their mechanical environment. This is important because tendons can undergo changes in their structure and stiffness during disease, and we need to understand how individual cell populations respond to those changes.” says Dr Simon Grossemy, the lead researcher from Queen Mary University of London.
The Principal Investigator, Professor Hazel Screen added “The recovery we observed when IFM cells were returned to a softer environment was particularly interesting. It highlights how the physical environment is an important factor in maintaining the behaviour and characteristics of these cells.”
For people living with tendon conditions, the research provides a new perspective on how tissue changes may affect the resident cells and maintain tissue health or drive disease. Tendinopathy can be difficult to treat, partly because the biological processes underlying tendon degeneration are still not fully understood. By identifying a highly mechanosensitive cell population, the research gives scientists a new way to investigate how changes in the tendon environment could influence cellular behaviour.
They could also support research into tendon health in animals. Tendon injuries are an important concern in horses, whose tendons experience substantial mechanical forces during movement and athletic activity. A better understanding of how tendon cells respond to their physical surroundings could help researchers investigate the biological processes involved in tendon injury and recovery across species.
Even though the study does not establish that IFM cells directly cause tendinopathy or provide a new treatment, it provides an exciting new experimental framework that enables researchers to investigate these questions.
The team has also developed a defined laboratory culture framework that helps maintain important characteristics of IFM cells in vitro. This is significant because cells can change their behaviour when removed from their natural tissue environment.
The researchers hope that their findings will contribute to a more detailed understanding of tendon biology and support future work towards more targeted approaches to preventing, managing and repairing tendon damage in people and animals.
Journal
Advanced Science
DOI
10.1002/advs.77391
Article Title
Unravelling the Distinct Phenotype and Mechanosensitive Properties of Different Tendon Cell Populations

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:22:15 +0000

Virtual reality helps English teachers strengthen the social side of language

ECNU Review of Education
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A rendered first-person view of the VR scenarios developed for the socio-culturally responsive VR intervention described in the study.
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Credit: Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani

Knowing English involves more than knowing the right words and grammar. Effective communication also requires understanding how language changes according to the people involved, the situation, and the cultural context. A new study suggests that immersive virtual reality (VR) can help English teachers develop this often-overlooked dimension of language use.
The study, Socio-Culturally Responsive VR Training for Enhancing English Teachers' Pragmatic Competence, found that teachers who participated in a 108-hour immersive VR training program showed statistically significant improvements in pragmatic competence, including both their ability to use appropriate linguistic forms and their ability to respond appropriately to social and cultural expectations.
The research, conducted by Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani, was first published online on August 27, 2026, in ECNU Review of Education.
Pragmatic competence is the ability to use language appropriately in real-world situations. A request, refusal, apology, or complaint, for example, can be expressed in many grammatically correct ways, but the most appropriate choice depends on factors such as social relationships, power, distance, and cultural expectations.
For teachers in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, developing this competence can be challenging because opportunities for authentic interaction may be limited. While classroom instruction can explain pragmatic rules, providing repeated opportunities to practice context-sensitive communication in realistic situations is more difficult.
To investigate whether immersive technology could help address this challenge, the researchers employed a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design involving 122 randomly selected EFL teachers. Participants completed verbal discourse completion tasks (DCTs) before and after the training, allowing the researchers to assess changes in pragmatic competence. Focus group interviews were then used to explore participants' experiences and help explain the quantitative findings.
The 108-hour intervention used fully immersive VR simulations featuring artificial intelligence (AI)-driven avatars. The simulations incorporated diverse sociocultural scenarios as well as different speech acts, power relations, and levels of social distance. The intervention followed a human-on-the-loop (HOTL) approach, maintaining human involvement in the AI-supported learning process.
Following the training, participants demonstrated statistically significant improvements in pragmatic competence. The gains were evident in two key dimensions: pragmalinguistic accuracy, or the ability to select and use appropriate linguistic forms, and sociopragmatic appropriateness, or the ability to respond appropriately to the social and cultural expectations of a situation.
The qualitative findings provided further insight into these improvements. Participants identified immersive engagement, real-time adaptive feedback, increased communicative confidence, greater metapragmatic awareness, and reflective practice as important aspects of the VR experience.
These findings suggest that the value of the VR intervention was not simply that teachers were practicing English in a virtual environment. Rather, the simulations created opportunities for participants to make communicative choices within sociocultural situations, receive adaptive feedback, and reflect on why particular choices were appropriate in context.
“Pragmatic competence is not simply a matter of knowing what a particular expression means,” claim Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani. “Teachers also need to understand how their linguistic choices interact with social relationships, cultural expectations, and the context of an interaction. Our findings suggest that immersive VR can create meaningful opportunities to practice these context-sensitive choices through interaction, feedback, and reflection.”
A distinctive feature of the study is its integration of AI-driven interaction with a socio-culturally responsive approach. Rather than using VR solely to reproduce conventional language exercises, the intervention incorporated sociocultural dimensions of communication, including speech acts, power relations, and social distance.
The researchers emphasize that VR is not a replacement for human interaction or conventional teacher education. Instead, immersive technology may provide an additional environment for professional learning, particularly in EFL contexts where opportunities for authentic interaction may be constrained.
Further research is needed to determine whether improvements in pragmatic competence are sustained over time and how effectively skills developed in immersive simulations transfer to teachers’ real-world professional and classroom interactions.
The findings contribute to research on technology-enhanced language teacher education by demonstrating the potential of immersive, AI-supported environments to support the development of English teachers’ pragmatic competence. They also highlight the importance of combining technological innovation with sociocultural awareness, adaptive feedback, and reflective practice when designing professional learning experiences.

A rendered third-person view of the VR scenarios developed for the socio-culturally responsive VR intervention described in the study.
Credit
Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani
Identity-first language (eg "autistic person") versus person-first language (eg "person with autism") ebb and flow in popularity

PLOS
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Preferred terminology over time
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Credit: Kang et al., 2026, PLOS Mental Health, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Identity-first language (eg "autistic person") versus person-first language (eg "person with autism") ebb and flow in popularity: though person-first language has seen an increase in popularity in books and online news from 1980 onward, this trend is counteracted by a more recent swing toward identity-first language.

Article URL: https://plos.io/46gmnsE
Article Title: Who you are or what you have: Historical trends in identity-first and person-first language in books and news media
Author Countries: Australia
Funding: The work reported in this paper was supported by Australian Research Council grant DP250102690 to NH (https://www.arc.gov.au/). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Journal
PLOS Mental Health
DOI
10.1371/journal.pmen.0000684
Article Publication Date
16-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:17:56 +0000

MEDICAL MISOGYNY
Women less likely than men to be offered active medical treatment for the same conditions

University of St. Andrews
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New research from the University of St Andrews has found that women are less like than men with the same medical condition to be offered active management such as surgery, a stent or a strong painkiller.
The findings, published today (16 September) in PLOS One come from a review that sifted 1,112 published studies down to those that directly compared the care given to male and female patients. Of the 38 that analysed patient records, 33 reported a significant difference in the treatment men and women received.
Researchers from the University of St Andrews School of Medicine found that almost none of those studies pointed to any guideline recommending different treatment by sex, leaving open whether this reflects sound clinical judgement or unequal care.
Dr Andrew O’Malley, who co-led the study, said: “For clinicians, the findings are a prompt to check whether treatment is being offered on clinical grounds rather than assumption. For example, one study found that when the teams deciding who receives advanced heart failure therapy functioned poorly, women were less likely to be selected. Other work shows doctors more often attribute women's symptoms to anxiety and make more diagnostic errors with female patients, even when test results are positive.
Dr Miriam Veenhuizen, Honorary Lecturer in the School of Medicine, said: “While the direction of the findings was not a surprise the consistency was. The same pattern appeared in cardiology, surgery, transplant medicine and emergency care, and it survived statistical adjustment in most studies. It’s not entirely clear why this is happening, but it is likely because women were under-represented in clinical trials until recent decades, so many guidelines rest on data from men.”
Dr Veenhuizen added: "What struck us most was the imbalance in attention. Over the same period, 551 studies examined sex inequality affecting doctors and other health professionals. Only 41 examined what happens to patients."
The researchers now intend to test whether the same patterns appear in the outputs of generative AI systems, which are trained on this literature and on clinical records, and which could entrench these differences at scale if left unchecked.

ENDS

Journal
PLOS One
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0356176
Method of Research
Literature review
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Measured treatment differences between sexes and genders; A scoping review
Article Publication Date
16-Sep-2026

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:17:34 +0000

‘Momnesia’ is real – scientists find a biological explanation for temporary forgetfulness during pregnancy

Baylor College of Medicine

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Many women usually say the same thing during pregnancy: they walk into a room and forget why, misplace their keys or struggle to follow a conversation. This phenomenon, often called ‘pregnancy brain’ or ‘momnesia,’ has long lacked a clear biological explanation.
Now, a new study by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions and published in Science Bulletin, identifies a specific brain circuit in an animal model that becomes disrupted under the sustained high estrogen levels present during pregnancy. The findings offer the first biological explanation of how exposure to high-level circulating estrogen can temporarily impair memory.
A novel brain circuit links high estrogen levels with memory problems
“We worked with mouse models designed to mimic the sustained, high blood-estrogen levels of pregnancy. This models showed that elevated estrogen caused reversible memory impairment without affecting mood or motivation, suggesting a specific cognitive effect rather than a general change in well-being,” said senior author Dr. Zheng Sun, associate professor of medicine – endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism and of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor.
Digging into the underlying biology, the team found that estrogen receptor alpha, the protein that transmits estrogen’s signals into cells, is the dominant estrogen receptor in the brain reagion called the lateral hypothalamus. Furthermore, this region has abundant GABAergic neurons – brain cells that normally send calming, inhibitory signals to other parts of the brain. Using single-nucleus RNA sequencing, the researchers discovered that high estrogen levels suppress signaling in these neurons, leading them to fire more frequently. “When we genetically removed estrogen receptors from these hypothalamic neurons, both estrogen-induced and pregnancy-induced memory problems in mice were reversed,” said Sun, a member of Baylor’s Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The team also found that these overactive hypothalamic neurons project directly into a region of the hippocampus that is a hub for memory formation. Using chemogenetics, a technique that allows researchers to turn specific neurons on or off, the team showed that silencing this hypothalamus-to-hippocampus pathway protected mice from estrogen-induced memory problems, whereas artificially activating the same pathway was sufficient to impair memory on its own, even without elevated estrogen.
Reconciling mixed evidence
Estrogen’s relationship with memory has puzzled researchers for decades. For instance, hormone replacement therapy after menopause has been linked to cognitive benefits in some studies, while high estrogen during pregnancy or with oral contraceptive use has been linked to memory complaints in others. The new findings suggest a possible explanation – it may not simply be a matter of ‘more estrogen is better’ or ‘worse,’ but rather where in the brain that estrogen acts, and at what levels.
“Low-level, cyclical estrogen exposure appears to support cognitive function, which is part of why hormone therapy can help postmenopausal women,” said senior author Dr. Yanlin He, associate professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. “But sustained, high-level estrogen exposure seems to engage a different pathway altogether, one centered in the hypothalamus rather than the hippocampus itself. That distinction may help reconcile a lot of conflicting data in the field.”
Confirming the link in pregnant women
To determine whether these findings translate to humans, the researchers assessed memory performance in women across different stages of pregnancy. They found task-specific memory impairments that emerged during late pregnancy, and that correlated with circulating estrogen levels, even after accounting for other factors that might influence cognition. This human data supports the idea that the hormone-driven circuit identified in mice may underlie the memory changes many pregnant women experience.
“Momnesia is real, it has a defined biological basis and is temporary,” said senior author Dr. Xianghua Zhuang, professor at the Second Qilu Hospital of Shandong University. “We hope this work helps validate what many women have described anecdotally for years, and gives researchers a concrete target for future study.”
“The memory changes observed in both mice and women were temporary and task-specific, not a sign of broader cognitive decline,” said senior author Dr. Xinguo Hou, professor at the Qilu Hospital of Shandong University. “Nonetheless, understanding the underlying circuit could eventually inform how clinicians counsel patients about the cognitive side effects of pregnancy or hormonal contraceptives, and could open avenues for therapies targeting this specific pathway without disrupting estrogen’s broader, beneficial roles in the body.”
Other contributors to this work include Xin Li, Nan Zang, Qianru Zhao, Yuxiang Sun, Udhaya Kumar Siva Kumar, Mengyu Hu, Wenjun Zhou, Yanyan Qi, Hu Chen, Longqing Xia, Jun Qin, Lei Sun, Chaitra Rai, Chao Cheng, Zhandong Liu, Li Chen, Yong Xu, Zhaoyong Hu and Hongjie Li. The authors are affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine, Shandong University or Louisiana State University.
The researchers were supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grants 2023YFA1801100 and 2023YFA1801104), the Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province, NIH (grants AG069966 and ES034758), John S. Dunn Foundation, the Texas Medical Center Digestive Diseases Center (P30DK056338), the Gulf Coast Center for Precision Environmental Health (GC-CPEH, P30ES030285), a Frank Belton Kimmel and Sandra Kimmel Endowed Post-doctoral Fellowship and a training fellowship from the Gulf Coast Consortia on the Training in Precision Environmental Health Sciences Program (T32ES027801).
###
Journal
Science Bulletin
DOI
10.1016/j.scib.2026.08.057
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
Animals
Article Title
Study supports effectiveness of RSV preventive antibody treatments for infants and provides new way to monitor viral resistance

Analysis published in Nature of more than 60,000 RSV sequences found resistance-associated variants to two monoclonal antibody treatments are rare and provides a roadmap to help guide the development of future prevention tools

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
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Cassandra Simonich, MD, PhD, prepares samples for deep mutational scanning research in the Fred Hutch lab of Jesse Bloom, PhD.
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Credit: Fred Hutch Cancer Center

SEATTLE — Sept. 16, 2026 — An analysis of more than 60,000 respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) sequences from around the world found that viral variants associated with resistance to current RSV prevention tools remain rare, according to a study published Sept. 16 in Nature.
The findings support the continued effectiveness of preventive antibodies and vaccines used to protect infants and other vulnerable populations from severe RSV infections, while providing new insights that could help guide the development of future prevention strategies.
“It's so incredible as a pediatrician, and as a mom, that we now have these prevention tools for RSV,” said first author Cassandra Simonich, MD, PhD, a research associate at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and a pediatric infectious diseases physician at Seattle Children’s. “We know these tools work really well in reducing severe RSV infections in babies. We want to ensure that these tools stay effective, and this study is a step toward ensuring our prevention methods keep working.”
RSV prevention tools include monoclonal antibodies for infants and vaccines for adults, which when given in advance of infection can prevent and reduce severity of the infection. Infants, older adults with weakened immune systems and people who are immunocompromised – such as when undergoing cancer treatment – are considered vulnerable to RSV and recommended to receive RSV prevention therapeutics.
The other prevention tool is to give an RSV vaccine to people who are in their third trimester of pregnancy, which then leads to anti RSV antibodies in the fetus. Those antibodies persist after birth to prevent RSV infection.
While prevention strategies have been successful so far, infectious disease experts have been on the lookout for signs that the RSV virus could adapt to resist the biological blockades created by preventive antibodies. Such signs of resistance would appear in mutations in new sequences of RSV.
“We really hope resistance does not become a problem for RSV prevention tools,” said Simonich. “But the monitoring up to this point had been limited because there wasn't a comprehensive understanding of the impact of any viral changes that are observed and what they actually mean for the ability of these antibodies to still effectively target the virus.”
Using a lab method called deep mutational scanning, Simonich and the study coauthors created a detailed library of possible RSV mutations that could indicate that the virus is changing in ways that could make preventive tools less effective.
The deep mutational scanning method was developed by Jesse Bloom, PhD, an evolutionary virologist and professor at Fred Hutch. Bloom is an Investigator with Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
“In the past, scientists have mostly identified RSV antibody resistance mutations by passaging the actual virus in the lab in the presence of antibodies,” Bloom explained. “With new techniques like the one in this paper, we can systematically characterize the effects of mutations to the key viral protein outside the context of actual pathogenic virus. We can then combine these measurements with biophysical modeling of antibody escape and analysis of natural viral sequences to understand the extent to which evolution might impact the effectiveness of these important antibodies.”
The team looked at 60,000 RSV sequences from public databases. The viral sequences were from cases around the world of people with RSV and included subtypes RSV A and RSV B, which circulate together. The researchers used deep mutational scanning to systematically measure the effect of thousands of possible mutations to the RSV fusion protein on antibody neutralization, and then used that information to score the sequences for their level of resistance.
“Our findings show that it was rare to find resistance to the RSV antibodies currently used for prevention,” Simonich said. “So that's encouraging for nirsevimab and clesirovimab because for both of these antibodies, it doesn't seem like there's any sort of sustained spread of resistance mutations.”
Simonich estimated that less than 1% of RSV sequences contain resistance mutations.
The researchers then integrated these comprehensive mutation libraries into Nextstrain, which is an open-access platform for monitoring pathogens. The team hopes the findings will help with ongoing real-time surveillance to monitor for resistance in RSV and examine if any RSV strains that are resistant become more common over time.
“The progress we've made in preventing severe RSV disease, especially amo

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:16:35 +0000

Nearly a decade of research strengthens case for vitamin D in pregnancy

MUSC study of 15,000 pregnancies links severe maternal vitamin D deficiency to higher risk of preterm birth

Medical University of South Carolina
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Dr. Carol Wagner and Anjali Borsum (above) found that among more than 15,000 pregnancies studied at MUSC, the women with the lowest vitamin D levels faced the highest risk of preterm birth.
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Credit: MUSC

A common and often overlooked nutrient deficiency may play a bigger role in pregnancy outcomes than previously recognized. In a recent analysis published in the Journal of Perinatology, prominent neonatologist and pediatrician Carol L. Wagner, M.D., and Anjali G. Borsum, an M.D. candidate at MUSC’s College of Medicine, found that among more than 15,000 pregnancies studied at MUSC, the women with the lowest vitamin D levels faced the highest risk of preterm birth.
Drawing from a large retrospective dataset collected between 2016 and 2025 and leveraging extensive support from the South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research (SCTR) Institute, including biostatistical and regulatory guidance, clinical research infrastructure, laboratory services and Nexus data resources, Wagner and Borsum identified a strong association between profound vitamin D deficiency and earlier gestational age at delivery. Wagner credited SCTR’s comprehensive support as instrumental to the study’s success.
Without SCTR, we as a team would never have been able to accomplish what we did. It’s a phenomenal infrastructure and an incredible gift to any researcher.”
While the team has not yet established a definitive causal relationship, the findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that optimizing a patient’s vitamin D status before and during pregnancy may improve both maternal and fetal health outcomes.
Why vitamin D might matter in pregnancy
Vitamin D is a vital nutrient that is known primarily for helping the body to absorb calcium and maintain normal bone, muscle, nerve and immune health. But as Wagner and fellow MUSC basic and translational scientist Bruce W. Hollis, Ph.D., discovered in earlier randomized controlled trials, vitamin D acts as a building block for hormones that play an important role in pregnancy.
“Vitamin D impacts literally thousands of genes in the body,” said Wagner. Research suggests that vitamin D helps the development of the placenta, the temporary organ that grows in a pregnant woman to nourish the fetus. It also appears to help support healthy immune function and may reduce the risk of serious complications like preeclampsia and gestational diabetes.
One crucial function vitamin D seems to serve is helping the mother’s immune system to adapt to pregnancy. Because a baby in utero contains genetic material from both parents, the mother’s body must learn to tolerate something that is partially foreign. Vitamin D may help to regulate that process, supporting a healthy pregnancy and fetal development.
Beyond pregnancy: Vitamin D’s broader health role
According to Wagner and Borsum, vitamin D may shape long-term health more than immediate outcomes. Some of the effects of deficiency may begin early in development, altering how genes function and potentially influencing the baby’s health for years, or even decades, to come.
Even outside of pregnancy, vitamin D deficiency is far more common than many people realize. Modern lifestyles often limit time spent outdoors, reducing the body’s ability to produce vitamin D from sunlight. At the same time, food sources provide only a small portion of the vitamin D most people need. As a result, many individuals do not reach healthy vitamin D levels.
Some groups are at higher risk for deficiency, including people with darker skin, those who work indoors, individuals who regularly use sunscreen and people with limited mobility or chronic health conditions that keep them inside.
The team stresses that sunscreen remains essential for protecting against skin cancer. However, people with limited sun exposure may benefit from discussing their vitamin D levels and potential supplementation with their health care provider.
“We have to balance the importance of sunshine and vitamin D with the risk of skin cancer,” said Borsum. “But this further emphasizes the vast role vitamin D plays.”
Emerging research suggests that vitamin D helps to regulate thousands of genes throughout the body, particularly those involved in immune function. Low levels have been associated with autoimmune diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis as well as certain cancers.
Challenges of turning research into practice and future directions
Despite growing evidence supporting the importance of vitamin D, Wagner said changing clinical practice can be difficult. Unlike prescription medications, vitamin D is inexpensive, widely available and cannot be patented, which means there is less commercial impetus to promote its use. “No one’s going to make billions off of this,” Wagner explained. “So, it then becomes a public health issue.”
As researchers continue to build evidence about the role of vitamin D in pregnancy and overall health, Wagner and Borsum see the next steps as educating health care providers, continuing to investigate vitamin D’s long-term effects and increasing public awareness.
“We learn about vitamin D’s role in bone health, but no one teaches us about the various roles in pregnancy, especially this relationship with preterm birth we are uncovering,” Borsum explained. “I always tell my friends and family who are thinking about becoming pregnant to make sure they are sufficient!”
As researchers continue to uncover vitamin D’s far-reaching effects, Wagner and Borsum hope the growing body of evidence will encourage more conversations about a nutrient that may shape health across generations.
###
About MUSC
Founded in 1824 in Charleston, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) is the state’s only comprehensive academic health system, with a mission to preserve and optimize human life in South Carolina through education, research and patient care. Each year, MUSC educates more than 3,490 students in six colleges and trains more than 1,175 residents and fellows across its health system. MUSC leads the state in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, including National Institute of General Medical Sciences COBRE awards. For information on our academic programs, visit musc.edu.
As the healthcare system of MUSC, MUSC Health is dedicated to delivering the highest-quality and safest patient care while educating and training generations of outstanding healthcare providers and leaders to serve the people of South Carolina and beyond. In 2026, for the 12th consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report named MUSC Health University Medical Center in Charleston the No. 1 hospital in South Carolina. To learn more about clinical patient services, visit muschealth.org.
MUSC has a total enterprise annual operating budget of $10.1 billion. The more than 37,130 MUSC members include world-class faculty, physicians, specialty providers, scientists, contract employees, affiliates and care team members who deliver groundbreaking education, research and patient care.
About the South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute
The South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research (SCTR) Institute is the catalys

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:15:47 +0000

Robotic help in high-risk twin pregnancies

ETH Zurich
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The thin foetoscope is guided through the abdominal wall to the placenta. Small magnets in its tip react to an externally generated magnetic field, enabling the instrument to be bent with precision. The robotic platform is designed to occlude shared blood vessels in the placenta of twins with twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.
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Credit: (Graphic created with BioRender.com: ETH Zurich)

In Switzerland, around 2,400 children are born as twins every year. When the foetuses share a placenta, they are connected to one another via blood vessels. If the blood circulation becomes unbalanced, this can be life-threatening for both, as too much blood flows from one foetus to the other. The condition known as ‘twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome’ (TTTS) affects around twenty to thirty women a year in Switzerland. To date, the only effective treatment is a highly complex operation that is performed by only a handful of specialists worldwide.
Researchers at ETH Zurich and doctors at the University of Zurich have set themselves the goal of making this operation easier and lifting its success rate. Currently, surgeons use a foetoscope for this purpose – a delicate endoscope designed for procedures on pregnant women. It contains a small camera and a channel through which a thin fibre guides laser light to the blood vessels in the placenta. In this way, surgeons are able to seal the vessels in the placenta that connect the two foetuses.
The fetoscopes in use today, however, are rigid. Depending on the position of the placenta, it can therefore be extremely difficult to reach all the affected blood vessels and seal them with the laser.
Magnetic control for greater manoeuvrability
In response to this situation the researchers and doctors have developed a flexible foetoscope with a diameter of just 3.2 millimetres, featuring a tip containing magnets. Three large electromagnets outside the patient’s body generate a controllable magnetic field, enabling them to bend the tip of the foetoscope, whereby the magnetic field is entirely innocuous.
The principle is similar to that of a compass needle: just as a compass needle aligns itself with the Earth’s magnetic field, the magnets in the tip of the fetoscope follow the externally generated magnetic field. If the magnetic navigation system changes direction, the tip of the instrument shifts as well. “We have achieved a bend of up to 173 degrees. This means we can easily reach even the hard-to-access vessels,” says Michelle Mattille, a postdoctoral researcher and lead author of a paper recently published in the journal Science Robotics, which presents the new robotic platform.
Navigating with a panoramic view
The panoramic view is a second key component of the robotic platform. During minimally invasive procedures, surgeons can only see a small section of the surrounding area through the endoscope. Which means that they must therefore memorise the vessels they have already seen and the courses they run, which calls for a great deal of experience and concentration.
The new system combines the individual endoscopic images in real time to form a panoramic image, enabling the surgeon to now select a target on this two-dimensional map. The fetoscope then navigates there automatically. Doctors, however, can take control at any time and steer the fetoscope manually using a PlayStation game controller. Software then translates the desired movement in the camera image into the corresponding change in the magnetic field.
Mattille was surprised by the extent to which the robotic procedure differed from conventional laser surgery. “Even the very steady hand of an experienced surgeon causes the foetoscope to wobble slightly. Our robotic platform, on the other hand, stabilises the tip and holds it much more steadily at the desired location to coagulate the vessels precisely,” as the researcher relates.
In experiments, the participants hit simulated targets far more accurately using the robotic system. “With the robotic system, the deviation was typically 140 micrometres, meaning it is more than four times more precise than conventional comparable instruments,” Mattille states.
Critical testing outside the laboratory
An experiment on a pregnant ewe represented a key step towards the clinical application of the robotic platform. This marked the first time the researchers had left the controlled laboratory environment behind and tested the device under real-world conditions. They now had to contend with the animal’s breathing and heart rate, cloudy amniotic fluid, as well as suspended particles and a moving foetus.
“We spent a year preparing for the approximately three-hour animal experiment. We were the first group to successfully replicate the key steps of the procedure,” as Mattille states.
Mattille developed the platform as part of her doctoral work, collaborating with researchers from ETH Zurich and the surgeons Nicole Ochsenbein of the University Hospital and Ueli Moehrlen of the University Children’s Hospital Zurich. Quentin Boehler, who worked on the project and now heads up the Medical Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich as Professor of Robotics, also played a key role.
Following the successful tests, the team now intends to further develop the platform for use on humans. In this context, the researchers must, above all, conduct further safety assessments and refine the algorithms to create a robust system for clinical use. At the same time, they are developing additional assistance functions designed to provide targeted support for surgeons during the ongoing procedures.
Also conceivable for other procedures
In future, the technology could also be used over and beyond the field of foetal surgery. One possible application would be to assist with navigation during gastroscopies and cystoscopies, while mapping the areas being examined. This would also allow changes over time to be tracked precisely. “The requirements are somewhat different there, however,” says Mattille. “Instead of a relatively flat surface, as with the placenta, here, a three-dimensional cavity needs to be mapped.”
The successful in vivo animal trial represents an important milestone on the path to robot-assisted procedures in foetal surgery: for the first time, researchers have succeeded in demonstrating the key steps of an TTTS procedure in a realistic environment. For Mattille, the motivation is clear: “Although TTTS affects only a small share of twin pregnancies, the procedure is a matter of life and death for these children.”
(Video: https://youtu.be/nHxl526S-S8?si=zynXwyn-J59qVOdu )
The system generates a panoramic view of the placenta from the endoscopic images, thereby facilitating navigation. (Video: Michelle Mattille / ETH Zurich)
(Video: https://youtu.be/Z9y-dCsYmG4)
The video shows how the foetoscope moves over the placenta using magnetic control. Depending on the direction of the magnetic field, its tip bends in one direction or the other. (Video: Michelle Mattille / ETH Zurich)
Reference
Mattille M, Mesot A, Weisskopf M, Ochsenbein-Kölble N, Moehrlen U, Nelson BJ, Boehler Q: Advancing minimally invasive precision surgery in large open cavities with robotic flexible endoscopy. Science Robotics, 16 September 2026, DOI:10.1126/scirobotics.aed1470
Rice University mechanical engineer exploring a future where fabric itself becomes the robot

Rice University
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Vanessa Sanchez in her lab at Rice.
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Credit: Rice University.

Imagine a car seat that reshapes itself around the person sitting in it, clothing that gently assists someone as they walk or a soft safety system that can sense an impending impact and respond.
At Rice University, mechanical engineer Vanessa Sanchez is working toward a future in which those functions could be built directly into fabric.
Sanchez, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received the Toyota Programmable System Innovation Fellowship to develop “Programmable 3D-Knitted Soft Robotic Textiles for Human-Centered Mobility.” The project will explore how sensing, movement and mechanical behavior can be programmed directly into knitted structures rather than added later as separate components.
The goal is to make the textile itself the robot.
“We tend to think of fabric as something passive — something that covers, cushions or supports another device,” Sanchez said. “We’re asking what happens when the textile becomes the device itself with sensing, movement and mechanical function built directly into its structure.”
Today’s soft robotic systems often combine fabrics with separate sensors, actuators, electronics and structural components. That can make devices bulky and complicated to manufacture and can limit their ability to comfortably conform to different bodies. Sanchez’s team is taking a different approach. By carefully controlling yarn selection, stitch patterns and three-dimensional knit architecture, she aims to encode mechanical behavior into a textile as it is manufactured. Functional fibers, pneumatic channels and sensors could be integrated into the same knitted structure, allowing a fabric to bend, twist, contract or inflate while also sensing its own movement and interaction with a user.
This approach builds on years of Sanchez’s work in the field of textiles, materials science and robotics — and the unconventional path she took to get here.
Sanchez began using a sewing machine as a young child, and she initially studied fashion design as an undergraduate.
“I began college studying fashion at FIT before transferring to Cornell to study fiber science,” Sanchez said. “That shift helped me realize I could bring together my interests in design and engineering.”
She later earned graduate degrees at Harvard University, where she worked on soft robotic systems designed to assist human movement, before conducting postdoctoral research at Stanford University. Today, she directs Rice’s texlab, where she designs robotic textiles and soft wearable systems.
That combination of textile design and engineering shapes the new Toyota-supported project.
“Textiles are already extraordinarily good at interacting with the human body,” Sanchez said. “They stretch, conform, distribute forces and move with us. If we can add robotic functionality without losing those qualities, we can begin designing systems that are much more natural and comfortable for people to use.”
The 12-month project will focus first on integrating sensing and actuation — the ability to detect changes and produce movement — within the same 3D-knitted structures.
Using materials including conductive fibers, pneumatic channels and composite knitted architectures, Sanchez’s team plans to create textile modules capable of programmed sequences of motion, such as contracting, bending, twisting and inflating.
At the same time, embedded sensing could allow those structures to detect information such as strain, pressure, deformation and loading. Eventually, that capability could enable a robotic textile to sense what is happening to it and adjust its behavior in response.
Sanchez’s lab has already developed technologies featuring textile-based sensors, programmed textile actuators, morphing fabrics and knitted pneumatic actuators capable of producing specific motions based on their structure. At Rice, her group is also investigating AI-guided textile design and new manufacturing techniques for knitted robotic systems.
The fellowship will allow her to begin bringing those capabilities together into more integrated systems.
The second phase of the project will translate those textile systems into prototype technologies relevant to mobility. Possible applications include wearable devices that provide localized assistance to help a person move, seating or interior surfaces that change shape or stiffness in response to a user and soft safety structures that deploy or deform to absorb energy.
The prototypes will be developed in collaboration with Toyota researchers and evaluated for performance, sensing, manufacturability, weight, adaptability and safe interaction with people.
The research reflects a general shift toward designing robots that can operate more naturally alongside humans. For Sanchez, the project is part of a larger effort to expand what textiles can do.
“I’m continuously trying to understand the relationship between fibers and yarns and their structures so well that I can be really innovative and build something brand new,” she said. “Ultimately, I want to use textiles to create new kinds of machines and systems that can support people.”

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:13:35 +0000

FAU study finds time of day may be key in speech therapy for youth

Florida Atlantic University

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New research from FAU's College of Education is examining whether the timing of speech practice could make a difference for young people with childhood apraxia of speech.
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Credit: Alex Dolce, Florida Atlantic University

For young people with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), a disorder that affects the brain’s ability to plan and coordinate the movements needed for speech, speech difficulties can persist well beyond childhood. Unlike many childhood speech disorders that improve with age, people with childhood CAS may continue to experience speech errors into adolescence and young adulthood and often require intensive, individualized therapy.
CAS affects an estimated 0.1% to 0.2% of the population and can make it difficult for children to produce sounds and words accurately and consistently. About 78% of adolescents with CAS continue to make speech errors in conversation, while 65% experience reading difficulties, potentially affecting their academic performance, social interactions and confidence. Treatment also can be intensive, with children with CAS requiring substantially more individualized intervention than children with other speech sound disorders to achieve comparable outcomes.
New research from Florida Atlantic University’s College of Education is examining whether when speech therapy occurs could influence how effectively adolescents and young adults with CAS learn and retain new speech patterns. The study explores the role of time of day and memory in speech-motor learning, with the goal of identifying strategies that could ultimately help clinicians optimize treatment for people with CAS.
To investigate how people with and without CAS learn and retain new speech patterns, researchers recruited 82 adolescents and young adults ages 12 to 21, including participants with long-standing CAS and peers with typical speech profiles. Participants first learned to recognize two Danish vowel sounds that do not occur in English and then practiced producing them.
Participants were divided into two groups: one trained in the morning and the other in the evening. Researchers measured how accurately participants produced the unfamiliar sounds immediately after training and again 12 hours later. Native Danish speakers evaluated the participants’ productions, allowing researchers to track changes in speech accuracy over time and determine whether the timing of training influenced how newly learned speech patterns were retained.
The study, published in the journal Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, revealed a striking difference in how speech-motor learning unfolded for participants with and without CAS. Among participants with typical speech profiles, those who trained in the evening showed slight improvements in their ability to produce the unfamiliar Danish vowels after 12 hours, while those who trained in the morning showed a decline in accuracy over the same period. The finding is consistent with previous research suggesting that evening training may give typical learners an advantage in retaining newly learned speech patterns, potentially because sleep soon after training helps consolidate what they have learned.
The pattern, however, was reversed among participants with long-standing CAS. Those who trained in the morning consistently outperformed those who trained in the evening – both immediately after training and 12 hours later. This suggests that, unlike their peers with typical speech, adolescents and young adults with CAS may not receive the same benefit from an overnight period following speech-motor training.
The researchers also conducted standardized speech assessments to examine how CAS continued to present in adolescence and young adulthood. They found that participants with CAS differed from their peers across multiple measures of speech production, even though the groups did not differ in phonological processing, suggesting that the characteristic speech difficulties associated with CAS can remain clinically observable well beyond childhood.
Together, the findings point to a different pattern of speech-motor learning and consolidation in people with long-standing CAS. The results raise the possibility that the timing of speech intervention could influence how effectively individuals with CAS learn new speech patterns, potentially providing clinicians with a simple way to optimize treatment. The researchers note, however, that the role of sleep remains a hypothesis that requires further study.
“What’s particularly exciting about these findings is that the timing of speech practice appears to matter differently for people with and without childhood apraxia of speech,” said Anne L. van Zelst, Ph.D., senior author, a speech-language pathologist, an assistant professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders within FAU’s College of Education, and a faculty member of FAU’s Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute. “For individuals with long-standing CAS, morning training produced more consistent benefits, suggesting that we may eventually be able to use what we know about learning and memory to make speech treatment more effective without simply adding more hours of therapy. If we can identify when the brain is most prepared to learn and retain new speech patterns, we could potentially reduce some of the treatment burden for individuals who have been working on their speech for years.”
Study co-author is F. Sayako Earle, Ph.D., an associate professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Delaware.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Deafness and Other Disorders, awarded to Earle.
Journal
Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics
DOI
10.1080/02699206.2026.2713447
Method of Research
Experimental study
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
Against the clock: How time of day influences

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:13:11 +0000

Study reveals young onset dementia’s immense impact on families

Families caring for a loved one with young onset dementia are facing years of uncertainty, financial strain and emotional exhaustion - with many struggling to access timely diagnosis and appropriate support, according to a new Curtin University study

Curtin University
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Families caring for a loved one with young onset dementia are facing years of uncertainty, financial strain and emotional exhaustion - with many struggling to access timely diagnosis and appropriate support, according to a new Curtin University study.

Despite affecting nearly four million people under the age of 65 globally, young onset dementia is often overlooked by health professionals because symptoms appear in people who are still working, raising families and living independently.

On the eve of Dementia Action Week (September 21 – 27), this new study explores the experiences of Western Australians whose spouses lived with young onset dementia, capturing the challenges they faced from the first signs of change through to residential care.

Spouses and partners said they frequently noticed early warning signs long before a diagnosis was made, yet their concerns were often dismissed, contributing to delays in care.

Lead author Associate Professor Elissa Burton, from the Curtin School of Allied Health, said these stories highlighted a major gap in how Australia identifies and supports people with young onset dementia and their families.

"Young onset dementia can turn a family's life upside down at a time when people are still working, paying mortgages and raising children," Dr Burton said.

"Many families spend years searching for answers because dementia is not something most people, or sometimes even health professionals, expect to see in someone in their 40s, 50s or early 60s.

"Our research shows spouses and partners are often the first people to notice subtle changes in behaviour, memory or decision-making, so they should be viewed as important partners in the diagnostic process, not bystanders."

The research found care partners often became advocates, problem-solvers and coordinators of care while managing significant impacts on their employment, finances, social lives and wellbeing.

Care partner Vicki Barry said her husband Mike began showing symptoms of the disease when he was just 58 years old – however dementia wasn’t initially considered.

“The early signs were so subtle I had no idea what was going on: like everyone, I thought dementia was reserved for the aged and frail,” she said.

Vicki said there needed to be greater health professional understanding and support of young onset dementia, given the immense emotional and practical strain the disease puts families through.

“When I went to his GP for help the response was, ‘If Mike has any problems, he’ll discuss them with me’, before being ushered out of the office and told to ‘go home and be a good wife’,” she said.

“I felt ceremoniously dismissed and had nowhere to go.

“I’ve learned to be the good advocate, the navigator and compassionate carer through necessity, not by choice; no one gets it until you are living it”.

Study respondents also reported difficulties finding services designed for younger people living with dementia, however Associate Professor Burton said the study pointed to several practical changes that could improve outcomes for families.

"Better awareness among GPs and other frontline health professionals could help reduce diagnostic delays and ensure families are taken seriously when they raise concerns," she said.

"We also need more age-appropriate services that recognise the realities of young onset dementia, including the impact on work, finances, relationships and future planning."

"By listening to the experiences of care partners, we can design more responsive services and ensure families receive the support they need much earlier in their journey."

The researchers hope the findings will help health professionals better understand the experiences of families living with young onset dementia and encourage service providers to develop more tailored support pathways.

The study also highlights the value of involving carers and family members in decision-making throughout the course of the condition.

‘One of the many things that I’ve learned on this journey…: A co-operative, narrative inquiry with two care partners of spouses with young onset dementia’ was published in Health Expectations.
Journal
Health Expectations
DOI
10.1111/hex.70827
Method of Research
Survey
Subject of Research
People
Device simulates human tissue and offers an alternative to animal testing

Developed at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials, this technology enables the three-dimensional cultivation of cells and allows for a more accurate assessment of the toxicity of drugs, nanomaterials, and pollutants

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
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Microfluidic platform during a toxicology test. The reversible design allows the device to be opened after testing to recover intact cell models for further analysis
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Credit: CNPEM

Researchers at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) have developed microscopic technology that can grow cells in three dimensions (3D). The goal is to conduct toxicity tests on new products by more accurately simulating living organisms.
This technology is a breakthrough for drug development, material safety assessment, and ecotoxicology research (the study of the impact of substances on ecosystems). It also helps reduce the need for animal testing. The device uses microfluidics, which allows for precise control of the flow of nutrients, oxygen, and other substances in microscopic tests. This maintains three-dimensional cellular models that more closely resemble the structure and function of human tissues. Compared to conventional cell cultures grown on flat surfaces, 3D models provide better insight into the effects of drugs, nanomaterials, and environmental pollutants.
The platform is manufactured from PDMS, a malleable, transparent, biocompatible, and low-cost silicone, and enables the automated conduct of multiple experiments. One of its key features is its reversible design, which allows the device to be opened after testing to retrieve intact cellular models for further analysis. This expands the possibilities for investigating the mechanisms of action of the substances being evaluated.
The study was published in July in the scientific journal ACS Measurement Science Au. It was conducted within the scope of the Research Center for Molecular Engineering of Advanced Materials (CEMol), a Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Center (RIDC) funded by FAPESP at the CNPEM.
The study presents three main advances. First, it developed a standardized, reproducible, and user-friendly experimental protocol that enables researchers without prior microfluidics experience to use the technology in routine cell assays. Second, the ability to recover three-dimensional cell models for further analysis after testing is a key feature. This capability, uncommon in microfluidic platforms, allows for a more in-depth investigation of how drugs and materials interact with cells. Third, the ability to conduct assays under continuous flow conditions more accurately replicates the circulation of nutrients and molecules observed in the body.
Consequently, results obtained in the laboratory more accurately reflect the behavior of substances in real biological systems. “We’ve developed a simple and reproducible protocol that will allow researchers from different fields to use the platform. Furthermore, the ability to recover the cell models after the assays significantly expands the range of analyses that can be performed,” Iris Renata Sousa Ribeiro, a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Brazilian Nanotechnology Laboratory (LNNano-CNPEM) and the first author of the study, explains to the CNPEM Press Office.
The team is working to make the platform available as an open infrastructure for external researchers from universities, research institutes, and companies by early next year. They aim to expand its use in pharmacology, nanotechnology, materials science, biotechnology, and ecotoxicology studies. “We want researchers from across the country to be able to use this technology to develop more accurate toxicity assays that closely resemble actual conditions in living organisms,” Ribeiro says.
The work was also supported by FAPESP through projects 22/02378-0, 23/00246-1, 24/14758-7, 25/22142-9, 25/00614-6, 25/22280-2, and 25/26623-1.
About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

Journal
ACS Measurement Science Au

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:54:08 +0000

Genome assembly of rice stink bug offers new data-informed tool in fight against costly pest

First chromosome-scale genome assembled for rice stink bug

University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
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Rich Adams, an assistant professor of agricultural statistics for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, is the corresponding author of a study that assembled the genome of the rice stink bug, one of the most significant threats to rice, a staple food for nearly half of the world’s population and a major crop in Arkansas. The work identified gene families associated with feeding, host adaptation and detoxification, as well as genes that may play roles in insecticide resistance.
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Credit: UADA photo

By John Lovett
University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Scientists are getting a leg up on the rice stink bug, one of the most significant threats to rice, a staple food for nearly half of the world’s population and a major crop in Arkansas.
With funding support from the Arkansas Biosciences Institute, researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture's research arm, generated the first high-quality, chromosome-scale reference genome for the rice stink bug, Oebalus pugnax, identifying more than 13,000 genes with broad biological and agricultural relevance.
The development created a foundational resource to help scientists better understand how the insect feeds, adapts to host plants and potentially develops resistance to insecticides. The study, published in the Journal of Heredity, provides the most detailed genomic analysis to date of the rice stink bug, which feeds on more than 15 host plant species, including grain sorghum, and has shown resistance to pyrethroid insecticides in some populations.
“This gives us our first chromosome-scale view of the rice stink bug genome,” said Rich Adams, an assistant professor of agricultural statistics for the experiment station and corresponding author of the study. “We were able to assemble much of the nuclear genome, identify more than 13,000 genes and uncover genetic features involved in the insect’s biology and interactions with agricultural systems. It creates a foundation and hypothesis for future studies of rice stink bug biology and management.”
Adams is also a teaching faculty member with department of entomology and plant pathology in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas and the experiment station’s Center for Agricultural Data Analytics.
The genome assembly provided researchers with the first predicted chromosomes and their gene content. It also revealed evidence of roughly 21,000 non-coding RNAs, Adams said. The analysis identified genes with predicted roles in plant digestion, including carbohydrate-active enzymes, and uncovered expansions and contractions in gene families associated with key life history traits and agricultural impact.
Using advanced sequencing technologies, researchers reconstructed the rice stink bug's 826-million-base-pair genome with unprecedented resolution. The work identified gene families associated with feeding, host adaptation and detoxification, as well as genes that may play roles in insecticide resistance.
“This genome provides a foundation for studying genome structure, gene family evolution, plant feeding, host adaptation, detoxification and potential insecticide resistance,” said Allen Szalanski, a professor of entomology and plant pathology for the experiment station and a co-author of the study.
The new research builds on findings from a previous study by Szalanski, Adams and colleagues with UADA and Florida A&M University that examined genetic variation among rice stink bug populations across Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida and Cuba.
In that earlier study, published in Florida Entomologist, researchers analyzed a mitochondrial DNA marker and found high genetic diversity within O. pugnax populations. The results pointed to movement of rice stink bugs among southeastern states and suggested that two invasive Oebalus species found in Florida may have originated in Cuba.
“The first study helped us understand how rice stink bug populations vary genetically and move across regions,” Szalanski said. “This new genome gives us the tools to investigate the biological mechanisms behind those differences and how this pest adapts to rice production systems.”
Adams noted that a genome assembly represents a scientific starting point rather than a final product. As additional data become available, researchers can refine the assembly and use it to test new hypotheses about the evolution, behavior and management of rice stink bugs.
“Knowing more about the genetic basis of these traits can ultimately help researchers develop better monitoring and management strategies for rice producers,” Szalanski said.
Rice stink bugs cost Arkansas rice growers more than $16 million in 2017 alone, with similar costs estimated in 2018 and 2019, the first study noted.
About the researchers
Rokeya Akter, a graduate student in the department of entomology and plant pathology, was the first author of the study published in the Journal of Heredity. Co-authors included Mahamad Sayab Miya, Ph.D., a senior research assistant in the department, and Duane D. McKenna, the William Hill Professor of Biology and founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Research at the University of Memphis.
To learn more about ag and food research in Arkansas, visit aaes.uada.edu. Follow the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station on LinkedIn and sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Arkansas Agricultural Research Report. To learn more about the Division of Agriculture, visit uada.edu. To learn about extension programs in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit uaex.uada.edu.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.

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