The 2021 Nobel prize in physics has been awarded to three scientists who improved our understanding of the complexity of systems that range in scale from atoms to our planet’s climate. Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi’s research provided fundamental insights that underpin much of our knowledge of climate change. Half of the prize […]

A second worker has died, three months after a chemical exposure incident at Daikin-America in Decatur, US. 33-year-old Will Delashaw died in late September, after being hospitalised with severe lung injuries since his exposure on 2 July. His death follows that of 20-year-old Wesley Rusk, who was injured in the same incident and died in […]

One third of children with a microdeletion of chromosome 22 will later develop a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia. But how do we know which of these children might be affected? Today, various studies have contributed to the understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms that are associated with the development of psychotic illnesses. The problem is […]

New research published in The Journal of Physiology has shown that ketone supplements may be a novel therapeutic strategy for protecting and improving brain health in people with obesity. People with obesity are known to be at a higher risk of developing cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative diseases. This new study found that giving a ketone […]

Automated vehicles could be made more pedestrian-friendly thanks to new research which could help them predict when people will cross the road. University of Leeds-led scientists investigating how to better understand human behaviour in traffic say that neuroscientific theories of how the brain makes decisions can be used in automated vehicle technology to improve safety and make […]

Scientists have found that the psychedelic drug psilocybin, in development as an anti-depressive treatment, changes the emotional state of people listening to music. Psilocybin is the active psychedelic ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’. Clinical trials of psilocybin generally use selected music playlists to support the drug-induced psychedelic experience, and this work shows that enhanced emotional processing […]

Not long after the dawn of complex animal life, tens of millions of years before the first of the “Big Five” mass extinctions, a rash of die-offs struck the world’s oceans. Then, for reasons that scientists have debated for at least 40 years, extinctions slowed down. A new Stanford University study shows rising oxygen levels […]

Deep in the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula, an ancient mangrove ecosystem flourishes more than 200 kilometers (124 miles) from the nearest ocean. This is unusual because mangroves—salt-tolerant trees, shrubs, and palms—are typically found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. A new study led by researchers across the University of California system in the United States […]

Our genetic code is millions of times more efficient at storing data than existing solutions, which are costly and use immense amounts of energy and space. In fact, we could get rid of hard drives and store all the digital data on the planet within a couple hundred pounds of DNA. Using DNA as a […]

A revolutionary new diagnostic method for prostate cancer can detect prostate cancer cells that have spread to lymph nodes both inside and outside the pelvis, according to the UC San Francisco and UCLA team whose earlier work led to the test’s FDA approval. The test, which is now available at UCSF and UCLA, makes cancer […]