Scientific Frontline: 2025

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Membrane magic: Researchers repurpose fuel cells membranes for new applications

Daniel Hallinan Jr. works with perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) polymers in his lab in the Aero-Propulsion Mechatronics & Energy building at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.
Photo Credit: Scott Holstein/FAMU-FSU College of Engineering

FAMU-FSU College of Engineering researchers are applying fuel cell technology to new applications like sustainable energy and water treatment.

In a study published in Frontiers in Membrane Science and Technology, the researchers examined a type of membrane called a perfluorosulfonic acid polymer membrane, or PFSA polymer membrane. These membranes act as filters, allowing protons to move through, but blocking electrons and gases.

In the study, the researchers examined how boiling these membranes — a common treatment applied to the material — affects their performance and helps them work as specialized tools for different applications.

Juvenile Atlantic manta ray swimming over sandflat with remora symbionts in South Florida.
Photo Credit: Bryant Turffs

A new study from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Marine Megafauna Foundation finds that young Caribbean manta rays (Mobula yarae) often swim with groups of other fish, creating small, moving ecosystems that support a variety of marine species.

South Florida—particularly along Palm Beach County—serves as a nursery for juvenile manta rays. For nearly a decade, the Marine Megafauna Foundation has been studying these rays and documenting the challenges they face from human activities near the coast, such as boat strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, which can pose significant threats to juvenile mantas

Edgar Engleman, MD, professor of pathology
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Stanford School of Medicine

A single signaling pathway controls whether immune cells attack or befriend cells they encounter while patrolling our bodies, researchers at Stanford Medicine have found. Manipulating this pathway could allow researchers to toggle the immune response to treat many types of diseases, including cancers, autoimmune disorders and those that require organ transplants.

The research, which was conducted in mice, illuminates the mechanism of an important immune function that prevents inappropriate attacks on healthy tissue. Called peripheral immune tolerance, the key cellular players, known as regulatory T cells (or Tregs, pronounced “tee-regs”), were first described in the late 1990s in a series of discoveries that were recently recognized with the 2025 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.

Differentiated hepatic cells growing in a flask re-gain the appearance of cells present in liver.
Image Credit: © FAMOL, UNIGE

Overcoming acquired treatment resistance is one of the major challenges in the fight against cancer. While combination therapies hold promise, their toxicity to healthy tissue remains a major hurdle. To anticipate these risks, researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have developed in vitro models of the kidneys, liver, and heart – three organs particularly sensitive to such therapies. This fast, animal-free approach paves the way for safer evaluation of new treatments. The findings are published in Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy.

Recent advances in immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and gene therapies have significantly improved survival rates for patients with cancer. However, over time, many tumors develop resistance to these treatments, undermining their effectiveness. This phenomenon, known as ‘acquired resistance’, has become one of the major challenges in oncology.

Visible satellite image showing storms sweeping across the Southern Ocean on 4 January 2019.
Photo Credit: NASA Worldview Snapshot

Intense storms that sweep over the Southern Ocean enable the ocean to absorb more heat from the atmosphere. New research from the University of Gothenburg shows that today’s climate models underestimate how storms mix the ocean and thereby give less reliable future projections of our climate.

The Southern Ocean is a vast expanse of ocean encircling the Antarctic continent, regulating Earth’s climate by moving heat, carbon, and nutrients out in the world’s oceans.

It provides a critical climate service by absorbing over 75 per cent of the excess heat generated by humans globally. The Southern Ocean’s capacity to reduce climate warming depends on how efficiently it can absorb heat from our atmosphere.

The researchers traveled on the research vessel Polarstern to South Sandwich Trench where they collected sediment samples.
Photo Credit: ©Anni Glud/SDU

Halalaimus is a microscopic nematode genus commonly found in sediment on the seafloor. It lives 1–5 cm below the sediment surface and grazes on bacteria or organic materials in the sediment.

It does so in the Aleutian Trench as well, which lies in the northern Pacific Ocean, near the Bering Sea. We now know this because PhD Yick Hang Kwan from Danish Center for Hadal Research at the Department of Biology has isolated its eDNA in sediment samples collected from the depths of the Aleutian Trench.

“But we also found its eDNA in sediment samples from the South Sandwich Trench, which lies 17,000 km away in the South Atlantic. And that inevitably makes you ask: How is it possible that the same nematode genus exists in such extremely isolated deep-sea environments so far apart, when it has a very limited ability to move – and when the trenches are up to eight kilometers deep?” Kwan asks rhetorically.

Immune system keeps mucosal fungi in check

The yeast fungus Candida albicans (blue) breaks out of human immune cells (red) by forming long thread-like cells called hyphae. The part of the hypha that has already left the immune cells is colored yellow.
Image Credit: Erik Böhm, Leibniz-HKI

The yeast Candida albicans colonizes mucosal surfaces and is usually harmless. However, under certain conditions it can cause dangerous infections. A research team at the University of Zurich has now discovered how the immune system prevents the transformation from a harmless colonizer to a pathogenic mode. This happens, among other things, by sequestering zinc.

The microbiome not only consists of bacteria, but also of fungi. Most of them support human and animal health. However, some fungi also have pathogenic potential. For instance, the yeast Candida albicans can grow in an uncontrolled manner on the oral mucosa, causing oral thrush.

In severe cases by growing in a filamentous form, it can enter the bloodstream and cause systemic infections, which account for over one million deaths per year. This happens primarily in people with a weakened immune system on intensive care units, for instance individuals who are immunosuppressed because of a transplantation or cancer.

A particle (red sphere) is guided from left to its destination (right) using a laser trap (double-cone) by means of a protocol developed in the study, which is described by the parameter λ. A known time-dependent external force field F (t) acts on this environment. The optimised protocol exploits this force field in a way that extracts the maximum amount of work. This can be applied to various external fields, to active particles and to micro-robot transport problems.
Image Credit: HHU/Kristian S. Olsen

Conditions can get rough in the micro- and nanoworld. To ensure that e.g. nutrients can still be optimally transported within cells, the minuscule transporters involved need to respond to the fluctuating environment. Physicists at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) and Tel Aviv University in Israel have used model calculations to examine how this can succeed. They have now published their results – which could also be relevant for future microscopic machines – in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

When planning an ocean crossing, sailors seek a course, which makes optimum use of favorable wind and ocean currents, and maneuver to save time and energy. They also react to random fluctuations in wind and currents and take advantage of fair winds and waves. Such considerations regarding energy costs are also important for transport processes at the micro- and nanoscale. For example, molecular motors should use as little energy as possible when transporting nutrients from A to B between and within biological cells.

Vortex knots inside a chiral nematic liquid crystal
Image Credit: Ivan Smalyukh

The knots in your shoelaces are familiar, but can you imagine knots made from light, water, or from the structured fluids that make LCD screens shine?

They exist, and in a new Nature Physics study, researchers created particle-like so-called “vortex knots” inside chiral nematic liquid crystals, a twisted fluid like those used in LCD screens. For the first time, these knots are stable and could be reversibly switched between different knotted forms, using electric pulses to fuse and split them.

“These particle-like topological objects in liquid crystals share the same kind of topology found in theoretical models of glueballs, experimentally-elusive theoretical subatomic particles in high-energy physics, in hopfions and heliknotons studied in light, magnetic materials, and in vortex knots found across many other systems,” explains Ivan Smalyukh, director of the Hiroshima University WPI-SKCM² Satellite at the University of Colorado Boulder and a professor in CU Boulder’s Department of Physics.

From left to right, top to bottom: Sibani Lisa Biswal, Fred MacKintosh, Lucas H.P. Cunha and Luca Tubiana.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Rice University

Knots are everywhere — from tangled headphones to DNA strands packed inside viruses — but how an isolated filament can knot itself without collisions or external agitation has remained a longstanding puzzle in soft-matter physics.

Now, a team of researchers at Rice University, Georgetown University and the University of Trento in Italy has uncovered a surprising physical mechanism that explains how a single filament, even one too short or too stiff to easily wrap around itself, can form a knot while sinking through a fluid under strong gravitational forces. The discovery, published in Physical Review Letters, provides new insight into the physics of polymer dynamics, with implications ranging from understanding how DNA behaves under confinement to designing next-generation soft materials and nanostructures.

“It is inherently difficult for a single, isolated filament to knot on its own,” said Sibani Lisa Biswal, corresponding author, chair of Rice’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the William M. McCardell Professor in Chemical Engineering. “What’s remarkable about this study is that it shows a surprisingly simple and elegant mechanism that allows a filament to form a knot purely because of stochastic forces as it sediments through a fluid under strong gravitational forces.”

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline / AI generated

Shifting focus on a visual scene without moving our eyes — think driving or reading a room for the reaction to your joke — is a behavior known as covert attention. We do it all the time, but little is known about its neurophysiological foundation. Now, using convolutional neural networks (CNNs), UC Santa Barbara researchers Sudhanshu Srivastava, Miguel Eckstein and William Wang have uncovered the underpinnings of covert attention and, in the process, have found new, emergent neuron types, which they confirmed in real life using data from mouse brain studies.

“This is a clear case of AI advancing neuroscience, cognitive sciences and psychology,” said Srivastava, a former graduate student in the lab of Eckstein, now a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego.

The "slave-making ant" Temnothorax americanus (left) and its host Temnothorax longispinosus
Photo Credit: ©: Romain Libbrecht

The battle between ant hosts and their social parasites is strongly influenced by climate. Temperature and humidity shape how the ants behave, communicate, and even evolve — while host and parasite respond with very different genetic strategies. These are the findings of two recent studies in which researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre combined behavioral experiments with state-of-the-art genomic analyses. "Climate clearly explains the variation in host and parasite behavior better than parasite prevalence itself," says Professor Susanne Foitzik, senior author of both studies and chair of Behavioral Ecology and Social Evolution at JGU.

In the first study, published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, the team examined a parasite, the so-called "slave-making ant" Temnothorax americanus, and its host, the ant Temnothorax longispinosus. The social parasite invades host nests and steals their brood, which later grows up to work for the parasite colony – an extraordinary form of social parasitism. The researchers focused on how the ants' behavior and chemical communication vary across different climates. By comparing ten natural populations along a 1,000‑kilometer north-south gradient in the United States, they found that climate influenced the conflict more strongly than the local frequency of parasite colonies.

Photo Credit: Christine Sandu

Scientists have tested, for the first time, how biodegradable wet wipes break down when flushed rather than composted discovering that most wipes remain after five weeks – a finding the research team says challenges the marketing of these products.

Researchers from Cardiff University’s Schools of Biosciences, Chemistry and Engineering tested two widely available brands of wipes labelled as ‘biodegradable’ in ten urban rivers and streams in Cardiff, UK

For five weeks, the team tracked the degradation of the wet wipes in these locations by testing their tensile strength loss, and recording environmental factors such as microbial biomass, water chemistry, temperature, and river-level fluctuations.

Professor Martin Dichgans
Photo Credit: © LMU / Stephan Höck

Researchers at LMU University Hospital have elucidated how diseases of small blood vessels in the brain develop. So-called cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) can lead to widespread consequences such as circulatory disorders, hemorrhages, and often severe strokes, and is considered one of the main causes of dementia. The scientists' results have now been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

In view of the prevalence of this serious and life-threatening condition—strokes, for example, are the leading cause of long-term disability and the second leading cause of death—it is astonishing "that medicine has so far known comparatively little about the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the development of cerebral small vessel disease," says LMU Professor Martin Dichgans, Chair of Translational Stroke and Dementia Research, Director of the Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research (ISD) at LMU University Hospital Munich, and future spokesperson for the SyNergy Cluster of Excellence.

Photo Credit: Chris LeBoutillier

A new study has linked air pollution exposure and immune-system changes that often precede the onset of autoimmune diseases.

McGill University researchers analyzing Ontario data found that fine particles in air pollution are associated with higher levels of a biomarker linked with autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus.

“These results point us in a new direction for understanding how air pollution might trigger immune system changes that are associated with autoimmune disease,” said Dr. Sasha Bernatsky, a James McGill Professor of Medicine and member of the McGill Centre for Climate Change and Health, the Division of Rheumatology and the Centre for Outcome Research and Evaluation. “We know some genetic factors play a role in autoimmune disease, but they don’t tell the whole story.”

Lowering blood sugar levels halves the likelihood of serious heart problems in people with prediabetes.
Photo Credit: isens usa

According to King’s College London research, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, bringing blood glucose back to normal levels - effectively reversing prediabetes - cuts the risk of death from heart disease or hospital admission for heart failure by more than 50%.

This finding is especially important considering recent research showing that lifestyle changes alone - including exercise, weight loss and dietary improvements - do not lower cardiovascular risk in people with prediabetes.

Together, these discoveries present a new, life-saving target for prediabetes and the prevention of cardiovascular disease; while potentially signaling a paradigm change for the way these conditions are treated by clinicians.

Researcher at LiU have developed a technique where visible light can be used to create electrodes from conductive plastics completely without hazardous chemicals. The technique requires no advanced laser setups – visible light from simple LED lamps, such as a party light, can drive the polymerization.
Photo Credit: Thor Balkhed

Visible light can be used to create electrodes from conductive plastics completely without hazardous chemicals. This is shown in a new study carried out by researchers at Linköping and Lund universities. The electrodes can be created on different types of surfaces, which opens up for a new type of electronics and medical sensors.

“I think this is something of a breakthrough. It’s another way of creating electronics that is simpler and doesn’t require any expensive equipment,” says Xenofon Strakosas, assistant professor at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, LOE, at Linköping University.

Xiuchun Li is the first author of the research paper.
Photo Credit: UCR/Zhou lab

A team of researchers led by University of California, Riverside biomedical scientists has identified a small, previously overlooked small RNA molecule that plays a major role in controlling the body’s cholesterol production and the development of heart disease. The molecule, named tsRNA-Glu-CTC, could be a potential new target for future therapies aimed at lowering high cholesterol.

Using PANDORA-seq, a sequencing technology developed at UC Riverside, the scientists were able to detect hidden types of small RNAs in the liver, the organ central to cholesterol metabolism. They found that tsRNA-Glu-CTC is highly abundant in the liver (more than 65% of all detectable tsRNAs or tRNA-derived small RNAs) and responds directly to changes in cholesterol levels. The study was done in mice.

The research established a direct link between tsRNA-Glu-CTC and SREBP2 (Sterol Regulatory Element-Binding Protein 2), a key protein known as the “master regulator” of cholesterol production.

Assembloid [3D fluorescent staining] Axons in the thalamus (pink) extended toward the cortex, while those in the cortex (green) extended toward the thalamus at 14 days post-fusion.
Image Credit: Fumitaka Osakada

A Japanese research team has successfully reproduced the human neural circuit in vitro using multi-region miniature organs known as assembloids, which are derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. With this circuit, the team demonstrated that the thalamus plays a crucial role in shaping cell type-specific neural circuits in the human cerebral cortex.

These findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Our brain’s cerebral cortex contains various types of neurons, and effective communication among these neurons and other brain regions is crucial for activating functions like perception and cognition.

Patients with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), exhibit disruptions in the structure and function of neural circuits in the cerebral cortex. Therefore, understanding the principles of these circuits is essential to uncovering the causes of these disorders and developing new medications.

Strengthened Saccharomyces cerevisiae
This common yeast is a strong contender for replacing petroleum in 2,3-butanediol production.
Image Credit: Osaka Metropolitan University

As fossil fuels rise in cost and green initiatives gain traction, alternative methods for producing useful compounds using microorganisms have the potential to become sustainable, environmentally friendly technologies.

One such process involves the common bread yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae), to produce 2,3-butanediol (2,3-BDO), an organic compound often used in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. However, this yeast has a low tolerance for 2,3-BDO under high concentrations, which leads to a decline in its production ability and hinders the mass commercialization of this method.

Standing stones in Carnac, France. Built between 6,500 - 5,300 years ago by Europe's first farmers.
Photo Credit: Jonny Gordon.

Although humans are to blame for nature’s recent decline, a new study shows that for millennia, European farming practices drove biodiversity gains, not losses.

Standing stones in Carnac, France. Built between 6,500 - 5,300 years ago by Europe's first farmers. Picture by Jonny Gordon.

A team of researchers at the University of York analyzed fossil pollen records from Europe to track vegetation changes stretching back 12,000 years. They discovered that as new populations of farmers from Turkey moved into Europe 9,000 years ago, far from destroying plant diversity, they enriched it.

Dr Jonny Gordon is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity and lead author of the new paper, Increased Holocene diversity in Europe linked to human-associated vegetation change, which has been published in Global Ecology and Biogeography.

What Is: Gravitational Microlensing

Scientific Frontline / Stock image

The universe, in its vastness, is largely composed of matter that does not shine. For centuries, the discipline of astronomy was fundamentally limited to the study of luminous objects: stars that fuse hydrogen into helium, gas clouds excited by radiation, and galaxies that act as islands of light in the cosmic dark. This reliance on electromagnetic radiation—photons—as the primary messenger of cosmic information created a significant selection bias. It rendered the "dark sector" of the Milky Way, including brown dwarfs, black holes, old white dwarfs, and free-floating planetary-mass objects, effectively invisible to standard census techniques. To map the true mass distribution of our galaxy, astronomers required a method that did not rely on the emission of light but rather on the one force that pervades all matter: gravity.

UCLA team discovers how to target ‘undruggable’ protein that fuels aggressive leukemia

B-lymphoblastic leukemia, a type of blood cancer.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the Rao Laboratory.

Researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a small molecule that can inhibit a cancer-driving protein long considered impossible to target with drugs — a discovery that could open the door to a new class of treatments for leukemia and other hard-to-treat cancers.

The compound, called I3IN-002, disrupts the ability of a protein known as IGF2BP3 to bind and stabilize cancer-promoting RNAs, a mechanism that fuels aggressive forms of acute leukemia. The study published in the journal Haematologica, found the molecule not only slowed leukemic cell growth but also triggered cancer cell death and reduced the population of leukemia-initiating cells that sustain the disease.

“This project has been more than a decade in the making,” said Dr. Dinesh Rao, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and senior author of the study. “We discovered IGF2BP3 years ago as an important driver in acute leukemias, and for a long time there were no tools to target it. To finally show that we can inhibit this protein and disrupt its function in cancer cells is incredibly exciting.”

Photo Credit: Nick Page

In a pilot study, researchers from North Carolina State University have found a novel kirkovirus that may be associated with colitis – and potentially small colon impactions – in horses. The study could offer a route to new therapies for horses with colitis symptoms from unknown causes.

“Horses are uniquely susceptible to colitis, and the structure of their gastrointestinal tracts amplify the negative effects,” says Lilly Haywood, Ph.D. student in NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “Horses have very large colons and cecums to facilitate water absorption, so when these structures become inflamed the horses dehydrate quickly. And their large intestines contain a lot of bacteria, so inflammation can lead to those bacteria entering the bloodstream and causing sepsis.” Haywood is first author of the study.

“The other issue when dealing with colitis in horses is that in more than 50% of cases we are unable to find the cause,” says Breanna Sheahan, assistant professor of equine medicine at NC State and corresponding author of the study. “We suspected there might be another viral cause for some of these cases, so we started looking for one.”

Mo'orea, French Polynesia, is surrounded by a diverse and vibrant coral reef ecosystem.
Photo Credit: Christian John

A massive, multi-year scientific expedition led by researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara and collaborating institutions, including the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa, determined that land use on tropical islands can shape water quality in lagoons and that rainfall can be an important mediator for connections between land and lagoon waters. These findings provide vital information for ecosystem stewards facing global reef decline. Their findings were published recently in Limnology and Oceanography.

“This study is pretty groundbreaking in terms of its scale,” said Christian John, lead author of the study and postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We looked at algal tissue nutrients, water chemistry, and microbial communities at almost 200 sites around the island of Mo‘orea, French Polynesia, and we repeated this sampling over multiple years.”

“The links between land and sea are dynamic and complex, so it’s a topic that has remained elusive to science,” said Mary Donovan, co-author and faculty at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “It took a dream team to pierce through that complexity. We brought together a group of interdisciplinary thinkers, from students to senior investigators, across at least five major institutions to tackle this immense challenge.”

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline / stock image

McGill University researchers have identified a brain function that helps explain why childhood stress raises metabolic health risks for some women later in life.

A new study found that variations in the brain’s insulin receptor network affect how women respond to early-life adversity. This effect has a lesser impact in men, suggesting there is a sex-specific process at play.

The findings, published in Communications Biology (Nature Portfolio), point to the brain’s insulin receptor network as a promising avenue for earlier detection and future prevention strategies for metabolic syndrome, a major driver of cardiovascular disease that affects about one in five Canadian adults.

“We know that women who face childhood adversity are at higher risk for metabolic disease, and this study helps identify who is most susceptible,” said senior author Dr. Patricia Pelufo Silveira, professor of psychiatry at McGill and researcher at the Douglas Research Centre.

WHOI Geochemist Andy Heard uses precise measurements of isotope ratios in sedimentary rocks to learn about the history of oxygen in Earth’s ocean.
Photo Credit: Daniel Hentz, ©Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

For roughly two billion years of Earth’s early history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen, the essential ingredient required for complex life. Oxygen began building up during the period known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), but when and how it first entered the oceans has remained uncertain.

A new study published in Nature Communications shows that oxygen was absorbed from the atmosphere into the shallow oceans within just a few million years—a geological blink of an eye. Led by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the work provides new insight into one of the most important environmental shifts in Earth’s history.

“At that point in Earth’s history, nearly all life was in the oceans. For complex life to develop, organisms first had to learn not only to use oxygen, but simply to tolerate it,” said Andy Heard, lead author of the study and assistant scientist at WHOI. “Understanding when oxygen first accumulated in Earth’s atmosphere and oceans is essential to tracing the evolution of life. And because ocean oxygenation appears to have followed atmospheric oxygen surprisingly quickly, it suggests that if we detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a distant exoplanet, there’s a strong chance its oceans also contain oxygen.”

Many protected areas are located in sodium-deficient landscapes. Animals travel long distances in search of salt.
Photo Credit: Ray Rui

In some regions in Africa, large herbivores struggle to get enough sodium. As many of the continent’s protected areas are in regions where salt levels are low, this scarcity may also affect conservation efforts, according to UZH researchers.

Herbivores require a steady intake of sodium to keep their metabolism running smoothly. This is why farm animals have long been given salt or mineral licks. Animals in the wild, however, need to get their salt from sources in their habitats. In some areas, plants and other natural sources of salt provide sufficient sodium, while in others, sodium levels are scarce. These differences can influence where certain species settle or how far they will migrate to find natural salt licks.

A new study conducted in collaboration with the University of Zurich now shows that in many places the largest herbivores in the wild – elephants, giraffes and rhinos – have limited access to sodium. The researchers combined high-resolution maps of plant sodium with data on the animals’ population density and with results of fecal analyses. Since sodium deficiency is directly detectable in the feces, they were able to draw conclusions about the species’ actual sodium intake.

A new nuclear forensics technique enabled the rapid analysis of nuclear materials for most of the elements in the periodic table. The tool could one day help nuclear nonproliferation efforts around the globe.
Illustration Credit: generated by OpenAI’s DALL·E

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have, for the first time, used a breakthrough technique with a goal of better identifying the origin of nuclear materials — a tool that could someday help efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear material around the globe.

Using a commercially developed benchtop instrument, called a Laser Ablation Laser Ionization Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (LALI-TOF MS), researchers were able to characterize mock nuclear fuel pellets that incorporate specific elemental and isotopic fingerprints. The first laser “blows off” (ablates) a few molecules of material from the sample’s surface, while the second ionizes the neutral particles to turn them into charged ions, which are then separated by their unique mass.

New research from University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering Asst. Prof. Tian Zhong could make it possible for quantum computers to connect at distances up to 1,243 miles, shattering previous records.
Photo Credit: Jason Smith

A new nanofabrication approach could increase the range of quantum networks from a few kilometers to a potential 2,000 km, bringing quantum internet closer than ever

Quantum computers are powerful, lightning-fast and notoriously difficult to connect to one another over long distances.

Previously, the maximum distance two quantum computers could connect through a fiber cable was a few kilometers. This means that, even if such cable were run between them, quantum computers in downtown Chicago’s Willis Tower and the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) on the South Side would be too far apart to communicate with each other.

Andrei Chagin, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg.
Photo Credit: Magnus Gotander

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg can now demonstrate previously unexplained processes behind growth therapy. It involves hormonal mechanisms at the cellular level, with focus on a sensitive balance between stem cells and growth hormone.

When children grow in length, it occurs from growth plates, a cartilage structure at both ends of the long bones found in the arms and legs. The growth plates contain special stem cells that continuously produce new cartilage cells, which are converted into bone tissue.

In the case of growth disorders in children, with a height significantly below the average for their age and sex, injections of growth hormone are the most common treatment. In the development of growth hormone therapy, the University of Gothenburg has played a historically important role

Previous research has shown that growth hormones act directly on the growth plate. However, it has been unclear which cells are targeted by growth hormones and how.

A bag of platelets being prepared for freezing.
Photo Credit: Australian Red Cross Lifeblood

Research has proven frozen blood platelets are safe and effective to use on critically injured patients – a breakthrough dramatically extending their shelf life for transfusions from one week to two years.

The results of the decade-long University of Queensland and Australian Red Cross Lifeblood research collaboration will have positive implications for the international management of blood supplies and could save lives in remote areas and war zones.

In a clinical trial with cardiac surgery patients, Director of UQ’s Greater Brisbane Clinical School Professor Michael Reade used platelets that had been frozen at -80 degrees Celsius and found they were only slightly less effective than liquid platelets and still stopped blood loss.

Archaeologists use lasers to locate ancient settlements and artefacts on Greek Islands

The small island of Palatia off Naxos has been investigated by the researchers.
Photo Credit: The Small Cycladic Islands Project

The Cyclades are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece. Made up of more than 200 islands, the Cyclades attract millions of tourists each year for holidays on islands like Mykonos and Santorini. But recent studies have revealed that before the luxury villas took over the islands, the Cyclades have been home to humans in not only ancient Greece, but in prehistoric times as well.

As part of several international teams, archaeologist Evan Levine from the University of Copenhagen is using groundbreaking technological methods such as LIDAR and magnetometry to shed new light on the archaeology of the Cycladic islands.

In a new study, MIT researchers and their collaborators identified a practical, powerful predictor that could help clinicians spot high-risk lymphoma patients early and tailor treatments to improve survival.
Image Credit: Scientific Frontline / stock image

Aggressive T-cell lymphoma is a rare and devastating form of blood cancer with a very low five-year survival rate. Patients often relapse after receiving initial therapy, making it especially challenging for clinicians to keep this destructive disease in check.

In a new study, researchers from MIT, in collaboration with researchers involved in the PETAL consortium at Massachusetts General Hospital, identified a practical and powerful prognostic marker that could help clinicians identify high-risk patients early, and potentially tailor treatment strategies to improve survival.

The team found that, when patients relapse within 12 months of initial therapy, their chances of survival decline dramatically. For these patients, targeted therapies might improve their chances for survival, compared to traditional chemotherapy, the researchers say.

Aggressor bacteria such as Acinetobacter baylyi (green) can rarely kill Pseudomonas aeruginosa (live cells in black, dying cells in cyan).
Image Credit: Alejandro Tejada-Arranz, Biozentrum, University of Basel

Some bacteria use a kind of molecular “speargun” to eliminate their rivals, injecting them with a lethal cocktail. Researchers at the University of Basel have now discovered that certain bacteria can protect themselves against these toxic attacks. But this defense comes with a surprising downside: it makes them more vulnerable to antibiotics.

Countless bacterial species share cramped environments where competition for space and resources is fierce. Some rely on a molecular speargun to outcompete their opponents. One of them is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is widespread in nature but also notorious as a difficult-to-treat hospital pathogen.

Pseudomonas can live peacefully in coexistence with other microbes. But when attacked by bacteria from a different species, it rapidly assembles its own nano-speargun – the so-called type VI secretion system (T6SS) – to inject its aggressor with a toxic cocktail.

How can Pseudomonas strike back when it has already been hit by a deadly cocktail itself? The answer has now been uncovered by Professor Marek Basler’s team at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel and published in Nature Communications.

Plastic items, such as this part of a swimming float (blue), are often seen at ocean shorelines. These products eventually break down into microplastics, which permeate the oceans and add to the distribution of carbon along with organic matter.
Photo Credit: Luis Medina.

A study by researchers in Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) shows that when microplastics are accidentally collected and measured with natural ocean organic particles, the carbon released by plastics during combustion appears as if it came from natural organic matter, which distorts scientists’ understanding of the ocean’s carbon cycle.

The carbon cycle in our oceans is critical to the balance of life in ocean waters and for reducing carbon in the atmosphere, a significant process to curbing climate change or global warming.

Microplastics are everywhere in the oceans. These small plastic fragments come from the breakdown of larger plastic items polluting the seas. Once they reach the sea through rivers, wastewater or runoff, they spread through coastal and open-ocean waters.

Photo Credit: Marat Gilyadzinov

Researchers at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) have discovered that jellyfish can be used as a food stabiliser. In the future, the slimy creatures may become an important ingredient in a more sustainable food production system.

Food stabiliser.

The word might not sound particularly appetizing, but without food stabilizers, much of the food we eat would be impossible to make. It would not be able to retain its consistency or form but would split or spread out.

Nature itself has created many stabilizers to maintain the structure of organisms, and over time, we humans have learned to use them in our food.

The most well-known example in the home kitchen is egg yolk, which allows mayonnaise to bind together. In the industrial food sector, stabilizers are even more crucial. Here, ingredients such as starch, pectin, gelatine, and algal stabilizers are used to achieve the right consistency in everything from ketchup to chocolate milk.

Photo Credit: Marita Kavelashvili

Carbon removal projects could prove vital in offsetting methane emissions – the second largest contributor to global warming.

Nature-based schemes that aim to remove CO2 through methods such as afforestation and reforestation are criticized for being temporary – the carbon removed is often re-released once projects end – as well as fraught with risk.

But climate change researchers have shown they can play an important role in neutralizing the environmental impact of methane.

Methane and carbon dioxide behave differently over time: methane warms the planet much more rapidly than carbon dioxide, causing more damage in the short to medium term, but methane has little long-term impact on global temperatures as it dissipates over time.

Molecular Biology: In-Depth Description

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline / AI Generated

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that studies the molecular basis of biological activity. It focuses on the chemical and physical structure of biological macromolecules—specifically nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) and proteins—and how these molecules interact to regulate cell function, replication, and expression of genetic information. The primary goal of this field is to understand the intricate molecular machinery within a cell that governs life itself, from the synthesis of proteins to the regulation of gene expression.

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline

Microtechnology is the specific branch of engineering and science that deals with the design, fabrication, and integration of functional structures and devices with dimensions on the order of the micrometer (μm), typically ranging from 1 to 100 micrometers.

Situated on the dimensional scale between macro-engineering and nanotechnology, the primary goal of microtechnology is the miniaturization of physical systems to enhance performance, reduce power consumption, and enable mass production of complex devices at a low cost. It fundamentally underpins the modern ability to integrate sensing, processing, and actuating functions into single, microscopic chips.

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline

In the modern digital ecosystem, the email inbox and basic cloud web interfaces remain surprisingly inefficient for managing complex file transfers. Whether you are a web developer deploying code, a video editor moving terabytes of raw footage, or a business owner archiving sensitive documents, the "file transfer" bottleneck is a persistent reality. Traditional FTP clients often feel like relics from the Windows 95 era—clunky, utilitarian, and disconnected from modern cloud workflows.

This is the gap FTPie aims to bridge. It positions itself not just as an FTP client, but as a unified "file logistics" hub that treats a Google Drive folder, an Amazon S3 bucket, and a legacy SFTP server with the same modern, drag-and-drop respect. This review examines the technology, features, and overall value of FTPie v2025.12.1, specifically highlighting its newly introduced Backup and Favorites capabilities.

Illustration Credit: Scientific Frontline

The End of the Passive Era

The year 2025 marks a definitive inflection point in the history of neuroscience and geriatric medicine. For decades, the field of dementia care was characterized by a certain fatalism—a paradigm of "diagnose and manage" where the clinician’s role was largely to document decline and support the family. That era has officially closed. We have entered the age of precision intervention, defined by the ability to detect neurodegenerative pathology in blood plasma decades before symptoms arise, the availability of disease-modifying immunotherapies that clear toxic proteins from the brain, and a nuanced biological understanding that has shattered the monolithic concept of "senility" into a spectrum of distinct, treatable molecular events.

Our Scientific Frontline report provides an exhaustive analysis of the dementia landscape as it stands in late 2025. It synthesizes data from the latest clinical trials, including the landmark approval of subcutaneous maintenance dosing for anti-amyloid therapies, and examines the emerging economic reality where the global cost of dementia is projected to triple by mid-century. We explore the biological underpinnings of conditions ranging from classic Alzheimer’s Disease to the newly characterized Limbic-predominant Age-related TDP-43 Encephalopathy (LATE), and we evaluate the transformative potential of 14 modifiable risk factors that could prevent nearly half of all cases.

Microscope-captured images of a mammary gland of a pig show the presence of influenza receptors. In the image on the left, receptors for avian influenza A are colored orange. In the image on the right, receptors for the type of influenza A that typically infects mammals are purple.
Image Credit: Dr. Tyler Harm/Iowa State University

An ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza has affected more than 184 million domestic poultry since 2022 and, since making the leap to dairy cattle in spring 2024, more than 1,000 milking cow herds.

A new study led by Iowa State University researchers shows that the mammary glands of several other production animals – including pigs, sheep, goats, beef cattle and alpacas – are biologically suitable to harbor avian influenza, due to high levels of sialic acids.

“The main thing we wanted to understand in this study is whether there is potential for transmission among these other domestic mammals and humans, and it looks like there is,” said Rahul Nelli, the study’s lead author and a research assistant professor of veterinary diagnostic and production animal medicine.

Photo Credit: Christin Hume

Researchers from King’s College London and Yakult Science for Health have conducted a comprehensive review of existing research exploring how probiotic, prebiotic, and synbiotic supplements may influence skin health and disease.

The review mapped 516 studies from around the world examining the relationship between these supplements and various aspects of skin health, from general skin condition to the management of diseases such as atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, and acne.

Our diet can influence skin health through its impact on the gut microbiome — the community of microorganisms living in our digestive tract. The concept of a gut–skin axis was first proposed nearly a century ago but has gained renewed attention in recent years, as growing evidence suggests that changes in gut microbes can affect skin condition and ageing. Probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics are thought to promote skin health by modifying the gut microbiome, which may in turn improve skin function and resilience.

First and foremost, we breathe to absorb oxygen – but this vital rhythm could also have other functions. Over the past few years, a range of studies have shown that respiration influences neural processes, including the processing of stimuli and memory processes. LMU researchers led by Dr. Thomas Schreiner, leader of an Emmy Noether junior research group at the Department of Psychology, in collaboration with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin and the University of Oxford, have analyzed how respiration influences the retrieval of previously learned materials and recorded what happens in the brain during this process.

For the experiment, 18 participants learned to associate 120 images with certain words. The participants were then asked to recall these associations and then asked to recall them again after a two-hour afternoon nap. While this was happening, the researchers recorded their breathing as well as their brain activity via EEG.

Where the elements come from?

The chlorine and potassium needed to support planet formation and sustain life come from exploding stars.
Image Credit: JAXA

"Why are we here?" This is humanity's most fundamental and persistent question. Tracing the origins of the elements is a direct attempt to answer this at its deepest level. We know many elements are created inside stars and supernovae, which then cast them out into the universe, yet the origins of some key elements have remained a mystery.

Chlorine and potassium, both odd-Z elements -- possessing an odd number of protons -- are essential to life and planet formation. According to current theoretical models, stars produce only about one-tenth of the amount of these elements observed in the universe, a discrepancy that has long puzzled astrophysicists.

Vidhika Damani and assistant professor Laure Kayser inspect a sample of the reversible conductive hydrogel they developed for bioelectronics applications.
Photo Credit: Evan Krape

What if a doctor could inject an electricity-conducting liquid into the body, let it temporarily solidify to record nerve signals or jump-start healing, and then return it to liquid form for easy removal?

That vision is edging closer to reality. University of Delaware researchers have developed a reversible conductive hydrogel, a material that can alternate between liquid and gel states. The hydrogel is designed to serve as an interface between conventional electronics and the body’s tissues, offering promise for both injectable implants and wearable devices.

The research team, led by Laure Kayser, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at UD’s College of Engineering, describes the new material in Nature Communications.

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