News
2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honors Architects of Metal–Organic Frameworks
Their discoveries revealed a new form of molecular architecture—structures with vast internal spaces that allow gases and other chemicals to flow freely. These porous materials, known as metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), combine metal ions that act as cornerstones with long, carbon-based molecules that link them together. The resulting crystals contain large, well-ordered cavities that can be tailored to trap, store, or react with specific substances.
How emotional memories are engraved on the brain, with surprising helper cells
Why are we able to remember emotional events so well? According to one study, a type of cell in the brain called an astrocyte is a key player in stabilizing memories for long-term recall.
New Push for Routine Urine Screening at Age 3 to Detect Alport Syndrome
Alport syndrome is a genetic disease that affects about one in 5,000 people. Patients cannot produce a certain type of collagen which leads to kidney failure, and may also lead to hearing loss and changes in the eye. There is medication that delays the onset of kidney failure, after which patients need a kidney transplant or dialysis. However, while this works better the earlier the condition is identified, many people only become aware of the condition once kidney dysfunction has already set in.
The “Silent Killer” Doesn’t Have to Be Silent: How Laboratory Science Is Changing the Story
Early detection can raise five-year survival rates above 90%, yet most ovarian cancer cases are found late. Emerging biomarker panels and AI-driven tools are empowering labs to make early diagnosis a reality.
An ancient cousin to humans probably built tools with its huge hands
If you’d met a stocky hominin 1.5 million years ago striding along the lakeshore of what is now Lake Turkana in Kenya, you might have thought twice before shaking its hand. The first fossil hand from a robust human cousin known as Paranthropus boisei shows it had surprisingly big—yet also dexterous—hands, researchers report today in Nature. “It would have had a very firm handshake,” says paleoanthropologist Louise Leakey of Stony Brook University and the Turkana Basin Institute (TBI), whose team found the fossils.
Women are dropping tobacco faster than men, WHO finds
Overall, global tobacco use has declined over a quarter in the past 15 years, with 1.2 billion users reported in 2024. WHO found that women are quitting faster than men. While both groups have showed reduced tobacco use, women reached their 2025 reduction goal of 30% in 2020, while men are projected to reach theirs in 2031.
11 million lives lost each year: urgent action needed on neurological care
The World Health Organization (WHO) today warns that less than one in three countries around the world has a national policy to address the growing burden of neurological disorders, responsible for over 11 million deaths globally each year. The WHO’s new Global status report on neurology shows that neurological conditions now affect more than 40% of the global population – over 3 billion people
Sustainable Research Funding: Why Labs Need Policy Change Now
Research is often framed as the path to solutions—but the way it is funded may be driving inefficiency and waste. Laboratories account for an estimated two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the aviation industry. According to a new article in Clinical Biochemistry, sustainable research funding could play a decisive role in changing that trajectory
New wearable sensor tracks vitamin B6 levels in sweat
The researchers created an on-skin sensing platform to detect vitamin B6 in small concentrations of sweat, instead of relying on laboratory tests. The sensor can also detect glucose at a high sensitivity, allowing patients with diabetes to non-invasively monitor glucose and vitamin B6 simultaneously
Chicago’s beloved ‘rat hole’ was actually made by a squirrel
It takes a special kind of misfortune to splat onto wet concrete, decay in anonymity, and then go viral some 20 years later. Such is the fate of the rodent that created what’s now known as the Chicago rat hole. Thought to have been formed in the early 2000s when a bird of prey dropped a brown rat, Chicagoans christened the site “splatatouille” and jokingly turned it into a shrine, leaving behind offerings such as Swiss cheese.
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