Study: Mantle oxidation by sulfur drives the formation of giant gold deposits in subduction zones (DOI: 10.1073/pnas. A research team including a University of Michigan scientist has discovered a new gold-sulphur complex that helps researchers understand how gold deposits are formed. Gold in ore deposits associated with volcanoes around the Pacific Ring of Fire originates in Earth's mantle and is transported by magma to its surface.

Stories on tamper-proof ID tags, sound-suppressing silk, and generative AI's understanding of the world were some of the most popular topics on MIT News. MIT's research community had another year full of scientific and technological advances in 2024. To celebrate the achievements of the past twelve months, highlights some of our most popular stories from this year.

Cooperation worked better for ants than for humans in a Weizmann Institute experiment Anyone who has dealt with ants in the kitchen knows that ants are highly social creatures; it's rare to see one alone. Humans are social creatures too, even if some of us enjoy solitude. Ants and humans are also the only creatures in nature that consistently cooperate while transporting large loads that greatly exceed their own dimensions.

From new surgical techniques and treatments to studies on neurodegenerative disease, here are five of the top brain science stories from this year. Liraglutide slowing Alzheimer's Liraglutide, popularly known as Ozempic, has been trending as the latest weight loss drug in Hollywood, but researchers at Imperial have discovered a new possible use for it.

A new study of the microbiome finds intestinal bacterial interact much less often with viruses that trigger immunity updates than bacteria in the lab. Within the human digestive tract are trillions of bacteria from thousands of different species. These bacteria form communities that help digest food, fend off harmful microbes, and play many other roles in maintaining human health.

An international study involving researchers at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science has found significant effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on many causes of death across 24 countries. Researchers from the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science , Australian National University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, analysed cause-of-death data for 24 countries before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers develop a way to test the ability of red blood cells to deliver oxygen by measuring their shape Scientists have developed a way of assessing the ability of red blood cells to deliver oxygen by measuring their shape. This test could improve specialist transplant and transfusion practice as well as blood banking.

A recent study conducted on melon plants has revealed a defense mechanism that certain plants activate to deal with insect pests. It is a system of signaling molecules that, distributed through extracellular vesicles - including exosomes - allow plants to adapt their defenses according to the level of stress they are under.

Do price and display policies encourage consumers to make healthier food purchases - Does the coupling of these policies make them more effective - Researchers at INRAE have studied the separate effects of these two policies on the nutritional quality of food baskets. Through an experimental study, they show that price and nutrition labelling policies have no additive effects.

VUB Research Team Presents Innovative Local Treatment for Osteolytic Bone Disease in Multiple Myeloma A team of researchers from the Translational Oncology Research Centre (TORC) of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), in collaboration with leading German universities, has developed a new biomaterial with high potential in in the treatment of bone lesions or minimal residual disease in multiple myeloma patients.

The missing ingredient for cooking up stars has been spotted for the first time by an international team led by astronomers at Imperial College. Much like a pressure cooker has a weight on top of its lid to keep the pressure in and get your festive dessert dense, moist and ready to eat, merging galaxies may need magnetic fields to create the ideal conditions for star formation.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft captured this image of Vesta as it left the giant asteroid's orbit in 2012. The framing camera was looking down at the north pole, which is in the middle of the image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA" Known as flow formations, these channels could be etched on bodies that would seem inhospitable to liquid because they are exposed to the extreme vacuum conditions of space.

As part of a high-resolution biosensing device without wires, the antennas could help researchers decode intricate electrical signals sent by cells. Monitoring electrical signals in biological systems helps scientists understand how cells communicate, which can aid in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions like arrhythmia and Alzheimer's.

Biodiversity researchers tested vision systems on how well they could retrieve relevant nature images. More advanced models performed well on simple queries but struggled with more research-specific prompts. Try taking a picture of each of North America's roughly 11,000 tree species, and you'll have a mere fraction of the millions of photos within nature image datasets.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have achieved a significant breakthrough in using cyanobacteria-commonly known as "blue-green algae"-to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into valuable bio-based materials. Their work, published in Biotechnology for Biofuels and Bioproducts, could accelerate the development of sustainable alternatives to fossil fuel-derived products like plastics, helping pave the way for a carbon-neutral circular bioeconomy.

After migrating to their wintering grounds, the animals move as little as possible to conserve energy In the fall, reindeer migrate from their northern grazing areas to the south.

The search for the world's oldest ice in Antarctica is entering a decisive phase. In this major European project, researchers in Antarctica are attempting to extract drill cores containing climate information from the past 1.5 million years. The University of Bern is playing an important role in this.

Young people have given important insights into what mental health support they prefer and what does not work for them or meet their needs, as part of a major new study of thousands of adolescents. The study, led by teams at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge, found that adolescents access a variety of different types of support including informal (such as friends and family), semi-formal (like school-based support), and formal services (such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services).

Opening new doors for the development of nanotechnologies in medicine, UdeM scientists recreate two natural mechanisms to better program the timescale of molecular communication and functionality. Living organisms monitor time - and react to it - in many different ways, from detecting light and sound in microseconds to responding physiologically in pre-programmed ways, via their daily sleep cycle, monthly menstrual cycle, or to changes in the seasons.

Antibody that Neutralizes Inhibitory Factors Involved in Nerve Regeneration Leads to Enhanced Motor Function Antibodies can improve the rehabilitation of people with acute spinal cord injury. Researchers at 13 clinics in Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Spain have investigated this with promising results.