science wire

How healthy is our soil, really? That is the question 30,000 school students from all'over Denmark are eagerly digging into when they, in weeks 36-39, carry out this year's Masseeksperiment. Armed with registration booklets, spades, the VESS index, earthworm keys and sample tubes, the students head out to playgrounds, football fields or local nature areas to investigate soil health at depths of 10 cm and 40 cm.

Posted on: 04 September 2025 €2M scanning system in Trinity will help researchers understand the brain and identify earliest signs of brain disorders A revolutionary new wearable brain scanner has just arrived in Trinity College Dublin.

ULB has been awarded 5 new European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants. These prestigious grants will enable talented young researchers to launch ambitious and innovative research projects.

The first complete activity map of decision-making in the animal brain has been unveiled by a large international collaboration of neuroscientists involving UCL researchers. The International Brain Laboratory (IBL) researchers published their findings today in two papers in  Nature,  revealing insights into how decision-making unfolds across the entire brain in mice at the resolution of single cells.

Neural networks are computing systems designed to mimic both the structure and function of the human brain. Caltech researchers have been developing a neural network made out of strands of DNA instead of electronic parts that carries out computation through chemical reactions rather than digital signals.

Writing in The Conversation, Joshua Elves-Powell (UCL Biosciences and UCL Geography) outlines his investigation into North Korea's illegal wildlife trade and highlights how the state itself appears to profit from this unsustainable and illegal exploitation.

From 1 September 2025, Arthur Gessler will head the new Forest and Soil Ecology research unit at the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL.

Mitochondria are cellular organelles that are popularly known as the "powerhouses of the cell" because of the important role they play in making ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the molecular fuel that powers most cellular functions. These organelles originated over a billion years ago when a primitive archaeal cell entered into a symbiotic relationship with an ancestral bacterium.

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, affecting over 10 million people worldwide. Some forms of Parkinson's disease are characterized by an inability of cells to clean up dysfunctional mitochondria, the cells' "powerhouses," particularly in neural cells of the brain.

Miomantis caffra is a species native to South Africa, but is now also found in New Zealand, Australia, the USA, and even Portugal.

When we're healthy, activities like walking, sitting down, speaking and remembering things can be done with ease.

The research of five UCalgary postdoctoral fellows is getting a boost thanks to Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowship Awards.

How the brain is wired has been understood for a long-time, but how that wiring results in neural activity and cognition remains a mystery.

250 scientists from the fields of biology and medicine meet at the University of Münster from 24 to 29 August Protozoa of the genus Chlamydomonas are microalgae.

Between the years 1150 and 1450, more than 100 children were buried in a churchyard near Silkeborg. Just a tiny fragment of their tooth enamel is enough to reveal their sex-and that's exactly what researchers at SDU have now done.

People want to stay healthy and active for as long as possible. But how young and resilient is our body actually? Researchers at ETH Zurich, Empa, Caltech and the University Hospital Basel now want to make our biological age precise and easy to measure.

Basic research is a long-term investment essential for continually discovering innovative and effective solutions, as Dr Silvia Monticelli, Researcher and Director of the Molecular Immunology Laboratory at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) , explained in an article written in collaboration with laRegione.

Four early-career Western researchers are advancing projects to help find solutions for pressing problems across the province.

An artificial heart valve made from a new type of plastic could be a step closer to use in humans, following a successful long-term safety test in animals. A research team, led by the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, demonstrated that the polymer material used to make the artificial heart valve is safe following a six-month test in sheep.

Researchers in Bonn are investigating how cellular antennas regulate the development of precursor cells in fat tissue Too much fat can be unhealthy: how fat cells, so-called adipocytes, develop, is crucial for the function of the fat tissue. That is why a team led by researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn investigated the influence of primary cilia dysfunction on adipocyte precursor cells in a mouse model.

Memories of significant learning experiences - like the first time a driver gets a speeding ticket - are sharp, compared to the recollection of everyday events - like what someone ate for dinner two weeks ago. That's because the human brain is primed to learn from helpful associations. Carnegie Mellon researchers have identified specific neural connections that are especially sensitive to this process of learning about causality.

An innovative method that uses modified versions of a bacterial virus effective at delivering treatments to human cells shows promise as a more inexpensive and efficient way to treat some deadly genetic diseases. Researchers from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo use a modified version of a bacterial virus called M13 to target specific human cells while carrying only the genes they want delivered, with no unwanted virus or bacteria.

A palm-sized device developed by researchers at the University of Waterloo could help save lives and reduce illness by rapidly and inexpensively detecting toxic bacteria in water supplies.

A new venture, aimed accelerate the impact of virology research, is being launched at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR).

CNRS press release dated 23 July 2025.

Near the Syrian city of Afrin, an international research team, including researchers from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen, has discovered a previously unknown fossil sea turtle.

Researchers at SDU will soon print a small piece of high-tech, plastic-free future. They are aiming to replace elastane with artificial spider silk.

The findings of a new brain study could change the way doctors treat mood disorders involving psychosis in patients. The brain imaging study found that changes in brain dopamine are linked to  symptoms of psychosis, no matter whether a person has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression.

Western-led study examines biological impact of genocide on descendants of survivors conceived during tragedy Lasting only 100 days, though many acknowledge it continued much longer, the 1994 genocide

Guest professor at the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience Lab, Freie Universität Berlin, uses language models similar to those behind ChatGPT Large language models (LLMs) from the field of artificial intelligence can predict how the human brain responds to visual stimuli.

For months, Sabrina Staples stared at a silicone chip no bigger than a postage stamp, trying to coax cells into doing something remarkable. But every time she loaded her delicate microfluidic device with cells, a single rogue bubble would sneak in, destroying the cells and the experiment.  "Often before falling asleep, I would visualize being in the channel, looking around for the source of these bubbles," she said.

For fourth-year neuroscience student Madison Henderson, the most rewarding part of the summer has been the chance to contribute to meaningful research with real-world impact.

The Badv Lab combines engineering, medicine and science expertise to develop the next generation of biomaterials and biointerfaces for applications such as medical implants Medical devices and implan

The next time a wasp visits your picnic, if you make a note of whether it goes for protein or sugar, you can help UCL scientists better understand the wasp life cycle.

To the point Power relationships between female and male gorillas: They are less strictly male-biased than previously thought. Females can overpower males despite the extreme male-biases in size and strength. Revisiting traditional gender narratives: Females that overpower males have priority of access to food over these males, challenging the traditional narrative that females and males compete over different resources (females over food and males over females).