Bats’ remarkable ability to withstand decades of strenuous flight while keeping infections, inflammation, and cancer in check may offer new clues to healthier human aging Bats are unusually long-lived for animals of their size. Small mammals generally burn energy quickly and die relatively young, yet some bats survive for several decades. Brandt’s myotis, Myotis brandtii, [...]

A provocative new paper suggests consciousness may not be unique to Earth and could arise in alien life forms far stranger than we can imagine. A new philosophical paper argues that consciousness may not be exclusive to life as we know it. According to Eric Schwitzgebel, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of [...]

Study reveals how contamination can increase within colonies. Inside a honeybee colony, worker bees act as living filters. They intercept much of the pesticide contamination entering the hive, helping shield the queen and the developing young she produces. But when exposure continues and that protective system begins to fail, the queen may redirect the chemical [...]

Reaching 90 without dementia may feel like clearing the final hurdle. But the risk does not necessarily end there. Dementia risk does not disappear after age 90. Even among people who reach their 10th decade without cognitive symptoms, the likelihood of developing the condition can vary substantially by sex, race, ethnicity, and genetics, according to [...]

Changing what you eat may begin reshaping how your genes behave in as little as a few weeks, even though your DNA itself remains unchanged. In a randomized clinical trial, researchers found that healthy adults who followed a vegan diet for one month developed changes in chemical markers attached to their DNA. Compared with participants [...]

A battery-free sweat sensor could make levodopa monitoring faster and more personalized for people with Parkinson’s disease. For people with Parkinson’s disease, the effect of a levodopa dose can fade abruptly, allowing movement problems to return before the next scheduled dose. Engineers and neuroscientists at the University of California San Diego have developed a soft [...]

The advance could provide a scalable route to clean energy while making plastic recycling more effective. A discarded bottle, shopping bag or car part can remain in the waste stream long after its useful life ends. Although plastic is everywhere in modern society, recycling it remains difficult because most systems require different types to be [...]

New research calls for aquatic deoxygenation to be recognized as a critical planetary process under threat. Oxygen is declining across oceans, coastal waters, rivers, lakes and streams, threatening the organisms and chemical processes that depend on it. A review led by researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography warns that this widespread deoxygenation [...]

A new study shows how changes in ocean circulation could reshape global rainfall patterns. A storm reaching California can begin with changes thousands of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean. Climate modeling suggests that as one of the planet’s major ocean circulation systems weakens, more moisture could be directed toward the West Coast while snowfall [...]

Breast cancer patterns are shifting rapidly in several Asian American communities. Breast cancer has long been considered less common among Asian American women than among white women in the United States. A new UC San Francisco-led study suggests that this pattern is changing quickly, especially among younger women and in some aggressive forms of the [...]

Researchers have uncovered a molecular pathway that appears to block kidney regeneration after injury. The body’s ability to repair damaged organs is surprisingly limited, especially after serious injuries to the heart or kidneys. Now, UCLA researchers have found that a drug originally developed to help heart tissue regenerate after a heart attack may also accelerate [...]

A major study found that common dementia risks may have a much stronger impact on women’s brains than previously recognized. Women may not only experience some dementia risk factors more often than men, but those risk factors may also have a stronger effect on their cognitive health, according to new research from the University of [...]

A new soft ultrasound patch is designed to provide long-term, hands-free monitoring of fetal health in real time. Engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a soft, wearable ultrasound patch that can continuously monitor a fetus for hours at a time while maintaining reliable performance even as the fetus and umbilical cord [...]

Ancient Australian fossils indicate that the earliest eukaryotes depended on oxygen, providing new evidence that oxygen helped enable the evolution of complex life. Stored in an open-air warehouse in tropical Darwin, Australia, are dozens of trays containing cylindrical cores of rock. They are from drill holes bored hundreds of meters below the surface by mineral [...]

New research shows that wildlife reacts differently to human presence than to human-made landscapes. For centuries, people have transformed landscapes, forcing wildlife to adjust to a rapidly changing world. New research suggests that animals are not only responding to altered habitats, but also to the direct presence of humans. Researchers from UC Santa Barbara, the [...]

A new study has uncovered an unexpected vulnerability in some of the deadliest cancers. Researchers at UCLA have identified a previously hidden weakness in some of the most aggressive cancers, pointing to a possible new way to attack tumors that have remained difficult to treat. Small cell neuroendocrine cancers can develop in the lungs, prostate, [...]

A widely prescribed class of weight-loss and diabetes medications may be doing more than improving metabolic health. Drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy have transformed the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes, helping millions lose weight and improve metabolic health. But scientists are increasingly uncovering effects that extend far beyond the scale. Research has [...]