All posts tagged: Research

Pigeons may use magnetic immune cells to find their way home

Pigeons may use magnetic immune cells to find their way home

Published by Jenni Sidey

For centuries, homing pigeons have amazed people with their ability to return home across vast distances. Even when released in unfamiliar places, these birds often find their way back with remarkable precision. Scientists have long known that pigeons and many other birds rely on Earth’s magnetic field as part of their navigation system. Yet one major question remained unanswered: How do they actually sense it? A new study suggests the answer may lie in an unexpected place. Instead of the eyes, beak or brain, researchers have identified iron-rich immune cells in the liver that appear to act as part of an internal magnetic compass. The discovery offers what scientists describe as the strongest evidence yet for a previously unknown mechanism of magnetic sensing in animals. It also reveals a surprising connection between the immune system and perception. “We didn’t expect immune cells to act like sensors for magnetic fields at all. Our results reveal a previously unknown mechanism for magnetic perception in animals,” said Prof. Christian Kurts, Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine and …

AI helps scientists model kilonova-producing neutron star mergers

AI helps scientists model kilonova-producing neutron star mergers

Published by Jenni Sidey

Some of the universe’s heaviest elements are born in chaos, in matter flung outward when neutron stars collide or massive stars explode. But one stubborn problem has limited how well scientists can model those events: the heat released while those new elements form is hard to calculate in full detail, and leaving it out can skew the result. A team led by researchers at GSI/FAIR says it has now found a way around that bottleneck. Using a deep-learning system called RHINE, the group built a machine-learning model that can estimate the energy released during rapid neutron-capture nucleosynthesis, better known as the r-process, while a hydrodynamic simulation is running. That matters because the heat is not just a bookkeeping detail. It can change how fast matter moves, how it spreads through space, and how bright the aftermath becomes. In neutron star mergers, that aftermath shows up as a kilonova, the brief electromagnetic glow produced by freshly forged heavy elements. “Researchers around the world strive to make these complex reactions understandable through theoretical simulations. However, modeling all …

NFL teams may be overpaying to move up in the draft, study finds

NFL teams may be overpaying to move up in the draft, study finds

Published by Jenni Sidey

The NFL draft has long been treated like a ladder of certainty. The higher you pick, the thinking goes, the better player you should get. Also, the more that selection ought to be worth in trades, contracts, and roster planning. This new analysis argues that the league’s confidence in that ladder may be stronger than the results justify. Looking at players drafted from 2011 through 2020, researchers found that draft position was not closely tied to how players actually performed in their first four years in the league. That disconnect showed up in the way teams value picks on trade charts. It also appeared in the salaries attached to rookie contracts. Furthermore, it was evident in the on-field grades players later earned. “For what the NFL is currently doing, performance doesn’t bear out according to draft values or rookie contracts,” said Dennis Shaffer, lead author of the study and a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University. “It doesn’t matter how you look at it in terms of valuation, in trade values or rookie …

New Research Reveals Gap Between Christians’ Generosity Aspirations and Giving Practices

New Research Reveals Gap Between Christians’ Generosity Aspirations and Giving Practices

Published by Sam Flores

Study finds many religious donors want to give more than they currently do, suggesting that consistency — not willingness — is often the barrier to greater generosity INDIANAPOLIS — Most faith-based donors across the United States aspire to give consistently, but many struggle to turn intentions into regular giving habits, according to a new national study. Produced by Givelify Philanthropic Research & Insights, a research initiative of Givelify, with support from the Lake Institute on Faith & Giving, part of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the 2026 Giving in Faith: Rethinking Generosity through Consistent Giving report examines the behavioral and motivational factors that shape consistent generosity within faith communities. Building on past findings that nearly all faith-based donors aspire to give consistently one or more times a month, the new report found that only 30% currently do so, even with the availability of automatic recurring giving. At the same time, church leaders tend to view congregational giving patterns more optimistically, estimating that about 53% of congregants give consistently.   Together, these findings highlight a disconnect between giving intentions, perceived giving patterns, …

Scientists discover a major geological rift tearing India in two

Scientists discover a major geological rift tearing India in two

Published by Jenni Sidey

Beneath the Himalayas, the Indian Plate is doing something geologists once thought continents largely avoided: it is coming apart. That slow collision between India and Asia has been pushing up the world’s highest mountains for about 60 million years. But far below the peaks, the descending plate is not moving as one solid slab. New seismic evidence suggests that in parts of southern Tibet, the plate’s dense lower section is peeling away from the crust above it, while another section may be torn along a steep boundary underground. The result is a far more complicated picture of continental collision than the textbook version. Instead of a single, clean geometry, researchers now see a patchwork of intact plate, delaminated plate, mantle upwelling, and possible slab tearing, all packed beneath the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau. “We didn’t know continents could behave this way and that is, for solid earth science, pretty fundamental,” says Douwe van Hinsbergen, a geodynamicist at Utrecht University. By sampling helium gases in hundreds of springs across southern Tibet, researchers identified places where …

New oral diabetes pill sharply lowers blood sugar and body weight in phase 2 trial

New oral diabetes pill sharply lowers blood sugar and body weight in phase 2 trial

Published by Jenni Sidey

For many people with type 2 diabetes, the problem is not just finding a drug that works. It is finding one they can realistically live with. A once-daily pill called elecoglipron is now drawing attention because it appears to lower blood sugar and body weight without the food and water restrictions tied to some existing oral options. In a phase 2b clinical trial called SOLSTICE, adults with type 2 diabetes who took oral elecoglipron saw bigger drops in HbA1c, a measure of average blood sugar over the past two to three months, than those who received placebo. The treatment also led to weight loss over 26 weeks, results that add momentum to the search for easier-to-use GLP-1 medicines. The findings were presented at the American Diabetes Association’s 2026 Scientific Sessions and published in The Lancet. Vanita Aroda, a Mass General Brigham physician investigator and director of diabetes clinical research in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Hypertension, said the results point to a broader future for oral GLP-1 therapies. “Our study’s findings underscore the expanding …

University of Chicago team proposes flexible new platform to produce entangled quantum states

University of Chicago team proposes flexible new platform to produce entangled quantum states

Published by Jenni Sidey

Entanglement sits at the heart of quantum technology, but it is rarely easy to make. The most powerful states often demand delicate hardware, custom-built controls, and a long list of moving parts. That is why a new proposal from the University of Chicago is drawing attention. It suggests that a much simpler setup may be able to produce a surprisingly wide range of complex quantum states. This includes some that could improve sensors and help physicists study exotic forms of matter. The work, published in Physical Review X, lays out a theoretical method for generating and controlling entangled states in cavity quantum electrodynamics, or cavity QED, a platform already familiar in many quantum labs. The idea begins with atoms placed inside an optical cavity. There, light bounces between two mirrors and interacts with the atoms. In standard cavity QED, all the atoms usually couple to the light in the same way. That sameness is useful, but it also imposes limits. “We wanted to take simple ingredients that you find in a lot of physical platforms …

Milky Way’s central black hole wind finally detected ending 50-year search

Milky Way’s central black hole wind finally detected ending 50-year search

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Milky Way’s central black hole has long posed an awkward problem. By every standard picture of how black holes behave, Sagittarius A* should be blowing material back into space as it feeds. Yet for more than half a century, astronomers could not find clear evidence that it was doing so. Now they say that missing wind has finally turned up. A team at Northwestern University used years of observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, or ALMA, in Chile to build an unusually sharp map of the cold gas crowding the black hole’s neighborhood. In that map, they found a broad, cone-shaped cavity carved out of molecular gas within about one parsec, or roughly three light-years, of Sagittarius A*. The researchers argue that only a hot wind from the black hole can explain the feature. Therefore, this offers what they describe as the clearest evidence yet that the Milky Way’s central black hole is not an exception to the usual rules. The highest-resolution and most sensitive map of cold gas within ∼1 pc from …

Despite toxic reputation, our research shows podcasts can help men’s mental health

Despite toxic reputation, our research shows podcasts can help men’s mental health

Published by Sam Flores

Over the last decade, podcasts have become big business, with more than a fifth of UK adults listening to podcasts each week. The format particularly resonates with men, who are more likely than women to identify as podcast fans. Men are also overrepresented as podcast hosts. In a society where the political divide between men and women is deepening, this influential form of media is shaping expectations and experiences of gender. There is a perception among some that podcasts aimed at men are hosted strictly by “alpha males” presenting anti-feminist rhetoric and rigid ideas of masculinity. But the world of podcasts contains both traditional and shifting ideas of masculinity. Some podcasts, including pro-feminist podcasts and those focused on men’s mental health, communicate inclusive and flexible ideas of masculinity. In a recent study, we examined what men gain from listening to a men’s mental health podcast. Research suggests that podcasts can offer men a low-barrier option to engage with their mental health. This is important considering the current high rates of mental distress and suicide among …

Compact X-ray telescope could deliver the first full chemical map of the Moon

Compact X-ray telescope could deliver the first full chemical map of the Moon

Published by Jenni Sidey

The Moon’s surface has been sampled, scanned, and photographed for decades, yet one of the most basic questions about it remains unsettled: what, exactly, is the whole thing made of from place to place? That gap matters because the Moon’s chemistry is one of the clearest records of how it formed, cooled, and changed over time. It also matters for a more immediate reason. The lunar south pole, now a major focus for exploration planning, cannot be understood fully without a better picture of its elemental makeup. A team from Tokyo Metropolitan University says a compact X-ray telescope may finally make that possible. Using numerical simulations, the researchers found that a lightweight instrument orbiting the Moon could produce the first complete map of elemental abundance across the entire lunar surface, something past missions have not been able to achieve. Their results suggest that one telescope could map five key elements across the Moon in about two years. A larger system using 25 telescopes could do the job faster and at finer detail. X-ray Fluorescence Imaging …