2+ week, 6+ day ago (134+ words) Ben and Patrick at the helm today. Here's the biggest science news you need to know: Two weeks ago, Patrick covered news of several lab monkeys that escaped from an overturned truck in Mississippi that were allegedly diseased and dangerous. On Friday night, we finally got news that the last of these monkeys has been tracked down, following a report from a resident whose dog alerted her to its presence. Five of the escaped rhesus macaques were sadly killed by police, yet authorities say that this monkey was "successfully recovered." Good morning, science fans! Ben here, back for another round of updates on the latest science updates from around the world. This year's conference promises to be particularly contentious, with many leaders being no-shows and the Trump administration having exited the process entirely....

6+ day, 4+ hour ago (253+ words) Tia is the editor-in-chief (premium) and was formerly managing editor and senior writer for Live Science. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Wired.com, Science News and other outlets. She holds a master's degree in bioengineering from the University of Washington, a graduate certificate in science writing from UC Santa Cruz and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Tia was part of a team at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that published the Empty Cradles series on preterm births, which won multiple awards, including the 2012 Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. Man infected with H5N5 bird flu strain dies [chicken flock](Image credit: Shutterstock) A Washington state resident who was the first person to be infected with the H5N5 strain of bird flu has died of complications from the virus, CNN reports.The patient, an older…...

3+ week, 6+ day ago (246+ words) Here's the science news you need to know today: At Live Science we're a passionate bunch who love reading the latest research and how new discoveries are changing the world around us. We're also lucky enough to write and report on it every day. But we are just a small bunch of humans, and to paraphrase the late, great Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", science is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. While we cover the most important or interesting topics of the day, there is no way we can report on it all, not even using AI (and we are very clear about how we use it. TL;DR " we don't). So rather than letting good news pass both you and us by, why not share it in one…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago (627+ words) New research shows that CTE may stem from DNA damage and inflammation set in motion by blows to the head. The brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has been linked to physical trauma to the head " and it turns out that those head impacts may trigger inflammation and DNA damage that accumulates in brain cells over time, a new study finds. That DNA damage, which can eventually lead to cell dysfunction and death, resembles the damage seen in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease, the research suggests. The scientists behind the new study decided to dig into the link between DNA damage and CTE after they showed that they found that mature neurons, which don't divide, nonetheless accumulate mutations throughout life. In a 2015 study, the team found that these mutations build up even faster in the context of brain…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago (1702+ words) Ben and Patrick at the helm today. Here's the biggest science news you need to know: With Thanksgiving and the holiday season both around the corner, many of us are already preparing for some raucous family get-togethers. But no matter how riotous we humans can be, nothing compares to the activities of the worker ants highlighted by this recent study. Ater being tricked by the pheromone spray of a parasitic queen, some ant species band together to dismember their mother and enable the imposter to usurp the throne for herself. You can read all the gory details in the full story here. Yesterday, we wrote (at length) about the potential release of NASA's long-awaited comet 3I/ATLAS images. Well, just a reminder that these are coming tomorrow. NASA will host a live news teleconference on Wednesday (Nov. 19) at 3 p.m. EST. The images…...

3+ day, 18+ hour ago (684+ words) Alopecia areata, which causes patchy hair loss, is often preceded by stress. Scientists are starting to figure out why through animal studies. Scientists are connecting the dots between stress and hair loss, including a common condition that causes hair to fall out in large patches. High stress weighs heavily on the body " it can impact sleep, make the heart pound, and cause pains and muscle aches. It's also been tied to hair loss, such as the chronic hair-loss condition alopecia areata, in which immune cells attack hair follicles. "I've always been fascinated by how life experiences leave marks on our bodies," study co-author Ya-Chieh Hsu, a regenerative biologist at Harvard University, told Live Science in an email. "We still know surprisingly little about how stress reshapes our tissues and contributes to disease." But hair cells offer an accessible and informative…...

3+ week, 3+ day ago (578+ words) Declining immune responsiveness with age may be driven by changes in immune cells " not by inflammation, as previously thought. A new study helps reveal why some vaccines, including those for COVID-19 and influenza, are less effective in older adults than they are in younger people " and it may fundamentally shift our understanding of aging. Traditionally, scientists have attributed the reduced vaccine response seen in older adults to a decline in the immune system with age. Many have pointed to persistent, low-grade immune activation " a process dubbed "inflammaging" " as one driver of this decline. But a new study that compared the immune systems of older and younger adults found no consistent increases in biological markers of inflammation with age. Instead, aging appears to reprogram T cells " important immune cells that help train a type of white blood cell, called B cells,…...

2+ week, 1+ day ago (619+ words) An experimental drug compound could be a promising treatment for harmful diabetes complications, per a new study in lab mice and human cells. An experimental drug compound could prevent and treat some complications of diabetes, such as poor wound healing and rampant inflammation. And it works regardless of blood sugar control, a new study in mice and human cells suggests. "The complications of diabetes " which really are the issues that make people sick, that reduce their lifespan, and that just make them unwell " are only partly mitigated by tight control of the blood sugar," said study co-author Dr. Ann Marie Schmidt, a professor of medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the Diabetes Research Program at NYU Langone Health. That raises questions about what the other drivers of diabetic complications might be and whether they can…...

1+ day, 1+ hour ago (1235+ words) Plastic pollution is poisoning the planet. Some experts suggest making plastics from more "natural" materials, but research shows those still have risks. The global annual production of plastics rose to 400million metric tons in 2022 and is projected to double by 2050. Many items produced are single-use, and less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled. Clearly, the problem of plastic pollution in land and marine environments isn't going away. This series looks at some approaches to dealing with it, starting with the development of alternative materials. We constantly see images of unsightly plastic pollution " rivers clogged with floating rafts of debris so dense you can't see the water, beaches piled with plastic trash rendering them unfit for even walking on, plastic bags fluttering from roadside vegetation. Aesthetics alone make a compelling case that something must be done. But unsightliness is the least of…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago (572+ words) A laboratory study reveals an interaction between dietary fiber and the gut microbiome that may be helpful for fighting cancer. Microbes in the gut can help the immune system fight cancer, and a fiber-rich diet may be the key to unlocking those benefits, a study in mice suggests. Now, in a study published Nov. 11 in the journal Immunity, researchers report that simple dietary changes may help revive these key immune cells by affecting the gut microbiome " the collection of microbial species in the gastrointestinal tract. The team, led by Dr. Sammy Bedoui, an immunologist at the University of Melbourne in Australia, didn't set out to study cancer at all. Instead, their project began nearly a decade ago with "blue-sky discovery research," without a particular outcome in mind, he told Live Science. The team was broadly exploring how CD8+ T cells defend…...