Long-term trials in Bihar, India, found that manure and crop residues improved soil properties and raised rice and wheat yields. Reduced tillage mainly benefited physical soil conditions, but zero-tillage results varied by site and could lower yields when residues were not added.
A computer model suggests dust from landfill mining could exceed UK and EU PM10 air-quality limits, even though it generally stayed within the landfill boundary in one simulated operation. The findings point to potential health and environmental risks if dust controls are not used.
A reexamined glyptodont skull from Lagoa Santa, Brazil, has been proposed as a new species, Glyptotherium deuterophractum. The fossil had been assigned to other species for decades, but its combination of anatomical features distinguishes it from related glyptodonts.
A preprint study found that the same hidden instruction could produce very different results in AI agents depending on whether it arrived as tool information or tool output, and what surrounded it. The findings have not been peer reviewed and may change.
This review examined 195 unique patient populations represented in studies cited by three chemotherapy anti-nausea guidelines. Most studies came from high-income countries, so the evidence may not fully reflect settings where recommended medicines or health-care resources are less available.
In a mouse study, lead exposure from pregnancy through adulthood was linked to depression-like behavior, increased oxidative stress in the brain, and altered stress-hormone responses. Male and female mice showed different corticosterone patterns after stress.
A marker-free augmented-reality system projected planned robotic-surgery port locations onto a human phantom. The results show consistent alignment between the digital plan and the physical body model, but the system has not yet been evaluated in patients.
In a study of adults aged 45 and older from 19 countries, researchers found that multiple physical health conditions and loneliness were associated with one another over time in both directions. Social inactivity appeared to statistically mediate part of the association from physical multimorbidity to later loneliness. The observational design cannot establish cause and effect.
A preprint reports measurable patterns for how capabilities emerge and are forgotten during language-model training. The study says emergence depends on several model parts becoming useful together, while forgetting depends on how widely and strongly a capability is stored.
A study of seafood from Brazil’s Sepetiba Bay found that mean arsenic levels in the muscle of four species exceeded regulatory reference values, while another reached the reference value. The results point to species-specific dietary concerns and the need for continued monitoring.
In a randomized, placebo-controlled phase II trial of 250 adults with overweight or obesity in China, the oral GLP-1 receptor agonist VCT220 was associated with greater average weight loss over 16 weeks than placebo. The study also reported changes in HbA1c, fasting insulin, and blood pressure, while gastrointestinal side effects were common but usually mild to moderate. Longer-term effects and safety remain uncertain.
A simulation of contact tracing in Seoul and Busan found that leaving infected people out of the system had a sharper effect on epidemic spread than missing individual contacts. Contact tracing broke down at an estimated omission rate of about 4% in Seoul and 10% in Busan, suggesting that cities may need different completeness targets.
A cocktail of two bacteria-killing viruses reduced Staphylococcus aureus in laboratory tests and in UHT milk. It also fully blocked production of one staphylococcal toxin in an in vitro assay, though the study did not test the approach in commercial dairy production or people.
In laboratory experiments, blocking PHGDH, an enzyme involved in serine metabolism, weakened anaplastic thyroid cancer cells that had become resistant to dabrafenib. The treatment reduced colony formation and growth-related signaling, alone and in combination with dabrafenib.
A solar still fitted with rotating aluminum discs produced 24% more desalinated water than a drum-based still and 310% more than a standard passive still in experiments. Estimated water costs ranged from 8.2 to 10.3 cents per liter, with projected payback periods under seven months.
