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Biology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 9-Jul-2025 01:10 ET (9-Jul-2025 05:10 GMT/UTC)

Cherry trees keep their buds super-cool in winter

University of British Columbia Okanagan campus

Dr. Elizabeth Houghton recently graduated from the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Science’s Department of Biology. Her latest paper, published in Plant Biology, examines how sweet cherries, like many fruit trees, use a natural survival strategy called supercooling to protect undeveloped flower buds during freezing temperatures.

Journal: Plant Biology

Post-Dobbs decision changes in obstetrics and gynecology clinical workforce in states with abortion restrictions

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: While practitioner supply increased overall, the Dobbs decision was associated with moderate but significant relative decreases in obstetrics and gynecology practitioners in the most restrictive vs control states. Findings provide early confirmation of reports that clinicians have migrated from states most impacted by the Dobbs decision. Clinician migration has implications for reproductive care access, quality, and equity as abortion rights are increasingly decided at the state level.

Journal: JAMA Internal Medicine

COVID-19 pandemic and the developmental health of kindergarteners

JAMA Network
Peer-Reviewed Publication

About The Study: The COVID-19 pandemic was associated with varying developmental health outcomes in kindergarteners. Negative developmental trends existed immediately before the pandemic, with most persisting or slowing post-pandemic onset. These results highlight troubling trends in kindergarteners’ development, both before and during the pandemic, and more information is needed to understand why developmental outcomes are worsening over time.

Journal: JAMA Pediatrics

New insights into plant growth

Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research from an international team of plant biologists, led by researchers at the VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, has revealed crucial insights into the role brassinosteroids – essential plant hormones – play in regulating cell division and growth. The findings, published in Cell, provide a comprehensive understanding of how these hormones influence development at the cellular level.

Journal: Cell
Funder: FWO, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, European Research Council, University of California, California Institute of Technology, National Natural Science Foundation of China, NIH, NSF

Chronic stress and obesity work together to accelerate pancreatic cancer development and growth, study finds

University of California - Los Angeles Health Sciences
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by UCLA investigators suggests that chronic stress and an unhealthy diet may work together to fuel the early development of pancreatic cancer, shedding light on how lifestyle factors contribute to one of the deadliest malignancies.

Journal: Molecular Cancer Research
Funder: NIH/National Cancer Institute, NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research

TTUHSC’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences hosts 37th Student Research Week

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
Meeting Announcement

TTUHSC student researchers recently participated in the university’s 37th Student Research Week, organized by the TTUHSC Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. The event allows TTUHSC students to showcase their research and hear presentations from distinguished national speakers related to the year’s theme. TTUHSC’s Department of Cell Physiology and Molecular Biophysics hosted the 2025 event, and “Let’s Get Biophysical” was the theme to highlight the host department's focus on biophysical techniques, particularly in membrane protein research.

X-ray snapshot: How light bends an active substance

Goethe University Frankfurt
Peer-Reviewed Publication

With the help of the world's most powerful X-ray laser, European XFEL, a research team led by Goethe University Frankfurt and the research centre DESY has achieved an important breakthrough: Using the example of the pharmaceutically active substance 2-thiouracil, they applied a long-established imaging technique to complex molecules for the first time. Although 2-thiouracil is no longer applied therapeutically, it is part of a group of chemically similar active substances that are used today as immunosuppressants or cytostatics. The study shows how UV radiation deforms 2-thiouracil, making it dangerously reactive.

Journal: Nature Communications