Science

A flexible and adhesive electrode layer made using the new binder. Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Obesity in middle age is a significant risk factor for developing dementia in later life, but the relationship may be more complicated than we thought. Researchers from the US and Canada have now turned up evidence that extra body weight is associated with a longer life once a dementia diagnosis has been given. Considering how many health problems are linked to obesity – from high blood pressure to several cancers – it's a surprising finding. But the discovery may give experts some useful insight into how dementia develops and how it might be slowed down. The research team analyzed health records from 4,523 US adults aged 51 and over who didn't have dementia at the beginning of the study period but went on to develop it. Based on their body mass index (BMI) at the start, they were put into four groups: normal weight, overweight, class 1 obesity, and class 2/3 obesity. As reported in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, over a follow-up period of up to 20 years, those who were at a normal weight were significantly more likely to die earlier.

Some books feel like they were written after the author got tired of hearing what a genre is supposed to contain. Good. That impatience has produced some of the most exciting speculative fiction of the last thirty-five years. You get witches standing next to physicists, necromancers flying through space, industrial cities powered by forces nobody would sensibly call either magic or science, and apocalypses where geology itself becomes part of the social order. What I love is when none of that weirdness feels ornamental. The impossible thing changes how people live. It changes who gets power, who gets feared, what counts as knowledge, and what somebody is willing to sacrifice for another person. That is when science fantasy stops feeling like two genres taped together and starts feeling like its own wonderfully unstable animal.

You taste a bowl of soup and reach for the salt. A little more might bring the flavor together. But what if the same amount of salt could deliver a stronger salty taste? Scientists in China have found three tiny fragments of mushroom proteins that did just that in laboratory tests. Added to salt solutions, the molecules made them taste saltier, with the strongest increasing perceived saltiness by about 71 percent. The discovery could help researchers develop seasonings that preserve salty flavor while allowing less sodium. The study in npj Science of Food, led by researchers at Gannan Medical University and Shanxi Medical University, tested peptides from the edible beech mushroom (Hypsizygus marmoreus). Peptides are short chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Some have tastes of their own, including umami, the savory quality associated with mushrooms and other foods. Certain umami peptides can also strengthen the perception of saltiness. That makes them interesting candidates for a familiar problem: reducing salt can change the taste of food, making a healthier formulation harder to enjoy.

By Lethbridge Herald on October 10, 2026. >LCI science teacher Cilena Mathieu, received the Primer Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in STEM (HERALD PHOTO BY ALEJANDRA PULIDO-GUZMAN)Alejandra Pulido-Guzman

Loneliness and social isolation are widespread in the United States. According to a 2023 report, about half of U. S. adults experience loneliness, while nearly as many are socially isolated. Despite health consequences that can rival other major risk factors, both problems remain relatively overlooked as urgent public health concerns. Until recently, however, researchers had little idea how many years of good health might actually be lost to loneliness and social isolation.

Some 350,900 students are expected at 57 institutions, a 2.1% increase; around 70,000 served in the military reserves last year, while women account for 58.6% of enrollment and 61% finish bachelor's degrees on time, versus 43% across the OECDThe 2026–27 academic year is opening at 57 higher education institutions across Israel, with the country's university and college system continuing to grow. According to forecasts by the Council for Higher Education (CHE) and its Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC), approximately 350,900 students are expected to enroll this year, an increase of 2.1%, or 7,183 students, compared with 2025–26. During the previous academic year, 343,717 students were enrolled, up 2.8% from 2024–25. Of those, 262,083 were studying for bachelor's degrees, 68,497 for master's degrees, 12,356 for doctoral degrees and 781 were enrolled in certificate programs. GalleryTel Aviv University (Photo: Roman Yanushevsky, shutterstock)Undergraduate studies accounted for approximately 90% of the overall growth in 2025–26, with enrollment rising 3.4%, from 253,536 students the previous year to 262,083.

Patients with a particular form of bowel cancer remained free of recurrence for almost three years after receiving a short course of immunotherapy before surgery, according to new findings from the NEOPRISM-CRC clinical trial led by researchers at UCL and UCLH. The results, which are due to be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2026 in April, extend earlier findings from the trial. Those initial results showed that nine weeks of treatment with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab before surgery caused major tumor shrinkage in people with stage two or three bowel cancer.

For prompts up to 100,000 tokens, both charge $0.10 in and $0.50 out per million tokens. At max effort, Artificial Analysis reports three times the cost per index task for Haiku. At their shared index score of 38, the gap is about 14%; Haiku’s rates rise above 100,000 prompt tokens.8 min read6 days ago--Press enter or click to view image in full sizeTwo illustrated model cards pair Claude Haiku 5.5 with GPT-6 Luna (AI-generated artwork made with OpenAI image generation). Anthropic released Claude Haiku 5.5 on October 7. Its base price is $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens, a tenth of Haiku 4.5’s base rates. OpenAI’s GPT-6 Luna, out since September 22, charges exactly the same. Same price list. On Artificial Analysis’s Intelligence Index, Haiku 5.5 scores 43 and Luna scores 38. A year ago, Haiku 4.5 scored 17. So Haiku wins? Look at the next column. Artificial Analysis also reports what one question in its index costs. At max effort, Haiku 5.5 costs $0.21 per task against Luna’s $0.07. You pay three times as much for five more points. Both max settings are useful to compare if that is how you plan to run the models.

Mandi Gosling, Neuralign's Global Ambassador, champions the power and potential of every brain. Neuralign at Investing in Generational Resilience, Science Summit alongside UNGA: Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri, Rachel Azafrani, Emre E. Korkmaz, Ramesh Rao and Jorge C. Restrepo, representing SRI, Microsoft, Oxford, Qualcomm Institute/UCSD and BitBasel.

Losing weight is hard. Very hard. Indeed, research suggests that only around 20 per cent of people who intentionally lose a significant amount of weight through dieting manage to keep it off for at least a year. However, the emergence of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist drugs has made this battle easier. By dramatically reducing people’s hunger drive, these drugs have made substantial weight loss achievable for the estimated 40 million adult users in the US.

Postdoctoral Research Associate Christine Dugas, PhD, received the Audience Choice Emerging Scientist Award to support the study: A Window to the Brain: Evaluating the Eye-Brain Connection in Early Detection of Dementia Risk (pictured with 2026 campaign co-chairs Diane Jonston and Andy Walsh). Credit must be given to the creator. No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.

Yukie, in chair, and Junie enjoy a warm fire on a cold Fairbanks day in November 2024. (Photo by Sara Wilbur) Note: After finally cleaning my stovepipe last weekend, it feels like woodstove season at my cabin can officially (and safely) begin. Carla Helfferich wrote this wood power-focused Alaska Science Forum column on Oct. 3, 1990. — Sara WilburA strange thing happens at my house every October: the woodstove seems to get bigger. It’s been an inconspicuous little black thing in the corner of the living room all summer, but come snowfall, it’s a brute right out in the middle. And it looks hungry. If there’s any science whatsoever in that observation, it’s psychology. Important objects may be perceived as larger than they really are, and that stove certainly grows in importance as temperatures decline. Other sciences apply more exactly to heating with wood.

“Less is more” may seem a curious phrase when applied to a half-million-dollar, 199-mph, 657-horsepower twin-turbocharged V8 brute. But in the context of the posh luxury barges we expect from British automotive manufacturer Bentley, it’s applicable to the 2026 Bentley Supersports. That is because this car is as notable for what it lacks as for what it has. The Supersports is a rear-drive, combustion-only version of the Bentley Continental GT. But where that car has always employed all-wheel drive, and the current generation uses a hybrid-electric powertrain, the Supersports is the result of a “what-if” project by Bentley engineers.

Surface of a copper catalyst depicting CO2 hydrogenation to methanol. Credit: Shivam ChaturvedicScientists have uncovered an unexpected pathway for hydrogen transfer during catalytic CO2 conversion. A computer model designed to predict how carbon dioxide becomes useful chemicals produced a surprising error: It identified formic acid as the main product instead of methanol. When scientists expanded the model to account for thousands of previously overlooked reactions, its predictions changed dramatically and aligned much more closely with experimental results. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) developed a computational framework that maps 9,389 chemical reactions involved in converting CO2 into fuels and chemicals on a copper catalyst. Compared with a smaller model containing just 152 reactions, the expanded network predicted approximately 40 times more CO2 conversion and correctly identified methanol and carbon monoxide as major products. The research was published in Nature Communications.

A single snow goose (Anser caerulescens) feeds with a group of Canada geese (Branta canadensis). This mixed-flock represents a type of interaction that is mutually beneficial and often recorded in comments of participatory science platforms like eBird. Credit must be given to Jing-Yi Lu, who retains copyright of this image. Jing-Yi Lu has granted permission to any media outlet covering the Zou et al. 2026 study permission to reproduce this photograph in connection with that story, including in print and online, at no charge.