There’s a downside to being a powerful alpha male -- at least if you’re a baboon. Studies show that despite their high rank, the No. 1 males in baboon society are also some of the most stressed out, as measured by their high levels of glucocorticoid hormones. But new research reveals it’s not the time they spend fighting with other males that raises their stress. Instead, it’s the effort they put into their mates.

AMHERST, Mass. — Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have quantified the impacts of a constellation of social factors on the spread of HIV. Their study, published in Health Care Management Science, found that a hypothetical 100% effective intervention addressing barriers to HIV treatment and care from depression, homelessness, individual and neighborhood poverty, education disparities, lack of insurance and unemployment could reduce the national HIV incidence by 29% over 10 years. The mathematical model, a novel integration of machine learning, probability theory and simulation, is positioned to be an important tool for decision-makers to optimize social programs and will have applications for other diseases. 

A international joint research team of KAIST and the University of Michigan developed a digital biomarker for predicting symptoms of depression based on data collected by smartwatches

Fast radio bursts are mysterious and brief flashes of radio emissions that were thought to be produced by magnetars, highly magnetized rotating neutron stars. Yet magnetars appear primarily in young star clusters. A repeating burst discovered last year has been pinpointed to the distant outskirts of an old but massive elliptical galaxy where, theoretically, such stars would long since have disappeared. Does this mean magnetars are not the source of FRBs?

Recently created Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas (LSMPAs) like Revillagigedo in Mexico are potentially large enough to protect highly migratory species like tuna, especially bigeye tuna, possibly leading to increases in catch rates for tuna fisheries operating outside their boundaries. The findings were published in Science on Dec. 12, 2024.