Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new paradigm for identifying online phishing campaigns. Their new system, PhishLumos, is triggered when links show signs of concealing information, and looks for clues in the “infrastructure” of the website to uncover the whole campaign of which the site is only a tiny part. Real-world testing showed detection which was 8 days faster than an expert, with 190,000 URLs detected over 6 months.

Researchers at Kanazawa University have identified a previously unrecognized mechanism by which structural changes in the cerebellum influence social behavior. The study demonstrates that disruption of specialized extracellular structures surrounding cerebellar neurons alters neuronal activity across brain circuits involved in social behavior. The findings provide new insight into the neural mechanisms associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Long COVID (LC), characterized by onset of symptoms within 3 months of COVID-19, poses a major clinical challenge. This highlights the need for biomarkers to evaluate the pathophysiology of LC. In this context, researchers have analyzed the antibody titers against SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins in patients with LC. It was observed that N-antibody levels reflected prior infection severity, while lower S-antibody levels were linked to memory problems and poor quality of life.

Small intestinal cancer is a rare and poorly understood disease, partly because the molecular drivers behind it have remained unclear. Now, researchers from Japan have identified mutations in COPA—a gene involved in cellular cargo transport with no prior link to cancer—as an alternative route to small intestine tumorigenesis. Their findings may help explain how these tumors develop and could inform and advance future diagnosis and treatment strategies.

Researchers investigated the prevalence of an emerging foodborne disease-causing bacterium in wild raccoons and environmental water. They found genetic similarities between the strains found in both, suggesting possible transmission between wildlife and water. Genomic analyses of samples taken from the raccoons showed that many strains found in the animals carried virulence genes associated with diarrhea outbreaks in humans.

In a new study, researchers have directly confirmed for the first time that water from melting snow and ice, or meltwater, found at the surface of a glacier can drain down to its base, causing the glaciers in Antarctica to speed up and move towards the ocean. 

An exciting new strategy involving a specially designed iron-based catalyst can speed up the reaction that powers next-gen zinc-air batteries. This means cleaner, more efficient energy for everyone.

Kyoto, Japan -- Over the past several decades, light sources have gradually transitioned to light emitting diodes, or LEDs, and inorganic LEDs are now used across a wide range of applications. In parallel, organic LEDs, OLEDs, have become widely used in display technologies. OLEDs in particular offer significant advantages in devices such as smartphones, including higher resolution and lower power consumption. All LEDs operate based on spontaneous emission, which is inherently broadband, and OLEDs in particular produce broad emission spectra.

Narrowing this spontaneous emission toward a monochromatic limit would greatly increase its utility: a goal that has long been a central pursuit in photonics. For example, a narrower emission would achieve more highly saturated colors in LED-based displays. While organic materials offer the advantage of tunable emission wavelengths through molecular design, achieving extremely small emission bandwidths remains a major challenge.

Recent advances in molecular design have enabled the development of narrowband organic emitters, particularly multiple resonance emitters developed by Takuji Hatakeyama of Kyoto University. These materials are known for their narrow emission spectra and high color purity. However, even these emitters still exhibit significantly broader spectra than ideal monochromatic light.

Why does a stored memory sometimes feel out of reach? A study in mice from Nagoya City University, published in Neuron, shows that slow fluctuations in brain histamine neurons shape whether learned memories become accessible when a memory cue is presented. The work suggests that memory access depends not only on stored memory traces, but also on moment-to-moment brain states.