On October 21, 2024, the research team led by Professor Lv Han from Capital Medical University Affiliated Beijing Friendship Hospital, in collaboration with the team led by Professor Jiang Jiehui from Shanghai University, conducted a population-based cohort study to investigate the long-term effects of unhealthy lifestyles, metabolic abnormalities, and other risk factors on brain aging. The results demonstrated that these risk factors significantly accelerate brain aging, and the researchers proposed key strategies to promote brain health. The study was published in the Research under the title "Discovery of High-Risk Clinical Factors That Accelerate Brain Aging in Adults: A Population-Based Machine Learning Study" (Research 2024; 7: Article 0500. DOI: 10.34133/research.0500).

Atomic nuclei with “magic numbers” of protons or neutrons in their nuclear shells are extremely stable. Nuclear physicists are especially interested in nuclei with doubly magic numbers—those that have full shells for both protons and neutrons. One example is the tin isotope Sn-100, which has 50 protons and 50 neutrons. To prepare for future work on Sn-100, researchers studied the properties of isotopes of indium as they approached 50 neutrons. This helps to demonstrate how adding single particles changes the properties of a nucleus.

A research team led by Professor Myung Ki from the Department of Preventive Medicine at Korea University College of Medicine (KUCM) recently published a study examining the link between education levels and suicide rates. The study found that among young men aged 30 to 44 whose highest level of education was elementary school or lower, the suicide rate was 6.1 to 13 times higher than that of men with a university or higher degree across all survey periods (1995–2020). These findings highlight the profound impact of socioeconomic disparities on suicide rates.

When groups make decisions­—whether it’s humans aligning on a shared idea, robots coordinating tasks, or fish deciding where to swim—not everyone contributes equally. Some individuals have more reliable information, whereas others are more connected and have higher social influence. A new study by researchers at the Cluster of Excellence Science of Intelligence shows that a combination of uncertainty and heterogeneity plays a crucial role in how groups reach consensus. The findings, published in Scientific Reports by Vito Mengers, Mohsen Raoufi, Oliver Brock, Heiko Hamann, and Pawel Romanczuk, show that groups make faster and more accurate decisions when individuals factor in not only the opinions of their neighbors but also their confidence about these opinions and how connected those others are within the group. However, more confidence does not always equal smarter decisions. The study also shows that overconfident group members with wrong information might mislead the group.

Research on the flexible hybrid epidermal electronic system (FHEES) has attracted considerable attention due to its potential applications in human-machine interaction and healthcare. However, the heterogeneous integration of soft and stiff components makes balancing comfort and performance in designing and implementing FHEESs challenging. A new study, published in Research, reviews multimodal FHEESs in two types: all-in-one and assembled, highlighting the design challenge with different heterogeneous integration strategies.