Experts have identified for the first time exactly how exercise can lower your risk of getting bowel cancer and slow the growth of tumours. It is estimated that physical activity reduces the risk by approximately 20 percent.

Researchers from the Telomere-to-Telomere consortium have generated the first complete, gapless sequence of a human genome. The experts believe that this study is vital for understanding the full spectrum of human genomic variation and for examining the genetic contributions to certain diseases.

A recent study reveals rapid degradation in air quality and increases in urban exposure to air pollutants hazardous to health. According to the scientists, the worst effects of air pollution on health will likely occur in the coming decades.

Modified natural materials will be an essential component of a sustainable future, but first a detailed understanding of their properties is needed. The way heat flows across bamboo cell walls has been mapped using advanced scanning thermal microscopy, providing a new understanding of how variations in thermal conductivity are linked to the bamboo’s elegant structure.

Macrophages travel through our arteries, gobbling fat the way Pac-man gobbled ghosts. But fat-filled macrophages can narrow blood vessels and cause heart disease. Now, UConn Health researchers describe in Nature Cardiovascular Research how deleting a protein could prevent this.

A team co-led team by the University of Surrey has successfully increased the levels of energy absorbed by wafer-thin photovoltaic panels by 25 percent. Their solar panels, just one micrometre thick (1 μm), convert light into electricity more efficiently than others as thin.

A Kaust-led research team have identified two consecutive mutations in the nucleocapsid (N) protein – R203K and G204R which are responsible for increased severity of Covid-19 in patients. Insights into this study can help doctors and drug companies to come up with suitable solutions to assist patients suffering from the virus.

Up to 30 % of the food we eat is directly or indirectly dependent on pollination by bees. But due to pesticides and other toxins, climate change and habitat loss, we are seeing a decline in the number and diversity of bees in the world. What if we could create artificial bees that helped us with food production? The Norwegian scientist Ola Gjønnes Grendal cooks up the materials needed to do just this.

Scientists have found microbes living in the charred soil that wildfires leave behind. They don’t know how some fungi and bacteria manage to thrive when everything else has died, but a new project aims to change that.

Chemical engineers at EPFL have developed a new method for atomic layer deposition, a technique commonly used in high-quality microelectronics. The new method can be used in materials with larger surfaces much more cheaply than current approaches, while preserving quality and efficiency, the scientists claim.