news 2025

What makes an admission to a mental health unit a more or less traumatic experience, and what role do nurses play in this experience?

A Mediterranean-style diet, rich in fibre, vegetable proteins and healthy fats, benefits maternal health during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

The Balearic shearwater ( Puffinus mauretanicus , above) and the Mediterranean shearwater ( Puffinus yelkouan , a below) are two shearwater taxa that are genetically similar despite displaying morphological and migratory differences. The new study shows that these two taxa have undergone recurrent episodes of divergence and hybridization during the Pleistocene glacial and interglacial cycles, respectively.

A study involving the University of Seville reveals the first Neanderthal footprints of adults, children and birds in southern Portugal, a discovery that suggests route planning, possible hunting behavior and coexistence with other species An international study, published in the journal Scientific Reports of Nature, has revealed a new Neanderthal site in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Algarvian coast of Portugal.

An international study published in the journal Nature Medicine casts doubt on the widespread belief that higher levels of formal education directly protect against cognitive decline and brain ageing.

Research Researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) have designed a microscope that allows the Josephson effect, key to superconductivity, to be observed with atomic precision. The new system, described in Nature Communications, generates spontaneous oscillations between two conduction states and maintains stable signals even at high temperatures Researchers at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) have developed a new microscope for the study of superconductors at the atomic scale.

Most of the plastic bottles and caps that pollute the Pacific coasts of Latin American countries are of local origin, and are mainly produced by the multinational companies The Coca-Cola Company, Aje Group and PepsiCo. The countries most affected by these pollutants are those in Central America, probably due to high consumption of beverages in plastic containers, poor waste management and transport by ocean currents.

Submarine canyons are among the most spectacular and fascinating geological formations to be found on our ocean floors, but at an international level scientists have yet to uncover many of their secrets, especially of those located in remote regions of the Earth like the North and South Poles. Now, an article published in the journal Marine Geology has brought together the most detailed catalogue to date of Antarctic submarine canyons, identifying a total of 332 canyon networks that in some cases reach depths of over 4,000 metres.

The study shows, for the first time in a realistic setting, the role of ripple-type brain waves in memory encoding and storage.

A team of scientists led by expert Raúl Jiménez, ICREA researcher at the University of Barcelona's Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB), in collaboration with the University of Padua (Italy), has presented a revolutionary theory about the origins of the Universe. The study, published in the journal Physical Review Research , introduces a radical change in the understanding of the first moments after the Big Bang, without relying on the speculative assumptions that physicists have traditionally assumed.

Juvenile fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder that mainly affects adolescent girls. A study led by the University of Barcelona shows that resilience - the ability to cope adaptively with adversity - does not reduce the physical symptoms of this chronic disease, but could act as a protective factor at the emotional and brain level.

The Cambrian explosion was an extraordinary phenomenon in the evolution of life on the planet that led to the emergence of many animal phyla and the diversification of species. During this period, some 530 million years ago, most of the basic body plans of organisms that have survived to the present day emerged.

A research team at the University of Barcelona has shown how artificial intelligence (AI) models can detect personality traits from written texts, and for the first time has managed to analyse in detail how these systems make decisions. These results, published in the journal PLOs One , open up new perspectives for understanding how personality manifests itself in natural language and also how more transparent and reliable automatic detection tools can be built.

Researchers identify a protein that may help improve the treatment of obesity and cardiovascular disease Obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are increasingly present in the population. Brown adipose tissue has a protective function against these prevalent diseases, as it burns calories and can produce body heat from fat.

In just over 20 years, the northward shift of the subtropical jet stream - a high-altitude airflow - caused by climate change has reduced primary production in the northwestern Mediterranean by about 40%. This marked reduction - the highest ever described - affects the base of the marine food web and could significantly impact living resources, ecosystem health and marine dynamics in this region of the Mediterranean.

According to the results of the European scientific project InnovaWorking The 4-day working day can increase productivity, improve work-life balance and retain talent when there is a real commitment on the part of the company that promotes it. These are some of the conclusions of InnovaWorking, a European scientific project coordinated by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), which presented today in the European Parliament its research results on innovative working time policies that have been negotiated between unions and employers in different countries of the European Union.

An international team of scientists has published a new report that moves towards a better understanding of the behaviour of some of the heaviest particles in the universe under extreme conditions, which are similar to those just after the big bang. The paper, published in the journal Physics Reports , is signed by physicists Juan M. Torres-Rincón, from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB), Santosh K. Das, from the Indian Institute of Technology Goa (India), and Ralf Rapp, from Texas A&M University (United States).

The study provides a genomic map of the molecular mechanisms that enable this process, with potential implications for regenerative medicine. The mammalian liver has an extraordinary regenerative capacity, capable of fully restoring its mass and function after injury or partial resection. A study led by researchers at the University of Barcelona has identified the DNA regions that activate the regeneration of this organ.

Cohesin is a protein that forms a ring-shaped complex which wraps and alters the DNA molecule shape. It moves through the DNA and creates specific loops in the genetic material which determine the architecture of the genome and gene expression. Some mutations in the genes of the cohesion complex are responsible for rare diseases (cohesinopathies), such as the Cornelia de Lange syndrome (SCdL) or Roberts syndrome, which affect several organs and cause malformations during development.

A research team at the University of Barcelona's Institute of Neurosciences (UBneuro) has discovered new molecular mechanisms related to the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer's disease, the most common dementia. This study, carried out on animal models with the disease, describes for the first time the decisive role of the RTP801 protein in cells known as astrocytes during the progression of this neurodegenerative disease.