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Category: chemistry

How the brain suppresses itch during stress

The researchers then tested whether these stress-activated neurons directly influence itch. “We ran some pilot experiments, and we saw that surprisingly, acute stress was able to suppress acute itching,” says the first author of the study.

When the team artificially activated the stress neurons, scratching behaviour decreased in both short-term chemically induced itch and a psoriasis-like chronic itch model. Conversely, when these neurons were silenced, stress no longer reduced scratching. These results showed that these neurons are both necessary and sufficient for stress-induced suppression of itch.

“We show that a specific circuit in the lateral hypothalamus can suppress itch during acute stress, revealing how the brain directly links emotional states to sensory perception,” says the corresponding author. “By identifying the specific neural circuit that links stress to itch, we are opening the possibility of targeting these brain mechanisms to better manage chronic stress-induced worsening of itch.” ScienceMission sciencenewshighlights.

Researchers have mapped a neural circuit in the brain involved in the complex relationship between itch and stress. Their findings, published in Cell Reports, reveal how specific neurons activated during stress can directly regulate itch.

Itch and pain are both unpleasant sensations triggered by harmful or irritating stimuli, but they lead to different behavioural responses. While pain typically causes us to withdraw (such as pulling our hand away from a fire), itch drives scratching. Scientists have long known that emotional states such as stress and anxiety can influence the intensity of these sensations. While the neural mechanisms linking stress and pain have been studied extensively, the effect of stress on itch has remained poorly understood.

In the new study, the team focused on the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA), a brain region known to regulate stress, motivation, and emotional states. Using genetically engineered mouse models, the researchers identified a specific population of neurons in the LHA that become active during acute stress.

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The dynamic and heterogeneous composition of biomolecular condensates and its functional relevance

Biomolecular condensates are non-membrane-encapsulated compartments that control various biological processes. Recent studies have revealed that condensates change in response to stimuli and over time. This Review discusses the heterogeneity and composition changes of nuclear and cytoplasmic condensates, their regulation and how the changes affect cellular biochemical reactions.

Inside the push to make ice rinks sustainable

Stefania Impellizzeri, a sustainable-materials chemist at Toronto Metropolitan University, is trying to make ice rinks more efficient and sustainable by fine-tuning water chemistry and rink-related materials.

Rinks use energy, water, and refrigerants, and they create microplastics. People are trying to reduce this footprint by .

Reduce rust by dumping your wok twice, and other kitchen tips

When you reach the bottom of a container of milk or honey, you might be tempted to tip the container over to get that last pesky little bit out. After all, you only need another teaspoon for that recipe, and you’re sure it’s in there. From emptying jars to drying dishes, research about thin film flows in the kitchen highlights everyday connections to physics.

In Physics of Fluids, researchers from Brown University present two related studies about thin film fluid flows in the kitchen: one about the relationship between how long it takes to tip the remaining liquid out of a container and its viscosity, and the other about the ideal time to wait before dumping water out of a wok to minimize rusting—it’s more effective to wait a few minutes to let the water accumulate so there’s more to pour out. “The kitchen is sort of the prime laboratory,” said author Jay Tang. “It deals with a lot of chemistry, materials science, and physics.”

Most people have an intuitive sense of what viscosity is, often described as how thick a fluid feels. It is measured scientifically by applying a certain amount of force to a fluid and measuring its flow rate.

BaSi₂-supported nickel catalyst boosts low-temperature hydrogen production

A new catalyst strategy developed at Institute of Science Tokyo uses BaSi2 as a support for nickel and cobalt to decompose ammonia at lower temperatures. By forming unique ternary transition metal–nitrogen–barium intermediates that facilitate nitrogen coupling, the system lowers the energy barrier for ammonia decomposition. This enables nickel-and cobalt-based catalysts to achieve high hydrogen-production activity at reduced temperatures, matching the performance of ruthenium while relying on Earth-abundant metals for cleaner hydrogen generation.

As the world turns toward cleaner energy sources, hydrogen has emerged as a promising alternative to fossil fuels. Hydrogen can be obtained from various sources such as natural gas, water, biomass, and hydrogen-rich carriers. Ammonia is one such source attracting growing attention as an efficient hydrogen carrier because it stores large amounts of hydrogen and is easier to transport. However, releasing hydrogen from ammonia is typically challenging, as it either requires precious metal catalysts such as ruthenium or non-precious metal catalysts operating at very high temperatures.

Addressing this challenge, a team of researchers led by Dr. Qing Guo and Dr. Shiyao Wang, together with Professor Masaaki Kitano and Specially Appointed Professor Hideo Hosono from the MDX Research Center for Element Strategy, Institute of Integrated Research, Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan, developed a new catalyst design strategy for ammonia decomposition. Instead of solely relying on the catalyst metal, this strategy focuses on using barium silicide (BaSi2) as an active support that directly participates in the catalytic process. The study was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on February 19, 2026.

Chemically ‘stapled’ peptides used to target difficult-to-treat cancers

Researchers at the University of Bath have developed a new technology that uses bacteria to build, chemically stabilize, and test millions of potential drug molecules inside living cells, making it much quicker and easier to discover new treatments for difficult-to-treat cancers.

Scientists based at the University’s Department of Life Sciences are investigating peptides—short chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins—as potential drugs for a family of notoriously “undruggable” cancer drivers known as transcription factors. These proteins act as master switches that control gene activity and are frequently overactive in cancer.

The Great Filter May Explain Why Civilizations Don’t Survive

The universe is old enough, large enough, and chemically rich enough to have produced countless civilizations. And yet, when we listen, we hear nothing. The Great Filter hypothesis offers one of the most disturbing explanations in modern science — somewhere between dead chemistry and starfaring intelligence, there exists a barrier so severe that almost nothing gets through. But the real question isn’t whether the filter exists. It’s whether we’ve already passed it — or whether it’s still ahead of us, waiting. This video explores the formal probability argument behind the silence, the candidate barriers hiding in the deep history of biology, the existential threats that scale with technological power, and what every new discovery about life beyond Earth actually tells us about our own survival odds.

Sources:
Robin Hanson, \

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Why Ocean World Might Have Boiling Seas

“Not all of these satellites are known to have oceans, but we know that some do,” said Dr. Max Rudolph. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30266/ocean-world-boiling-seas-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30266/ocean-world-boiling-seas-2)

Could ocean worlds in the outer solar system have boiling water underneath their icy crusts? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the geochemical processes that could be occurring on ocean worlds orbiting in the outer solar system. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the conditions on ocean worlds throughout the solar system and where we can best search for life beyond Earth.

For the study, the researchers examined several icy moons orbiting Saturn and Uranus and what could happen as the ice shell on these moons becomes thinner over time. Specifically, they explored changes to the interior oceans beneath the icy shells, as some icy moons currently have oceans while others have evidence of past oceans that have since completely frozen over or escaped to space as water vapor.

In the end, the researchers identified different outcomes depending on the size of the moons. For example, if the ice shells on smaller moons like Saturn’s Mimas and Enceladus and Uranus’ Miranda become thinner, this could cause underlying oceans to boil from the decrease in pressure. However, if the ice shells on larger moons like Saturn’s Iapetus and Uranus’ Titania become thinner, this could lead to the ice shell collapsing, resulting in a type of plate tectonics.

New iron nanomaterial wipes out cancer cells without harming healthy tissue

Scientists at Oregon State University have engineered a powerful new nanomaterial that zeroes in on cancer cells and destroys them from the inside out. Designed to exploit cancer’s unique chemistry—its acidity and high hydrogen peroxide levels—the tiny iron-based structure sparks not one but two intense chemical reactions, flooding tumors with cell-damaging oxygen molecules. This dual attack overwhelms cancer cells with oxidative stress while sparing healthy tissue.

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