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Lack of soap most reported barrier to effective hand hygiene in shared community spaces

A lack of soap is the most often reported barrier to effective hand hygiene—key to curbing the spread of infection—in shared community spaces, such as households, schools, and public places, finds a systematic review of the available research, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

It found that the barriers most often reported concerned physical opportunity, such as the availability of soap, and lack of motivation— not prioritized, or not habitual practice, for example. On the other hand, the enablers most often reported being aligned with motivation in the form of habitual practice and perceived health risk.

A further systematic review found that most of the reported efforts to improve handwashing didn’t always address identified barriers or enablers to ensure behavioral sustainability, nor did they fully consider the fundamental resources needed for hand hygiene, such as soap, water, and handwashing facilities.

Smells interpreted as taste!

When we eat or drink, we don’t just experience taste, but rather a ‘flavor’. This taste experience arises from a combination of taste and smell, where aromas from food reach the nose via the oral cavity, known as retronasal odor. Researchers have now shown that the brain integrates these signals earlier than previously thought – already in the insula, a brain region known as the taste cortex – before the signals reach the frontal cortex, which controls our emotions and behavior.

“We saw that the taste cortex reacts to taste-associated aromas as if they were real tastes,” explains the lead author. “The finding provides a possible explanation for why we sometimes experience taste from smell alone, for example in flavored waters. This underscores how strongly odors and tastes work together to make food pleasurable, potentially inducing craving and encouraging overeating of certain foods.”

The study involved 25 healthy adults who were first taught to recognize both a sweet taste and a savory taste through combinations of taste and smell. This was followed by two brain imaging sessions using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in which the participants were given either a tasteless aroma or a taste without smell. The researchers trained an algorithm to recognize patterns in brain activity for sweet and savory tastes, and then tested whether the same patterns could be identified when the participants were only given aromas.

From noise to power: A symmetric ratchet motor discovery

Vibrations are everywhere—from the hum of machinery to the rumble of transport systems. Usually, these random motions are wasted and dissipated without producing any usable work.

Recently, scientists have been fascinated by “ratchet systems,” which are that rectify chaotic vibrations into directional motion. In biology, molecular motors achieve this feat within living cells to drive the essential processes by converting random molecular collisions into purposeful motions. However, at a large scale, these ratchet systems have always relied on built-in asymmetry, such as gears or uneven surfaces.

Moving beyond this reliance on asymmetry, a team of researchers led by Ms. Miku Hatatani, a Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, along with Mr. Junpei Oguni, graduate school alumnus at the Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Professor Daigo Yamamoto and Professor Akihisa Shioi from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Doshisha University, demonstrate the world’s first symmetric ratchet motor.

The Different Relationships Between Mobile Phone Dependence and Adolescents’ Scientific and Artistic Creativity: Self‐Esteem and Creative Identity as Mediators

Creativity is the ability to generate original, useful, and meaningful ideas or solutions by combining imagination with knowledge and experience. It involves flexible, divergent thinking and seeing connections that others might overlook.

Artistic creativity refers to expressing ideas, emotions, or concepts through mediums such as painting, music, writing, or performance, emphasizing aesthetic and emotional impact.

Scientific creativity, on the other hand, involves problem-solving, hypothesis generation, and innovative experimentation that can advance knowledge or technology.

The Different Relationships Between Mobile Phone Dependence and Adolescents’ Scientific and Artistic Creativity: Self-Esteem and Creative Identity as Mediators.

Creativity is an essential skill that is at the heart of 21st-century education. Mobile phone use occupies considerable amounts of time in people’s lives and may influence creativity. However, few studies have linked mobile phone dependence (MPD) to adolescents’ domain-specific creativity (science and art). This study investigated the relationship between MPD and the scientific and artistic creativity of 2,922 adolescents (10–15 years old) by using the Test of Mobile Phone Dependence, the Middle School Students’ Everyday Creativity Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Short Scale of Creative Self, all self-reported measures. Specifically, linear regression analysis and segmented regression analysis were conducted to explore the relationships between MPD and scientific and artistic creativity.

Probability theorem gets quantum makeover after 250 years

How likely you think something is to happen depends on what you already believe about the circumstances. That is the simple concept behind Bayes’ rule, an approach to calculating probabilities, first proposed in 1763. Now, an international team of researchers has shown how Bayes’ rule operates in the quantum world.

“I would say it is a breakthrough in ,” said Professor Valerio Scarani, Deputy Director and Principal Investigator at the Center for Quantum Technologies, and member of the team. His co-authors on the work published on 28 August 2025 in Physical Review Letters are Assistant Professor Ge Bai at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in China, and Professor Francesco Buscemi at Nagoya University in Japan.

“Bayes’ rule has been helping us make smarter guesses for 250 years. Now we have taught it some quantum tricks,” said Prof Buscemi.

Scientists Detected Signs of a Structure Hiding Inside Earth’s Core

While most of us take the ground beneath our feet for granted, written within its complex layers, like the pages of a book, is Earth’s history. Our history.

Research shows there are little-known chapters in that history, deep within Earth’s past. In fact, Earth’s inner core appears to have another even more inner core within it.

“Traditionally we’ve been taught the Earth has four main layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core,” Australian National University geophysicist Joanne Stephenson explained in 2021.

UPDATE: SpaceX Starship’s Historic 10th Flight Test | Launch, Landing, & Reentry Countdown

Join us LIVE for SpaceX’s Starship 10th Flight Test, streaming as soon as Sunday, August 24, 2025.This mission marks a major step forward following the Flight 9 investigation and Ship 36 static fire anomaly. Engineers have introduced critical hardware and operational upgrades to improve performance and reliability. For this flight, the Super Heavy Booster will conduct multiple experimental maneuvers, including: Landing burn tests to refine precision booster recovery Payload deployment trials to validate orbital operations Reentry experiments advancing Starship’s long-term reusability.

#SpaceX #Starship #StarshipFlight10 #ElonMusk #SpaceXLIVE #SuperHeavy #StarshipLaunch.

Credit: spacex.

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