This disconnect has led researchers to search for ways to restore communication without repairing the spinal cord itself.

Testing EEG as a Noninvasive Solution

In a study published in APL Bioengineering by AIP Publishing, scientists from universities in Italy and Switzerland explored whether electroencephalography (EEG) could help bridge this gap. Their research focused on determining whether EEG could capture brain signals linked to movement and potentially reconnect them with the body.

When a person attempts to move a paralyzed limb, the brain still produces electrical activity associated with that action. If these signals can be detected and interpreted, they could be sent to a spinal cord stimulator that activates the nerves responsible for movement in that limb.

Moving Beyond Brain Implants

Most earlier studies relied on surgically implanted electrodes to record movement signals directly from the brain. Although these systems have shown encouraging results, the research team wanted to investigate whether EEG could offer a safer option.

EEG systems are worn as caps covered with electrodes that record brain activity from the scalp. While the setup may appear complex, the researchers say it avoids the risks involved with placing devices inside the brain or spinal cord.

“It can cause infections; it’s another surgical procedure,” said author Laura Toni. “We were wondering whether that could be avoided.”

Challenges in Reading Movement Signals

Using EEG to decode movement attempts pushes the limits of current technology. Because EEG electrodes sit on the surface of the head, they struggle to capture signals that originate deeper within the brain.

This limitation is less problematic for movements involving the arms and hands. Signals controlling the legs and feet are harder to detect because they come from areas located closer to the center of the brain.

“The brain controls lower limb movements mainly in the central area, while upper limb movements are more on the outside,” said Toni. “It’s easier to have a spatial mapping of what you’re trying to decode compared to the lower limbs.”

Machine Learning Helps Interpret Brain Activity

To better analyze the EEG data, the researchers used a machine learning algorithm designed to work with small and complex datasets. During testing, patients wore EEG caps while attempting a series of simple movements. The team recorded the resulting brain activity and trained the algorithm to sort the signals into different categories.

The system successfully distinguished between moments when patients tried to move and when they remained still. However, it had difficulty telling different movement attempts apart.

What Future Research Could Achieve

The researchers believe their method can be improved with further development. They plan to refine the algorithm so it can recognize specific actions such as standing, walking, or climbing. The team also hopes to explore how these decoded signals could be used to activate implanted stimulators in patients recovering from spinal cord injuries.

If successful, this approach could move noninvasive brain scanning closer to helping people regain meaningful movement after paralysis.

Cease leads Arizona State University’s Global Locust Initiative, where she studies how locusts behave and how their destructive swarms can be controlled. While her research focuses on reducing damage to crops and communities, she also brings a deep respect for the insects themselves.

Locust Swarms Remain a Global Threat

For many people, locust swarms evoke images of ancient plagues, but the danger is very real today. Around the world, swarms can devastate crops across vast regions, wipe out livelihoods, and in some areas disrupt education and long term economic prospects for children. A single swarm can span hundreds of square miles — roughly the size of a major city such as New York City or Phoenix.

That is why Cease and her international research team paid close attention when they identified a straightforward, soil-based way to reduce locust feeding. The scientists realized early on that the approach could have life changing consequences. To their knowledge, this is the first study to test the method in real farming environments and show that it works outside the lab.

Testing the Idea With Farmers in Senegal

The researchers partnered with farmers in Senegal who regularly face outbreaks of the Senegalese grasshopper. Unlike the desert locust, this species does not form massive swarms, but its frequent appearances and smaller groupings can cause even greater harm to local farmers. These communities had previously collaborated with Cease and pushed for a larger field study.

Each farmer planted two plots of millet — one treated with nitrogen fertilizer and one left untreated.

The contrast was clear. Fertilized plots had fewer locusts, reduced crop damage, and harvests that were twice as large as those from untreated fields.

“This breakthrough represents an important step forward in the sustainable management of migratory pests, offering a community-based tool that expands the available treatment options,” says Cease, who is also an associate professor in the ASU School of Sustainability and School of Life Sciences.

The study published in the journal Scientific Reports. Associate Professor Mamour Touré of Université Gaston Berger in Saint-Louis, Senegal, served as lead author, while Cease was the principal investigator for the USAID-supported project.

“The results are of major importance to the scientific community and also to Senegalese farmers,” Touré says. “The study gave them a better understanding of grasshoppers and locusts, as well as a practical way to control them at the local level.”

Why Soil Quality Shapes Locust Behavior

The Global Locust Initiative is part of the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and focuses on the many systems that influence locust outbreaks. Environmental conditions, insect biology and behavior, economic pressures, public policy, and land management all contribute to cycles of destruction — and also create opportunities to interrupt them.

After more than 15 years of research, Cease uncovered a consistent pattern. Crops grown in nutrient-poor soil tend to encourage locust outbreaks because those plants contain high levels of carbohydrates and very little protein.

“This carbohydrate bias, or the ‘donut diet,’ is optimal for populations of locusts and swarming grasshoppers,” Cease says. Much like endurance athletes who rely on carbohydrates for energy, locusts depend on carb-heavy plants to fuel their long-distance movement.

Plants grown in nitrogen-rich soil tell a different story. They contain more protein and fewer carbohydrates, making them difficult food for locusts. Their bodies struggle to process the excess protein and fail to get enough energy to thrive.

Protein-Packed Plants Prevent Pests

These findings led to a key question. Could shifting the balance of protein and carbohydrates in crops prevent locust damage? Earlier lab experiments and field observations hinted that it might, but the idea had never been tested on working farms. For Cease, that gap made the next step obvious.

Two Senegalese villages that had collaborated with her before volunteered to take part. Their farms regularly suffer severe losses from Senegalese grasshopper swarms.

In the experiment, 100 farmers each grew two millet plots each — one treated with nitrogen fertilizer and one left untreated for comparison.

Researchers were unsure whether locusts might still enter treated plots from nearby untreated fields or whether higher protein plants might attract other pests. To find out, the team counted locusts and measured crop damage three times during the growing season and recorded yields at harvest.

The results were decisive. Treated plots had fewer locusts, less leaf damage, and double the millet yield at harvest. The team also found no evidence that adding nitrogen worsened other pest problems.

From Fertilizer to Compost Solutions

Although nitrogen fertilizer was supplied for the study, it is not a realistic long term option for many farming communities. Sustainable control requires affordable methods that also protect soil health.

“Ongoing work is focused exclusively on compost, and we seem to be getting the same results,” Cease says.

USAID funding for the project ended in early 2025, but farmers in Senegal have continued the composting approach on their own, encouraged by the results.

“Farmers unanimously stated that they no longer burn crop residues after land clearing, but instead practice composting to fertilize their fields, thereby helping to reduce grasshopper infestations. This technique was fully mastered thanks to the project,” Touré says.

The research team is now seeking additional funding to expand the work into other regions heavily affected by locusts.

Why Locust Research Matters to the United States

The U.S. currently has no native locust species. So why study them at all? Cease says that could change. She is closely monitoring the Central American locust, whose range reaches within about 200 miles of the U.S. border.

“We can say with pretty high certainty that Texas will be very suitable for locusts in about 10 to 15 years,” Cease says. “Whether or not they will create a problem is yet to be determined, but it’s something that we should definitely be aware of.”

Even without locusts, grasshoppers already pose major challenges across the country. There are 12 key species known collectively as the Dirty Dozen.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these 12 rangeland grasshoppers (plus one cricket) are among the most serious pest threats in the western United States. When they swarm, they can strip grazing land and outcompete livestock for food, creating serious problems for ranchers.

While chemical pesticides remain the primary control tool, the Global Locust Initiative is working to identify alternatives that are safer for people and the environment.

What scientists learn from locust outbreaks abroad may prove critical at home, helping the U.S. manage migratory pests more effectively and prepare for the possibility that locusts one day cross the border.

The researchers say the results likely reflect a broad mix of health risks associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), along with the long-term effects of how people with ADHD are treated and supported across adulthood.

Published in JAMA Network Open, the research is one of the largest and longest-running studies to examine how ADHD traits in childhood are linked to physical health later in life.

Evidence Points to Lifelong Health Challenges

Senior author Professor Joshua Stott (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) said: “Here we have added to the concerning evidence base that people with ADHD are more likely to experience worse health than average across their lifespan.

“People with ADHD can thrive with the right support, but this is often lacking, both due to a shortage of tailored support services but also because ADHD remains underdiagnosed, particularly in people in midlife and older, with needs unaddressed.”

How ADHD Can Affect Daily Functioning

People with ADHD experience differences in attention, along with increased levels of hyperactivity or impulsivity. Many have high energy and can focus intensely on activities that capture their interest, but may struggle to stay focused on routine or less engaging tasks.

These challenges can affect planning, time management, and impulse control. Over time, this may make school and work more difficult, increasing the risk of longer-term social and occupational difficulties.

ADHD begins in childhood, and although it is now widely recognized that it often continues into adulthood, adults in the UK receive less treatment than those in other high-income countries. Support services also remain limited.

Tracking Health Outcomes Over Decades

To examine long-term effects, the researchers analyzed data from 10,930 participants in the UCL-led 1970 British Cohort Study, which has followed individuals from birth into middle age.

ADHD traits were assessed using behavior questionnaires completed by parents and teachers when participants were 10 years old. These measures were used regardless of whether a participant had ever received a formal ADHD diagnosis.

Higher Rates of Chronic Illness and Disability

The study found that people with higher levels of ADHD traits in childhood were more likely to report physical health problems by age 46. They had 14% higher odds of reporting two or more conditions, including migraine, back problems, cancer, epilepsy or diabetes.

Among those with elevated ADHD traits at age 10, 42% reported having at least two physical health problems in midlife. By comparison, 37% of those with lower ADHD trait scores reported the same.

Participants with higher childhood ADHD traits were also more likely to report physical health-related disability (reporting having problems with work or other daily activities as a result of their physical health) at age 46.

Possible Reasons Behind the Health Differences

The researchers found that poorer physical health outcomes were partly linked to higher rates of mental health problems, increased BMI, and higher smoking rates among people with ADHD.

Previous studies have also shown that people with ADHD are more likely to experience stressful life events and social exclusion, and are less likely to receive timely medical screening and care.

The association between childhood ADHD traits and physical health-related disability appeared to be stronger in women than in men.

Professor Stott added: “All of these potential explanatory factors align with the fact that ADHD makes impulse control more difficult, the need for instant gratification and reward more intense, and is also associated with worse mental health in part due to the social disadvantage people with ADHD face.”

Implications for Support and Public Health

A separate study published last year by the same research team reported a possible reduction in life expectancy among adults diagnosed with ADHD, although this finding was not part of the current research.

Lead author Dr, Amber John, who began the work at UCL before moving to the University of Liverpool, emphasized the importance of proper support: “It’s important to note that people with ADHD are a diverse group, with a range of different strengths and experiences, and most will lead long, healthy lives.

“However, many face significant barriers to timely diagnosis and appropriate support. This is important because providing the right support for and meeting the needs of people with ADHD can help to improve their physical and mental health outcomes.

“Additionally, public health strategies should consider the needs of people with ADHD, such as by making screening programs and ongoing health monitoring more accessible for people with ADHD.”

For decades, scientists studying human evolution have relied on fossil evidence and anthropological fieldwork to draw conclusions about mating behavior. In non-human animals, researchers have instead turned to long-term observations of social groups and genetic paternity testing to understand reproductive patterns.

Measuring Monogamy Through Siblings

The new research takes a different path. Dr. Mark Dyble of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology examined the ratio of full siblings to half-siblings across many mammal species, as well as among human populations spanning thousands of years. This sibling balance serves as a proxy for how exclusive mating tends to be.

According to Dyble, species or societies with higher levels of monogamy tend to produce more children who share both parents. In contrast, populations with more polygamous or promiscuous mating systems generate a higher proportion of half-siblings.

To quantify this pattern, Dyble developed a computational model that links sibling data from recent genetic studies to known reproductive strategies. The result is an estimated monogamy rating that can be compared across species and cultures.

While the model is not meant to be perfectly precise, Dyble says it offers a more tangible way to compare mating systems across both animals and human societies over long stretches of time.

“There is a premier league of monogamy, in which humans sit comfortably, while the vast majority of other mammals take a far more promiscuous approach to mating,” said Dyble, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Cambridge.

“The finding that human rates of full siblings overlap with the range seen in socially monogamous mammals lends further weight to the view that monogamy is the dominant mating pattern for our species.”

A Longstanding Debate About Human Pairing

Whether humans are naturally monogamous has been argued for centuries. Many scholars have suggested that stable pair bonding helped fuel the cooperation that allowed humans to thrive globally.

At the same time, anthropologists have documented enormous variation in human marriage systems. Earlier research shows that 85% of pre-industrial societies allowed polygynous marriage — where a man is married to several women at the same time.

Genetic Data From Ancient and Modern Societies

To estimate human monogamy levels, Dyble analyzed genetic evidence from archaeological sites, including Bronze Age burial grounds in Europe and Neolithic settlements in Anatolia. He combined this with ethnographic data from 94 human societies worldwide, ranging from the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania to the rice-farming Toraja people of Indonesia.

“There is a huge amount of cross-cultural diversity in human mating and marriage practices, but even the extremes of the spectrum still sit above what we see in most non-monogamous species,” said Dyble.

The findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, show that humans have an overall full sibling rate of 66%. That places our species seventh out of eleven studied and firmly within the group considered socially monogamous, with a preference for long-term pair bonds.

How Humans Compare to Other Mammals

Meerkats show a 60% rate of full siblings, while beavers rank slightly higher than humans at 73%. In both cases, the data point to a strong tendency toward monogamy alongside some flexibility.

The species most similar to humans in the study is the white-handed gibbon, with a monogamy rate of 63.5%. It is the only other highly ranked “monotocous” species, meaning it typically produces a single offspring per pregnancy rather than litters.

Another notable entry is the moustached tamarin, a small monkey from the Amazon. It is the only non-human primate in the top group and usually gives birth to twins or triplets, resulting in a full sibling rate of nearly 78%.

All remaining primates in the study display either polygynous or polygynandrous (where both males and females have multiple partners) mating systems and fall much lower in the rankings.

Mountain gorillas show a full sibling rate of just 6%, while chimpanzees come in at only 4% — on a par with dolphins. Macaque species score even lower, ranging from 2.3% in Japanese macaques to just 1% in Rhesus macaques.

An Unusual Evolutionary Shift

“Based on the mating patterns of our closest living relatives, such as chimpanzees and gorillas, human monogamy probably evolved from non-monogamous group living, a transition that is highly unusual among mammals,” said Dyble.

A similar shift appears in some wolf and fox species, which practice forms of social monogamy and cooperative care, even though their ancestral canids were likely group-living and polygynous.

Grey Wolves and Red Foxes enter the upper tier with full sibling rates close to half (46% and 45% respectively). African species score even higher, with Ethiopian wolves at 76.5% and African Wild dogs ranking second overall with an 85% monogamy rating.

At the top of the list is the California deermouse, which pairs for life once mated and achieves a full sibling rate of 100%. At the opposite extreme is Scotland’s Soay sheep, with just 0.6% full siblings because each ewe mates with multiple rams.

What Makes Humans Different

“Almost all other monogamous mammals either live in tight family units of just a breeding pair and their offspring, or in groups where only one female breeds,” said Dyble. “Whereas humans live in strong social groups in which multiple females have children.”

The only other mammal thought to maintain stable, mixed-sex, multi-adult groups with several exclusive pair bonds is the Patagonian mara, a large rabbit-like rodent that lives in communal warrens made up of long-term couples.

Dyble emphasized that the study focuses on reproductive outcomes rather than sexual behavior.

“This study measures reproductive monogamy rather than sexual behavior. In most mammals, mating and reproduction are tightly linked. In humans, birth control methods and cultural practices break that link.”

“Humans have a range of partnerships that create conditions for a mix of full and half-siblings with strong parental investment, from serial monogamy to stable polygamy.”

People with type 2 diabetes face a higher likelihood of heart attacks and strokes, and that risk increases with each passing year of the disease. Earlier research has shown that red blood cells can influence how well blood vessels function in diabetes. The new study adds an important insight by showing that the length of time someone has diabetes strongly affects when these blood cell changes begin and how they develop. After many years, red blood cells may start to directly damage blood vessels.

Evidence From Patients and Animal Studies

To better understand these effects, the research team examined both animal models and people with type 2 diabetes. Red blood cells taken from mice and from patients who had lived with diabetes for a long time disrupted normal blood vessel function. In contrast, red blood cells from newly diagnosed patients showed no harmful impact. However, after seven years of follow up, those same patients developed red blood cells with similar damaging properties. When scientists restored levels of microRNA-210 in the red blood cells, blood vessel function improved.

“What really stands out in our study is that it is not only the presence of type 2 diabetes that matters, but how long you have had the disease. It is only after several years that red blood cells develop a harmful effect on blood vessels,” says Zhichao Zhou, associate professor at the Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet, and lead author of the study.

A Possible Early Warning Marker

The findings suggest that microRNA-210 in red blood cells could be used as a biomarker to help detect the risk of cardiovascular complications at an earlier stage. Researchers are now exploring whether this approach can be applied in larger population studies.

“If we can identify which patients are at greatest risk before vascular damage has already occurred, we can also become better at preventing complications,” says Eftychia Kontidou, doctoral student from the same group and the first author of the study.