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The U.S. Presidential Malaria Initiative is a project that has been in place since 2005 to reduce malaria cases and deaths in Africa. The Donald Trump administration has halted some of its services and questioned its continuity. Now, a team has analyzed the possible consequences in 27 of the most affected countries on the continent. According to their estimates, some 104,000 deaths and around 13.6 million cases would be avoided if full funding were maintained. The results are published in The Lancet.  

Intermittent fasting has similar effects to calorie-restricted diets in terms of weight loss, concludes a meta-analysis, published in The BMJ, pooling the results of 99 previous clinical trials. Of three types of intermittent fasting (alternate-day fasting, time-restricted eating and all-day fasting), intermittent fasting has a higher impact on weight reduction compared to continuous energy restriction, the study adds.

The carbon available for emission without exceeding the 1.5°C limit set in the Paris Agreement—known as the carbon budget—could be exhausted in just over three years at the current rate of CO₂ emissions. This is one of the conclusions of a new edition of Indicators of Global Climate Change, published in the journal Earth System Science Data. The study also shows that between 2019 and 2024, sea levels rose by an average of around 26 millimetres: more than double the rate of 1.8 mm per year recorded since the beginning of the 20th century.

Competition to attract audiences encourages media outlets to spread misinformation, according to a study published in Science Advances. The research applies a mathematical framework - called a zero-sum game - to analyse the dynamics between immediate media benefits and long-term damage. The model showed how an ‘arms race’ can emerge between news sources: when one player resorts to misinformation, the other has to do the same in order to compete.

An international team with Spanish participation has analyzed the factors that influence our anthropomorphization of animals - the tendency to attribute human traits to them. According to a questionnaire completed by 741 people from five countries, including Spain, factors such as educational level, religion, urban-type experiences or contact with animals affect this tendency, which in turn can influence conservation programs. According to the authors, "species that appear more human-like or exhibit human-like behaviors tend to receive more attention, funding and public support. This preference may overshadow the ecological importance of less charismatic species." The results are published in the journal iScience.  

An international team, co-led by researchers from the CNAG in Barcelona, has developed a new technique that allows millions of individual cells to be analysed at the same time without the need for sequencing, using what is known as spatial genomics. The technique, called STAMP, could make this type of analysis cheaper and more widespread. ‘We are opening the door to revolutionary advances in precision medicine, enabling the development of highly targeted diagnostics and therapies capable of transforming clinical outcomes,’ say the authors, who publish their findings in the journal Cell.

A team from Stanford University (USA) has analysed the conservation status of 1,376 species of scavenger animals. The results, published in the journal PNAS, indicate that 36% of them are threatened or in decline, especially large species and obligate scavengers, which depend exclusively on carrion for food. In contrast, the number of small and facultative scavengers, such as rodents, for which carrion is not their only source of food, is increasing. According to the authors, this ‘could increase the risks of diseases that large scavengers have helped to mitigate’.

Over the last seven decades, the frequency of planetary wave resonance phenomena has tripled, according to a study published in PNAS. The authors argue that the risk of extreme weather events related to this phenomenon during the northern hemisphere summer could be higher than current model estimates.

The changes caused by the climate crisis—such as its impact on rainfall and rising temperatures—are stressful for plants in both wild and agricultural environments. A special issue of the journal Science brings together five articles reviewing this issue, including the adaptations that plants can adopt and that could be applied to combat it.

A team of researchers has performed the most comprehensive coordinated comparison of optical clocks - a type of high-precision atomic clock - to date, running them simultaneously in six different countries. According to the authors, who publish the results in the journal Optica, the work “supports progress toward a redefinition of the second” and could serve to “develop entirely new applications and advance scientific projects that depend on time and frequency.”