Before cells can divide, they first need to replicate all of their chromosomes, so that each of the daughter cells can receive a full set of genetic material. Until now, scientists had believed that as division occurs, the genome loses the distinctive 3D internal structure that it typically forms.

Once division is complete, it was thought, the genome gradually regains that complex, globular structure, which plays an essential role in controlling which genes are turned on in a given cell.

However, a new study from MIT shows that in fact, this picture is not fully accurate. Using a higher-resolution genome mapping technique, the research team discovered that small 3D loops connecting regulatory elements and genes persist in the genome during cell division, or mitosis.

The study has been published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

"This study really helps to clarify how we should think about mitosis. In the past, mitosis was thought of as a blank slate, with no trannoscription and no structure related to gene activity. And we now know that that's not quite the case," says Anders Sejr Hansen, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT. "What we see is that there's always structure. It never goes away."

The researchers also discovered that these regulatory loops appear to strengthen when chromosomes become more compact in preparation for cell division. This compaction brings genetic regulatory elements closer together and encourages them to stick together. This may help cells "remember" interactions present in one cell cycle and carry it to the next one.

"The findings help to bridge the structure of the genome to its function in managing how genes are turned on and off, which has been an outstanding challenge in the field for decades," says Viraat Goel Ph.D. '25, the lead author of the study.

A nanoparticle vaccine has shown great promise in preventing three types of cancer in mice, as well as stopping tumors from spreading when they were exposed to cancerous cells. 

Cancer vaccines have moved from the sci-fi dream realm into actual scientific possibility within just a few short decades. We’re not just talking about the HPV vaccine, incredible though its success has been at preventing cases of cervical cancer. A vaccine against a virus, albeit one that causes cancer, is easier to conceptualize – we get vaccinated against tons of other viruses, after all. 

But vaccinating against a non-infectious disease like cancer, with all its complex causes and different presentations, is much harder to wrap your head around – making this latest study perhaps even more impressive. 

Researchers led by a team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a nanoparticle-based vaccine that has previously been shown to shrink and clear cancerous tumors in mice. Now, they’ve demonstrated it can also work to prevent three types of cancer: pancreatic cancer, melanoma, and triple-negative breast cancer. 

Horses had a huge impact on the success of many human societies. Now, scientists have found two key gene variants that helped paved the way for that equine role in human history. The pair made horses tamer and more rideable, researchers now report.

Ancient horse DNA suggests modern domesticated horses came from southwestern Russia more than 4,200 years ago. This research, published in 2021, revealed where and when humans had domesticated the animals. Ludovic Orlando led that study. A molecular archaeologist, he works at the Centre for Anthropobiology and Genomics. That’s in Toulouse, France.

What that work hadn’t shown was precisely what genetic changes in horses — mutations — might have led to these new traits.

Orlando and a team of scientists from China and Switzerland have now done that. They analyzed horse genomes, the full set of genetic instructions making up their DNA. In all, they compared the genomes of 71 horses from a range of breeds and time periods.

The team focused on 266 places in the genomes. From these, nine genes showed strong signatures of have been selected, or altered. That suggests the traits these genes produced in the horses may have been targeted by human breeders.

Two of these genes appear to have been heavily selected very early in horse taming.

Identical twins who were raised apart may have IQ differences similar to those of total strangers, according to new research. The findings suggest that variations in IQ may be less about genetics and more about schooling.

The heartbreaking separation of twin siblings is a rare occurrence, and only nine large group studies have been published to date.

In the past, researchers have concluded that identical twins raised apart have many matching traits, including similar IQs, suggesting that IQ (a sign of intelligence) is largely determined by nature, not nurture.

Not so fast, argue cognitive neuroscientist Jared Horvath and developmental researcher Katie Fabricant. These two have crunched the numbers again, and this time, they've included a key overlooked factor: schooling.

When the researchers divided 87 twin-pairs into groups based on similar and dissimilar schooling backgrounds, they found IQ differences across the spectrum.

The gaps in IQ scores grew in tandem with educational differences, the authors say, "enough to transcend specific teachers or peer groups."

Twins that were raised apart and who went to significantly different schools showed IQ patterns more similar to strangers (a roughly 15-point difference).

There were only 10 twin-pairs in the study with school experiences that met suitable criteria, making for a small sample size that places limits on the study's conclusions.

Researchers have discovered a way to speed up quantum error correction (QEC) by a factor of up to 100 — a leap that could significantly shorten the time it takes quantum computers to solve complex problems.

The technique, called algorithmic fault tolerance (AFT), restructures quantum algorithms so they can detect and correct errors on the fly, rather than pausing to run checks at fixed intervals.

In simulations, AFT reduced the time and computational effort spent on error correction by up to 100 times while still maintaining accuracy, according to scientists at QuEra. The results, published Sept. 24 in the journal Nature, were based on tests run on a simulated neutral-atom quantum computer.

Have you ever used artificial intelligence (AI) in your job without double-checking the quality or accuracy of its output? If so, you wouldn't be the only one.

Our global research shows a staggering two-thirds (66%) of employees who use AI at work have relied on AI output without evaluating it.

This can create a lot of extra work for others in identifying and correcting errors, not to mention reputational hits. Just this week, consulting firm Deloitte Australia formally apologized after a A$440,000 report prepared for the federal government had been found to contain multiple AI-generated errors.

Against this backdrop, the term "workslop" has entered the conversation. Popularized in a recent Harvard Business Review article, it refers to AI-generated content that looks good but "lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task."

Beyond wasting time, workslop also corrodes collaboration and trust. But AI use doesn't have to be this way. When applied to the right tasks, with appropriate human collaboration and oversight, AI can enhance performance. We all have a role to play in getting this right.

The rise of AI-generated 'workslop'
According to a recent survey reported in the Harvard Business Review article, 40% of US workers have received workslop from their peers in the past month.

The survey's research team from BetterUp Labs and Stanford Social Media Lab found on average, each instance took recipients almost two hours to resolve, which they estimated would result in US$9 million (about A$13.8 million) per year in lost productivity for a 10,000-person firm.

Those who had received workslop reported annoyance and confusion, with many perceiving the person who had sent it to them as less reliable, creative, and trustworthy. This mirrors prior findings that there can be trust penalties to using AI.

Invisible AI, visible costs
These findings align with our own recent research on AI use at work. In a representative survey of 32,352 workers across 47 countries, we found complacent over-reliance on AI and covert use of the technology are common.

While many employees in our study reported improvements in efficiency or innovation, more than a quarter said AI had increased workload, pressure, and time on mundane tasks. Half said they use AI instead of collaborating with colleagues, raising concerns that collaboration will suffer.

Making matters worse, many employees hide their AI use; 61% avoided revealing when they had used AI and 55% passed off AI-generated material as their own. This lack of transparency makes it challenging to identify and correct AI-driven errors.

What you can do to reduce workslop
Without guidance, AI can generate low-value, error-prone work that creates busywork for others. So, how can we curb workslop to better realize AI's benefits?
If you're an employee, three simple steps can help.

1. Start by asking, "Is AI the best way to do this task?" Our research suggests this is a question many users skip. If you can't explain or defend the output, don't use it
2. If you proceed, verify and work with AI output like an editor; check facts, test code, and tailor output to the context and audience
3. When the stakes are high, be transparent about how you used AI and what you checked to signal rigor and avoid being perceived as incompetent or untrustworthy.

A newly developed approach could significantly improve how blood pressure readings taken at the ankle are interpreted, offering a vital solution for people who are unable to have their blood pressure measured on the arm.

Researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School have created a personalized predictive model designed to estimate arm blood pressure more accurately using ankle readings. The study, published in BMJ Open and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), analyzed data from more than 33,000 individuals worldwide. The team has also launched an online calculator to help both healthcare professionals and patients make sense of ankle readings with greater precision.

High blood pressure affects more than one billion people across the globe and is a leading contributor to heart disease, stroke, and kidney problems. Because of these risks, ensuring that blood pressure is measured and interpreted correctly is crucial. In most cases, the arm is used for these measurements, but for some people—such as those with disabilities, missing limbs, or movement difficulties after a stroke—this isn’t possible.

In such situations, measurements can be taken at the ankle. However, ankle readings tend to be higher than those from the arm, and since current treatment guidelines are based solely on arm measurements, this difference can make accurate diagnosis difficult and increase the likelihood of errors.

New research coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC has found that AI assistants – already a daily information gateway for millions of people – routinely misrepresent news content no matter which language, territory, or AI platform is tested.

The intensive international study of unprecedented scope and scale was launched at the EBU News Assembly, in Naples. Involving 22 public service media (PSM) organizations in 18 countries working in 14 languages, it identified multiple systemic issues across four leading AI tools.

Read the News Integrity in AI Assistants Report
Read the News Integrity in AI Assistants Toolkit

Professional journalists from participating PSM evaluated more than 3,000 responses from ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Perplexity against key criteria, including accuracy, sourcing, distinguishing opinion from fact, and providing context. 

Key findings: 
• 45% of all AI answers had at least one significant issue.
• 31% of responses showed serious sourcing problems – missing, misleading, or incorrect attributions.
• 20% contained major accuracy issues, including hallucinated details and outdated information.
• Gemini performed worst with significant issues in 76% of responses, more than double the other assistants, largely due to its poor sourcing performance.
• Comparison between the BBC’s results earlier this year and this study show some improvements but still high levels of errors.

Why this distortion matters
AI assistants are already replacing search engines for many users. According to the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report 2025, 7% of total online news consumers use AI assistants to get their news, rising to 15% of under-25s.

‘This research conclusively shows that these failings are not isolated incidents,’ says EBU Media Director and Deputy Director General Jean Philip De Tender. ‘They are systemic, cross-border, and multilingual, and we believe this endangers public trust. When people don’t know what to trust, they end up trusting nothing at all, and that can deter democratic participation.’

Peter Archer, BBC Programme Director, Generative AI, says: ‘We’re excited about AI and how it can help us bring even more value to audiences. But people must be able to trust what they read, watch and see. Despite some improvements, it’s clear that there are still significant issues with these assistants. We want these tools to succeed and are open to working with AI companies to deliver for audiences and wider society.’

Congestion and pollution in Earth orbit is quickly getting worse. We need to be able to quantify how our behaviour will impact the orbital environment in the future...
esa.int/Space_Safety/S…

Lead exposure from modern chemical pollution is a well-documented threat to neurodevelopment and general health, yet a surprising new study reveals that this toxic heavy metal has, in fact, been impacting human evolution for more than two million years. What’s more, using lab-grown mini-brains, the study authors revealed that Homo sapiens is far more resistant to the effects of lead poisoning than the Neanderthals, which could explain why we thrived while our sister lineage became extinct.

In recent centuries, our main contact with lead has come via plumbing, paints, gasoline, and other industrial sources, leading to the assumption that the toxin only became a hazard at the onset of the modern era. However, after analyzing 51 teeth from fossilized ancient hominins and great apes – including early species like Paranthropus and Australopithecus africanus – the researchers found that lead exposure was in fact ubiquitous across Africa, Europe, and Asia throughout millions of years of human history.

Specifically, “lead bands” observed in tooth enamel suggest that the specimens all came into contact with the heavy metal during their childhoods, probably through volcanic dust, contaminated water or soil, and as a result of stress and illness, which can cause the body to release its own stores of lead.

“Our data show that lead exposure wasn’t just a product of the Industrial Revolution - it was part of our evolutionary landscape,” said study author Professor Renaud Joannes-Boyau in a statement. “This means that the brains of our ancestors developed under the influence of a potent toxic metal, which may have shaped their social behaviour and cognitive abilities over millennia.”

To learn more about how the toxin affected prehistoric hominins, the researchers turned their attention to a gene called NOVA1, which encodes a protein known to regulate gene expression in the brain in response to lead exposure. Previous studies have shown that modern humans possess a variant of this gene that differs from the archaic version expressed by Neanderthals, although the evolutionary pressures leading to the selection of the modern form have until now remained unclear.

The study authors therefore grew miniature brain organoids in a laboratory, which they then subjected to lead exposure. Following contamination, organoids possessing the Neanderthal variant of NOVA1 exhibited disruptions to a key gene called FOXP2 within neurons that are associated with speech and language development.

Nearly 8 in 10 people living in multidimensional poverty—887 million out of 1.1 billion globally—are directly exposed to climate hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, or air pollution.

The 2025 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), noscriptd "Overlapping Hardships: Poverty and Climate Hazards" and released just ahead of COP30 climate summit in Brazil, presents critical new evidence of how the climate crisis is reshaping global poverty. By overlaying climate hazard data with multidimensional poverty data for the first time, the findings reveal a world where poverty is not just a standalone socio-economic issue but one that is deeply interlinked with planetary pressures and instability.

Exposure to climate hazards likely exacerbates the daily challenges faced by people living in poverty, reinforcing and deepening their disadvantages. The report finds that among those assessed to be living in acute multidimensional poverty—spanning health, education, and living standards—an overwhelming 651 million endure two or more climate hazards, while 309 million face three or four hazards simultaneously.

"Our new research shows that to address global poverty and create a more stable world for everyone, we must confront the climate risks endangering nearly 900 million poor people," said Haoliang Xu, UNDP Acting Administrator. "When world leaders meet in Brazil for the Climate Conference, COP30, next month, their national climate pledges must revitalize the stagnating development progress that threatens to leave the world's poorest people behind."

The burden of concurrent poverty and climate hazards
The findings emphasize that poor people globally are often confronting multiple, concurrent environmental challenges rather than a single one in isolation.

• Of the 887 million poor people exposed to at least one climate hazard, 651 million face two or more concurrent hazards.

• Alarmingly, 309 million poor people live in regions exposed to three or four overlapping climate hazards while experiencing acute multidimensional poverty. These individuals face a "triple or quadruple burden," often possessing limited assets and minimal access to social protection systems, amplifying the negative effects of the shocks.

• Individually, the most widespread hazards affecting poor people globally are high heat (608 million) and air pollution (577 million). Flood-prone regions are home to 465 million poor people, while 207 million live in areas affected by drought.

"This report shows where the climate crisis and poverty are notably converging. Understanding where the planet is under greatest strain and where people face additional burdens created by climate challenges is essential to creating mutually reinforcing development strategies that put humanity at the center of climate action," said co-author, Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.

Some of us still remember when fax machines were the height of technology, so it’s safe to say this one blew our minds a little bit. Scientists have developed a pill-sized bioprinter, designed to be swallowed and then to use “living” ink to repair damage inside the body. When it’s done its job, you simply yank it back out using a magnet.

Developed at the Laboratory for Advanced Fabrication Technologies at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the miniature printer takes lessons from other types of so-called “untethered” technologies that are in development. Think microscopic robots that can be set to work clearing out blood vessels, or “pill cams” that image the intestines without the need of an attached endoscope. 

“By combining the principles of in-situ bioprinters with the drug release concepts of smart capsules, we can envision a new class of device: a pill-sized, swallowable bioprinter,” said lab head Vivek Subramanian in a statement.

Where this type of technology could come into its own is in repairing soft tissue injuries inside the gastrointestinal tract. Currently, ulcers and hemorrhages generally have to be repaired surgically, but this would be a noninvasive option. 

Bioprinting is similar to 3D or regular printing, except that the “ink” used is a biocompatible material that acts as a scaffold for new tissue to form onto. It’s the miniaturization of all this that’s so unique here. The authors actually describe their device as being more like a ballpoint pen than a printer, with a reservoir of bio-ink and a spring-loaded mechanism to push it out.

The bio-ink can be deposited over the injured area like applying a dressing, protecting the damaged tissue underneath and allowing it to heal. In order to do that successfully, it must make contact with the walls of the gastrointestinal tract in the right place, which is tricky to navigate – it’s a known problem with other types of untethered devices that they can be harder to steer when they touch tissue walls.

There are no electronics inside the miniature printer – or, to give it its proper name, the Magnetic Endoluminal Deposition System (MEDS). Once swallowed, its progress can be tracked externally. Then, at the right time, surgeons or scientists on the outside can use a near-infrared laser – which can penetrate the body wall without causing harm – to trigger the release of the bio-ink. 

The capsule is steerable using an external magnet on a robotic arm. That’s also how you can get it back out again, guiding it in reverse until it can be retrieved orally. 

An international vote to approve cutting maritime emissions was delayed by a year Friday in a victory for the United States, which opposes the carbon-cutting plan.

The London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations body that governs shipping, voted in April for a global pricing system to help curb greenhouse gases.

But a vote Friday on whether to formally approve the deal was delayed until next year after US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against countries backing the plan.

Increased divisions, notably between oil-producing nations and non-oil producers, emerged this week at meetings leading up to Friday's vote.

Delegates instead voted on a hastily arranged resolution to postpone proceedings, which passed by 57 votes to 49.

Trump had said Thursday that the proposed global carbon tax on shipping was a "scam," after the United States withdrew from IMO negotiations in April.

A Russian delegate described the proceedings as "chaos" as he addressed the plenary Friday after talks had lasted into the early hours.

Russia had joined major oil producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in voting against the carbon-reduction measure in April, saying it would harm the economy and food security.

IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez, representing 176 member states, said Friday that he hoped there would be no repeat of how the week's discussions had gone.

"It doesn't help your organization, it doesn't help yourself," he told delegates.

A European Union source told AFP that "many countries have changed their minds under pressure from the United States.

A spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres called it "a missed opportunity for member states to place the shipping sector on a clear, credible path towards net zero emissions."

The International Chamber of Shipping, representing more than 80% of the world's fleet, also expressed disappointment.

"Industry needs clarity to be able to make the investments needed to decarbonize the maritime sector," its Secretary General Thomas Kazakos said in a statement.

Water may have been delivered to Earth via cometary and/or asteroid impacts, tracing the pristine material left over from the protoplanetary disk where our Solar System originated.

However, it is unclear whether the water ice on these bodies primarily formed in, for example, the protoplanetary disk phase or is much older and originated from the parent molecular cloud.

“Our detection indisputably demonstrates that the water seen in a planet-forming disk around V883 Orionis must be older than the central star and formed at the earliest stages of star and planet formation,” said Dr. Margot Leemker, an astronomer at the University of Milan.

“This presents a major breakthrough in understanding the journey of water through planet formation, and how this water made its way to our Solar System, and possibly Earth, through similar processes.”

The chemical fingerprinting of heavy water shows that these water molecules have survived the violent processes of star and planet formation, traveling billions of kilometers through space and time before, ending up in planetary systems like our own.

Instead of being destroyed and reformed in the disk, the bulk of this water is inherited from the earliest, coldest stages of star formation, a cosmic hand-me-down that may also be present on Earth today.

“Until now, we weren’t sure if most of the water in comets and planets formed fresh in young disks like V883 Orionis, or if it’s ‘pristine,’ originating from ancient interstellar clouds,” said Dr. John Tobin, an astronomer at NSF’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

A  mitochondrial DNA study points to at least two waves of migration linking the Americas, China, and Japan- one during the last Ice Age, and another as the ice began to retreat.

The research team traced a rare Native American founder lineage across the continents and time, looking at mitochondrial DNA passed down through females. Using 100,000 modern-day and 15,000 ancient samples, the team was able to identify 216 contemporary and 39 ancient individuals that shared the lineage, mapping its branching paths using carbon dating and comparing mutations picked up along the way.

“The Asian ancestry of Native Americans is more complicated than previously indicated,” molecular anthropologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yu-Chun Li, said in a statement. “In addition to previously described ancestral sources in Siberia, Australo-Melanesia, and Southeast Asia, we show that northern coastal China also contributed to the gene pool of Native Americans.” 

According to the team, the first "radiation event" (migration event) took place between 19,500 and 26,000 years ago, while the cold conditions in northern coastal China were inhospitable to humans. The second took place between 19,000 and 11,500 years ago, as the human population in the world expanded and explored during better climatic conditions. Surprisingly, in both cases, they believe the ancient humans made their way to the Americas via the Pacific coast, rather than the Bering Land Bridge – dry land that connected Siberia and Alaska during the last Ice Age – as has been hypothesized.

Based on analysis of their migration across the continent, and comparisons of similarly-crafted arrowheads and spears, it's been suggested that the Paleolithic peoples of China and Japan traveled across the northern rim of the Pacific Ocean until they reached the northwest coast of North America. Given the connections, some suggested that Native Americans were descendants of the Jōmon people of Japan, though a recent genetic study found this to likely not be the case. This new study instead found that similarities may be down to a common lineage.

Researchers have engineered a courtship ritual from one species of fruit fly into another using genetic modification. 

A Japanese research team tweaked a single gene in the fly Drosophila melanogaster, causing it to display a courtship ritual only previously seen in Drosophila subobscura. 

The research shows that manipulations of relatively small chunks of genetic code can alter complex behaviors. 

Dating as a fly is a complicated game. In the majority of fly species, D. melanogaster included, male flies vibrate their wings, composing elaborate courtship “songs” to seduce their mates. 

But D. subobscura have clearly decided the route to the heart is through the stomach. Males regurgitate food and offer their vomit to potential hookups as a loving gift.  

D. melanogaster and D. subobscura are relatively closely related species, but they still diverged from each other around 30-35 million years ago. In that time, a curious difference has emerged between the two species’ brains. 

Stem cells in most living organisms usually take their instructions from nearby cells. However, scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have discovered that planarian stem cells behave differently. Instead of listening to signals from adjacent cells, these stem cells respond to cues coming from distant areas within the flatworm’s body.

This surprising behavior may be the key to understanding how planarians can regrow entire body parts, and it could provide valuable insights into how human tissues might one day be repaired or replaced.

Potentially harmful DNA mutations can amass in men's sperm as they age, new research has found, which may in turn impact the number of mutations passed on to children – and the risks of disease in the next generation.

Mutations occur in DNA when cells replicate, and arise either by random chance or because of environmental stresses. They can impact how well the body works, or have no observable effect at all. Mutations accumulate as time goes by, just like wear and tear on a car – but it hasn't been clear how much these genetic mishaps affect sperm in older men.

Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and King's College London in the UK used a new high-resolution analysis technique called NanoSeq to look in detail at mutations in the sperm of men aged 24-75 years, and the genes those mutations affected.

Not only do mutations occur at higher rates in older men, the data showed, but some are 'selfish' – giving the cells that carry them a growth advantage, so they replicate faster than or outlast other cells in the testes and gradually take over. Many of these mutations have previously been linked to developmental disorders and cancers.

"We expected to find some evidence of selection shaping mutations in sperm," says geneticist Matthew Neville, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

"What surprised us was just how much it drives up the number of sperm carrying mutations linked to serious diseases."

When you wake up in the morning, it might feel like your brain just switched on at the ring of an alarm, although you still might feel groggy for a while. But the actual process the brain goes through to wake up is a gradual, coordinated event. So exactly how does it happen?

First, let's define what it means to be awake. "Being awake means the brain is in a state that supports awareness, movement and thinking," Rachel Rowe, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Live Science in an email. "Unlike sleep, where brain waves are slow and synchronized, wakefulness is marked by faster, more flexible activity that lets us respond to the world around us."

There isn't a single moment when the brain flips from asleep to awake, however, said Aurélie Stephan, a sleep researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Research has shown that the subcortical regions of the brain — a group of neural formations located below the cerebral cortex — are responsible for waking us up. The reticular activating system (RAS) first acts like the "starter switch," Rowe explained, sending signals to activate the thalamus, a structure that relays sensory information to other parts of the brain, and then the cerebral cortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain.

In a 2025 study, Stephan and her colleagues also found that the brain executes a signature pattern of activity upon waking. When the study participants woke up from non-REM sleep, which comprises different stages of sleep ranging from light to deep sleep — their brain activity first showed a short burst in slower, sleep-like waves, followed by faster waves linked to wakefulness.

When they woke up from REM sleep — a sleep stage characterized by vivid dreams and rapid eye movements — their brain waves went straight to faster activity. Overall, regardless of which stage of sleep participants were in, their brain activity appeared to start from the front and central regions of the brain and move to the back of the brain as they woke up, the researchers found.

What happens now?
That may well be the question being asked by "No Kings" protesters, who marched, rallied and danced all over the nation on Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025.

Pro-democracy groups had aimed to encourage large numbers of Americans to demonstrate that "together we are choosing democracy." They were successful, with crowds turning out for demonstrations in thousands of cities and towns from Anchorage to Miami.

And while multiple GOP leaders had attacked the planned demonstrations, describing them as "hate America" rallies, political science scholars and national security experts agree that the current U.S. administration's actions are indeed placing the world's oldest continuous constitutional republic in jeopardy.

Once a democracy starts to erode, it can be difficult to reverse the trend. Only 42% of democracies affected by autocratization—a transformation in governance that erodes democratic safeguards—since 1994 have rebounded after a democratic breakdown, according to Swedish research institute V-Dem.

Often termed "democratic backsliding," such periods involve government-led changes to rules and norms to weaken individual freedoms and undermine or eliminate checks on power exercised by independent institutions, both governmental and non-governmental.

Democracies that have suffered setbacks vary widely, from Hungary to Brazil. As a long-term practitioner of democracy-building overseas, I know that none of these countries rival the United States' constitutional traditions, federalist system, economic wealth, military discipline, and vibrant independent media, academia and nonprofit organizations.

Even so, practices used globally to fight democratic backsliding or topple autocracies can be instructive.

In a nutshell: Nonviolent resistance is based on noncooperation with autocratic actions. It has proven more effective in toppling autocracies than violent, armed struggle.

But it requires more than street demonstrations.

Tactics used by pro-democracy movements
So, what does it take for democracies to bounce back from periods of autocratic rule?

Broad-scale, coordinated mobilization of a sufficient percentage of the population against autocratic takeover and for a renewed democratic future is necessary for success.

That momentum can be challenging to generate. Would-be autocrats create environments of fear and powerlessness, using intimidation, overwhelming force or political and legal attacks, and other coercive tactics to force acquiescence and chill democratic pushback.

Autocrats can't succeed alone. They rely on what scholars call "pillars of support"—a range of government institutions, security forces, business and other sectors in society to obey their will and even bolster their power grabs.

However, everyone in society has the power to erode autocratic support in various ways. While individual efforts are important, collective action increases impact and mitigates the risks of reprisals for standing up to individuals or organizations.

Here are some of the tactics used by those movements across the world:

1. Refuse unlawful, corrupt demands
When enough individuals in critical roles and institutions—the military, civil servants, corporate leaders, state government and judges—refuse to implement autocratic orders, it can slow or even stop an autocratic takeover.

In South Korea, parts of the civil service, legislature and military declined to support President Yoon Suk Yeol's imposition of martial law in 2024, foiling his autocratic move.

2. Visibly bolster the rule of law
Where would-be autocrats disregard legal restraints and install their supporters in the highest courts, individual challenges to overreach, even if successful, can be insufficient.

In Poland, legal challenges in courts combined with public education by the judiciary, lawyers' associations initiatives and street protests like the "March of a Thousand Robes" in 2020 to signal widespread repudiation.. Read more