D.E.I.

UBC study finds research in exercise physiology still fails women

Who gets studied—and who does the studying—limits scientific knowledge

University of British Columbia Okanagan campus

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A UBC research team has revealed substantial, ongoing inequities in how sex and gender are represented in exercise physiology—both in who is studied and who is conducting that research.

The analysis shows that exercise physiology continues to focus mainly on male bodies and voices, despite long-standing calls for greater equity. It also shows that these patterns are more pronounced in exercise physiology than in most other areas of health research.

Dr. Meaghan MacNutt, an assistant professor of teaching in UBC Okanagan’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences, is lead author on the review, which was published recently in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. She and colleagues from UBC’s Faculty of Medicine examined more than 600 recent research articles published in six leading exercise physiology journals.

They found that nearly half of the studies included only male participants, while fewer than one in ten focused exclusively on females. Women were also significantly underrepresented as researchers, making up only 27 per cent of total authors and 16 per cent of those in senior roles.

“There are far fewer women in exercise physiology than in other biomedical or health sciences,” says Dr. MacNutt. “Our numbers are closer to what we see in disciplines with very well-known gender gaps, like physics or computer science.”

The research team says these gaps are more than just an issue of fairness—they also undermine the science by limiting whose bodies we understand and whose ideas shape that understanding.

“When findings based primarily on males are generalized to females, important sex-based differences in physiology, diagnosis and treatment can be overlooked. In exercise science, this contributes to an incomplete understanding of how women respond to physical activity—affecting everything from disease prevention to injury rehabilitation and athletic performance.”

The study also assessed how well researchers followed the Sex and Gender Equity in Research Guidelines, an international framework designed to improve equity and accuracy in research and reporting practices. Most exercise physiology articles adhered to fewer than one-third of the guidelines, and more than half used inaccurate or unclear language when referring to sex and gender.

Dr. MacNutt points out that many articles contained clues about how these inequities are produced and sustained, including biased language, unexamined assumptions and weak or absent justifications for excluding female participants. These patterns suggest that exercise researchers still see men as the standard representation for human physiology. The study also found that this bias is just as common in women authors as men.

“Women researchers aren’t perfect,” states Dr. MacNutt. “We all have work to do. But evidence indicates that women researchers are helping to move the discipline forward in important ways—by including more female participants in their studies, collaborating more often with other women and communicating more clearly about sex and gender.”

Unfortunately, the paper found no evidence that an increase in the number of women in exercise physiology is on the horizon.

Dr. MacNutt stresses the goal of this study is to raise awareness and encourage people to think about ways to improve the situation. She notes that some exercise physiologists—including researchers at UBC—are already working hard to address sex and gender gaps in the literature. However, there is still a long way to go.

“We hope this paper is a wake-up call—not just for exercise physiology researchers, but also for those in leadership positions at academic institutions, funding agencies and scientific journals. Shifts in individual researcher behaviour are essential, but they aren’t likely to happen without support and action at all levels.”

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Journal

Applied Physiology Nutrition and Metabolism

DOI

10.1139/apnm-2025-0312 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Exercise physiology trails the field in sex and gender equity: a call for faster progress, higher standards, and stronger science

Article Publication Date

26-Jan-2026

 

New light-based nanotechnology could enable more precise, less harmful cancer treatment

The approach offers a potential alternative to chemotherapy and radiation by using light and heat to target cancer cells.

New York University

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Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi have developed a new light-based nanotechnology that could improve how certain cancers are detected and treated, offering a more precise and potentially less harmful alternative to chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

The study advances photothermal therapy, a treatment approach that uses light to generate heat inside tumors and destroy cancer cells. The NYU Abu Dhabi team designed tiny, biocompatible and biodegradable nanoparticles that carry a dye activated by near-infrared light. When exposed to this light, the particles heat up damaging tumor tissue while minimizing harm to healthy cells. Near-infrared light was chosen specifically as it penetrates the body to greater depth than visible light, thereby enabling treatment of tumors that are not close to the surface.

A key challenge in photothermal therapy is keeping the light-responsive material stable in the body and efficiently delivering it to tumors. Many existing photothermal agents degrade quickly, clear from the bloodstream, or fail to enter cancer cells efficiently.

To address this, the researchers developed nanoparticles made from hydroxyapatite, a mineral found in bones and teeth. The particles are coated with lipids and polymers, which help them circulate longer in the bloodstream and avoid immune detection, allowing more of the therapeutic material to reach the tumors. The particles also take advantage of the mildly acidic environment found in tumors. A peptide (a small protein) on their surface becomes active under these conditions, helping the nanoparticles efficiently enter cancer cells while largely avoiding healthy tissue. 

The researchers found that the nanoparticles are highly stable, effectively protect the dye cargo from degradation and accumulate efficiently in tumors. Upon activation by near-infrared light, generate localized heat that destroys tumor tissue and produce fluorescent and thermal signals that allow tumors to be visualized and treatment effects to be monitored in real time.

“This work brings together targeted treatment and imaging in a single, biocompatible and biodegradable system,” said Mazin Magzoub, senior author of the study and associate professor of biology at NYU Abu Dhabi. “By addressing key challenges in delivering therapeutic agents to tumors, our approach has the potential to improve cancer treatment precision. 

The findings highlight the promise of this nanoparticle as an integrated system for cancer diagnosis and therapy, and an important step toward safer, more effective light-based cancer treatments.

Times Higher Education ranks NYU among the world’s top 31 universities, making NYU Abu Dhabi the highest globally ranked university in the UAE. Alumni achievements include 24 Rhodes Scholars, underscoring the caliber of talent nurtured at the University. On the faculty and research front, NYUAD now has four Nobel Laureates and established more than 90 faculty labs and projects, producing over 9,500 internationally recognized publications. According to the Nature Index, NYUAD ranks number one in the UAE for publications in the world’s top science journals.

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Journal

Cell Reports

DOI

10.1016/j.xcrp.2025.103064 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Tumor-targeted hydroxyapatite nanoparticles for near-infrared II light-mediated dual-mode diagnostic imaging and photothermal cancer therapy

Article Publication Date

29-Jan-2026

Plot twist: Men do read books with women protagonists

I STARTED WITH PODKAYNE OF MARS

New findings from Cornell University challenge industry assumptions about men’s reading habits and could reshape how books with women protagonists are published, promoted, and adapted.

Cornell University

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ITHACA, N.Y. – In the publishing industry, there’s a common belief that men won’t read novels about women, but new research out of Cornell University finds just the opposite.

In the first large-scale study of its kind, men were equally willing to continue reading a story that featured a woman as the main character as one with a man. Women, however, showed a slight preference for reading stories about other women.

“This supposed preference among men for reading about men as characters just isn’t true. That doesn’t exist,” said Matthew Wilkens, associate professor of information science and co-author of “Causal Effect of Character Gender on Readers’ Preferences.” “That is contrary to the limited existing literature and contrary to widespread industry assumptions.”

Studies have shown that novels by men featured more male characters compared to books written by women, said Federica Bologna, a doctoral student in information science and the study’s lead author. Some previous research has suggested that men strongly prefer men as protagonists, while women will read about any gender, said Wilkens. However, these studies were practically “anecdotes” and included just a few dozen individuals. 

For the new study, the researchers recruited almost 3,000 participants – 1,492 women and 1,491 men – and asked them to read two short stories, one about a hike and another that took place at a coffee shop. Both stories’ main characters had gender-neutral names – Sam and Alex, respectively. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to read the hike story with he/him pronouns and the coffee shop story with she/her pronouns. For the other half, the pronouns were switched. After reading the two stories, participants were asked which one they wanted to keep reading.

About three-quarters of the men picked the hike story regardless of whether it featured a man or woman as the protagonist. Women, however, chose the hike story when Sam was a woman 77% of the time, but only 70% of the time when Sam was a man.

“Readers are pretty flexible,” Wilkens said. “Give them interesting stories, and they will want to read them.”

Bologna hopes this work will encourage the publishing industry to promote more books with a variety of girl and women characters.

In future work, the researchers hope to explore the preferences of nonbinary readers and to study whether the same assumptions about men’s preferences are causing creators to avoid female protagonists in other types of media, including video games.

For additional information, read this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.

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DOI

10.63744/hEF2pUnudmPh 

Article Title

Causal Effect of Character Gender on Readers’ Preferences

1. 

   Light Force Network

   https://www.lightforcenetwork.com › ... › uploads › PODKAYNE-… · PDF file

   PODKAYNE OF MARS By Robert A. Heinlein

   PODKAYNE OF MARS By Robert A. Heinlein This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely For Gale …

Signs of Sir Terry Pratchett’s dementia may have been hidden in his books – new study

Signs of Sir Terry Pratchett’s dementia may have been present in his writing a decade before his official diagnosis, new research has found.

Cardiff University

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Researchers examined the "lexical diversity" – a measure of how varied an author’s word choices are – of 33 books from Pratchett's Discworld series, focusing specifically on his use of nouns and adjectives.

The study found that Pratchett’s language in “The Lost Continent”, written almost 10 years before his diagnosis of Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), a rare form of Alzheimer's, showed a significant decline in the complexity of the language used compared to his previous works. 

Published in peer-reviewed journal Brain Sciences, the research team hope that the study may aid in the early detection of dementia, for which there is currently no cure.

Dr Thom Wilcockson, from Loughborough’s School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, explained: “Identifying dementia in the early stages is important as it may enable us to use interventions sooner before the brain is damaged beyond repair.

“Research indicates that memory problems may not be the first symptom of dementia. We wanted to explore whether language could be an early warning sign, and to do this, we used Sir Terry Pratchett’s books, who himself suffered dementia.

“Our analysis found that Sir Terry’s use of language did indeed change during his career. These results suggest that language may be one of the first signs of dementia, and Sir Terry’s books reveal a potential new approach for early diagnosis.”

Dr Melody Pattison, Lecturer in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, added: "We would normally expect less lexical diversity as texts get longer, but even after controlling for text length, our findings were still significant. The shifts in language were not something a reader would necessarily notice, but rather a subtle, progressive change.”

Sir Terry Pratchett spoke candidly about the disease and was vocal that more needed to be done to raise awareness. He sadly died in 2015, aged 66.

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Journal

Brain Sciences

Method of Research

Content analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Detecting Dementia Using Lexical Analysis: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Tells a More Personal Story

Article Publication Date

25-Jan-2026