Research study suggests speaking more languages might keep you younger

Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries

Trinity College Dublin

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Can learning another language help you stay younger for longer? Far beyond its cultural and social value, speaking multiple languages may protect both brain and body health, slowing down the biological processes of aging and strengthening resilience across the lifespan.

An international study led by Dr. Agustín Ibáñez, Trinity College Dublin and his co-authors Lucia Amoruso, BrainLat and Hernán Hernández, BrainLat, reveals that speaking multiple languages may slow the biological processes of aging and protect against age-related decline. 

Published in Nature Aging, the paper titled “Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries” analysed data from 86,149 participants across Europe, showing that multilingual individuals experience slower biobehavioral aging compared with monolinguals.

Using the innovative biobehavioral aging clock framework, researchers quantified biobehavioral age gaps (BBAGs), that were estimated using artificial intelligence models trained on thousands of health and behavioral profiles. These models predict a person’s biological age from features such as physical conditions (hypertension, diabetes, sleep problems, sensory loss) and protective factors (education, cognition, functional ability, physical activity). The BBAG—the difference between predicted and actual age—indicates whether someone shows younger, healthier aging (negative values) or accelerated aging (positive values.

The study found that individuals from countries where people commonly speak at least one additional language were 2.17 times less likely to experience accelerated aging, while monolinguals were over twice as likely to show early aging patterns. These effects remained significant even after adjusting for linguistic, social, physical, and sociopolitical factors. The protective impact of multilingualism was consistent across both cross-sectional analyses, reflecting current differences in aging, and longitudinal analyses, showing that multilingualism predicts a lower risk of accelerated aging over time.

Dr. Agustín Ibáñez, senior author, Scientific Director of the Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat), and Professor of Global Brain Health at Trinity College Dublin. “Our results provide strong evidence that multilingualism functions as a protective factor for healthy aging. Language learning and use engage core brain networks related to attention, memory, and executive control—as well as social interaction—mechanisms that may reinforce resilience throughout life.”

Lead author Dr. Lucia Amoruso, from the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language and BrainLat, added: “The protective effect was cumulative—the more languages people spoke, the greater their protection against aging-related decline.”

Co-lead author Dr. Hernán Hernández, from BrainLat, highlighted the societal implications: “Our findings show that multilingualism is an accessible, low-cost tool for promoting healthy aging across populations, complementing other modifiable factors such as creativity and education.”

This large-scale epidemiological investigation marks a major step toward global brain-health strategies that integrate cognitive, social, and cultural factors. The authors advocate for incorporating language learning into public health and educational policies to enhance cognitive resilience and reduce the societal burden of aging.

READ: You can read the full article: Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries, in Nature Aging (2025) at the following link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-025-01000-2

 

 

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Journal

Nature Aging

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries

Article Publication Date

10-Nov-2025

 

Increasing lifted dust from Mongolia for Central East Asia dust storms

The contribution of Mongolia’s deserts as a major dust source in Central East Asia is increasing.

Science China Press

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image: 

This figure summarizes the changes in dust emissions and source contributions of each large dust event across Central East Asia from 2000 to 2023. Bar graph (a) shows the annual average contribution rates of northern China and Mongolia, revealing a gradual decline in China’s contribution and a steady rise in Mongolia’s. Graph (b) presents total dust emissions from 136 large dust events, which decreased through the 2000s but increased sharply after 2020. Graph (c) illustrates the source contribution for each event, with blue bars indicating Mongolia and red bars indicating northern China. Together, the data highlight a shift in major dust sources and the growing influence of Mongolia in recent years.

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Credit: ©Science China Press

Dust storms across Central East Asia have shown a sharp rebound in recent years after two decades of decline. A research team from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has revealed that Mongolia has become a major source of dust emissions in the region.

By applying the Wind Erosion Prediction System (WEPS), the team estimated hourly dust emissions for 136 large dust events that occurred between 2000 and 2023. The analysis covered major dust-producing areas across northern China and Mongolia, integrating high-resolution data on wind speed, soil texture, vegetation cover, and soil moisture.

Results show that both the frequency and intensity of dust storms decreased steadily from the early 2000s to 2020. However, this trend reversed sharply afterward. Total dust emissions increased more than sevenfold, from 5.7 million tons in 2020 to 40.3 million tons in 2023, while the number of large dust events rose from three to five per year. Mongolia’s contribution to these events climbed from 43% in the early 2000s to 53% in recent years, reaching 62% in 2022 and 64% during a major regional dust storm in April 2023. The study identifies that stronger surface winds, vegetation degradation, and reduced soil moisture as the dominant factors behind this rebound. Wind speed accounted for about 46% of the total influence, followed by vegetation loss (19%) and soil drying (9%). Intensified Mongolian cyclones and prolonged droughts over the Gobi Desert have enhanced soil erosion and dust mobilization, while ecological restoration projects in northern China have helped reduce local emissions.

These findings highlight a shift in the dominant dust source areas of Central East Asia and underscore the importance of cross-border collaboration for monitoring and early warning. The authors suggest that coordinated observation networks between China and Mongolia are essential for tracking event-scale dust fluxes and mitigating transboundary environmental impacts.

The study, titled “Source shifting and contributions to Central East Asia dust events during 2000-2023,” provides a new perspective for understanding the changes of dust activity in East Asia. The results were recently published in Science China Earth Sciences.

 

See the article:

Xing Y, Liu B, Wagner L E, Qu J. 2025. Source shifting and contributions to Central East Asia dust events during 2000–2023. Science China Earth Sciences, 68(11): 3804–3816, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-024-1706-5

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Journal

Science China Earth Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s11430-024-1706-5 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

 

“Hot syrup freezes faster”: anomalous symmetry restoration in many-body localization systems

Science China Press

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More asymmetric states can restore symmetry faster under the MBL evolution.

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Credit: ©Science China Press

Why does hot water sometimes freeze faster than cold? This counterintuitive phenomenon, known as the Mpemba effect, has intrigued scientists for decades. In the classical world, it challenges common intuition about heat and cooling. In the quantum realm, it reappears in an even more surprising form: a more asymmetric quantum state can restore its subsystem symmetry faster than a less asymmetric one. This phenomenon is known as the quantum Mpemba effect (QME).

While the QME has been studied in integrable and chaotic quantum systems that eventually thermalize, one central mystery remained: can this counterintuitive phenomenon survive in systems that do not thermalize at all? MBL systems that resist thermalization due to disorder provide an ideal testing ground. Understanding whether and how the QME manifests in such systems could shed light on universal principles of nonequilibrium dynamics far beyond the reach of conventional thermodynamics.

In a new study published in Science Bulletin, researchers reveal that the quantum Mpemba effect indeed persists in the MBL regime, but through an entirely different mechanism. The team developed a theoretical framework for symmetry restoration in MBL systems and demonstrated that the subsystem symmetry can still be restored. Using the l-bit effective model and comprehensive numerical simulations, they confirmed that more symmetry-broken states can restore symmetry faster—an signature of the QME in the absence of thermalization.

The study also highlights striking contrasts between the QME in thermal and localized systems. In thermal systems, the QME can be viewed as a quantum analogue of the classical “hot water freezes faster” phenomenon. In localized systems, by contrast, the behavior resembles that of “syrup” that is hard to mix or flow—yet, remarkably, this “syrup” can still “freeze” and even do so faster when it starts hotter. This finding uncovers a new non-thermal mechanism of symmetry restoration and also provide a fresh qualitative indicator for the stability of many-body localized phases.

Beyond its conceptual significance, the work opens a new window on the nature of quantum relaxation and could inspire future experiments on quantum simulation and quantum computing platforms to explore counterintuitive dynamical phenomena in non-thermal systems.

The study, titled “Symmetry restoration and quantum Mpemba effect in many-body localization systems,” was conducted by researchers from Tsinghua University, the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Sun Yat-sen University. It was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and the New Cornerstone Science Foundation through the Xplorer Prize, among others.

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Journal

Science Bulletin

DOI

10.1016/j.scib.2025.10.017 

 

Mapping urban gully erosion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This study provides the first nationwide map of urban gullies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), quantifying the extent of the phenomenon, its recent dynamics, and its human impacts at the scale of an entire country

University of Liège

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Gully in Kinshasa

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Credit: Mathias Vanmaercke / KULeuven

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), quantifying the extent of the phenomenon, its recent dynamics, and its human impacts at the scale of an entire country. This approach, which can be replicated in other cities and countries, offers a tool to address a rapidly growing problem with severe human and financial costs.

Geomorphological and hydrogeological landform, a gully is a large and deep incision carved by rainwater as it concentrates and flows with high erosive power through susceptible terrain. In urban areas, gullies can extend for several hundreds of meters in length and tens of meters in width, cutting across neighbourhoods and severing infrastructure. Once formed, they tend to expand with each intense rainfall event. The consequences are devastating. “Urban gullies are silent disasters,” explains Dr Guy Ilombe Mawe of the Université Officielle de Bukavu, first author of the article. “They rarely make headlines, yet each year they displace hundreds or even thousands of people in Kinshasa alone.”

Although gully formation is initially a natural process, the scale and rate of their development in Africa have accelerated in recent years, largely due to human activities and landscape modification associated with urban expansion. “While natural factors such as intense rainfall play an important role in triggering gullies, the predisposing factors are almost always anthropogenic,” explains Aurélia Hubert, geologist at University of Liège. “Unplanned urbanization on steep slopes, poorly drained roads, and insufficient water collection and retention infrastructure are key drivers that exacerbate the phenomenon.”

By combining very high-resolution satellite imagery with demographic datasets, the Congolese–Belgian research team quantified the extent, drivers and human impacts of this erosion process across urban areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “We identified 2,922 gullies in 26 cities, with an estimated 118,600 people displaced between 2004 and 2023, with a clear acceleration after 2020,” explains Matthias Vanmaercke, professor at KU Leuven and specialist in gully erosion. “Comparisons with aerial photographs from the 1950s show that almost all of these gullies formed in connection with recent urbanization and road networks, as only 46 gullies existed prior to major built-up expansion.”

Beyond material destruction, these dynamics represent a level of risk comparable, in terms of human impact, to better-known hazards such as landslides or earthquakes, yet they remain largely underestimated in urban policies. In this context, the study proposes concrete avenues for action, with a particular emphasis on prevention. “Prevention is preferable to remediation,” stresses Aurélia Hubert. “Stabilizing a single gully can cost over one million US dollars. Rethinking drainage, road design and land use planning is far less costly than repairing the damage afterward.”

The study notably calls for:

• integrating gully erosion risk into urban planning regulations and road design standards;
• prioritizing exposed areas to protect residents and redesign drainage systems accordingly;
• developing predictive models to anticipate where and when gullies may form, and to intervene at an early stage, since the initial gully length strongly conditions the future extent of damage.

A transferable method

A key strength of this work lies in its methodology: a countrywide gully inventory based on satellite images with spatial resolution ≤ 1 m, validated through field surveys (434 gullies) and combined with demographic datasets to assess population exposure and displacement.

Originally designed to analyze large areas of the DRC, this approach can be replicated in other cities of the Global South experiencing rapid urban growth. “At a time when urban Africa is expanding at high speed, urban gullies represent a new type of geo-hydrological hazard with major consequences, whose occurrence and associated risks can be managed,” concludes Olivier Dewitte, geographer at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (AfricaMuseum). “By revealing its magnitude, drivers and human costs, this study provides an operational basis for action-supporting earlier planning and intervention to prevent streets from turning into canyons.”

Gullies in Bukavu

Credit

Guy Ilombe Mawe

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-09371-7 

Article Title

Mapping urban gullies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo