Aging is a multifaceted process driven by interconnected biological mechanisms, among which genomic instability and telomere attrition stand as primary hallmarks. Emerging research underscores the pivotal role of the human microbiome in modulating these processes, offering novel insights into aging and age-related diseases. This review synthesizes current evidence on how microbial dysbiosis accelerates aging by disrupting genomic integrity and telomere dynamics, while also exploring therapeutic strategies to promote healthy ...

Could AI that thinks more like a human be more sustainable than today’s LLMs? The AI industry is dominated by large companies with deep pockets and a gargantuan appetite for energy to power their models’ mammoth computing needs. Data centers supporting AI already account for up to 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions. In a Perspective, Alvaro Velasquez and colleagues propose an alternative model: neurosymbolic AI, which would require far less computing power, creating opportunities for smaller players to enter the field and allowing society to enjoy the benefits of AI without the environmental costs. Neurosymbolic AI is built on data-driven neural ...

A research paper by scientists at Hefei University of Technology presented an intuition-guided deep reinforcement learning framework for soft tissue manipulation under unknown constraints. The research paper, published on Apr. 14, 2025 in the journal Cyborg and Bionic Systems. Intraoperative soft tissue manipulation is a critical challenge in autonomous robotic surgery. Furthermore, the intricate in vivo environment surrounding the target soft tissues poses additional hindrances to autonomous robotic decision-making. Previous studies assumed the grasping point was known and the target deformation could be achieved. The constraints were assumed to be constant during the ...

A team of Mount Sinai surgeons has performed the first heart-liver-kidney triple organ transplants in New York. They successfully completed two of these complex surgeries on patients from Westchester County, who have since returned home and are making full recoveries. Heart-liver-kidney transplants are extremely rare—only 58 have been done across the country since the United Network for Organ Sharing, the government agency that oversees transplantation, started tracking cases in 1987. The two procedures at The Mount Sinai Hospital, which took place on January 10 and March 8, were among only four to date in the ...

Sharks have been evolving for more than 450 million years, developing skeletons not from bone, but from a tough, mineralized form of cartilage. These creatures are more than just fast swimmers – they’re built for efficiency. Their spines act like natural springs, storing and releasing energy with each tailbeat, allowing them to move through the water with smooth, powerful grace. Now, scientists are peering inside shark skeletons at the nanoscale, revealing a microscopic “sharkitecture” that helps these ancient apex predators withstand extreme physical demands of constant motion. Using synchrotron X-ray nanotomography with detailed ...

Americans perceive small juries of content experts as the most legitimate moderators of potentially misleading content on social media, according to a survey, but perceive large, nationally representative or politically balanced juries with minimum knowledge qualifications as comparably legitimate. Social media content moderation policies tend to attract criticism, with some calling for more aggressive removal of harmful and misleading content and others decrying moderation as censorship and accusing expert moderators of being politically biased. Less clear is what the general public would like to see in terms of content ...

A Perspective proposes a pathway to improvements in sustainability of marine ecosystems and resources in China. Based on environmental accounting used in China’s terrestrial ecosystems, the approach would implement policy and governance to ensure accountability for sustainable use of marine systems. Laurence J. McCook and colleagues argue that the ecosystem goods and services provided to the nation by oceans and coastal ecosystems—including seagrass beds, salt marshes, coral reefs, and mangrove forests—are ...

A drug used to treat type 2 diabetes may also be effective in slowing the progression of prostate cancer. This is shown by an international study in which researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, have participated. The researchers have found that drugs that regulate a particular protein have a key role in reducing prostate cancer recurrence among diabetic patients. "This is a significant discovery. For the first time, we have clinical observations showing that prostate cancer patients with diabetes who received drugs targeting the protein remained relapse-free during the period we followed them," ...

New cases of dementia in the United States declined from 2015 to 2021, but the number of people living with the condition continued to rise due to population ageing, with nearly 2.9 million traditional Medicare beneficiaries (around 12%) living with a dementia diagnosis in 2021, finds a study published by The BMJ today. What’s more, a greater burden of dementia was seen in marginalized and low resource communities, highlighting the importance of policy approaches to promote equitable dementia care, say the ...

TEMPE, Ariz. — The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine filed a complaint with the  National Institutes of Health’s Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare today, May 19, 2025, asking for an investigation of Arizona State University’s use of animals to study the effects of dietary supplements on adults with Down syndrome. “Arizona State University cannot justify its use of mice to study a common nutrient that could be easily and ethically studied in consenting human volunteers,” the complaint says. “These uses of animals run afoul of the ...

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital leukemia researcher Charles G. Mullighan, MBBS (Hons), MSc, MD, senior deputy director of the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Mullighan was selected to join the Royal Society for his trailblazing contributions to genomic research, which have advanced the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of acute leukemia, notably childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia ...

Efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C under the Paris Climate Agreement may not go far enough to save the world’s ice sheets, according to a new study. Research led by Durham University, UK, suggests the target should instead be closer to 1°C to avoid significant losses from the polar ice sheets and prevent a further acceleration in sea level rise. The team reviewed a wealth of evidence to examine the effect that the 1.5°C target would have on the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which together store enough ice to raise global sea levels by almost 65 metres. The mass of ice lost from these ice ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- By combining information from many large datasets, MIT researchers have identified several new potential targets for treating or preventing Alzheimer’s disease. The study revealed genes and cellular pathways that haven’t been linked to Alzheimer’s before, including one involved in DNA repair. Identifying new drug targets is critical because many of the Alzheimer’s drugs that have been developed to this point haven’t been as successful as hoped. Working with researchers at Harvard Medical School, the team used data from humans and fruit flies to identify cellular pathways linked to neurodegeneration. ...

A combination of two drugs could improve outcomes and reduce the need for toxic chemotherapy for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL), the commonest cancer in childhood and one that can be particularly difficult to treat in older patients, according to Cambridge scientists. Although the research has so far only been conducted in cell lines and mice, the team is seeking funding to begin clinical trials in patients shortly. More than 500 people a year in the UK are diagnosed with B-ALL, many of whom are children, where it makes up 40% of all ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Measuring the density of a cell can reveal a great deal about the cell’s state. As cells proliferate, differentiate, or undergo cell death, they may gain or lose water and other molecules, which is revealed by changes in density. Tracking these tiny changes in cells’ physical state is difficult to do at a large scale, especially with single-cell resolution, but a team of MIT researchers has now found a way to measure cell density quickly and accurately — measuring up to 30,000 cells in a single hour. The researchers also showed that density ...

Tokyo, Japan—The COVID-19 pandemic increased public awareness of the importance of mask use for personal protection. However, when the mesh size of mask fabrics is small enough to capture viruses, which are usually around one hundred nanometers in size, the fabric typically also restricts air flow, resulting in user discomfort. But now, researchers from Japan have found a way to avoid this. In a study published this month in Materials Advances, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have overcome this bottleneck and developed a filter capable of capturing nanoparticles such ...

As people age, their immune systems become less efficient, posing a challenge for cancer therapies that rely on harnessing immune cells. In a new study published in Nature Cancer, researchers from the University of Lausanne (UNIL), the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), show that this age-related immune decline has a measurable impact on CAR-T cell therapy, one of the most advanced forms of cancer immunotherapy. CAR-T ...

Patients with rare mitochondrial diseases already face a host of serious health issues, from muscle weakness to neurological problems and heart conditions. But one of their most life-threatening challenges has remained a mystery—why are they so vulnerable to severe infections? Now, scientists at The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) may have finally pinpointed why. Their new study, published in Nature Communications, shows that damaged mitochondria put the immune system in a constant state of alert, leading to dangerous overreactions when patients encounter bacteria. This excessive immune ...

SENSE, a nationwide artificial intelligence (AI) initiative to interpret cardiac imaging scans in minutes, aiding early detection and prediction of coronary artery disease. NHCS CVS.AI Research Laboratory, a new purpose-built and dedicated facility with enhanced infrastructure to advance and drive novel AI technology in cardiac imaging. Singapore, 20 May 2025 – The National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) announces a major advancement in cardiac care research with the implementation of SENSE (Singapore hEart lesioN analySEr), a nationwide AI initiative that reduces the time taken to analyse cardiac scans, from hours to minutes. This breakthrough system will transform the ...

Researchers have discovered how an ion channel in the brain’s neurons has a kind of ‘molecular memory’, which contributes to the formation and preservation of lifelong memories. The researchers have identified a specific part of the ion channel at which new drugs for certain genetic diseases could be targeted. The study, led from Linköping University in Sweden, has been published in Nature Communications. One of the brain’s superpowers is its ability to learn from past experiences and form memories. These vital processes depend on the reshaping of connections between neurons in the brain. ...

As wildfires continue to ravage regions from Los Angeles to South Korea, a new study featured on the cover of the Issue 7, 2025 of Advances in Atmospheric Sciences sheds light on the large-scale climate patterns influencing these devastating global extreme events. The research, led by Professor Young-Min Yang from Jeonbuk National University, reveals how tropical climate phenomena like the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) can trigger dry, windy conditions that exacerbate wildfires in mid-latitude regions, including the western U.S. and East Asia. Wildfire prediction remains a major challenge due to rapidly changing weather conditions ...

Paris, France, 19 May 2025 - The RESIL-Card project, co-funded by the EU4Health Work Programme, has reached a significant milestone with the recent launch of the pilot testing of its resilience assessment tool in selected European countries. This phase is part of the three-year project - led by We CARE, in partnership with GISE, Amsterdam UMC, and CatSalut - which aims to improve the preparedness and continuity of cardiovascular care during crises. As the first half of the project draws to a close, the first work package (WP1), which focused on conceptualising the resilience assessment tool, ...

Leuven, 20 May 2025 - Researchers from the lab led by Prof. Joris De Wit (VIB-KU Leuven) have discovered an important clue to how connections between brain cells, known as synapses, mature. These new findings, published in Developmental Cell, demonstrated how two different proteins, GPR158 and PLCXD2, interact to form a specific component in developing synapses – the spine apparatus. Synapses – the communication points between neurons – are not only molecularly diverse but also contain specialized organelles, tiny internal cellular machines, that finetune their function. The spine apparatus is one such organelle, and it is essential for stabilizing mature ...

Philadelphia, May 20, 2025 – New research shows that in patients with psoriasis, even though their skin responds well to treatment with biologics, inflammation can linger, leading to broader health implications such as obesity and cardiovascular and fatty liver disease. The findings of the study in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology (JID), published by Elsevier, could lead to more targeted and effective treatments that address the systemic aspects of psoriasis, beyond just the skin. Systemic chronic inflammation has been implicated in several diseases that collectively represent the leading causes of ...

A new paper in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that today’s pod-style electronic cigarette devices are more addictive than nicotine gum, indicating that such devices have a very high potential for abuse. Since entering the market in 2003, electronic cigarettes have become very popular in the United States, particularly among youth and young adults. A significant proportion of people who use electronic cigarettes devices never used other tobacco products regularly. Over 30% of adult users of vaping devices report no history of regular cigarette smoking, a rate ...