Gene duplication is a key evolutionary mechanism, as initially redundant paralogues diverge over time. The authors review how adaptive and non-adaptive forces influence the evolutionary fates of gene duplicates, highlighting the importance of function–fitness relationships and gene expression dynamics.
Wang et al. demonstrate that long-term alcohol consumption diminishes anesthetic sensitivity via a gut-microbiome-brain pathway. Their findings indicate that alcohol-induced dysbiosis elevates the metabolite adenosine, which subsequently downregulates brain GABAA receptors, thereby compromising anesthetic effectiveness.
A team of researchers from Spain was curious to know if people with high psychopathic traits have anomalies in the brain’s physical structures, which make them incapable of feeling regret or capable of manipulation and other antisocial behavior. They conducted an experiment in which they interviewed men convicted of intimate partner violence (IPV) and a control group with no history of violence to measure their psychopathic traits, followed by brain scans.
The results showed that men with thinner cortex in certain brain regions—particularly fronto-temporo-parietal areas —tended to display higher antisocial tendencies, regardless of their history of violence.
Fronto-temporo-parietal cortex regions refer to parts of the brain’s outer layer, which houses gray matter and supports functions such as sensory processing, motor control, and higher cognitive activities. The findings further reinforce a broader idea in neuroscience that regions in these brain regions play a major role in shaping behaviors such as callousness, a lack of empathy, and manipulative tendencies.
Baylor University researchers have developed a novel approach to fight colorectal cancer, using modified bacteria as a courier to deliver potent cancer-killing proteins into tumor cells. Michael S. VanNieuwenhze, Ph.D., FRSC, University Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Biology, along with Baylor doctoral students and a colleague at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, have published their research in Cell Chemical Biology.
Colorectal cancers accounted for the second-most deaths caused by cancer in 2025, according to the National Cancer Institute, highlighting the importance of new strategies for therapy and treatment.
Building on growth in the use of bacteria as a tool in fighting cancer, VanNieuwenhze and his team attached saporin, a known cancer-killing toxin, to the surface Listeria monocytogenes, which delivers the toxin to tumor cells. Listeria, commonly recognized as a food-borne bacteria, can be modified for express therapeutic purposes while maintaining its ability to penetrate human cells—making it, VanNieuwenhze said, a particularly promising agent in the fight against colorectal cancer.
A triple drug approach that blocks the KRAS pathway at three points eliminated pancreatic tumors and prevented resistance in mouse models.
Existing treatments for pancreatic cancer often stop working within a few months because tumors quickly develop resistance to the drugs. Researchers at Spain’s National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) report that they have prevented this resistance in animal studies by using a three-drug combination therapy.
The researchers say their findings “pave the way for the design of combined therapies that may improve survival,” although they caution that this progress will not immediately translate into new treatments for patients. Mariano Barbacid, head of the Experimental Oncology Group at CNIO, emphasizes that “we are not yet in a position to carry out clinical trials with this triple therapy.”
In 2013, physicist Alex Wissner-Gross published a single equation for intelligence in [ITALIC] Physical Review Letters [/ITALIC]: # F = T∇Sτ
The force of an intelligent system equals its temperature — computational capacity, raw horsepower — multiplied by the gradient of its future option-space. Intelligence is not a mysterious property of carbon-based brains.
It is a physical force: the tendency of any sufficiently energetic system to maximize the number of future states accessible to it.
The equation was elegant. Correct. And incomplete.
It describes the force. It does not describe the geometry of the space through which that force navigates.
A gradient without a metric is a direction without distance — it tells the system where to push but not what distortion it will encounter on the way there.
We spent three years building the geometry. We tested it across 69 billion simulations. What we found changes everything. ## The Missing Geometry — From Force to Navigation.
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One of the most perplexing questions in the foundations of physics is how our shared sense of reality emerges out of quantum mechanics. This is because in quantum mechanics, it seems, different observers can arrive at different conclusions about what is real and what not. A group of physicists now used an approach called “Quantum Darwinism” to solve this tricky problem. At least they say they solved it. I am not so sure. Let’s have a look.
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/ @sabinehossenfelder 📚 Buy my book ➜ https://amzn.to/3HSAWJW #science #sciencenews #quantum #physics This video discusses the concept of “reality” in quantum physics, touching on how different observers can reach different conclusions. It features a presentation of a scientific paper on the “Metrological approach to the emergence of classical objectivity,” suggesting a potential solution to a long-standing problem in quantum mechanics. We explore how the “observer effect” and individual “consciousness” play a crucial role in shaping our understanding of “reality does not exist” within the realm of “quantum physics explained.” This deep dive connects the fundamental principles of “quantum mechanics” with profound questions in “philosophy.”
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#science #sciencenews #quantum #physics.
This video discusses the concept of \.