New research points to the shingles vaccine meaningfully reducing the number of people who develop either dementia or mild cognitive decline later in life https://econ.st/4s73gdz.
Illustration: Cristina Spanò
The evidence is surprisingly strong.
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The macroecology of immunity: predominant influence of climate on invertebrate immune response
https://vist.ly/4u8bp Macroecology Odonates Parasites
The immune system is the primary defense against parasites. With the ever-increasing rate of disease, epidemiologic models considering geographic variation in immune responses could prove useful. Despite increasing interest in the macroecology of parasitism and infectious diseases, we know little about the macroecology of immune responses (i.e. macroimmunology). Host characteristics, parasite exposure, and environmental factors can all affect immunity, but how these factors shape spatial variation in the strength of immune responses remains underexplored. We captured odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) and their conspicuous ectoparasitic mites from 42 sites spread across a geographic area spanning the temperate and boreal forest biomes in eastern Canada. We then conducted immune response bioassays on 1237 individuals from 63 odonate species. We used generalized additive models and structural equation models to relate immune responses to host body size, parasite load, pH, temperature and precipitation while accounting for spatial autocorrelation in immune ability and evolutionary relationships among host species. We found significant differences in the strength of immune response among host individuals, and this variation was best explained by climatic conditions, specifically strongly decreasing with precipitation. While host species significantly differed in immune response strength, we found no effect of host body size, evolutionary relationships among hosts, or parasitism on immune response. Our study investigating the drivers of immune response across dozens of species spread across two biomes is the most comprehensive to date. Climatic conditions have a strong influence on host immune response, regardless of host characteristics or parasitism rates. Strong immune responses were associated with low levels of annual precipitation, which could relate to the role of cuticular melanin content in desiccation resistance, and the melanin-based encapsulation response being a byproduct of this adaptation. A spatially explicit understanding of the biological processes affecting immunity could improve epidemiological models of disease risk that inform disease management globally.
Predicting parasite and pathogen spread is increasingly relevant and challenging in a highly connected world (Tsiotas and Tselios 2022), and an animal’s immune system is the first line of defense against attack by parasites and pathogens. Yet, the factors driving variation in immunity among individuals, populations, and species are poorly studied and rarely factored into epidemiologic models (Becker et al. 2019). Characteristics of the host, exposure to parasites or pathogens, and the abiotic environment can interact in complex ways to affect immunity (Sweeny and Albery 2022), but their interactions are challenging to elucidate (Johnson et al. 2019).
As the immune system is the primary line of defense against infection by parasites, pathogens, and disease, it is assumed to be costly in terms of fitness and should therefore lead to tradeoffs with life-history traits (e.g. fecundity, fertility, Albery et al. 2021). Although a plethora of studies have provided key evidence of immune variation due to such tradeoffs, most studies emphasize the role of biotic factors such as predation (Duong and McCauley 2016) and resource availability (Hasik et al. 2025a) without considering that of abiotic factors (Lazzaro and Little 2008). A relationship between immune response and temperature is expected in both invertebrate ectotherms (Mastore et al. 2019) and vertebrate endotherms (Butler et al. 2013), due to the thermal sensitivity of the enzymes involved in immune responses (Catalán et al. 2012). When one scales this temperature-dependent immunity to explore the effect of climate (specifically, temperature and humidity), then climate is expected to be a clear driver of geographic variation in immunity (Li et al. 2024).
Parasites are a leading cause of disease and death around the world and thus are drivers of life-history evolution via their effects on host fitness (Hasik and Siepielski 2022a) that have the potential to affect host macroevolutionary dynamics (Hasik et al. 2025b). The majority of organisms on earth are infected by at least one parasite (Price 1980), and yet, we have a very limited understanding of the multifarious factors governing the intensity of infection and, therefore, the health cost. Immune responses are necessary to defend organisms from the deleterious and fitness-reducing effects of parasites (and disease in general, Hasik and Siepielski 2022a). Although there is increasing interest in the macroecology of parasites and infectious diseases (Stephens et al. 2016), we know very little about macroimmunology (Becker et al. 2020). Both among-individual and interspecific variation in immune response surely plays a central role, but the factors regulating immunity in natural settings are poorly understood, which can interfere with the accuracy of predictive epidemiologic models. Environmental factors and local parasite pressure can independently drive differences in immunity across space, but they could also act in concert (Becker et al. 2020). Parasitism varies among host populations distributed across large-scale environmental gradients (LoScerbo et al. 2020, Hasik and Siepielski 2022b) and at fine spatial scales, within populations (Albery et al. 2019, Hasik et al. 2025a). To date, however, the focus on a limited set of taxa, specifically vertebrates (Becker et al. 2020), limits our ability to identify generalities regarding the relative influence of environmental conditions and parasitism on immune defenses that would apply across host–parasite systems (Rolff and Siva-Jothy 2003).
PSA and PSMA kinetics after PSMA-PET & MR guided prostate SBRT with focal boost: Results from the phase II PROBE trial
PSA and PSMA kinetics after PSMA-guided prostate SBRT with focal boost. Can the marker and uptake kinetics inform us of the good, the bad and the ugly? Read about it in the RedJournal @vedangmurthy @drmaneesh_singh @docpriyamvada @RadOncTMC
To evaluate PSA and PSMA kinetics following PSMA-PET and MR guided stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) and short-term androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with dominant intraprostatic lesion (DIL) boost in localised prostate cancer.
Exercise Protects Against Alzheimer’s, And Scientists May Finally Know Why
Among its numerous health benefits, physical activity reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. A new study on mice now dives into the specific mechanisms and proteins that allow exercise to protect our brains.
Scientists had previously determined that physical activity increases a protein called glycosylphosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase D1 in the blood of mice, and that this protein is associated with good brain health.
That protein – more succinctly referred to as GPLD1 – strengthens the barrier that guards the brain against all sorts of unwelcome visitors within our blood, protecting against inflammation and subsequent cognitive decline.
Abstract: Presenting a cutting-edge discovery on the mechanisms by which immune cells influence health and disease at the later stages of cerebral ischemic stroke
Here, Chuan Qin & team use complementary models in experimental ischemic stroke, showing early post-stroke stages in which microglia recruit B cells into ischemic lesions through MIF/CD74/CXCR4, while later stage post-stroke effects involve interferon signaling in B cells that drives neuroinflammation and brain injury:
The image shows B lymphocytes (Green) in mouse dura tissue colocalizing with CD31+ blood vessels (Red).
1Department of Neurology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College and State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Severe Zoonotic Infectious Diseases;
2Key Laboratory of Vascular Aging, Ministry of Education, Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College; and.
3Hubei Key Laboratory of Neural Injury and Functional Reconstruction, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
Basal progenitors as drivers of neocortical expansion
Neocortical expansion driven by basal progenitors.
The emergence of indirect neurogenesis, driven by highly proliferative basal progenitors, contributed to the significant enlargement of the mammalian neocortex during brain evolution.
In recent years, several human-specific genes and enhancers have been described that differentially affect the biology of progenitor cells and potentially contribute to the increased neocortical complexity and disease-susceptibility of the human brain.
Emerging research is uncovering multiple pathways that disrupt basal progenitor biology, emphasizing these pathways’ involvement not only in classical neurogenesis-related disorders such as microcephaly but also in neurodevelopmental conditions traditionally linked to impairments in neuronal connectivity. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/Basal-progenitors
The diversification and expansion of distinct progenitor cell subtypes during embryogenesis are essential to form the sophisticated brain structures present in vertebrates. In particular, the emergence of highly proliferative basal progenitors contributed to the evolutionary enlargement of the mammalian neocortex. Basal progenitors are at the center of indirect neurogenesis and can be divided into two main subtypes: the classical TBR2-positive intermediate progenitor cells and the outer radial glial cells, which are especially abundant in gyrencephalic species. While the function of some transcriptomic regulators is conserved across the mammalian clade, recent studies have identified human-specific genes and enhancers that uniquely affect progenitor biology, possibly driving the increased neocortical complexity and disease-susceptibility of the human brain.
In search of a room-temperature superconductor, scientists present a research agenda
The search for materials that can conduct electricity at room temperature without losing energy is one of the greatest and most consequential challenges of modern physics: loss-free power transmission, more efficient motors and generators, more powerful quantum computers, cheaper MRI devices. Hardly any other material discovery has the potential to change so many areas of technology and everyday life at the same time.
An international research team, with the participation of Christoph Heil from the Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) is now presenting a systematic approach to finding such materials. In a perspective article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a strategy paper that assesses the current state of research and sets out future directions, the 16 authors state that there are no fundamental physical laws that rule out superconductivity at ambient temperature.
Nanosecond light-by-light switching achieved in liquid crystal droplet
Controlling light with light is a long-sought goal for computing and communication technologies. Achieving this capability would allow optical signals to be processed without converting them into electrical signals, potentially enabling faster and more energy-efficient devices. In recent years, researchers have begun exploring an unexpected platform for this purpose: soft matter.
Soft-matter photonics investigates how materials such as liquids, liquid crystals, gels, and polymers can self-organize into structures that manipulate light. Unlike conventional solid-state photonic components, which require precise nanofabrication, soft materials can spontaneously form functional optical geometries. Some soft materials also exhibit nonlinear optical behavior. For example, through the Kerr effect, their refractive index can change in response to intense light, enabling one beam to influence another and allowing ultrafast optical switching on picosecond timescales.
As reported in Advanced Photonics, an international team of researchers introduced a different approach: a nanosecond optical switch based on resonant stimulated-emission depletion (STED) in a liquid crystal cavity. Rather than relying on refractive index changes, this method manipulates the stored optical energy inside a resonant structure.
Superconductivity controlled by a built-in light-confining cavity
For the first time, physicists have demonstrated that a material’s superconductivity can be altered by coupling it to an in-built, light-confining cavity. In experiments published in Nature, a team led by Itai Keren at Columbia University show how quantum properties can be deliberately engineered by bonding carefully chosen materials together—without applying any external light, pressure, or magnetic field.
As researchers have probed the quantum behavior of solids in ever greater detail, they have uncovered a wealth of so-called “emergent” properties, which arise from intricate interactions between electrons, quantum spins, and localized vibrations of a crystal lattice. Phenomena including superconductivity, magnetism, and charge ordering all emerge from these kinds of collective effects—all richer and more complex than the sum of their microscopic parts.
Building on this principle, physicists are increasingly exploring whether materials could be designed with specific emergent behaviors built directly into their structures. Rather than tuning a compound after it is made, the goal here is to engineer its quantum environment from the outset.