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Scientists Create Cancer-Fighting Immune Cells Right in the Body

A new form of in vivo CAR-T therapy kills leukemia, multiple myeloma, and sarcoma in mice, opening the door to a future off-the-shelf cancer treatment without chemotherapy.

For years, one of the most powerful weapons against certain blood cancers, called CAR-T therapy, has required an elaborate process: Doctors extract a patient’s immune cells, ship them to a specialized facility where they’re genetically reprogrammed to fight cancer, then ship them back for infusion into the patient’s bloodstream. This has revolutionized cancer treatment, but the time and expense place it out of reach for thousands of patients.

Now, scientists at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley have developed a method to precisely reprogram these cancer-fighting cells directly inside the body, potentially eliminating the barriers that have kept this life-saving therapy out of reach for many patients around the world.

Impressionist sea slugs create their patterns by arranging colorful photonic crystals

Nudibranchs are often referred to as the butterflies of the sea. Nudibranchs live worldwide, primarily in warm, shallow marine regions, and stand out for their flamboyant colors and diverse shapes. A team from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam and the University of Cambridge has now discovered how they create their colorful patterns. According to their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the color is produced by nanostructures, each of which creates a specific color impression.

“We were surprised to find that nudibranchs use structural colors,” says Samuel Humphrey, who conducted the research at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces. “Biologists had previously assumed that the colors were produced by pigments.” Pigments are chemical compounds and differently colored pigments have different chemical compositions.

In contrast, in structural colors, color is not a chemical property of the material, but it depends on the length scale of nanostructures composing the material. Such nanostructures, also called photonic crystals, are responsible for the coloration of chameleons, as well as many birds and butterflies. In such structures, color is produced by the regular arrangement of materials with different refractive indices.

Does Entropy Control Time?

In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice speak with physicist Sean Carroll about whether entropy actually creates time. Sean explains that entropy does not generate time itself, but it gives time an arrow—a direction from past to future. Even if the universe were to stop expanding and begin collapsing, entropy would still increase. The key distinction is between time (which can exist without direction) and the arrow of time, which entropy provides through statistical mechanics and phase space dynamics.

From ‘The Complex Universe, with Sean Carroll’: • The Complex Universe, with Sean Carroll.

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Revealing the epigenetic modulator lysine-specific histone demethylase 1a as a new target for kidney diseases

https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.

Here, Tobias B. Huber & team use a state-of-the-art, tour de force experimental design to show LSD1 regulates kidney development, and its dysfunction disrupts key kidney cells, leading to cyst formation in mouse and organoid models.

The image shows severe structural changes in the adult mouse kidney with loss of KDM1a. Nephrology.

4Faculty of Biology, Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.

5Institute of Medical Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine and.

6Institute of Surgical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Medical Center — University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.

Continue reading “Revealing the epigenetic modulator lysine-specific histone demethylase 1a as a new target for kidney diseases” | >

Diagnostic Performance of Anti–Epstein-Barr Virus BNLF2b in Suspected Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

In a multicenter prospective cohort study of 3,777 participants with suspected nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), anti–Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) BNLF2b total antibody (P85-Ab) demonstrated superior diagnostic performance compared to EBV viral capsid antigen (VCA)-immunoglobulin A, EBV early antigen-IgA, and EBV nuclear antigen 1-IgA.

P85-Ab showed high sensitivity and specificity across outpatient populations, particularly among asymptomatic individuals and those with NPC-nonspecific symptoms.

For patients with NPC-specific symptoms, a triplet-antibody strategy combining P85-Ab, VCA-IgA, and EBNA1-IgA further improved sensitivity, supporting distinct diagnostic approaches based on clinical presentation.

This multicenter, observational cohort study with prospective sample collection was conducted at 5 medical centers across 4 provinces in China. Participants were consecutively recruited from the ENT or oncology outpatient clinics of the following institutions: Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Centre (SYSUCC), Zhongshan City People’s Hospital (ZSCPH), Tongji Hospital affiliated with Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (TJH-HUST), Wuzhou Red Cross Hospital (WZRCH), and Fujian Cancer Hospital (FJCH).

Key inclusion criteria included participants with symptoms or signs suggestive of possible NPC, non-NPC head and neck diseases, EBV-associated diseases, and positive results from commercially available EBV-based tests without signs or symptoms in medical examination centers or screening initiatives and subsequently seeking further differential diagnosis of NPC. Key exclusion criteria included previous radiotherapy or systemic chemotherapy (detailed in eMethods 1 in Supplement 2).

Machine Learning–Based Sleep EEG Brain Age Index and Dementia Risk

Machine learning models using sleep EEG can generate a brain age index, and a higher BAI was validated as a prognostic marker for increased risk of future Dementia, suggesting BAI may help in early digital risk stratification.

This individual participant data meta-analysis explores the association between a machine learning–based sleep electroencephalography (EEG) brain age index and dementia risk among community-dwelling adults from 5 longitudinal cohorts.

The Effect of Physical Activity on the Gut Microbiome in Prediabetes: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

Adults with prediabetes randomized to 8-weeks of walking realized gut microbiome changes suggestive of more resilience, growth, and enhanced metabolic activity. DOCM

Read here ➡️ doi.org/10.2337/doc25-0067

American Diabetes Association American Diabetes Association – DiabetesPro

OBJECTIVE. To test the effect of physical activity on the gut microbiome and circulating short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) among sedentary adults with prediabetes and overweight or obesity.

What Is Beyond The End?

Start using AnyDesk, the blazing-fast Remote Desktop Software, today at https://anydesk.com/en/downloads/windows?utm_source=brand&am…utube&…

Written by Colin Stuart.
Check out his fantastic astronomy newsletter here: https://colinstuart.substack.com.

Edited and animated by Siji Sheehan.
Narrated by David Kelly.
Thumbnail Art by Ettore Mazza.
Audio editing by Jack White and Peter Halstead.
Mastering by Craig Stevenson.
Extra animations by @ArtandContext (Manuel Rubio)
Extra animations by Jero Squartini https://www.fiverr.com/share/0v7Kjv using Manim — MIT License, © 2020–2023 3Blue1Brown LLC

A huge thanks to our Ho’oleilana Patreon supporters — James Keller, Unpunnyfuns, Ramsay Chambers, Matthew Williams and Mike Cumings, Jr.

Footage from Videoblocks, Artlist. Other footage from NASA and ESO.
Music from Epidemic Sound, Artlist, Silver Maple and Yehezkel Raz.
Images of scientists frequently from the AIP
Icons from The Noun Project.
Quantum Fluctuations by Derek Leinweber.

00:00 Introduction.
04:18 Will The Universe Go On Forever?
17:42 What Lingers In The Long Night?
33:20 What Would It Mean?
46:20 Everything Everywhere

Read more

A new entanglement-enhanced quantum sensing scheme

Over the past decades, quantum scientists have introduced various technologies that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects, including quantum sensors, computers and memory devices. Most of these technologies leverage entanglement, a quantum phenomenon via which two or more particles become intrinsically linked and share a unified quantum state, irrespective of the distance between them.

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