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Brain Disease Decades Later? Study Links Childhood Surgery to Amyloid Build-Up
A new report describes two unusually young patients who developed cerebral amyloid angiopathy decades after childhood cardiac surgery. Researchers suspect amyloid-beta may have been inadvertently transmitted through cadaver-derived surgical material used at the time. The finding does not mean Alzheimer’s is contagious in everyday life, but it does add to evidence that rare past medical exposures may seed abnormal brain protein buildup years later.
Reference #18.45a42617.1774897640.756bc240
https://errors.edgesuite.net/18.45a42617.1774897640.756bc240
Aerosol jet printing creates durable, low-power transistors for next-generation tech
Tiny electronic devices, called microelectronics, may one day be printed as easily as words on a page, thanks to new research from scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. Building on years of progress in printed electronics, the team has shown how to create durable, low-power electronic switches, called transistors, by combining custom inks and a specialized printing process.
These switches, which control the flow of electrical current to turn circuits on and off, use very little power, are built to last and show new behaviors not seen in earlier printed devices. This research could help create flexible sensors, smart windows and other new technologies that need reliable, energy-saving electronics. The work is published in Advanced Materials Technologies.
How aerosol jet printing works The scientists used a method called aerosol jet printing, which works like an inkjet printer. But instead of regular ink, it uses specially formulated ink made from nanoparticles. The printer turns the ink into a fine mist and sprays it onto a surface, building up layers to form electronic parts.
Astrophysicists trace the origin of valuable metals in space, from colliding stars to merging galaxies
Billions of light years away in a remote part of the universe, two neutron stars—the ultradense remnants of dead stars—collided. The catastrophic cosmic event sent light and particles, including a sudden flash of gamma rays, streaming through the universe. These gamma rays traveled for 8.5 billion years before reaching Earth.
In a new study, our team of astrophysicists examined this gamma-ray signal. We learned that the stellar collision it came from was likely caused by an even more catastrophic encounter—a merger between two galaxies.
This is the first time astronomers associated this type of signal with such a large-scale galactic interaction. Our finding offers new insight into how stellar collisions spread metals across the universe.
Cooperation by non-kin during birth underpins sperm whale social complexity
In an unprecedented observation, researchers in Science captured the birth of a sperm whale calf, documenting how 11 whales from two normally separate family groups coordinated closely to support the newborn for hours after its arrival.
These findings offer quantitative evidence of direct communal caregiving in cetaceans and suggest that short-term, highly coordinated cooperation during critical moments like birth may play a foundational role in maintaining the complex social structures seen in sperm whale societies.
Birth and neonatal care represent particularly revealing contexts for understanding the emergence of cooperation. Cetacean species produce a small number of offspring with long lifespans. Calves are born infrequently and represent a major maternal investment; calf survival depends heavily on immediate support after birth and early caregiving (9). Thus, births offer critical opportunities to study how individuals coordinate in high-stakes contexts. Direct quantitative observations of sperm whale births remain virtually absent (14), with only four sperm whale births being reported over the past 60 years, and all of them either anecdotal or whaling related (15–18).
Within the matrilineal social units of sperm whales, individuals take turns socializing, foraging, and caring for calves across years (19–24). Through decades of observational work (19, 21, 22, 25–28), communal allocare for calves has been identified as the central mechanism driving selection for sociality in this species. Although it has been hypothesized that communal defense and shared parental care underpin the evolution of sperm whale sociality (19, 22, 23, 26), these hypotheses have lacked direct empirical grounding during the birth of a newborn. Newborns are assumed to be negatively buoyant (20, 29) and likely require immediate physical support to breathe, and this potentially shapes the evolutionary importance of cooperative allocare within units (26, 30). Under this framework, the survival of mothers and newborns around birth creates a potentially dangerous environment in which selection is strongly imposed.
Here, we present a high-resolution, multiscale analysis of a sperm whale birth event through the integration of drone-based videography, machine learning, and longitudinal association and kinship data. We quantified how individuals across two distinct matrilines coordinated around the mother and newborn by analyzing and tracking physical support, proximity, orientation, and role distribution over time. Our results suggest that kin and non-kin engaged in sustained, cooperative, postnatal care, taking turns to support the newborn and maintain group cohesion, in contrast to historical kin-segregated foraging patterns (21). These findings provide rare quantitative evidence of direct allocare in cetaceans and can lend support to the hypothesis that transient, structured cooperation during birth is a key mechanism sustaining complex sociality in sperm whales.
Newly discovered recessive neurodevelopmental disorder may be most prevalent ever
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York have identified and described a previously unknown recessive neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) that appears to be the most prevalent ever discovered. The condition is caused by changes in a small noncoding gene called RNU2-2. It is estimated to affect thousands of individuals in the United States and account for about 10% of all recessive NDD cases with a known genetic cause.
The work was done in collaboration with U.S. collaborators in the Undiagnosed Diseases Network led by colleagues at Stanford University and international collaborators in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy. The findings, published in the March 30 issue of Nature Genetics, provide long-awaited answers for many families and may inform future drug development.
The team found that the disorder is caused by a near-complete absence of a molecule called U2-2 RNA, which is produced by the RNU2-2 gene. Children with the condition typically inherit one altered copy of the gene from each parent, although sometimes changes arise spontaneously by genetic mutation. While the parents are unaffected, the combined effect on both copies of the gene in their children leads to disrupted brain development in their child.
Eyal Aharoni — Breaking the Moral Turing Test
Dr. discusses one of the most provocative frontiers in technology: the automation of moral judgement — in his talk focusses on outcomes of a comparative moral Turing test (AI outperforms humans across a range of metrics), as well as AI assisted medical triage!
Link in reply🔗
Eyal Aharoni
Dr. Eyal Aharoni (Georgia State University) to the Future Day 2026 stage to discuss one of the most provocative frontiers in technology: the automation of moral judgement.
Breaking the Moral Turing Test: Studies of human attribution and deference to AI moral judgment and decision-making.
Aubrey de Grey — How close are we to robust mouse rejuvenation, and why does that matter?
Full talk at Future Day 2026 — link in reply 🔗
Polymath and trailblazer in bio-rejuvenation Aubrey de Grey gave a talk at Future Day 2026 on the next phase of robust mouse rejuvenation trials!
Synopsis: The “damage repair” approach to bringing aging under medical control has made huge strides since I first proposed it 25 years ago. However, since it is a divide-and-conquer strategy, we should not be surprised at the absence of progress in the “bottom line” of life extension, even in mice. Can we realistically expect that to change any time soon? I will present reasons to believe that we can, in the form of accelerating progress in proofs of efficacy of individual treatments, together with initial proof of concept that combining damage repair modalities will give additive benefits.
0:00 Intro.
0:29 Talk starts.
1:28 Age related vs infectious diseases.
3:26Epidemic of the chronic conditions of late life — why?
4:42 Ways to be sick: popular view.
7:10 Aging in three words (metabolism, damage, pathology)
11:46 Ways to be sick: correct view.
15:29 What we do these days against aging — Geriatrics.
18:21 Gerontology: A more promising approach?
20:57 Metabolism is complex.
22:37 Maintenance: A common sense alternative.
24:39 Comparison: car maintenance.
26:00 7 deadly things.
29:17 Cell 153:1194 — too many citations to count.
30:22 The first round of the race to RMR (Robust Mouse Rejuvenation)
38:43 Females: yay, additivity!
40:09 Males: messier, but mostly the same story.
41:02 What health indices did we measure?
43:23 RMR2: ASAP! See levf.org/rmr2
46:30 AUBRAI
48:36 Learn more and help!
51:11 How has the longevity industry vibe changed over the last 7 years?
56:32 LEV Foundation only org working on this combination of damage repair regimes.
57:55 Has AI made progress in helping solve aging? In-silico medicine.
1:01:16 Changes to seven deadly things?
1:04:54 Hallmarks of aging — defacto taxonomy — difficulty translating to other taxonomies?
1:06:17 Has the damage repair methodology been attracting people over?
1:09:56 Stradelling both academia and private industry — but what about the state?
1:13:36 Robust Mouse Rejuvenation timelines under ideal funding.
1:19:49 Infections.
1:25:46 Treatment cadence.
#rejuvenation #medicine #health #aging #ageing.