LVK reveals latest catalog of gravitational-wave discoveries
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Study finds type 2 diabetes blood factors drive breast cancer aggression
People with type 2 obesity-driven diabetes tend to have more aggressive breast cancers, but no one knows exactly why. A new study by researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and published in Communications Biology found that tiny particles in the blood, known as exosomes, which are altered by diabetes, can reprogram immune cells inside tumors, making them weaker and allowing the cancer to grow and spread more easily.
“This is the first study to directly link exosomes from people with type 2 diabetes to suppressed immune activity inside human breast tumors,” said corresponding author Gerald Denis, Ph.D., the Shipley Prostate Cancer Research Professor at BU.
In the study, researchers used tumor samples from breast cancer patients to grow 3D tumor models in the lab. Known as patient-derived organoids, these models contain the immune cells originally found in the tumor. These mini-tumors were treated with blood exosomes from people with and without diabetes but also without any cancer. The researchers analyzed the organoids using single-cell RNA sequencing to see how the exosomes affected the immune cells and the tumor itself.
New study reveals how pigments affect the weight of bird feathers
Birds are some of the most striking creatures on Earth, coming in a rainbow of colors that serve several important functions, such as attracting a mate and communicating with other birds. These vibrant hues are produced by pigments, primarily melanin, but a major unknown until now was how much these pigments weigh. Since wings need to be as light as possible for flight, understanding pigmentation weight may tell us something about the trade-off between the evolutionary benefits of colored feathers and the physical cost of carrying that weight.
In a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, scientists from Spain have investigated how much melanin adds to the weight of feathers and the difference in weight between the two main chemical forms of melanin—eumelanin (responsible for brown and black colors) and pheomelanin (responsible for reds and lighter colors).
The researchers analyzed the feathers from 109 bird specimens across 19 different species, including the common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis), the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and the Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). They examined feathers with mixed colors and those with single, pure colors, and used a chemical process involving sodium hydroxide or caustic soda, as it is more commonly known, to extract the pigments. Once extracted, they were weighed and compared to the original weight of the feathers.
Distinct prefrontal pathways shown to separate reward motivation from threat reactivity
University of Cambridge researchers report that inactivating dorsolateral prefrontal cortex area 46 in marmosets blunts appetitive motivation and heightens threat reactivity, with effects mediated through asymmetric left-hemisphere pathways.
The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is implicated in higher-order processes such as attention, abstract thought, working memory, and inhibitory control. It is also a target for noninvasive brain stimulation in treatment-resistant depression.
Previous studies have shown that dlPFC transcranial magnetic stimulation improves depressive and comorbid anxiety symptoms and modulates activity in subcallosal cingulate cortex area 25, a region linked to therapeutic success.
Cognitive behavioral therapy can alter brain structure and boost gray matter volume, study shows
Psychotherapy leads to measurable changes in brain structure. Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Münster have demonstrated this for the first time in a study in Translational Psychiatry by using cognitive behavioral therapy.
The team analyzed the brains of 30 patients suffering from acute depression. After therapy, most of them showed changes in areas responsible for processing emotions. The observed effects are similar to those already known from studies on medication.
Around 280 million people suffer from severe depression worldwide. This depression leads to changes in the brain mass of the anterior hippocampus and amygdala. Both areas are part of the limbic system and are primarily responsible for processing and controlling emotions. In psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an established method for treating depression.
Fresh insights into the inner workings of the developing brain could lead to autism treatments
While there is a vast amount of information about the human brain and how it develops and works, much of the organ is still uncharted territory. But new research published in the journal Nature is giving us new insights into a type of brain cell called the GABAergic interneuron and its role in the developing brain. These findings could help explain how conditions like autism and brain disorders in children develop.
GABAergic interneurons are a vital part of the brain. They release the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which regulates brain activity by switching neurons on and off. Disruptions in their functions can lead to a number of disorders, including epilepsy, schizophrenia and autism.
Researchers decode tertiary structure of DNA aptamer–ATP complex and improve binding affinity
DNA aptamers are powerful molecular tools in biosensing, bioimaging and therapeutics. However, a limited understanding of their tertiary structures and binding mechanisms hinders their further optimizations and applications.
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a central metabolite in cellular energy metabolism, is a key target for aptamer development. A DNA aptamer 1301b has recently been reported to bind to one molecule of ATP with a dissociation constant (KD) of ~2.5 µM. However, the structural basis for ATP recognition by 1301b remains unclear, lacking guiding principles for rational optimization.
In a study published in PNAS, a team led by Prof. Tan Weihong, Prof. Han Da, and Prof. Guo Pei from the Hangzhou Institute of Medicine (HIM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences determined the tertiary structure of a DNA aptamer-ATP 1:1 binding complex, revealed the recognition mechanism, and engineered an optimized DNA aptamer with a submicromolar KD for ATP binding, which exhibited the highest affinity reported for ATP-binding DNA aptamers to date.
Breaking the code in network theory: Bimodularity reveals direction of influence in complex systems
As summer winds down, many of us in continental Europe are heading back north. The long return journeys from the beaches of southern France, Spain, and Italy once again clog alpine tunnels and Mediterranean coastal routes during the infamous Black Saturday bottlenecks. This annual migration, like many systems in our world, forms a network—not just of connections, but of communities shaped by shared patterns of origin and destination.
This is where network science —and in particular, community detection—comes in. For decades, researchers have developed powerful tools to uncover communities in networks: clusters of tightly interconnected nodes. But these tools work best for undirected networks, where connections are mutual. Graphically, the node maps may look familiar.
These clusters can mean that a group of people are all friends on Facebook, follow different sport accounts on X, or all live in the same city. Using a standard modularity algorithm, we can then find connections between different communities and begin to draw useful conclusions. Perhaps users in the fly-fishing community also show up as followers of nonalcoholic beer enthusiasts in Geneva. This type of information extraction, impossible without community analysis, is a layer of meaning that can be leveraged to sell beer or even nefariously influence elections.
3D-printed superconductor achieves record performance with soft matter approach
Nearly a decade after they first demonstrated that soft materials could guide the formation of superconductors, Cornell researchers have achieved a one-step, 3D printing method that produces superconductors with record properties.
The advance, detailed in Nature Communications, builds on years of interdisciplinary work led by Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and could improve technologies such as superconducting magnets and quantum devices.
Wiesner and colleagues reported in 2016 the first self-assembled superconductor using block copolymers—soft, chain-like molecules that naturally arrange themselves into orderly, repeating nanoscale structures. By 2021, the group found that these soft material approaches could produce superconducting properties on par with conventional methods.