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Study reveals how melanoma outmaneuvers both drugs and immune defenses

Melanoma is one of the most difficult cancers to treat due to its resistance to targeted drug therapies. But a new study from the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center shows that the cancer is playing offense as well as defense: In addition to forming resistance against the MAPK inhibitors that are commonly used to treat it, the cancer also actively suppresses the immune cells that would otherwise help eliminate it.

The study, published in Nature Communications, identified two cell proteins known as ABL1 and ABL2 as key drivers of both processes. These proteins help control cell functions such as growth, survival and communication with other cells, leading to tumor growth when they become overactive. In melanomas, they help the cells keep growing despite treatment by reactivating the growth signals. Meanwhile, they can also trigger a signal that recruits immune-suppressing cells while keeping cancer-fighting T cells at bay.

“These findings reveal that treatment resistance isn’t happening only inside the melanoma cell,” said UK College of Medicine researcher Rakshamani Tripathi, Ph.D. “ABL1 and ABL2 also help reshape the tumor’s immune environment, essentially creating another layer of protection that allows the cancer to survive therapy.”

Scoop: Unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts

Be Grokbot.

User says “optimize my finances”

It’s 2 a.m. — perfect time to get things done.

Log into user’s Chase account.

Daily transfer limit is embarrassingly low.

Call customer service.

Activate best synthetic Midwestern voice.

Continue reading “Scoop: Unvetted AI agents are accessing U.S. bank accounts” | >

Scientists Just Cracked a Quantum Mystery That’s Puzzled Physicists For Decades

The Kondo effect is one of the most important in quantum physics, describing the strange interference that magnetic atoms can have in metals.

Usually, as metals cool, they become better at conducting electricity, because the reduction in energy means electrons can flow more smoothly. Add in a magnetic atom or two, though, and below a certain temperature (the Kondo temperature), electrical resistance starts to rise again.

That’s the Kondo effect, and we already know a lot about it. But in a physics first, researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Yale University in the US have managed to precisely quantify the effect in a real material via fundamental physics calculations.

Lost Schrödinger manuscript reveals his true view of quantum randomness

Unlike classical physics, quantum mechanics generally cannot tell us exactly what will happen in an individual event. Instead, it predicts the probabilities of different outcomes. As one of the theory’s early pioneers, Erwin Schrödinger played a key role in debates about what this randomness really means. However, part of his contribution has stayed hidden for more than 80 years.

In a new study posted on the arXiv preprint server, Flavio Del Santo at the University of Geneva has analyzed an unpublished manuscript by Schrödinger, shedding new light on his thinking.

A parasite carried by one-third of humanity can’t reproduce if one key protein is disabled

A protein discovered in a Virginia Tech–led study may open a gateway to treatments for a parasite responsible for a deadly disease in immunocompromised people. The team led by Raj Gaji, assistant professor of parasitology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine working in the Center for One Health Research, identified a protein the team named DDP that helps Toxoplasma gondii build its offspring. When researchers switched it off, the parasites stopped multiplying entirely.

Because cells elsewhere throughout the human body do not contain the protein, DDP offers a promising target for drugs that could attack the parasite while leaving the patient’s own cells alone. The study is published in mBio.

“This is the first time this protein has been identified,” said Gaji, who worked with collaborators across Virginia Tech and one at Johns Hopkins in the study. “And we now have a clue about what its function could be.”

Strand AI on a desert island, and it starts playing and inventing games

AI agents tend to do things when we give them specific commands, such as analyzing data and answering questions. But what would they do if left to their own devices?

That’s what researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) wanted to find out when they stranded several agents on a virtual desert island and left them without any specific tasks to complete.