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Excessive use of disinfectants in intensive care patients may raise risk of antibiotic-resistant infections

An international study has, for the first time, revealed a strong and direct link between the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and universal disinfection procedures applied to patients in intensive care units. Published in The Lancet Microbe, the study calls for a reassessment of health care guidelines on the widespread use of disinfectants.

“Our research highlights the unintended consequences of universal decolonization in a global context where antibiotic resistance is an increasing threat,” says Marco Oggioni, professor at the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology at the University of Bologna and one of the study’s authors. “Coordinated efforts to prevent are crucial, but they must not prevent us from critically re-evaluating the tools we use to achieve these goals.”

Universal decolonization is a preventive procedure applied to patients upon admission to . The entire body is disinfected with chlorhexidine—a commonly used antiseptic also employed to sanitize and hospital surfaces—and an additional nasal treatment is administered with another disinfectant, mupirocin.

Information Processing via Human Soft Tissue: Soft Tissue Reservoir Computing

Physical reservoir computing refers to the concept of using nonlinear physical systems as computational resources to achieve complex information processing. This approach exploits the intrinsic properties of physical systems such as their nonlinearity and memory to perform computational tasks. Soft biological tissues possess characteristics such as stress-strain nonlinearity and viscoelasticity that satisfy the requirements of physical reservoir computing. This study evaluates the potential of human soft biological tissues as physical reservoirs for information processing. Particularly, it determines the feasibility of using the inherent dynamics of human soft tissues as a physical reservoir to emulate nonlinear dynamic systems. In this concept, the deformation field within the muscle, which is obtained from ultrasound images, represented the state of the reservoir. The findings indicate that the dynamics of human soft tissue have a positive impact on the computational task of emulating nonlinear dynamic systems. Specifically, our system outperformed the simple LR model for the task. Simple LR models based on raw inputs, which do not account for the dynamics of soft tissue, fail to emulate the target dynamical system (relative error on the order of <inline-formula xmlns:mml=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” xmlns:xlink=“http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink”> <tex-math notation=“LaTeX”>$10^{-2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). By contrast, the emulation results obtained using our system closely approximated the target dynamics (relative error on the order of <inline-formula xmlns:mml=“http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML” xmlns:xlink=“http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink”> <tex-math notation=“LaTeX”>$10^{-3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). These results suggest that the soft tissue dynamics contribute to the successful emulation of the nonlinear equation. This study suggests that human soft tissues can be used as a potential computational resource. Soft tissues are found throughout the human body. Therefore, if computational processing is delegated to biological tissues, it could lead to a distributed computation system for human-assisted devices.

$5M Gift from Leonard A. Lauder Advances Ovarian Cancer Research

The chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies has made a $5 million gift to the University of Arizona Cancer Center. Leonard A. Lauder’s gift supports the clinical and translational research of David S. Alberts, M.D., an expert in ovarian cancer research and treatment.

A 41-year-old longevity doctor says his ‘biological age’ is 24. He takes 3 supplements daily

Dr. Mohammed Enayat has access to all sorts of experimental antiaging treatments at his clinic, but a core part of his longevity routine is pretty cheap and accessible: supplements.

Enayat told Business Insider that his most recent “biological age” tests, taken 18 months ago, said he was 24, or 17 years younger than his chronological age of 41. There’s no consensus on how to define or measure biological age, but Enayat used GlycanAge and TruAge PACE, which measure inflammation and epigenetics, respectively.

The primary care doctor, who’s also the founder of London’s Hum2n longevity clinic, has been closely tracking his health for the past seven years, using wearable tech, including an Oura ring and a Whoop strap, plus regular blood, urine, and microbiome tests.

Pupil Wizard: an app to enhance knowledge of pupillary abnormalities

As neuro-ophthalmology educators, we have sought ways to improve the teaching of pupil-related disorder, focusing on incorporating their dynamic aspects and active learning. Our solution is an app for smartphone and tablet devices. The app, Pupil Wizard, provides a digital textbook featuring a dynamic presentation of the key pupillary abnormalities. It allows the users to interact with a digital patient and explore how each condition responds to direct and indirect light stimuli, near focus, and changes in ambient light (Fig. 1). Moreover, the users can test their knowledge in quiz mode, where random pupillary abnormalities must be correctly identified and multiple-choice questions about them answered.


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To Study Cancer “Kill Switch,” UC San Diego Scientists Will Send Stem Cells to Space

A new cancer treatment discovered by the University of California San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute (SSCI) and developed by Aspera Biomedicines will undergo testing in outer space this spring — this as researchers prepare to launch a clinical trial of the drug on Earth.

Rebecsinib, an investigational cancer drug slated to begin a Phase 1 clinical trial this year for patients with high-risk myelofibrosis or secondary acute myeloid leukemia, will be tested aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on four of the deadliest cancer types: ovarian cancer, metastatic breast cancer, acute myeloid leukemia and glioblastoma multiforme.

June 12, 2025


Rebecsinib, a new cancer treatment discovered by UC San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute will undergo testing in outer space on an additional four of the deadliest cancer types: ovarian cancer, metastatic breast cancer, acute myeloid leukemia and glioblastoma multiforme.

Low Uric Acid Is Associated With A Higher Odds Of Living To 100y

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Stress genes clear dead cells, offering new disease insights

A new study from The University of Texas at Arlington details a novel strategy for how the body clears out dead cells during stress, revealing unexpected roles for well-known stress-response genes—a discovery that could help scientists better understand diseases affecting the immune system, brain and metabolism.

“The body is constantly creating new cells and removing old cells once they die,” said Aladin Elkhalil, lead author of the study and a third-year doctoral student in the lab of Piya Ghose, assistant professor of biology at UT Arlington. “This removal of is just as important as creating new ones, because if the body is unable to rid itself of dead cells, it can lead to various health problems”

Published in PLOS Genetics, the study was conducted on the roundworm C. elegans by Dr. Ghose, Elkhalil and Alec Whited, another graduate student in the Ghose lab. This tiny, transparent organism is a widely used tool in because its see-through body allows scientists to observe live cell behavior, including how cells die. The research team took advantage of these unique features in several innovative ways.