In a paper published in Cell, a USC Stem Cell-led team reports a new way of generating a renewable and expandable supply of the progenitor cells that give rise to macrophages. These immune cells help drive the body’s response against pathogens, and they hold strong promise as the basis for immunotherapies against cancer and other diseases.
The paper, “Expansion and CAR Engineering of Granulocyte-Monocyte Progenitors for Cellular Immunotherapy,” demonstrates that progenitor cells known as granulocyte-monocyte progenitors (GMPs), which give rise to macrophages and other immune cells, can be extensively expanded in the laboratory and engineered both to target specific cancer markers and to help stimulate broader immune responses.
“The study establishes a scalable and engineerable GMP platform for cellular immunotherapy and introduces concepts that we believe could have broad implications for both cancer immunotherapy and stem cell biology,” said the paper’s corresponding author Qi-Long Ying, MD, Ph.D., professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
This morning, I revisited the Riemann Hypothesis from a zero–pole perspective 🧮✨ and introduced a new reciprocal formulation called the Srichan Teza Function. https://lnkd.in/gkFRTfX3 The idea is simple 🔄: Start from the completed zeta function ξ(s) = 1/2 · s(s − 1)π⁻ˢᐟ² Γ(s/2)ζ(s) and define T_S(s) = 1/ξ(s) Then every zero of ξ(s) becomes a pole of T_S(s): ξ(ρ) = 0 ⇔ T_S(s) has a pole at s = ρ So RH can be reframed as a pole-localization problem 🕳️📍: All poles of T_S(s) in the critical strip must lie on Re(s) = 1/2 Using the argument principle 🔁, P_T(D) = 1/(2πi) ∮∂D ξ′(s)/ξ(s) ds counts the number of Teza poles inside a domain D. Geometrically, this is the winding number of the curve ξ(∂D) around the origin 📐🌀
We welcome proposals across a wide range of topics, including science, engineering, technology development, human factors, public policy, economics, and other key areas shaping the future of the Red Planet.
This global gathering will bring together scientists, engineers, policymakers, industry leaders, and space advocates to share ideas, research, and strategies for advancing human exploration of Mars. Whether your work is technical, conceptual, or interdisciplinary, we encourage you to contribute to the conversation.
Aeran and colleagues present research on targeted gene therapy vector engineering and pre-clinical testing of neuron-targeted AAV9-based constructs for STXBP1-related neurodevelopmental and epileptic encephalopathies. Candidate vectors designed to target specific neuronal types and detarget tissues associated with toxicity produced robust phenotypic reversal in Stxbp1 +/− mice and were well tolerated in monkeys.
Can humanity ever travel faster than light, or does every shortcut through spacetime break causality itself? We explore warp drives, wormholes, tachyons, and why the universe pushes back.
Get Nebula using my link for 50% off an annual subscription: https://go.nebula.tv/isaacarthur. Watch my exclusive video Nearby Supernovae: https://nebula.tv/videos/isaacarthur–… SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall… 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net ❤️ Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur ⭐ Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… 👥 Facebook Group: / 1,583,992,725,237,264 📣 Reddit Community: / isaacarthur 🐦 Follow on Twitter / X: / isaac_a_arthur 💬 SFIA Discord Server: / discord Credits: The Physics of FTL Travel Written, Produced & Narrated by: Isaac Arthur Editor: Lukas Konecny Music Courtesy of Stellardrone & Chris Zabriskie Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:12 Faster Than Light Is the Wrong Question 4:18 Spacetime Engineering: Moving the Map Instead of the Ship 5:24 Warp Drives: Surfing Spacetime 11:46 Wormholes: Shortcuts with a Side of Time Travel 13:20 Hyperspace: Shortcuts Through the Bulk 15:11 Solitons: The Positive Energy Challenge 17:35 The Krasnikov Tube: Building a Star-Road 20:30 Natural Relativistic Loopholes: Cosmic Strings and Tipler Cylinders 25:05 Tachyons: The Simplest Way to Break Time 28:04 Vacuum & Time-Advance Effects: When Causality Bends, Just a Little 32:19 Quantum Red Herrings 35:42 Nebula 36:54 Why the Universe Pushes Back: Chronology Protection and Self-Defeating Physics.
🛒 SFIA Merchandise: https://isaac-arthur-shop.fourthwall… 🌐 Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net. ❤️ Support us on Patreon: / isaacarthur. ⭐ Support us on Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/isaac-a… 👥 Facebook Group: / 1583992725237264 📣 Reddit Community: / isaacarthur. 🐦 Follow on Twitter / X: / isaac_a_arthur. 💬 SFIA Discord Server: / discord. Credits: The Physics of FTL Travel. Written, Produced \& Narrated by: Isaac Arthur. Editor: Lukas Konecny. Music Courtesy of Stellardrone \& Chris Zabriskie. Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images.
Chapters. 0:00 Intro. 0:12 Faster Than Light Is the Wrong Question. 4:18 Spacetime Engineering: Moving the Map Instead of the Ship. 5:24 Warp Drives: Surfing Spacetime. 11:46 Wormholes: Shortcuts with a Side of Time Travel. 13:20 Hyperspace: Shortcuts Through the Bulk. 15:11 Solitons: The Positive Energy Challenge. 17:35 The Krasnikov Tube: Building a Star-Road. 20:30 Natural Relativistic Loopholes: Cosmic Strings and Tipler Cylinders. 25:05 Tachyons: The Simplest Way to Break Time. 28:04 Vacuum \& Time-Advance Effects: When Causality Bends, Just a Little. 32:19 Quantum Red Herrings. 35:42 Nebula. 36:54 Why the Universe Pushes Back: Chronology Protection and Self-Defeating Physics.
Most of us have used the sniff test to decide whether a slightly expired bottle of milk or a week-old box of takeout is still good to eat. But while the human nose can be quite astute, it doesn’t always catch everything. Each year, millions of people in the U.S. are sickened by food-borne pathogens that thrive in undercooked or spoiled food.
Luckily for our collective stomachs, a new “electronic nose” developed at UC Berkeley can detect the scents associated with spoiled food much more accurately than the human nose. It can also sniff out the presence of common food allergens, like walnuts and peanuts, which can be deadly for those with sensitivities. The nose is described in a new study published in the journal Science Advances.
“I think ‘smart’ fridges—which come with sensors that you can control on your phone—would be a great application for this kind of technology,” said study lead author Carla Bassil, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer sciences at Berkeley and a member of the Javey Research Group. “How great would it be if your fridge could tell you, ‘Hey, your broccoli’s going to go bad soon, so you should probably eat that,’ Or, ” Your chicken is on its last day’?”
A recent study published in Nature Communications demonstrates precise control over electron spatial arrangement in two directions simultaneously—without any applied voltage—through interface engineering between semimetal bismuth (Bi) thin films and two-dimensional semiconductor MoS₂
Researchers found that in the horizontal direction, the Moiré potential generated by small-angle twisted bilayer MoS₂ confines electrons to specific sites; in the vertical direction, tuning the bismuth film thickness modulates the electron effective mass, enabling switching between two distinct configurations—thinner films favor electron clustering into a trimer (molecular-like bonding) arrangement, while thicker films drive electrons apart into a periodic Kagome-like configuration.
Requiring no external voltage to induce electron confinement, this material system offers a critical foundation for developing charge qubits and ultra-low-power devices, potentially opening new design pathways for next-generation quantum computing and energy-efficient semiconductor chips.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have developed an anti-cancer therapy inspired by bacteria found in cancer tumors.
When tested in combination with radiation in animal models of prostate cancer, it was highly effective — the approach effectively shut down tumor growth. The therapy is made from a fragment of a bacterial protein, a peptide called aurB. In cancer tumors in the animal models, aurB prevented energy production in the tumor cells’ mitochondria, essentially cutting off the tumor’s fuel, the researchers report in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy.
“The mitochondria are very important for a cell to survive; they are the energy factories,” said Tohru Yamada, senior author on the study, associate professor in the departments of surgery and biomedical engineering at UIC and a member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center. “Many cancer cells exhibit altered mitochondrial number and activity, because a cancer cell has to grow aggressively and rapidly. Therefore, the mitochondria would be an ideal target for cancer therapy.”
Quantum materials, materials with properties that are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, have proved to be highly promising for the development of ultra-efficient electronic devices, quantum processors, highly precise sensors and various other technologies. Reliably controlling these materials’ quantum phases would be highly advantageous, as it would enable engineers to tailor and optimize their properties for specific applications.
Researchers at ETH Zurich, in the Quantum Optoelectronics Group led by Prof. Dr. Jérôme Faist and Prof. Dr. Giacomo Scalari, have uncovered a new strategy to stabilize self-organized electronic patterns known as quantum Hall stripes in two-dimensional (2D) electron systems.
Their approach, outlined in a paper published in Nature Physics, entails creating high-quality 2D electron systems, embedding them into carefully designed cavities (i.e., structures that confine electromagnetic fields) and cooling them to ultralow temperatures.
Many natural processes, ranging from magnetism to chemical reactions, entail the movement and rotation of particles at very small scales. In quantum mechanics, particles exhibit both particle-like and wave-like behaviors, and their states can be described mathematically using representations known as wavefunctions.
The reliable manipulation of wave-like properties of particles as small as atoms or single electrons could open new possibilities both for studying matter and for engineering materials with desirable characteristics. Notably, controlling the angular momentum, which is the quantum property related to rotational motion, of ultrasmall particles at ultrafast timescales has so far proved very challenging when only using conventional, laser-based approaches.
Researchers at Universität Konstanz recently devised a new approach to create electron beams with an ultrafast internal torque (i.e., twisting motion). Their proposed strategy, outlined in a paper published in Nature Physics, could be a promising tool for exploring material dynamics and quantum phenomena at atomic and subatomic scales.
