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A hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy of space immunology

With the advent of commercial spaceflight, an increasing number of people may be heading into space in the coming years. Some will even get a chance to fly to the moon or live on Mars.

One of the major health risks associated with spaceflight involves the immune system, which normally fights off viruses and cancer. It’s already established that spaceflight weakens immunity; current and past astronauts report clinical issues such as respiratory illnesses and skin rashes. These issues may become even more serious on longer-term flights, such as to Mars.

To better understand the full scope of immunology during spaceflight, Buck Associate Professor Dan Winer, MD, working with colleagues linked to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), Cornell University, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Toronto, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, and others, have put together a comprehensive guide describing a full array of science linking spaceflight and the immune system.

How bacteria in tumors drive treatment resistance in cancer

Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered a previously unknown mechanism that explains how bacteria can drive treatment resistance in patients with oral and colorectal cancer. The study was published today in Cancer Cell.

Tumor-infiltrating bacteria have been known to impact cancer progression and treatment, but very little is understood about how they do this. The new study shows how certain bacteria—particularly Fusobacterium nucleatum (Fn)—can induce a reversible state, known as quiescence, in cancer epithelial cells. This allows tumors to evade the immune system and resist chemotherapy.

“These bacteria-tumor interactions have been hiding in plain sight, and with new technologies we can now see how microbes directly affect cancer cells, shape tumor behavior and blunt the effects of treatment,” said corresponding author Susan Bullman, Ph.D., associate professor of Immunology and associate member of MD Anderson’s James P. Allison Institute.

Caretaker AI & Genus Loci

Meet the caretaker AIs: guardians of planets, habitats, and civilizations. What happens when machines become the spirit and soul of the worlds they protect?

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New air filter could turn every building into a carbon sink

Despite decades of warnings and increasing efforts to fight climate change, global carbon emissions are still rising. While cutting emissions from the source is a common way we address this problem, another crucial strategy is actively removing carbon from the atmosphere. Current centralized DAC (direct-air-capture) plants are expensive and take up a lot of land, so scientists have developed a carbon dioxide-catching air filter that can fit into existing ventilation systems of homes and offices around the world.

The researchers describe their filter in a paper published in Science Advances. It is made of tiny carbon threads known as nanofibers that are coated with a polyethylenimine polymer. This combination makes an incredibly effective carbon sponge that captures carbon dioxide molecules from the air, even at low concentrations. The filter can also be cleaned by solar heating or low-energy electricity methods.

The team put their new carbon filter through its paces to see how well it worked. First, they checked how much it could soak up carbon by placing it in a flow system and passing air with a known concentration of carbon dioxide through it. The filter proved highly selective and fast, capturing the molecules and letting the rest of the air pass through.

How social norms evolved over time and differ across countries

When humans interact with each other and engage in everyday activities, they typically follow various undefined rules, also known as social norms. These rules include things like greeting acquaintances in specific ways upon meeting them, not interrupting others when they speak, waiting in line for one’s turn at the post office, and countless other behaviors.

Social norms can differ significantly across and geographical regions. In addition, these unspoken rules are known to have changed considerably across history, as societies evolved and the values guiding people’s behavior changed.

Researchers at the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm and other institutes in Sweden recently carried out a large-scale study investigating the evolution of social norms across time, while also exploring the similarities and differences between the norms in 90 societies worldwide. Their paper, published in Communications Psychology, identifies a common trend in the recent evolution of norms in most societies, while also uncovering characteristic patterns in different types of societies.

DeepMind introduces AI agent that learns to complete various tasks in a scalable world model

Over the past decade, deep learning has transformed how artificial intelligence (AI) agents perceive and act in digital environments, allowing them to master board games, control simulated robots and reliably tackle various other tasks. Yet most of these systems still depend on enormous amounts of direct experience—millions of trial-and-error interactions—to achieve even modest competence.

This brute-force approach limits their usefulness in the physical world, where such experimentation would be slow, costly, or unsafe.

To overcome these limitations, researchers have turned to world models—simulated environments where agents can safely practice and learn.

Insights into Persistent SARS-CoV-2 Reservoirs in Chronic Long COVID

Long COVID (LC), also known as post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 infection (PASC), is a heterogeneous and debilitating chronic disease that currently affects 10 to 20 million people in the U.S. and over 420 million people globally. With no approved treatments, the long-term global health and economic impact of chronic LC remains high and growing. LC affects children, adolescents, and healthy adults and is characterized by over 200 diverse symptoms that persist for months to years after the acute COVID-19 infection is resolved. These symptoms target twelve major organ systems, causing dyspnea, vascular damage, cognitive impairments (“brain fog”), physical and mental fatigue, anxiety, and depression. This heterogeneity of LC symptoms, along with the lack of specific biomarkers and diagnostic tests, presents a significant challenge to the development of LC treatments.

Exploration of tumor-immune landscape in colorectal adenocarcinoma using AI-powered multiplexed image analysis

Colorectal cancer is a high disease burden cancer and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. The first-line treatment option is surgical resection of cancerous tissue. However, the clinical picture becomes more complex for recurrent disease, which occurs in roughly 20% of patients, and a variety of therapies such as adjuvants and immunotherapies have been employed to manage this manifestation of colon cancer. As a result, novel therapeutics are in demand, and a deeper understanding of the tumor microenvironment of colon cancer tissues, such as colon adenocarcinoma, or CAC, is needed.

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