Researchers discover that language and Theory of Mind originate in separate brain regions in children, challenging theories of overlapping cognitive development.
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Tapping your genome with AI and quantum computing could deliver on the promise of personalized medicine — but practical and ethical hurdles remain
Combining AI with quantum computing could enable doctors and researchers to analyze the human body at an unprecedented molecular level, unlocking breakthroughs in personalized medicine. Yet significant quantum technology hurdles remain before this vision becomes reality.
Astronomers Find the Edge of the Milky Way’s Star-Forming Disc
Where exactly is the edge of the Milky Way? That question is harder to answer than one might expect. Since we’re inside of the galaxy itself, it’s obviously hard to judge the “edge” to begin with. But it gets even more complicated when defining what the edge even is — the galaxy simply gets less dense the farther away from the center it goes. A new paper by researchers originally at the University of Malta thinks they have an answer though. The “edge” can be defined as the star-forming region, and in their paper, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, they very clearly show that “edge” to be between 11.28 and 12.15 kiloparsecs (or about 40,000 light years) from the center.
Even finding that edge was no easy task, though. The researchers had to analyze the ages of over 100,000 giant stars from the data of several different surveys, including APOGEE-DR17, LAMOST-DR3 and Gaia. In the data they found an interesting story about the evolution of the position of stars in the galaxy, and their age.
That relationship can be thought of as a U curve. In this case, the Y axis is age, and the X axis is the distance from the galaxy’s center. A picture (or graph in this case) is worth a thousand words, but in words that simply means that stars closer to the center of the galaxy are older, and get progressively younger out to a certain point, and then start getting older again. That “certain point”, according to the authors, is the end of the galaxy’s star-forming region, and hence, the “edge” of the galaxy.
Quantum Energy Teleportation is REAL!
Remove your personal information from the web at https://joindeleteme.com/SPACETIMEThe vacuum of space is a chaotic sea of quantum fluctuations. Some have sa…
Best of NVIDIA GTC San Jose 2026 : AI Breakthroughs & Sessions
Watch the Best of NVIDIA GTC on demand.
Abstract: Newborns’ immune systems are uniquely primed to tolerate harmless antigens
https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI200062 Here, Tiffany C. Scharschmidt & team report on the early life window for immune tolerance using human samples, finding naïve CD4+ T cells in cord blood have distinct metabolic traits that enable their regulatory potential.
The schematic shows mass cytometry metabolic markers in their corresponding pathways.
Address correspondence to: Tiffany C. Scharschmidt, 1701 Divisadero Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, California 94,115, USA. Phone: 415.476.1696; Email: [email protected].
We may finally have a cure for many different autoimmune conditions
Our immune systems never stop targeting cells they regard as a threat, so it’s really bad news when rogue immune cells mistakenly turn on us, as they do in autoimmune conditions. Existing treatments suppress these attacks, but don’t stop them. But a new approach that addresses the cause of these disorders by killing off the rogue cells is proving wildly successful.
“All the big pharma companies are jumping on the bandwagon now,” says Reuben Benjamin at King’s College London. There are dozens of clinical trials under way around the world, and the first treatments could be approved as early as next year, he says, as they’re proving to be vastly superior to those currently used.
The key to these new treatments are genetically engineered cells known as CAR T-cells. These are made from the T-cells that your immune system usually employs to kill off invasive bacteria or virus-infected cells. The T-cells are extracted from a person, programmed to attack a specific kind of cell and then returned to that individual.
Image: Location South/Alamy
A revolutionary cancer treatment is now being applied to a wide range of autoimmune disorders. Columnist Michael Le Page finds it is proving to be even more effective than expected.
In vivo evolution of antibody CR3022 expands cross-neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 variants and informs pan-sarbecovirus immunity
Fu et al. use Ig-humanized mice expressing the germline CR3022 heavy chain to reveal how somatic hypermutation rapidly adapts this antibody class for broad sarbecovirus recognition. Sequential immunization drives CR3022-like maturation, while structural analyses show that increased affinity and breadth arise from subtle polar and electrostatic refinements.
Asymmetry Control in a Parametric Oscillator for the Quantum Simulation of Chemical Activation
Researchers have demonstrated a superconducting quantum circuit that simulates tunneling in chemical reactions, revealing unexpected quantum effects in state transitions.
The work enables controlled study of quantum dynamics in chemistry-like energy landscapes and highlights superconducting circuits as powerful tools for exploring chemical processes.
Read more in PRX Quantum.
A continuously driven Kerr parametric oscillator simulates a dissipative quantum system with applications to reactions in quantum chemistry.