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Stellar stream beyond Milky Way offers new tool to map dark matter

In the image above, a faint trail of stars can be seen stretching across the galaxy. These structures, known as globular cluster stellar streams, are coherent stellar structures that retain a record of their dynamical history and can provide unique insights into the evolution of galaxies and the nature of dark matter.

Globular cluster stellar streams offer astronomers a unique opportunity to map otherwise invisible dark matter and study how it behaves. For many years, they have been difficult to observe because they are extremely faint. However, advances in large astronomical data sets and sophisticated analysis techniques have recently made stellar streams one of the most promising tools in galactic astronomy.

Now, Ph.D. student Julie Kiel Holm from the Niels Bohr Institute and associate professor Sarah Pearson from DTU Space, together with an international team of researchers, have made a discovery that has never been seen before. Their findings have just been published in Nature.

Glioblastoma isoform diversity mapping

Researchers have achieved a major breakthrough in brain cancer research by developing the most comprehensive map to date of isoform diversity in glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer in adults. Using advanced long-read single-cell sequencing, the team uncovered thousands of previously unknown tumor-specific genetic isoforms that had remained invisible to conventional approaches. The discovery reveals a new source of potential therapeutic targets, including candidates that could be harnessed for future personalised cancer vaccines and immunotherapies. The findings were published in Nature Communications.

Glioblastoma is notoriously difficult to treat because tumor cells within the same patient can behave, grow and respond to treatment differently. Understanding this cellular diversity is essential for developing more effective therapies.

Every gene in the human body can produce slightly different versions of its genetic instructions, known as isoforms. These variations can profoundly influence cellular function and in cancer, may determine whether tumour cells are recognised by the immune system or evade detection. Until now, the technology used to study individual cancer cells could read only short fragments of genetic information, limiting researchers’ ability to study full-length isoforms in individual cells.

Potential language-specific brain network identified

The language network in your brain can be seen, even if you aren’t saying a word. For a study published in Nature Communications, researchers used data from more than 1,900 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to find significant support for the existence of a language-specific network of neurons in the adult human brain. They could detect this network even when the people whose brains were scanned were at rest or performing a task unrelated to language, such as putting together a puzzle or listening to music.

“The human brain appears to have a network that’s selective and necessary for language, and we can find that network from the activity in the brain alone,” said Cory Shain, lead study author and assistant professor of linguistics at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. “The simple fact that a person’s brain activity is always going up and down lets us detect where this network is with high fidelity. It’s such an important and stable structure that we can find it no matter what someone is doing.”

Shain and co-author Evelina Fedorenko of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that much of the language network generally spans the left hemisphere and frontal and temporal regions of the brain, but the details of its structure are different for each individual. The study findings could help make a range of advances, including finding therapies for the communication problems caused by strokes or other brain injuries.

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AI is making daily life more expensive, at least for now. Here’s why

The AI boom is proving complicated for everyday Americans. It’s raising the cost of living and stopping the Fed from lowering interest rates. It is making some things faster and easier, but it is also changing how we live.

If other inflation drivers, such as tariffs and the Iran war, don’t drive prices higher from here, many economists think the inflation picture could brighten.

“Inflation remains uncomfortably high, but it’s moving in the right direction,” says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics.

Air traffic controllers head says hiring gamers will help

Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, commended the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Wednesday for its recent hiring surge targeting video game players.

Daniels told NewsNation, The Hill’s sister company, that gaming skills “absolutely” translate to working as an air traffic controller and called the FAA’s move an “innovative approach to capture the attention of the American youth.”

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