Lifeboat Foundation

X-ALD is the most prevalent of the approximately 50 rare diseases that affect the white matter of the brain, referred to as leukodystrophies. The genetic damage in X-ALD is due to a defect in the X chromosome. Men who are affected by X-ALD experience a progressive deterioration of their mobility, balance, and sensory abilities, leading to issues such as incontinence and sexual dysfunction.

Although X-ALD is inherited through the X chromosome, female carriers can also experience symptoms of the disease. Approximately 30% of male children and 60% of adult men develop encephalitis, which is a fatal form of the disease that leads to death within two to three years. X-ALD affects roughly one in every 20,000 births globally.

Now, for the first time, scientists from all relevant leukodystrophy centers in Europe and the US have jointly succeeded in obtaining controlled trial data for X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy. Of the 116 patients, 77 received the drug leriglitazone and 39 a placebo. The drug had already shown in preclinical studies that it can prevent neurodegeneration and offer protection against the life-threatening inflammation of the brain.

Another orbit around the sun and here we are again: back where we started but spun about — changed, perhaps deranged.

Henry Segerman, a British American mathematician and mathematical artist at Oklahoma State University, has invented just the puzzle for this disorienting annual event: Continental Drift, a 3D sliding puzzle that made its debut earlier this year. The underlying geometric concept is holonomy: When you travel a loop on a curved surface and return to the starting point, you arrive somewhat turned around, rotated, perhaps by 180 degrees.

Human being, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to an invisible tune, intoned in the distance by a mysterious player.

Adding a new layer to the already complex world of metaphysics.

Experts warn that while the fungal parasite featured in HBO’s popular show “The Last of Us” may only be fictional, the threat from real-life fungal pathogens is on the rise around the world.

Last year, Sony AI and Polyphony Digital, the developers of Gran Turismo, developed a new AI agent that is able to race at a world-class level. At the time, the experiment was described in a paper in Nature, where the researchers showed that this AI was not only capable of driving very fast—something other AI have done in the past—but also learned tactics, strategy, and even racing etiquette.

At the time, GT Sophy—the name of the AI—wasn’t quite ready for prime time. For example, it often passed opponents at the earliest opportunity on a straight, allowing itself to be overtaken in the next braking zone. And unlike human players, GT Sophy would try to overtake players with impending time penalties—humans would just wait for that penalized car to slow to gain the place.

An international team of scientists claim to have found a way to speed up, slow down, and even reverse the clock of a given system by taking advantage of the unusual properties of the quantum world, Spanish newspaper El País reports.

In a series of six papers, the team from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna detailed their findings. The familiar laws of physics don’t map intuitively onto the subatomic world, which is made up of quantum particles called qubits that can technically exist in more than one state simultaneously, a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement.

Now, the researchers say they’ve figured out how to turn these quantum particles’ clocks forward and backward.

Physicians routinely prescribe an infusion containing gadolinium to enhance MRI scans, but there is evidence that nanoparticles of the toxic rare earth metal infiltrate kidney cells, sometimes triggering severe side effects, University of New Mexico researchers have found.

In the worst cases, gadolinium, an element that has no biologic function, can trigger nephrogenic systemic fibrosis, a painful disease that affects the skin and organs and is often fatal.

In a new study published in Scientific Reports, a team led by Brent Wagner, MD, MS, associate professor in the UNM Department of Internal Medicine, describes the use of electron microscopy to detect tiny deposits of gadolinium in the kidneys of people who had been injected with contrast agents prior to their MRIs.

That’s aurorae.

Jupiter is well known for its spectacular aurorae, thanks in no small part to the Juno orbiter and recent images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Like Earth, these dazzling displays result from charged solar particles interacting with Jupiter’s magnetic field and atmosphere. Over the years, astronomers have also detected faint aurorae in the atmospheres of Jupiter’s largest moons (the “Galilean Moons”). These are also the result of interaction, in this case, between Jupiter’s magnetic field and particles emanating from the moons’ atmospheres.

Detecting these faint aurorae has always been a challenge because sunlight reflected from the moons’ surfaces completely washes out their light signatures. In a series of recent papers, a team led by the University of Boston and Caltech (with support from NASA) observed the Galilean Moons as they passed into Jupiter’s shadow. These observations revealed that Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto all experience oxygen-aurorae in their atmospheres. Moreover, these aurorae are deep red and almost 15 times brighter than the familiar green patterns we see on Earth.

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