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Artificial heart valve found to be safe following long-term test in animals

A research team, led by the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge, demonstrated that the polymer material used to make the artificial heart valve is safe following a six-month test in sheep.

Currently, the 1.5 million patients who need heart valve replacements each year face trade-offs. Mechanical heart valves are durable but require lifelong blood thinners due to a high risk of blood clots, whereas biological valves, made from animal tissue, typically last between eight to 10 years before needing replacement.

The artificial heart valve developed by the researchers is made from SEBS (styrene-block-ethylene/butyleneblock-styrene) – a type of plastic that has excellent durability but does not require blood thinners – and potentially offers the best of both worlds. However, further testing is required before it can be tested in humans.

An artificial heart valve made from a new type of plastic could be a step closer to use in humans, following a successful long-term safety test in animals.

‘Universal’ Cancer Vaccine Destroys Resistant Tumors in Mice

Scientists are making encouraging progress in developing vaccines to treat cancer, but so far the therapies have been restricted to specific types of tumor. Now new research points the way to a universal vaccine that could attack a wider range of cancers.

The research led by a team at the University of Florida focuses on “waking up” the immune system to better respond to more types of cancerous cell – tumors that would otherwise be missed for a variety of reasons.

“What we found is by using a vaccine designed not to target cancer specifically but rather to stimulate a strong immunologic response, we could elicit a very strong anti-cancer reaction,” says neuroscientist Duane Mitchell.

A blueprint for error-corrected fermionic quantum processors

An international research team led by Robert Ott and Hannes Pichler has developed a novel architecture for quantum processors that is specifically designed for simulating fermions—particles such as electrons. The method can be implemented using technologies already available today.

Mental time travel: A new case of autobiographical hypermnesia

Remembering past events in minute detail, revisiting them methodically, and reliving past emotions—this is the peculiarity of people with an exceptional memory of their own lives, known as autobiographical hypermnesia, or hyperthymesia. This fascinating condition remains poorly understood, and each new case contributes to our understanding.

In an article in Neurocase, researchers from Paris Brain Institute and the Memory, Brain, and Cognition Laboratory describe the extraordinary mental life of a 17-year-old girl.

Autobiographical memory refers to our ability to remember experiences that have shaped our lives since childhood. It consists of emotional and sensory memories of places, moments, and people, as well as a set of factual information—such as names and dates—that allows us to orient ourselves when we try to recall an episode from the past.

Microglia gene activity shifts across Alzheimer’s stages, revealing possible therapy targets

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder that causes progressive memory loss and a decline in mental (i.e., cognitive) abilities. Statistics suggest that between 500,000 and 900,000 people are diagnosed with this disease every year, while several hundreds of thousands experience dementia or other aging-related cognitive decline.

While there are some available treatments designed to delay cognitive decline in individuals with mild or moderate AD symptoms, a cure for the disease has not yet been identified. A better understanding of the neural, genetic, cellular and that contribute to the disease’s progression, as well as to neurodegeneration in general, could thus be highly valuable, as it could inform the future development of alternative treatments.

Past neuroscience research has identified the key role of microglia in AD. These are specialized that monitor the environment in the brain, clearing out , debris and pathogens. The dysregulation of these cells has been linked to neurodegeneration and to the progression of AD.

Growth strategy enhances efficiency and stability of perovskite solar cells

Photovoltaics (PVs), technological systems that can convert sunlight into electricity are among the most promising and widely adopted clean energy solutions worldwide. While existing silicon-based solar cells have already achieved remarkable performances, energy engineers have been working to develop other photovoltaic technologies that could be even more durable, efficient and affordable.

An emerging type of solar cells that could be manufactured at a lower cost, while still retaining good efficiencies, are those based on a class of materials with a characteristic arrangement of atoms, known as perovskites. These cells, known as perovskite solar cells (PSCs), have been found to attain high power conversion efficiencies and are based on materials that could be easier to synthesize when compared to silicon wafers.

Despite their potential, PSCs still face considerable limitations that have so far prevented their widespread deployment and commercialization. Most notably, improving the efficiency of these cells has been found to adversely impact their stability over time, and vice versa.

The AI breakthrough that uses almost no power to create images

From creating art and writing code to drafting emails and designing new drugs, generative AI tools are becoming increasingly indispensable for both business and personal use. As demand increases, they will require even more computing power, memory and, therefore, energy. That’s got scientists looking for ways to reduce their energy consumption.

In a paper published in the journal Nature, Aydogan Ozcan, from the University of California Los Angeles, and his colleagues describe the development of an AI image generator that consumes almost no power.

AI image generators use a process called diffusion to generate images from text. First, they are trained on a large dataset of images and repeatedly add a statistical noise, a kind of digital static, until the image has disappeared.

Two new methods push graphene’s electronic quality beyond traditional semiconductors

Graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, is known for its exceptional strength, flexibility and conductivity. However, despite holding the world record for room-temperature electron mobility, graphene’s performance at cryogenic temperatures has remained below that of the best gallium arsenide (GaAs)-based semiconductor systems, which have benefited from many decades of refinement.

One key obstacle is electronic disorder. In practical devices, is highly sensitive to stray electric fields from charged defects in surrounding materials. These imperfections create spatial fluctuations in , known as electron-hole puddles, that scatter electrons and limit mobility. This disorder has prevented graphene from realizing its full potential as an ultra-clean electronic system.

Now, in two parallel studies, researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and The University of Manchester (UK) report distinct strategies that finally push graphene past this long-standing benchmark. The results set new records for electron mobility, matching and in some cases surpassing GaAs in both transport and quantum mobility, and enabling the observation of quantum effects in unprecedented conditions.

Minimal 3D model reveals fundamental mechanisms behind toughening of soft–hard composites

Engineers have long grappled with a fundamental challenge: creating materials that are both strong and tough enough to resist deformation and prevent fractures. These two properties typically exist in opposition, as materials that excel in one area often fail in the other.

Nature, however, has elegantly solved this trade-off in like bone, teeth, and nacre, which strategically combine soft and hard components in multi-layered architectures. These blueprints have inspired scientists to develop artificial soft–hard composites—from advanced dual-phase steels to specialized gels and reinforced rubbers—that demonstrate performance exceeding that of their individual components.

While artificial soft–hard composites have shown impressive performance in and , the fundamental mechanisms behind their enhanced properties remain largely unclear. The inherent complexity of these materials, encompassing nonlinear behaviors, intricate internal structures, and multi-scale interactions, has made it difficult to isolate the essential design principles.

Engineers send quantum signals with standard Internet Protocol

In a first-of-its-kind experiment, engineers at the University of Pennsylvania brought quantum networking out of the lab and onto commercial fiber-optic cables using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that powers today’s web.

Reported in Science, the work shows that fragile quantum signals can run on the same infrastructure that carries everyday online traffic. The team tested their approach on Verizon’s campus fiber-optic network.

The Penn team’s tiny “Q-chip” coordinates quantum and classical data and, crucially, speaks the same language as the modern web. That approach could pave the way for a future “quantum internet,” which scientists believe may one day be as transformative as the dawn of the online era.

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