Mass General Brigham researchers find novel biomarkers for tinnitus that are reflective of nervous system’s “fight, flight, or freeze” response, and can be collected by filming patients while listening to unpleasant sounds.
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Can magnetic fields help fight Parkinson’s disease?
An international team has succeeded in using a magnetic field to target structures deep within the brain. The researchers injected magnetic nanoplatelets into the relevant region. By doing so, they succeeded in treating movement deficits in mice suffering from Parkinson’s-like symptoms. The new method is less invasive than standard stimulation procedures using implanted electrodes that are currently used to treat certain Parkinson’s disease patients.
The study from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), RWTH Aachen and the Universities of Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Leuven (Belgium) has been published in the journal Advanced Science.
In Parkinson’s disease, nerve cells in the brain that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine gradually deteriorate. This affects the motor circuits and leads to tremors and other movement disorders. A brain pacemaker may help some patients. This is a small device that is implanted under the collarbone. From there, it stimulates a region deep within the brain called the subthalamic nucleus (STN for short). This changes pathological activity in these neural circuits and can alleviate movement disorders.
Some agentic AI browsers may come with major cybersecurity risks
In the last year or so, artificial intelligence companies have rolled out a spate of web browsers equipped with AI agents. A user might ask one of these agents to plan a vacation, and it will open browser tabs to research routes and restaurants, then make reservations and add events to the user’s calendar. How well it does any of this varies.
New research from the University of Washington found that the most powerful of these browsers also open users up to significant cybersecurity risks. A UW team studied seven popular agentic browsers and found that four create ways for malicious actors to bypass a fundamental cybersecurity protocol called the “same-origin policy,” which makes websites that are open in a browser unable to interact with each other’s information.
Researchers ran a successful proof-of-concept cyberattack on one browser, ChatGPT Atlas. They had a website steal information from another site embedded within it—as if an ad on an email site could snatch sensitive information from the user’s emails. Researchers also found the right conditions for similar attacks in three other browsers: Chrome with Gemini, Claude for Chrome and Perplexity Comet. The browsers that gave agents fewer permissions were generally safer.
Senescent neutrophils: a hidden role in cancer progression
Neutrophils have recently received increased attention in cancer because they contribute to all stages of cancer. Neutrophils are so far considered to have a short half-life. However, a growing body of literature has shown that tumor-associated neutrophils (TANs) acquire a prolonged lifespan. This review discusses recent work surrounding the mechanisms by which neutrophils can persist in the tumor microenvironment (TME). It also highlights different scenarios for therapeutic targeting of protumorigenic neutrophils, supporting the idea that, in tumors, inhibition of neutrophil recruitment is not sufficient because these cells can persist and remain hidden from current interventions. Hence, the elimination of long-lived neutrophils should be pursued to increase the efficacy of standard therapy.
New multiple sclerosis criteria could reveal disease before symptoms appear
The international guidelines for diagnosing multiple sclerosis (MS), called the McDonald criteria, underwent their most significant overhaul in a decade in 2024. The internationally recognized framework is used to diagnose MS by combining clinical, imaging and laboratory findings. Dr. Jiwon Oh, director of the BARLO MS Centre at St. Michael’s Hospital, was among the experts who helped write them.
Now, in a commentary published in Nature Medicine, Oh has brought together nearly 30 of the world’s leading MS clinicians to critically evaluate what those changes mean and where the field must go next to improve health outcomes for people with MS. Many of its co-authors also helped develop the revised criteria in 2024.
“This commentary looks critically at the new criteria and explains why these changes matter, what challenges may arise as they’re used, and what can be done to address them,” explains Oh. “It also takes a broader look at where the field needs to go next.”
Codon Usage Bias in Human RNA Viruses and Its Impact on Viral Translation, Fitness, and Evolution
Synonymous codon usage (codon bias) greatly influences not only translation but also mRNA stability. In vertebrates, highly expressed genes preferentially use codons with an optimal tRNA adaptation index (tAI) that mostly end in C or G. Surprisingly, the codon usage of viruses infecting humans often deviates from optimality, showing an enrichment in A/U-ending codons, which are generally associated with slow decoding and reduced mRNA stability. This observation is particularly evident in RNA viruses causing respiratory illnesses in humans. This review analyzes the mutational and selective forces that shape nucleotide composition and codon usage drift in human RNA viruses, as well as their impact on translation, viral fitness, and evolution. It also describes how some viruses overcome suboptimal codon usage to outcompete host mRNA for translation.
What does it mean to be ‘quantum’? A physicist explains the basics behind Einstein’s spooky actions at a distance
Particles’ properties at the quantum level could one day enable faster computing and better cybersecurity.
AI tool improves DNA-DNA predictions
Researchers have demonstrated a novel AI model that can predict which DNA molecules bind with which other DNA molecules. Providing a more thorough understanding of these hypercomplex binding relationships has utility in applications ranging from biomedical diagnostic tools to DNA computing.
“We often think about binding as a very simple relationship – Molecule A binds to Molecule B,” says the co-corresponding author of the study. “But in biological systems, it’s far from simple. Molecule A may bind to dozens of other molecules, to varying degrees.
Capturing that hypercomplexity is a significant challenge, but it is critical if we want to better understand natural genetic systems, says the author. And capturing that hypercomplexity is also critical if we want to develop tools that make full use of biomolecules, such as diagnostic tools that are sensitive to genetic differences or DNA computing systems that rely on DNA to store and retrieve data.