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Milky Way black hole’s missing wind finally found after a half-century-long search

The hunt is over. After more than 50 years of searching, astrophysicists at Northwestern University have finally discovered evidence of a powerful wind blowing from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A•.

According to theoretical physics and a long-accepted understanding of galaxies’ evolution, as black holes consume materials, they should produce wind or jets. Even a small amount of gas falling into a black hole should generate enough energy to push material outwards. Without wind, Sgr A* would be a unique outlier.

But, until now, no one could find it.

Creatine may supercharge immune cells that are key to fighting cancer

Creatine, the organic acid that is popularly taken as a supplement by athletes and bodybuilders, supercharges a critical class of immune cells that activate and prepare the body’s key cancer-fighters, according to new UCLA research.

The study, conducted in mouse models and human cells and published in iScience, builds directly on earlier work from the same lab showing that creatine powers killer T cells in their battle against tumors. Now, the team has discovered that creatine also fuels dendritic cells, specialized immune cells that capture tumor fragments and direct killer T cells to attack.

Most approved cancer immunotherapies work by targeting killer T cells directly, yet only about 20%–40% of patients respond to them. Bolstering the dendritic cells that train and activate T cells could potentially offer a way to bring the benefits of immunotherapy to more patients.

Hidden meltwater found deep in Antarctic coastal waters reveals stronger climate impacts

Freshwater from melting Antarctic glaciers may be influencing the Southern Ocean in ways scientists have largely overlooked. New research, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, has found that glacial meltwater is not confined to the ocean’s surface, as previously assumed, but can also be detected much deeper in coastal waters along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.

The findings suggest that meltwater from glaciers is being transported and stored tens of meters below the surface, where it could alter ocean circulation, affect the movement of heat and nutrients, and influence how the region responds to climate change.

Long-range white-matter pathways enable efficient spontaneous neural activity propagation in the human brain

Efficient brain-wide communication requires neural activity to traverse long anatomical distances rapidly. Here we examine how propagation timing is jointly associated with spatial geometry, functional network organization, and long-range white-matter pathways and their microstructural properties. And we ask whether the same rules govern epileptiform and physiological activity. Using stereo-EEG and diffusion spectrum imaging from 47 epilepsy patients (26 males and 21 females), we quantified inter-regional propagation with two complementary delay estimators: event-based interictal epileptiform discharge (IED) traveling waves and continuous lagged-correlation delays during IED-free periods. We found that IED propagation traversing gray and white matter formed reproducible spatiotemporal motifs that deviated from randomized null models, indicating structured routing rather than random spread. Epileptiform and physiological propagation delays increased over short ranges but saturated at longer distances, indicating that geometry alone cannot account for long-range fast propagation. Beyond geometry, stronger structural connectivity and higher functional connectivity were associated with shorter delays, and intrinsic functional modules facilitated efficient communication: within-network propagation was faster than between-network propagation. Crucially, diffusion-derived quantitative anisotropy (QA) revealed a microstructural mechanism for long-range fast propagation: long-range white-matter tracts showed higher QA, and QA was positively associated with apparent propagation velocity. Together, these results identify convergent, architecture-dependent constraints on propagation timing that generalize across epileptiform and normal activity, providing a principled bridge between macroscale connectome organization and fast intracranial spatiotemporal dynamics.

Significance statement Efficient communication across long anatomical distances is fundamental for the human brain. By integrating stereo-EEG with diffusion spectrum imaging, this study shows that brain-wide information propagation is not determined by distance alone, but is critically supported by long-range white-matter pathways, their microstructural properties, and intrinsic functional network organization. We also find that both pathological epileptiform discharges and physiological spontaneous activity follow shared propagation rules, exhibiting distance saturation, structural facilitation, and preferential within-network transmission. These findings provide a microstructure-grounded account of how the human brain achieves fast, efficient large-scale communication, bridging macroscale connectome architecture with millisecond-scale neural dynamics.

The Brain Health Accelerator Seeks to Revolutionize Neuroscience Research

For decades, researchers across institutions have peered into microscopes and dived into data to try to understand how diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) affect the brain. While scientists have made many important insights into these conditions, breakthrough therapies to cure or even treat them remain out of reach.

To expedite understanding of and treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, the Allen Institute launched the Brain Health accelerator. The project, announced today, is a global initiative that will leverage cutting-edge technology with the goal of improving modeling, therapeutic development, and the understanding of disease mechanisms. With funding support from the Allen Institute, the Bezos family, Amazon Web Services, the National Institutes of Health, EverythingALS, and other partners, the project financial contribution is $400 million.

One of the challenges in studying diseases in the human brain and identifying treatment strategies has been the scale and complexity of the organ. The brain consists of many distinct parts, and studying disease mechanisms requires samples from large numbers of individuals. Additionally, while technological advancements in transcriptomics, proteomics, neuroimaging, and AI have helped researchers study the brain in finer detail, researchers have not always integrated many of these approaches into the same project.

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