Clinical trial data show that gene therapy can improve hearing in adults as well as in children with mutations in the otoferlin gene (OTOF).
Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.
Psilocybin treatment extends cellular lifespan and improves survival of aged mice
Psilocybin, the naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by hallucinogenic mushrooms, has received attention due to considerable clinical evidence for its therapeutic potential to treat various psychiatric and neurodegenerative indications. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain enigmatic, and few studies have explored its systemic impacts. We provide the first experimental evidence that psilocin (the active metabolite of psilocybin) treatment extends cellular lifespan and psilocybin treatment promotes increased longevity in aged mice, suggesting that psilocybin may be a potent geroprotective agent.
Kato, K., Kleinhenz, J.M., Shin, YJ. et al. Psilocybin treatment extends cellular lifespan and improves survival of aged mice. npj Aging 11, 55 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41514-025-00244-x.
Finland breaks quantum record with 1-millisecond qubit coherence
Finnish researchers have advanced quantum computing by achieving a record coherence time for transmon qubits.
Devices that pull water out of thin air poised to take off
More than 2 billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water, with global warming and competing demands from farms and industry expected to worsen shortages. But the skies may soon provide relief, not in the form of rain but humidity, sucked out of the air by “atmospheric water harvesters.” The devices have existed for decades but typically are too expensive, energy-hungry, or unproductive to be practical.
Now, however, two classes of materials called hydrogels and metal-organic frameworks have touched off what Evelyn Wang, a mechanical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), calls “an explosion of efforts related to atmospheric water harvesting.”
So far, none of the devices can compete with established approaches to augment water supplies, such as desalinating seawater. But some applications—cooling data centers and slaking the thirst of soldiers on the move—could support higher costs until the technology scales up, says Samer Taha, CEO of Atoco, a California-based startup. “There are many applications where atmospheric water harvesting can help.”
