A UCLA study found that macrophages rely on interferon gamma signaling from past infections to preserve innate defenses.
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Similar kinases play distinct roles in the brain—what this could mean for future therapies
Structurally, they look similar: MNK1 and MNK2 belong to the same enzyme family and are best known for regulating how cells make proteins. Their starring role in such a crucial cellular function has cast them into the spotlight as potential drug targets to treat nervous system disorders and chronic pain. But would it matter whether a drug targets only one of them?
In a study published in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers led by Rosalba Olga Proce, a doctoral student in the Molecular and Cellular Basis of Behavior lab led by Dr. Hanna Hornberg at the Max Delbruck Center, set out to determine whether the two enzymes—also called kinases—perform distinct functions in the brain. The team found clear differences. Mice lacking MNK1 showed less interest in newly introduced objects than controls and impaired memory of objects. By contrast, mice without MNK2 appeared normal in object recognition tests but showed enhanced interest in social contacts.
“The behavioral differences we observed suggest that each kinase has a specialized function,” says Proce. “It might be preferable to target each kinase individually when designing drugs.”
Oral vaccine strategy used modified bacterium to combat colorectal cancer
A research team investigating the use of the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes against colorectal cancer has discovered a way to build a modified version of Listeria as an oral vaccine to prime the immune system directly within the gut, where anti-tumor cells are then generated. Details of the work, led by Stony Brook immunologist Brian Sheridan, Ph.D., are published in the Journal for the ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.
Colorectal Cancer is among the most dangerous and deadly cancers worldwide. The American Cancer Society projects there will be more than 150,000 new colorectal cancer diagnoses in the U.S. in 2026 with more than 55,000 deaths. Cancer immunotherapy represents a treatment strategy that harnesses a person’s own immune system to combat cancer. Immunotherapies are used to treat a small proportion of colorectal cancers. However, most colorectal cancers are not responsive to current immunotherapies.
Listeria is a bacterium that can cause infection, but its promise as an immunotherapy for several types of cancer including colorectal cancer has reached pre-clinical and clinical trials.
Quantum entanglement could link distant telescopes for sharper images
To capture higher-definition and sharper images of cosmological objects, astronomers sometimes combine the data collected by several telescopes. This approach, known as long-baseline interferometry, entails comparing the light signals originating from distant objects and picked up by different telescopes that are at different locations, then reconstructing images using computational techniques.
Conventional long-baseline interferometry methods combine the light signals collected by different telescopes using an interferometer. To do this, however, it relies on delicate optical links that bring light beams together and that are difficult to establish when telescopes are located at long distances from each other.
Researchers at University of Arizona, University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center recently proposed an alternative approach to achieve higher resolution telescopy images that leverages a quantum effect known as entanglement. Their proposed approach, outlined in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, allows distant entangled telescopes, which share a unified quantum state irrespective of how distant they are, to extract the same information about a given scene or cosmological image.
Hybrid Cosmopsychism: A Bold New Answer to the Mystery of Consciousness
How Exactly does Panpsychism Help Explain Consciousness?
In this episode, we explore a provocative new theory in the philosophy of mind—hybrid cosmopsy-chism. This hybrid form of panpsychism claims that conscious experience is rooted in the universe itself and distributed through emergent subjects like humans. By combining strong and weak emergence, this view promises to overcome the limitations of both physicalism and dualism, offering a radical yet elegant solution to the hard problem of consciousness.
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What’s Wrong with Panpsychism? | Joscha Bach
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Robinson’s Podcast #219 — Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and the Threat of AI Apocalypse.
Joscha Bach is a computer scientist and artificial intelligence researcher currently working with Liquid AI. He has previously done research at Harvard, MIT, Intel, and the AI Foundation. In this episode, Joscha and Robinson discuss the nature of consciousness—both in humans and synthetic—various theories of consciousness like panpsychism, physicalism, dualism, and Roger Penrose’s, the distinction between intelligence and artificial intelligence, the next developments of ChatGPT and other LLMs, OpenAI, and whether advances in AI will spell the end of humankind.
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William Seager: How strong are the arguments for panpsychism?
What do you think about the foregoing arguments?
Interview from the Conference “Emergence and Panpsychism” in Munich 2011.
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