Duke engineers introduce Argus, a robot with no front, no back and 20 eyes, as proof-of-concept for a new design principle called dynamic symmetry.
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‘Pink noise’ can help make anesthesia work better during surgery
In the brain, specific electrical waves are associated with different states of consciousness. For instance, delta waves—also known as slow waves—are especially prevalent during deep sleep, as well as during states of unconsciousness induced by coma and general anesthesia. They are considered a “signature” of these altered states of consciousness.
Over a decade ago, research showed that it is possible to amplify these delta waves through highly precise auditory stimulation, a technique initially studied in the context of sleep.
Now researchers at Université de Montréal are bringing this technique into the operating room to help optimize general anesthesia, which also induces a state characterized by abundant delta waves.
Biomarkers could help identify ICU patients at risk of chronic critical illness
New research, published in The Journal of Immunology, identifies biomarkers of a distinct immune profile that could be used to identify patients at risk for chronic critical illness (CCI) on admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) after traumatic injury. Identifying which patients are at increased risk for CCI could allow doctors to intervene earlier, leading to shorter ICU stays and improved patient outcomes.
“Our findings are highly novel, challenging what scientists have long thought about the immune changes that cause organ dysfunction and mortality in severely injured trauma patients. Rather than the immune system being exhausted, our data show overactivity and dysfunction,” said Dr. Scott Brakenridge, professor of surgery at the University of Washington and senior author of the study.
Severe traumatic injury, such as from a car crash or fall, causes changes to the immune system that can lead to immune and organ dysfunction, as well as recurrent infections. Researchers have long thought this was due to a deficiency in an immune signal, or cytokine, called interferon-gamma (IFN which regulates immune responses.
Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online
We tested a hypothesis that misinformation exploits outrage to spread online, examining generalizability across multiple platforms, time periods, and classifications of misinformation. Outrage is highly engaging and need not be accurate to achieve its communicative goals, making it an attractive signal to embed in misinformation. In eight studies that used US data from Facebook (1,063,298 links) and Twitter (44,529 tweets, 24,007 users) and two behavioral experiments (1475 participants), we show that (i) misinformation sources evoke more outrage than do trustworthy sources; (ii) outrage facilitates the sharing of misinformation at least as strongly as sharing of trustworthy news; and (iii) users are more willing to share outrage-evoking misinformation without reading it first.
Conflict of interest
Address correspondence to: Puneet Opal, Denning Ataxia Center, Department of Neurology, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Ward 10–332303 East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 69,611, USA. Phone: 312.503.4699; Email: [email protected].
AARS1 promotes tumor progression and immune evasion via ATF6 lactylation-mediated tryptophan metabolism in hepatocellular carcinoma
Wang et al. identify a metabolic-immune feedback circuit in hepatocellular carcinoma, in which tumor cell-intrinsic AARS1-mediated ATF6 lactylation activates the TDO2-kynurenine axis to promote Treg differentiation and immunosuppression, while Treg-derived eNAMPT enhances tumor glycolysis and lactate production, revealing a therapeutic vulnerability to AARS1 inhibition combined with PD-1/PD-L1 blockade.
Global density and biomass of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi form symbioses with ~70% of plant species, building hyphal networks that exchange nutrients for host-derived carbon. These tubular networks move ~1 billion metric tons of carbon per year into Earth’s soils. However, we have no quantitative understanding of the hyphal infrastructure required to carry out this resource transfer. We assembled data from 322 studies representing more than 16,000 soil cores across nine biomes and developed machine-learning models to predict hyphal densities globally. With robotic imaging of more than 300,000 hyphae, we calibrated a biomass model from our spatial predictions. We estimate that global topsoils contain 1.10 × 1017 ± 0.13 × 1017 SD kilometers of living hyphae, weighing ~300 ± 60 SD megatons, ~4-to 6-fold the biomass of humans.