Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog – Page 4

Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.

Log in for authorized contributors

New quantum boundary discovered: Spin size determines how the Kondo effect behaves

Collective behavior is an unusual phenomenon in condensed-matter physics. When quantum spins interact together as a system, they produce unique effects not seen in individual particles. Understanding how quantum spins interact to produce this behavior is central to modern condensed-matter physics.

Among these phenomena, the Kondo effect—the interaction between localized spins and conduction electrons—plays a central role in many quantum phenomena.

Yet in real materials, the presence of additional charges and orbital degrees of freedom make it difficult to isolate the essential quantum mechanism behind the Kondo effect. In these materials, electrons don’t just have spin, they also move around and can occupy different orbitals. When all these extra behaviors mix together, it becomes hard to focus only on the spin interactions responsible for the Kondo effect.

Proton Beam vs Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy in Olfactory Neuroblastoma

In patients with advanced olfactory neuroblastoma, IMRT and PBRT yielded similar long-term outcomes and rates of grade 2 or higher radiation-related adverse events. Theoretical benefits of PBRT—such as organ sparing—require further study to clarify potential clinical advantages.

Question Does adjuvant proton beam radiotherapy (PBRT) provide equivalent oncologic effectiveness while reducing radiation toxic effects compared with adjuvant intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for patients with olfactory neuroblastoma (ONB)?

Findings In this propensity score–matched cohort study of 54 patients, patients treated with adjuvant IMRT and PBRT had similar rates of radiation toxic effects and no statistical difference in overall survival and recurrence-free survival.

Meaning PBRT may not improve overall survival, recurrence-free survival, or radiation toxic effects relative to IMRT for patients with ONB.

Entangling gates on degenerate spin qubits dressed by a global field

Global control of a qubits using a single microwave field is a promising strategy for scalable quantum computing. Here the authors demonstrate individual addressability vial local electrodes and two-qubit gates in an array of Si quantum dot spin qubits dressed by a global microwave field and driven on-resonance.

Scientists Discover the Body’s Natural “Off Switch” for Inflammation

A human study reveals how naturally occurring fat-derived molecules help switch off inflammation. Researchers at University College London (UCL) have identified an important biological process that helps the body bring inflammation to an end, a finding that may eventually support new treatments for

Quantum tools set to transform life science, researchers say

A team at Japan’s National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) has published a field-defining Perspective that places the societal payoff of quantum technologies front and center: earlier disease detection, faster drug development, and new routes to clean energy. Their paper has been published online in the journal ACS Nano on December 18, 2025.

Two harmful gene variants can restore function when combined, study reveals

Sometimes, in genetics, two wrongs do make a right. A research team has recently shown that two harmful genetic variants, when occurring together in a gene, can restore function—proving a decades-old hypothesis originally proposed by Nobel laureate Francis Crick.

Their study, to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, not only experimentally validated this theory but also introduced a powerful artificial intelligence (AI)-driven approach to genetic interpretation led by George Mason University researchers.

The project began when Aimée Dudley, a geneticist at the Pacific Northwest Research Institute (PNRI), approached George Mason University Chief AI Officer Amarda Shehu after following her lab’s work on frontier AI models for predicting the functional impact of genetic variation. That conversation sparked a collaboration that married PNRI’s experimental expertise with George Mason’s computational innovation to discover some surprising ways variant combinations can shape human health.

Human heart regrows muscle cells after heart attack, researchers discover

Pioneering research by experts at the University of Sydney, the Baird Institute and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney has shown that heart muscle cells regrow after a heart attack, opening up the possibility of new regenerative treatments for cardiovascular disease.

Following the publication of the study in Circulation Research, first author Dr. Robert Hume, from the Faculty of Medicine and Health and Charles Perkins Center, and Lead of Translational Research at the Baird Institute for Applied Heart and Lung Research, explained the significance of the finding: Until now we’ve thought that, because heart cells die after a heart attack, those areas of the heart were irreparably damaged, leaving the heart less able to pump blood to the body’s organs.

Our research shows that while the heart is left scarred after a heart attack, it produces new muscle cells, which opens up new possibilities.

Diabetes drugs may be changing cancer in surprising ways

Common diabetes drugs may do more than regulate blood sugar—they could also influence how cancers grow, spread, or slow down. Researchers are now unraveling how these medications affect immune function, inflammation, and tumor biology, with intriguing but still uncertain implications.

Researchers are taking a closer look at how medications used to treat diabetes may also influence cancer. While diabetes itself has long been associated with higher cancer risk, scientists are now investigating whether diabetes drugs play a direct role beyond controlling blood sugar levels and body weight. A recent review examines how widely used treatments such as metformin, SGLT2 inhibitors, and GLP-1 receptor agonists may affect cancer growth by changing how cells multiply, how the immune system responds, and how inflammation develops. These insights point to possible new treatment strategies while also highlighting how much remains unknown.

Type 2 Diabetes (T2DM) has been linked to a higher likelihood of developing several types of cancer, including liver, colorectal, and breast cancer. Managing blood glucose and body weight remains essential for people with diabetes, but growing evidence suggests these factors alone do not fully explain the increased cancer risk. This has led scientists to explore how diabetes medications themselves might influence cancer, either by reducing risk or, in some cases, creating unintended effects. Understanding this connection could help clarify how diabetes treatments fit into cancer prevention and care, though further research is still needed to unravel the underlying biology.

/* */