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Abstract: In obesity, the heart muscle can thicken, preventing it from relaxing properly between beats

While diet and inflammation likely contribute, the underlying molecular mechanism has been unclear.

https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI196238 Here, Junichi Sadoshima & team find direct stimulation of IL-6 transcription by PPARα in cardiomyocytes plays an important role in mediating the initial development of obesity cardiomyopathy.

The figure indicates binding of PPARα to NFkB (via PLA assay).

1Rutgers New Jersey Medical School Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Medicine, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, Newark, New Jersey, USA.

2Precision Medicine Research Center, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.

Address correspondence to: Junichi Sadoshima, Cardiovascular Research Institute, Rutgers Biomedical and Health Science, 185 South Orange Ave., MSB G609, Newark, New Jersey, 7,103, USA. Phone 973.972.8619; Email: [email protected].

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Newly discovered neural connections in fruit flies reveal that inhibitory neurons can also drive movement

Researchers at UC Santa Barbara are coming ever closer to uncovering the neural circuitry that translates stimulus to action, shining light on previously unseen neural connections and lesser-known functions of neurons that underlie behavior. Neuroscientists Durafshan Sakeena Syed, Primoz Ravbar and Julie H. Simpson have found that inhibitory neurons—nerve cells known to be responsible for suppressing movement—actively generate and coordinate the rhythmic limb movements required for grooming in fruit flies.

This work is published in the journal eLife. These findings, according to Syed, do not only demonstrate complexities of the animal nervous system that we are only beginning to learn; they also have potential implications for robotics and biomimetic design.

Mitochondria-Associated MicroRNAs: Emerging Roles in the Pathogenesis of Parkinson’s Disease

💡 by Catanesi, M., et al. (2026). Biomedicines, 14, 313. 📖Read the full text: https://brnw.ch/21x1AQl.

Neurodegenerative diseases continue to challenge modern medicine, with mitochondrial dysfunction emerging as one of their most critical hallmarks. Among the most intriguing recent discoveries is the role of mitochondrial‑localized microRNAs (mito‑miRNAs), small regulatory molecules capable of influencing mitochondrial gene expression and cellular metabolism. As research uncovers their presence and function within the mitochondrial environment, these molecules are gaining attention for their potential involvement in the onset and progression of disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. Understanding how mito‑miRNAs contribute to neuronal vulnerability may open new avenues for diagnostics and therapeutic strategies in neurodegeneration.

Neurodegenerative diseases (NDs) are the most prevalent age-associated disorders, characterized by progressive neuronal loss and cognitive decline. Mitochondrial dysfunction is strictly associated with NDs and represent one of the hallmarks of these disorders, with neurological syndromes frequently representing the primary clinical manifestations of mitochondrial abnormalities. As central regulators of cellular bioenergetics, mitochondria play a pivotal role in both the physiological maintenance and pathogenesis of disease by different regulatory approaches. One of these, microRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding RNAs, are well-established regulators of gene expression across different biological pathways.

A missing link in how the brain regulates appetite

Bile acids at the center of hepato-ocular crosstalk.

Hepatic dysfunction with ocular pathology has been linked to dysregulated bile acid metabolism.

Bile acid imbalance has been shown to drive ocular injury along the gut-liver-eye axis through direct cytotoxicity, disruption of retinal and lens homeostasis mediated by FXR and TGR5 signaling, and immune activation and these mechanisms are implicated across a spectrum of conditions, ranging from inborn metabolic disorders to acquired cholestatic diseases.

The researchers in this review discuss translational potential of targeting bile acid homeostasis and summarize emerging therapeutic strategies, including bile acid-based interventions, targeted drug delivery, and microbiome modulation, that aim to restore systemic bile acid balance.

Thus, bile acid homeostasis act as a unifying therapeutic framework for hepato-ocular comorbidities. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/Hepato-ocular-crosstalk

Health sciences.

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AI + Synthetic Biology: The Most Transformative Technology in Human History | Ben Lamm (Colossal)

This episode was filmed at the 2026 Abundance360 Summit.

This interview explores the groundbreaking work of Colossal in synthetic biology, de-extinction, and AI integration. Colossal CEO Ben Lamm explains how the company is revolutionizing biodiversity preservation, tackling plastic pollution, and creating living products with immense potential.

Get access to metatrends 10+ years before anyone else — https://qr.diamandis.com/metatrends.

Ben Lamm is Co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences

Peter H. Diamandis, MD, is the Founder of XPRIZE, Singularity University, ZeroG, and A360.

Chapters:

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Reducing Wires in Quantum Computers

A wire-sharing protocol can minimize the number of wires in a quantum processor without significantly reducing speed, a new theoretical study shows.

As quantum computers continue to grow in size, one of the bottlenecks is the number of control wires that need to be connected to the quantum bits (qubits). A new theoretical study explores so-called time multiplexing, where one wire controls several qubits [1]. The researchers found that although this strategy requires extra processing time, the delays are less than expected, in part because control signals can be scheduled when certain qubits are busy with computations. The results could spur development of the electronic switches needed for time multiplexing in superconducting quantum computers.

Many state-of-the-art quantum computers consist of 100 or more superconducting qubits that operate inside dilution refrigerators at temperatures near absolute zero. Photos of these devices often show a tall, shiny column filled with dozens and dozens of connected wires—which might be mistaken for the qubits. Instead, these wires carry microwave signals from the room-temperature electronics that control the quantum processors to the micrometer-sized qubits inside the cryogenic refrigerator. The number of control wires can limit increases in the sizes of quantum computers. “You would like to have one wire going down to each qubit,” says Anton Frisk Kockum from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. “But that takes up a lot of space and brings heat into the fridge.”

Using atomic nuclei could allow scientists to read time more precisely than ever

Most clocks, from wristwatches to the systems that run GPS and the internet, work by tracking regular, repeating motions.

To build a clock, you need something that ticks in a perfectly repeatable way. In a pendulum clock, that tick is the regular swinging of the pendulum: back and forth, back and forth, at nearly the same rate each time.

Our team of physicists studies whether an even better kind of clock could one day be built from the atomic nucleus. Today’s best clocks already use atoms to keep extraordinarily accurate time. But in principle, a clock based on a nucleus—the tiny, dense core at the center of an atom—rather than an atom’s electrons, could keep a steadier rhythm because it would be less sensitive to environmental disturbances such as temperature changes. In our research, published in the journal Nature, we measured and interpreted a unique nuclear property of thorium-229 in a crystal that could help make such nuclear clocks possible.

Quantum simulations tackle photon polarization flip, but today’s hardware falls short

For the last 80 years, the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED), which describes all electromagnetic interactions, has been a cornerstone of the standard model, withstanding the scrutiny of countless experiments and agreeing with observations down to the smallest known precisions. Yet, some high-intensity scales of QED remain unexplored, prompting some to wonder if quantum computers could deal with these scales’ inherent complexity.

Physicists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are now testing quantum simulations of these so-called strong-field QED (SFQED) processes, recently translating several processes into the language of quantum computing. Their latest work introduces an innovative method for simulating an SFQED process known as polarization flip on a quantum computer, setting a new benchmark for quantum simulations of high-energy phenomena. The research was published in Physical Review D on March 9, 2026.

3D-printing electronics with focused microwaves redefines possibilities in materials

In a recently published paper in Science Advances, a team led by Rice University’s Yong Lin Kong describes a new 3D-printing process with focused microwaves that overcomes a fundamental constraint of electronics 3D printing that has limited the field’s potential for more than a decade: the inability to heat printed ink—a crucial processing step—without damaging the materials underneath.

The ability to integrate functional materials and spatially program their properties governs both device performance and the limits of what can be built. Existing manufacturing approaches are fundamentally limited in both respects. Electronic components, for instance, are fabricated in massive, centralized foundries, often decoupled from the final device. Integrating them requires complex, labor-intensive assembly that constrains both the form and the function of what can ultimately be created.

Multimaterial 3D printing should, in principle, allow fabrication of free-form architectures in which electronic and mechanical properties are programmed directly into the structure. However, the thermal processing required to render printed electronic inks functional destroys the very materials these devices require.

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