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A Distinct New Type of Diabetes Is Officially Recognized

This year, the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) officially recognized a fifth form of diabetes, after decades of controversy. It’s now urging other health authorities, like the World Health Organization (WHO), to follow suit.

Type 5 diabetes is rarely discussed or researched, and yet it is thought to impact up to 25 million people worldwide, especially those in low-and middle-income nations where access to medical care is limited.

It was first described in 1955 in Jamaica, then forgotten about for many years. Even once it was acknowledged by the WHO in the 1980s, the diagnosis created controversy.

Abdominal obesity and muscle loss increase the risk of death by 83% after age 50, study finds

A study by researchers at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in Brazil, in partnership with University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom, concluded that the combination of abdominal fat and muscle loss increases the risk of death by 83%, compared to people without these conditions.

This combination is so dangerous that it identifies an even greater problem: sarcopenic obesity. This condition is characterized by loss of muscle mass while gaining fat throughout the body. It is a difficult condition to diagnose, and it is related to loss of autonomy and a worsening quality of life in older adults. It is also known as frailty syndrome and is associated with an increased risk of falls and other comorbidities.

“In addition to assessing the risk of death associated with abdominal obesity and low muscle mass, we were able to prove that simple methods can be used to detect sarcopenic obesity. This is important because the lack of consensus on diagnostic criteria for this disease makes it difficult to detect and treat,” says Tiago da Silva Alexandre, a professor in the Department of Gerontology at UFSCar and one of the authors of the study.

The Causal Accessibility Horizon: A Structural Limit on Finite-Time Reachability

Across physics, chemistry, biology, and engineered systems, the operationally significant questionis often not whether a system will eventually reach a particular state, but whether it can be broughtthere within the time available. This paper establishes a single structural necessity: when causalresponse propagates at finite speed, there exist states that are theoretically admissible but practicallyunreachable within any finite time horizon. We formalize this as the causal accessibility horizon—ageometric boundary determined solely by propagation speed and actuation geometry, beyond whichno control action can have effect by a given time T. This constraint is categorical: it arises fromthe hyperbolic structure of finite-speed dynamics and is logically independent of dissipation, whichgoverns amplitude decay within the accessible region but does not determine its boundary. Theresult reframes questions of control, safety, and stabilization as finite-time reachability problemssubject to irreducible geometric limits.

Scientists Built a Working Brain—And Now the ‘Possibilities Are Endless,’ a Scientist Says

Even consciousness could reveal its secrets someday with this realistic simulation, researchers hope. It will not only provide an inner window on brain disorders, but may become sophisticated enough to mimic the human brain’s full complexity.

Study Sheds New Light on Tanning Bed Melanoma Risks

Frequent tanning bed users may have up to an eight times greater risk for melanoma than people considered at high risk for melanoma who don’t use tanning beds, according to a new study that also showed how tanning beds alter melanoma-linked DNA on the molecular level and damage areas of skin not usually exposed to the sun.

A case-control cohort study of patients considered at high risk for melanoma finds that tanning bed users have higher rates of melanoma and disease with significantly more mutations.

Behold the Manifold, the Concept that Changed How Mathematicians View Space

The world is full of such shapes—ones that look flat to an ant living on them, even though they might have a more complicated global structure. Mathematicians call these shapes manifolds. Introduced by Bernhard Riemann in the mid-19th century, manifolds transformed how mathematicians think about space. It was no longer just a physical setting for other mathematical objects, but rather an abstract, well-defined object worth studying in its own right.

This new perspective allowed mathematicians to rigorously explore higher-dimensional spaces—leading to the birth of modern topology, a field dedicated to the study of mathematical spaces like manifolds. Manifolds have also come to occupy a central role in fields such as geometry, dynamical systems, data analysis, and physics.

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