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Blog – Page 56

In March 2025, The International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation announced its newest elected members, including CIERA Director Vicky Kalogera.

As the ISGRG Fellowship announcement explains, Prof. Kalogera was recognized “for playing a leading role in the astrophysical interpretation of gravitational wave events produced by the merger of black holes and neutron stars”

Established in 1971, the Society aims to promote the study of General Relativity and Gravitation and to exchange information in the interest of its members and the profession. Fellows are elected from among leading scientists in the society’s membership. The full list of past ISGRG fellows may be found here.

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In a study on ovarian cancer cells, researchers from Karolinska Institutet demonstrate how the tumor environment influences how cancer cells respond to drugs by using AI. The study has been published in the journal Communications Biology.

The cancer cells were cultured together with fibroblasts, a type of support cell, and treated with different drugs. Advanced computer programs were used to analyze images of the cancer cells to see how they changed. Fibroblasts play an important role in the . They can promote , spread, and , as well as affect the .

“Our study shows that cultured together with fibroblasts change their appearance when treated with drugs. This demonstrates how the tumor environment influences how cancer cells respond to drugs,” says Osheen Sharma, Ph.D. student at the Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, and the study’s first author.

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A new neuroimaging study has revealed that viewing nature can help ease how people experience pain, by reducing the brain activity linked to pain perception.

Published in the journal Nature Communications, the research offers a promising foundation for new types of non-pharmacological pain treatments.

Using an fMRI scanner, researchers monitored the brain activity of 49 participants in Austria, as they received pain delivered through a series of small electric shocks. When they were watching videos of a natural scene compared to a city or an indoor office, participants not only reported feeling less pain, but scans showed the specific brain responses associated with processing pain changed too.

The study used advanced machine-learning to analyse the brain networks related to pain processing. The team discovered that the raw sensory signals the brain receives when something hurts were reduced when watching a carefully designed, high quality, virtual nature scene. The study confirmed previous findings that suggest nature can reduce subjective reports of pain, and also marks the first clear demonstration of how natural environments influence the brain, helping to buffer against unpleasant experiences.

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Normal glucose regulation (NGR) for prediabetes remission.

Prediabetes remission to normal glucose regulation (NGR), in addition to standard weight loss, lowers type 2 diabetes (T2D) risk more than standard weight loss alone.

Remission of prediabetes to NGR should be considered in guidelines and recommendations for the delay and prevention of T2D.

Future studies will provide evidence whether or not prediabetes remission can protect against incident T2Drelated comorbidities such as cardiovascular and/or chronic kidney disease (CKD). https://sciencemission.com/Prediabetes-remission

Prediabetes is a highly prevalent and increasingly common condition affecting a significant proportion of the global population. The heterogeneous nature of prediabetes presents a challenge in identifying individuals who particularly benefit from lifestyle or other therapeutic interventions aiming at preventing type 2 diabetes (T2D) and associated comorbidities. The phenotypic characteristics of individuals at risk for diabetes are associated with both specific risk profiles for progression and a differential potential to facilitate prediabetes remission and reduce the risk of future T2D. This review examines the current definition and global prevalence of prediabetes and evaluates the potential of prediabetes remission to reduce the alarming increase in the global burden of T2D.

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Quantum technologies operate by leveraging various quantum mechanical effects, including entanglement. Entanglement occurs when two or more particles share correlated states even if they are distant.

When two particles are spin entangled, the (i.e., spin) of one particle can influence that of its entangled partner. This would suggest that the energy of the second particle can be altered via a nonlocal correlation, without enabling faster-than-light communication.

Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Hefei National Laboratory recently carried out a study aimed at testing this theoretical prediction experimentally using two .

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