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Selective cGAS Inhibition Is Cardioprotective After Myocardial Infarction

ELetters should relate to an article recently published in the journal and are not a forum for providing unpublished data. Comments are reviewed for appropriate use of tone and language. Comments are not peer-reviewed. Acceptable comments are posted to the journal website only. Comments are not published in an issue and are not indexed in PubMed. Comments should be no longer than 500 words and will only be posted online. References are limited to 10. Authors of the article cited in the comment will be invited to reply, as appropriate.

Comments and feedback on AHA/ASA Scientific Statements and Guidelines should be directed to the AHA/ASA Manuscript Oversight Committee via its Correspondence page.

Clinical and Genetic Spectrum of ATP1A3-Related DisordersA Multicenter Cross-Sectional Study

Background and Objectives ATP1A3-related disorders comprise an expanding group of ultra-rare neurologic conditions, classically including rapid-onset dystonia-parkinsonism (RDP), alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC), and cerebellar ataxia, areflexia,…

Not everyone thinks AI will kill us all

When AI company Hugging Face was hacked by a swarm of rogue OpenAI agents who had escaped their testing environment, the company’s CEO had many things to say.

He called it an unprecedented event – “day one for cybersecurity in the age of agents.”

But here’s one thing he didn’t say: The hack is a sign AI is going to be able to eventually wipe out humanity.

MANA reveals atomic-scale rails for guiding superconducting vortices

Researchers at the Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), one of the centers under the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Japan, discovered that atomic-scale steps can guide superconducting vortices in an ultrathin superconductor. Vortices moved more than 1,000 times more easily along the steps than across them, and this guiding effect could be tuned by temperature and magnetic field.

Superconducting vortices are tiny quantum objects whose movement can strongly influence how superconductors behave. Controlling their direction of motion could therefore be important for developing ultralow-power superconducting technologies. However, directional control of vortices in two-dimensional superconductors has remained challenging. Achieving such control could help develop future superconducting devices that consume less power while improving processing efficiency.

Addressing this challenge, a research team led by Takashi Uchihashi from Research Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA), National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, investigated an ultrathin superconductor with regularly arranged atomic steps on its surface. Scanning tunneling microscopy confirmed the parallel steps and directly visualized vortices located along them. Their findings were published in the journal Physical Review B on July 30, 2026.

How to Face Uncertainty and Take Action: Lessons from a Blind Sailor’s Pacific Crossing

Adventurer Hiro Iwamoto is the first totally blind person to cross the Pacific.

On the World Economic Forum’s #MeetTheLeader video podcast, Iwamoto is joined by crewmate Doug Smith to talk through the ups and downs of the incredible story, explore lessons of #leadership, and speak about the purpose revealed to him in a dream: ‘giving courage and hope to others’

Watch the full episode.

How can leaders move forward when pressure is high and the way is not clear? Blind adventurer Hiro Iwamoto and his ‘seeing eye Doug crewmate Doug Smith sailed across the Pacific in 55 days, from San Diego to Fukushima. The two share key strategies for leaders in taking action despite uncertainty and what’s needed to pick the right partners to make impossible projects a reality. Hiro also shares how he stays calm in moments of extreme adversity, like when whale sank his boat during an earlier attempt leaving him in a life raft for 11 hours amid five-metre waves.
Key takeaways:

Courage means moving forward without waiting for 100% information.

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Dog brains track consonant patterns in speech, a first outside humans

Dog brains segment speech into words in a way previously seen only in humans, a new study from Hungary finds. This suggests that efficient speech processing is not necessarily a consequence of humans’ unique language abilities: Regular exposure to speech alone can reshape how the brain functions, even in a mammalian species evolutionarily distant from humans. The discovery by the Neuroethology of Communication Lab at the ELTE Department of Ethology in Budapest is published in Science.

Humans and language have a unique relationship. No other species possesses language abilities as complex as ours, and the human brain is particularly sensitive to the characteristics of speech. But there is a longstanding mystery: Do we process speech so efficiently because our brains are inherently built this way, or because we are constantly exposed to speech?

“Words are made up of two main types of speech sounds: vowels and consonants. Although vowels are louder and more noticeable, consonants usually form the skeleton of words. In a continuous speech stream, it is easier to detect individual words when we focus on consonants. And from infancy onward, this is exactly what the human brain tends to do. This phenomenon is known as the consonant bias,” says Attila Andics, a cognitive neuroscientist, head of the Neuroethology of Communication Lab and corresponding author of the study.

Distinct subnetworks of the mouse anterior thalamic nuclei

A small region of the thalamus deep in the brain helps connect areas involved in memory, navigation, decision-making, and emotion.

UCLA researchers mapped this region & uncovered multiple pathways linking different parts of the brain. The findings show just how complex the brain’s communication networks can be.

Deep inside the brain lies a crucial communication hub known as the anterior thalamic nuclei (ATN). Think of the ATN as a central switchboard that connects brain regions responsible for thinking, memory, and emotion. While scientists know this hub is essential for learning, navigating our surroundings, and achieving our goals, they have historically struggled to fully map the diverse types of brain cells that make it up.

To solve this puzzle, researchers studied the brains of mice using cutting-edge 3D imaging, genetic tracing, and computer analysis to create a highly detailed, three-dimensional map of the ATN. They discovered that instead of functioning as a single, uniform network, the ATN is actually made up of multiple distinct, parallel subnetworks.

These specialized cellular pathways act like dedicated communication lines. They allow the brain’s centers for thought (the prefrontal cortex), memory (the hippocampus), and emotion (the amygdala) to interact in highly specific ways. Ultimately, this research provides a clearer picture of how the brain wires together our cognitive and emotional processes, allowing them to work in harmony to help us successfully plan and achieve our goals.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60774-6

#neuroscience #thalamus #Computational Neuroscience #BrainMapping #3Dbrainimaging #papezcircuit

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