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Donor-derived anti-CD7 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy led to complete responses in 18 of 20 patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) T-cell acute lymphoblastic (ALL), a first-in-human clinical trial showed.

After a median follow-up of 6.3 months, 15 of the 18 responding patients remained in remission, and seven patients had undergone stem-cell transplantation (SCT). All patients developed cytokine release syndrome (CRS), which was grade 1/2 in most instances. Because the therapy involved unmanipulated T cells, a majority of patients developed graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), grade 1/2 severity in all cases. All of the patients developed severe cytopenias, which were manageable.

The results provided the basis for an ongoing phase II trial of the donor-derived anti-CD7 therapy, reported Jing Pan, MD, of the State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology and Beijing Boren Hospital in China, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Flying a thrust-vectoring rocket can be a challenge, and even more so if you stack multiple stages and a minimalist flight computer on top of it all. But [Joe Barnard] is not one to shy away from such a challenge, so he built a three stage actively guided rocket named Shreeek.

[Joe] is well known for his thrust-vectoring rockets, some of which have came within a hair’s breadth of making a perfect powered landing. Previous rockets have used larger, more complex flight computers, but for this round, he wanted to go as small and minimalist as possible. Each stage of the rocket has its own tiny 16 x 17 mm flight computer and battery. The main components are a SAM21 microcontroller running Arduino firmware, an IMU for altitude and orientation sensing, and a FET to trigger the rocket motor igniter. It also has servo outputs for thrust vector control (TVC), and motor control output for the reaction wheel on the third stage for roll control. To keep it simple he omitted a way to log flight data, a decision he later regretted. Shreeek did not have a dedicated recovery system on any of the stages, instead relying on its light weight and high drag to land intact.

The Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Science has found settlements that date from roughly 10,000 years ago during the early stages of the Butovo culture, described as the communities of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers that occupied the upper catchment area of the forest zone in Western Russia during this period.

The Mesolithic period took place between 10,000 BCE and 8,000 BCE and is otherwise identified as the Middle Stone Age.

Sam Zeloof, 21 builds homemade semiconductors in his family’s garage in Flemington, N.J. (In his latest video, Zeloof refers to it casually as his “garage fab.”) The Carnegie Mellon University student has been doing it since high school, becoming a truly inspiring example of just how far a do-it-yourself spirit can take you.

And best of all, he’s documented it all in detailed blog posts and nearly 50 videos uploaded to YouTube, sharing what he’s learned for others who might follow in his footsteps.

High-energy cosmic rays have proven elusive… but we may have found their source.


Thanks to new research led by the University of Nagoya, scientists have quantified the number of cosmic rays produced in a supernova remnant for the first time. This research has helped resolve a 100-year mystery and is a major step towards determining precisely where cosmic rays come from.

While scientists theorize that cosmic rays originate from many sources — our Sun, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and active galactic nuclei (sometimes called quasars) — their exact origin has been a mystery since they were first discovered in 1912. Similarly, astronomers have theorized that supernova remnants (the after-effects of supernova explosions) are responsible for accelerating them to nearly the speed of light.

As they travel through our galaxy, cosmic rays play a role in the chemical evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM). As such, understanding their origin is critical to understanding how galaxies evolve.

An enzyme with an elusive role in severe inflammation may be a key mechanism driving COVID-19 severity and could provide a new therapeutic target to reduce COVID-19 mortality, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Researchers from the University of Arizona, in collaboration with Stony Brook University and Wake Forest School of Medicine, analyzed blood samples from two COVID-19 patient cohorts and found that circulation of the enzyme — secreted phospholipase A2 group IIA, or sPLA2-IIA, — may be the most important factor in predicting which patients with severe COVID-19 eventually succumb to the virus.


Researchers have identified what may be the key molecular mechanism responsible for COVID-19 mortality – an enzyme related to neurotoxins found in rattlesnake venom.

Is this the Air Force’s new top secret stealth drone?


A mysterious aircraft caught flying over the Philippines could be the United State’s ultra-secret new RQ-180 stealth drone, aviation experts believe.

Local landscape photographer Michael Fugnit captured the craft on Thursday when he was attempting to take pictures of the sunrise by the coast of Santa Magdalena, a resort town 364 miles south of Manila.

Fugnit regularly watches the skies for planes, and quickly realized that the batwing-shaped flyer was unlike any commercial or military aircraft he’d ever seen before.