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Meanwhile, scientists dug into how psychedelics and MDMA fight off depression and post-traumatic stress disorders. The year was a relative setback for the psychedelic renaissance, with the FDA rejecting MDMA therapy. But the field is still gaining recognition for its therapeutic potential.

Then there’s lenacapavir, a shot that protects people from HIV. Named “breakthrough of the year” by Science, the shot completely protected African teenage girls and women against HIV infection. Another trial supported the results, showing the drug protected people who have sex with men at nearly 100 percent efficacy. The success stems from a new understanding of the protein “capsule” guarding the virus’ genetic material. Many other viruses have a similar makeup—meaning the strategy could help researchers design new drugs to fight them off too.

So, what’s poised to take the leap from breakthrough to clinical approval in 2025? Here’s what to expect in the year ahead.

UC Riverside scientists have developed a nanopore-based tool that could help diagnose illnesses much faster and with greater precision than current tests allow, by capturing signals from individual molecules.

Since the molecules scientists want to detect—generally certain DNA or protein molecules—are roughly one-billionth of a meter wide, the electrical signals they produce are very small and require specialized detection instruments.

“Right now, you need millions of molecules to detect diseases. We’re showing that it’s possible to get useful data from just a single molecule,” said Kevin Freedman, assistant professor of bioengineering at UCR and lead author of a paper about the tool appearing in Nature Nanotechnology. “This level of sensitivity could make a real difference in disease diagnostics.”

Researchers at the Allen Institute have identified a specific brain region in mice where aging triggers significant changes in numerous cell types. The study also pinpointed which cell types undergo the most profound transformations.

This new information, published in the journal Nature, points toward potential approaches for slowing or controlling the aging process in the brain.

The research was focused on numerous glial cell types – the brain’s “support cells” – that demonstrated considerable shifts in gene activity with age. Among the cells most affected were microglia, border-associated macrophages, oligodendrocytes, tanycytes, and ependymal cells.

Although this stem cell model of a notochord is a simple structure, it could help researchers study spine-related birth defects.

Getting back to the moon is the primary goal of NASA’s Artemis program, but what do we do once we get there? That is the challenge tackled by a group of students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who wrote a proposal for a lunar infrastructure module they call the Trans-lunar Hub for Exploration, ISRU, and Advancement—or THEIA, after the proposed object that crashed into the Earth that created the moon as we know it today.

Their submission was part of the NASA Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts—Academic Linkage project, where teams from various academic institutions submitted papers focusing on the theme of Sustained Lunar Evolution for 2024.

Continue reading “A long-term lunar infrastructure hub named after the object that created the moon” »

A new study in published in Physical Review Letters analyzes the most complete set of galaxy clustering data to test the ΛCDM model, revealing discrepancies in the formation of cosmic structures in the universe, hinting at a new physics.

The ΛCDM model is the standard model of cosmology describing the universe’s evolution, expansion, and structure. It encompasses cold dark matter (CDM), normal matter and radiation, and the cosmological constant (Λ), which accounts for dark energy.

The model has been successful in explaining several cosmological observations, including the large-scale structure of the universe, the accelerating expansion of the universe, and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, which is the afterglow of the Big Bang.

Mitochondria are vital to energy production in cells and so play a key role in fueling cancer growth. However, how mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) contributes to cancer has been unclear.

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital studied varying levels of mutated mtDNA to see their effect on leukemia cells. They found that while cancer growth was blocked in cells in which all mitochondria contained mutated mtDNA, it was notably increased in cells with moderate amounts of mutated mtDNA. By amplifying an enzyme vital to energy production, the researchers were also able to restart cancer growth in leukemia cells with fully mutated mtDNA.

Collectively, these findings highlight an unexplored connection between mitochondrial DNA and cancer cells’ metabolic function. The findings were published Jan. 1 in Science Advances.

The wave-particle duality was demonstrated not only with electrons, but when it came to atoms and even molecules, things got complicated. Electrons are 1,800 times lighter than the lightest atom (something discovered by Thomson’s father J.J. Thomson) so they can more easily diffract through the lattice of a crystal.

Atom diffraction had so far been seen in reflection. The atoms were bounced off a surface that was etched to have a grating. The lines don’t need to be as thin as 10,000 times smaller than a hair, like the most important machine you’ve never heard of makes them. Grids with much larger lines, which could have been made in the 1930s, were enough to showcase this phenomenon. However, researchers haven’t been able to show the diffraction of atoms through a crystal until now.

In a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, Carina Kanitz and colleagues from the Institute of Quantum Technologies and the University of Vienna demonstrated diffractions of hydrogen and helium atoms using a one-atom-thick sheet of graphene. The atoms are shot perpendicularly at the graphene sheet at high energy. This should damage the crystal but it doesn’t, and it’s the secret of this successful experiment.

Dust storms on Mars could one day pose dangers to human astronauts, damaging equipment and burying solar panels. New research gets closer to predicting when extreme weather might erupt on the Red Planet.

Today’s weather report on Mars: Windy with a chance of catastrophic dust storms blotting out the sky.

In a new study, planetary scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder have begun to unravel the factors that kick off major dust storms on Mars — weather events that sometimes engulf the entire planet in swirling grit. The team discovered that relatively warm and sunny days may help to trigger them.