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Category: health – Page 4

AI-designed diffractive optical processors pave the way for low-power structural health monitoring

A team of researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has introduced a novel framework for monitoring structural vibrations using diffractive optical processors. This new technology uses artificial intelligence to co-optimize a passive diffractive layer and a shallow neural network, allowing the system to encode time-varying mechanical vibrations into distinct spatiotemporal optical patterns.

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems are vital for assessing the condition of civil infrastructure, such as buildings and bridges, particularly after exposure to natural hazards like earthquakes. Traditional vibration-based methods rely on sensor networks of accelerometers and strain gauges, which demand significant power, generate large datasets requiring complex digital signal processing, and can be expensive to install and maintain.

Furthermore, achieving high spatial resolution for accurate damage localization often requires a costly, dense sensor deployment.

Using tiny ripples at skin level to monitor for possible health problems below

Caltech scientists have developed a method that detects tiny, imperceptible movements at the surface of objects to reveal details about what lies beneath. By analyzing the physics of waves traveling across the surface of an object—whether that be a manufactured product or the human body—the new technique can determine both the stiffness and thickness of the underlying material or tissue. This lays the groundwork for the project’s ultimate goal of enabling inexpensive, at-home health monitoring using little more than a smartphone camera.

“There is information scattered all around us in plain sight that we just haven’t learned to tap into. Our work is trying to leverage that information to recover material properties from inside objects by studying tiny movements on the surface,” says Katie L. Bouman, professor of computing and mathematical sciences, electrical engineering, and astronomy at Caltech and both a Rosenberg Scholar and a Heritage Medical Research Institute (HMRI) Investigator.

Bouman and her colleagues from Caltech presented the technique, called visual surface wave elastography, and its medical applications in a paper presented at the International Conference on Computer Vision in Honolulu last fall. The lead authors are Alexander C. Ogren, Ph.D., and Berthy T. Feng, Ph.D., who completed the work while at Caltech.

Functional photoacoustic microscopy reaches super-resolution by tracking red blood cells

The brain relies on real-time delivery of oxygen and nutrients through its microvasculature, which threads through neural tissue like electrical wires. While modern imaging technologies allow researchers to follow the activity of individual neurons in the brain, they are not yet advanced enough to dissect the microvascular function at a comparable spatial scale. This gap hinders our understanding of cerebral small vessel disease and its contributions to cognitive impairment and dementia.

To address this challenge, a team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University, led by Song Hu, professor of biomedical engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, have developed super-resolution functional photoacoustic microscopy (SR-fPAM).

By tracking the movement and oxygenation-dependent color change of red blood cells, SR-fPAM allows researchers to image blood flow and oxygenation at single-cell resolution in the mouse brain, which bridges a critical gap in functional microvascular imaging and could provide new insight into microvascular health and disease, such as stroke, vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Universal Vaccine Blocks Viruses, Bacteria, And Allergies With a Nasal Spray

Imagine getting a nasal spray in the fall months that protects you from all respiratory viruses, including COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and the common cold, as well as bacterial pneumonia and early spring allergens.

As vital as vaccines are, they can be frustratingly selective about their targets.

Scientists from institutions across the US have now developed a strikingly “universal” vaccine, which has protected mice against a range of viruses, bacteria, and even allergies.

The new GLA-3M-052-LS+OVA vaccine can be delivered as a nasal spray. Three doses protected mice from infection from SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses for three months, and reduced the viral load in their lungs 700-fold, compared to unvaccinated mice.

Encryption: A Key Guardian of Our Digital Future

By Chuck Brooks and Bill Bowers.

Every time you send a text, pay for groceries with your phone, or use your health site, you are relying on encryption. It’s an invisible shield that protects your data from prying eyes. Encryption is more than just a technological protection; it is the basis for digital trust.

Encryption is more than just safeguarding data; it is also about protecting people. It helps ensure privacy by protecting persons from spying and exploitation. And it is widely adopted to help ensure digital transaction security. For National Security it serves to protect key infrastructure and government communications. And it has a human rights function by providing citizens with peace of mind by ensuring the safety of their personal information. In places where surveillance is widespread, encryption can even defend free expression and opposition. It is a human right in this digital age.

In my book Inside Cyber: How AI, 5G, IoT, and Quantum Computing Will Transform Privacy and Security, I referred to encryption as the “linchpin of privacy and commerce in a connected society.” Without it, the digital economy would crumble under the strain of criminality, fraud, and spying.

DHL-11, a novel prieurianin-type limonoid isolated from Munronia henryi, targeting IMPDH2 to inhibit triple-negative breast cancer

Breast cancer destroyed by a plant compound.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer, characterized by the poorest prognosis, and poses a significant threat to women’s health. In this study, we identified two novel prieurianin-type limonoids extracted from Munronia henryi, one of which, named DHL-11, exhibited antitumor activity against TNBC cells. DHL-11 suppressed cell proliferation and migration, induced G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, and effectively increased the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and cellular DNA damage in TNBC cells. Mechanistically, we found that DHL-11 binds to the non-catalytic pocket of IMPDH2 and disrupts the interaction between IMPDH2 and FANCI, leading to the degradation of the IMPDH2 protein. The decrease of IMPDH2 protein reduced guanine synthesis, increased ROS levels, and induced DNA damage.

CISA flags VMware Aria Operations RCE flaw as exploited in attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a VMware Aria Operations vulnerability tracked as CVE-2026–22719 to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, flagging the flaw as exploited in attacks.

Broadcom also warned that it is aware of reports indicating the vulnerability is exploited but says it cannot independently confirm the claims.

VMware Aria Operations is an enterprise monitoring platform that helps organizations track the performance and health of servers, networks, and cloud infrastructure.

Abstract: This study challenges the long-standing notion of fibroblasts as passive bystanders in atopic dermatitis

Richard L. Gallo & team discover dermal fibroblasts respond to IL4 and IL13, producing Ccr3-binding chemokines, and driving T cell recruitment in atopic dermatitis:

The figure shows reduction of T cells (red) in an CCR3 antagonist-treated mouse model of atopic dermatitis.

Address correspondence to: Richard L. Gallo, Department of Dermatology, MC0869, UCSD, 9,500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, California, 92,093, USA. Phone: 858.822.4608; Email: rgallo@health.ucsd.edu.

Find articles by Numata, T. in: | Google Scholar |

Department of dermatology, UCSD, la jolla, california, USA.

Does This ED Drug Harm the Retina?

Men with erectile dysfunction (ED) who used sildenafil had a higher risk for serous retinal detachment than those who did not use the drug, a new study finds.

“Our results extend prior claims-based signals of an association between” phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors and serous retinal detachment, the researchers reported.

The absence of associations with retinal vascular occlusion and ischemic optic neuropathy suggest sildenafil’s ocular risks may be specific to serous retinal pathology rather than ischemic events affecting the vessels or optic nerve, they wrote.

The study was led by Jaffer Shah of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. It was published online on February 21 in Eye.

The use of electronic health records may have introduced residual confounding and misclassification of the use of sildenafil.

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