Thought Architect
Get the latest international news and world events from around the world.
β-hydroxybutyrate enhances the metabolic fitness of CAR T cells in cancer
Now online! β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), the ketone body associated with a ketogenic diet, metabolically reprograms and fuels CAR T cells to achieve proliferation, cytokine production, and superior tumor control. These findings suggest that BHB supplementation may be a practical way to boost adoptive cancer immunotherapy.
Within-Person Association Between Daily Screen Use and Sleep in Youth: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
A meta-analysis found that on days with more screen use, youths went to bed slightly later but had no significant changes in total sleep time, sleep quality, or efficiency.
Question What is the within-person association between daily screen use and sleep in children and youth?
Findings In this systematic review and meta-analysis, daily screen use was significantly related to later sleep onset but was not significantly related to total sleep time, sleep onset latency, sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset, or subjective sleep quality.
Meaning When young people use screens, they may displace sleep when doing so; however, using screens more than usual is not necessarily detrimental to sleep.
Widely Used Procedure Does Not Curb Pancreatitis in Patients With Pancreas Divisum
In patients with unexplained acute recurrent pancreatitis who have pancreas divisum, the widely used procedure endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) with minor papillotomy does not reduce the risk for more episodes of acute pancreatitis or protect against longer-term consequences, a new randomized, sham-controlled study concludes. The findings run contrary to long-held beliefs that have been based mostly on observational data.
Pivotal study shows no clear benefit for the common endoscopic procedure in this patient group. Experts say the new data could help avoid unnecessary cost and risk.
What existed before the Big Bang? Was it nothing… or something far more disturbing?
In this video, we explore seven of the most profound and unsettling theories in modern cosmology. From Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, where the death of a previous universe becomes our beginning, to the idea that our entire cosmos emerged from a quantum fluctuation out of “nothing.” We dive into Loop Quantum Cosmology and the Big Bounce, brane collisions in higher dimensions, eternal inflation creating infinite bubble universes, a CPT-symmetric mirror anti-universe flowing backward in time, and finally the terrifying scale of the String Landscape and the multiverse.
These theories challenge everything we think we know about reality, time, and existence itself. If even one of them is correct, the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning — it was just one event in something far larger, stranger, and possibly eternal.
The universe may not have started. It may have restarted.
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#BigBang #Cosmology #Multiverse
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Researchers praise ‘stunning’ results of new prostate cancer treatment
A new drug for advanced prostate cancer has shown promise in early trials experts have said, with the medication shrinking tumours in some patients.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men in many countries, including the US and UK. About 1.5 million men are diagnosed worldwide each year.
The new drug has caused excitement as it is a type of treatment called immunotherapy. This approach uses the body’s own immune system to fight disease, and has already proved beneficial for some cancers. However, experts note it has not yet had the same impact on prostate cancer.
Targeting mitochondrial metabolism with combined metabolic activators
Combined metabolic activators to treat mitochondrial dysfunction.
Mitochondrial dysfunction is a common feature of many human diseases and is emerging as a therapeutic target.
Systems biology and multiomics approaches have revealed that deficits in glutathione and NAD+ metabolism, impaired fatty acid oxidation, and disrupted redox balance are key drivers of disease pathogenesis.
Combined metabolic activators (CMA) were developed to address these metabolic deficits through the complementary actions of serine, Nacetylcysteine, L-carnitine, and NAD+ precursors.
CMA have been shown to lower hepatic fat, reduce systemic inflammation, accelerate recovery from infection, and improve cognitive performance in clinical studies. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/Targeting-mitochondrial-metabolism
Mitochondria play a central role in energy metabolism, redox balance, and cellular homeostasis, and their dysfunction has been implicated in the pathogenesis of complex human diseases. Advances in systems biology and omics technologies have elucidated the mechanisms underlying these conditions, including metabolic dysfunction, mitochondrial impairment, inflammation, and redox imbalance. Preclinical and early clinical studies of combined metabolic activators (CMA), a formulation of bioactive metabolites, have demonstrated improvements in mitochondrial function and systemic metabolic profiles across multiple diseases.
3D imagery helps bring world’s ant diversity to life
For more than a decade, Evan Economo’s lab has been using micro-CT machines to scan insect specimens. The resulting X-ray images help researchers study the form and structure of insects—a subfield of entomology known as morphology—but the process is costly and time-consuming.
“One limitation is that you can get this rich 3D dataset, but it could take 10 hours to scan one specimen,” explained Economo, who chairs the University of Maryland’s Department of Entomology and holds the James B. Gahan and Margaret H. Gahan Professorship.
As a senior author of a paper published in the journal Nature Methods, Economo tested a high-tech workflow to speed up their efforts.
‘Superconducting dome’ hints at high-temperature superconductivity in thin nickelate films
Superconductivity is a quantum state of matter characterized by an electrical resistance of zero and the expulsion of magnetic fields at low temperatures below a critical point. Superconductors, materials in which this state occurs, have proved to be highly advantageous for the development of various technologies, including medical imaging devices, particle accelerators and quantum computers.
While superconductivity typically only occurs at extremely low temperatures, recent studies showed that in some materials it can arise at higher temperatures. These unconventional superconducting materials are referred to as high-temperature (high-Tc) superconductors.
Researchers at the National Laboratory of Solid-State Microstructures and Nanjing University recently gathered hints of high-Tc superconductivity in a thin film nickelate, a material that contains nickel and oxygen arranged in a thin layered crystal structure. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, maps the evolution of physical states in these materials under different conditions, unveiling a so-called “superconducting dome” in this phase diagram, which is associated with high-Tc superconductivity.