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Knocking out drug-resistant TB with a one-two punch

Tuberculosis is both curable and preventable, yet each year, it still kills more people than any other infectious disease. One reason is that current treatments hinge on rifampicin, an antibiotic that blocks bacterial transcription and forms the cornerstone of a multidrug regimen—and rising drug resistance has revealed the limits of leaning so heavily on a single point of attack.

2.8 days to disaster: Why we are running out of time in low earth orbit

A "House of Cards" is a wonderful English phrase that it seems is now primarily associated with a Netflix political drama. However, its original meaning is of a system that is fundamentally unstable. It's also the term Sarah Thiele, originally a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia, and now at Princeton, and her co-authors used to describe our current satellite mega-constellation system in a new paper available in pre-print on arXiv.

AI helps solve decades-old maze in frustrated magnet physics

By partnering with artificial intelligence (AI), a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has solved a long-standing physics problem and uncovered the mathematical trickery that underlies the generalization of recently discovered, extremely surprising new states of matter. The work exemplifies the paradigm shift that is taking place in research, as scientists learn to see AI as a valuable asset in advancing knowledge and discovery.

Unlocking even more value in Canada's canola industry

Canada's canola industry generates $43.7 billion in economic activity each year, according to the Canola Council of Canada. Canola oil is currently the primary output, but researchers from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) are exploring new ways to get even more value from this hybrid plant developed in the 1970s.

A Test of the Alzheimer Disease Framework—Did It Pass?

In 2004, the Alzheimer’s Association Workgroup proposed a revision of the criteria for Alzheimer disease (AD). They expanded on their 2018 biological definition of AD by retaining the principle that AD be defined biologically by the presence of amyloid and tau but expanded the biomarkers that would establish the diagnosis by including blood-based markers. In that context, they proposed a biological-clinical staging scheme. In this model, the clinical progression of individuals was represented by the horizontal axis and the biological spread of AD pathology on the vertical axis. The diagonal represented a complete correlation between clinical and pathologic progression if the person’s clinical state were due to AD alone. However, if the clinical symptoms were more advanced than the predicted AD biology, they would fall in the upper right part of the diagram, above the diagonal, probably due to the presence of copathologies. If the clinical presentation was less advanced than the AD biology would explain, the person would fall in the lower left part of the diagram, below the diagonal, and likely represent an individual who was resilient to AD pathology. Given this background, Brown and colleagues proposed an evaluation of the model.

A new five-year survey of the Magellanic Clouds will answer some questions about our neighbors

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies and satellites of the Milky Way. The LMC is about 163,000 light-years away and the SMC is about 206,000 light-years away, and their close proximity makes them excellent laboratories for the study of galaxies in general. The Clouds are the focus of a new research group being formed at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).

Cracking the mystery of heat flow in few-atoms thin materials

For much of my career, I have been fascinated by the ways in which materials behave when we reduce their dimensions to the nanoscale. Over and over, I've learned that when we shrink a material down to just a few nanometers in thickness, the familiar textbook rules of physics begin to bend, stretch, or sometimes break entirely. Heat transport is one of the areas where this becomes especially intriguing, because heat is carried by phonons—quantized vibrations of the atomic lattice—and phonons are exquisitely sensitive to spatial confinement.

Biologists reveal ancient form of cell adhesion

The cells of all animals—including humans—are characterized by their ability to adhere particularly well to surfaces in their environment. This mechanically stable adhesion enables the development of complex tissues and organs and is made possible by certain cell surface receptors called integrins. However, it is unclear how this form of cell adhesion developed over the course of evolution, as many single-celled organisms do not have integrin receptors.

Coral skeletons' Li/Mg ratios shaped by growth speed, not just environmental change

A team of researchers led by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS), in collaboration with colleagues from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the University of Bristol, and Nanjing University, has identified the primary non-environmental factors controlling lithium-to-magnesium ratio (Li/Mg) fractionation. Their findings were recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

Supernova immersion model suggests Earth-like planets are more common in the universe

Rocky planets like our Earth may be far more common than previously thought, according to new research published in the journal Science Advances. It suggests that when our solar system formed, a nearby supernova (the massive explosion of a star near the end of its life) bathed it in cosmic rays containing the radioactive ingredients to make rocky, dry worlds. This mechanism could be ubiquitous across the galaxy.

Neutron star P13 shows dramatic X-ray variability linked to rotation velocity

A research team has investigated long-term X-ray variability in the neutron star NGC 7793 P13, an object thought to be driven by supercritical accretion, where an extraordinary amount of gas falls onto the object and emits intense X-rays. The team found a relation between the X-ray luminosity and the rotation velocity, which could provide clues to reveal the supercritical accretion mechanism.

[Review] Real-world evidence in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD): insights, challenges, and future directions

Real-world evidence (RWE), derived from real-world data, offers key insights into metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). RWE complements traditional randomised controlled trials by capturing large-scale, diverse patient populations and long-term outcomes. This review interrogates the role of RWE in understanding MASLD epidemiology, natural history, hepatic and extra-hepatic endpoints, including its co-morbid association with cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease, and its use in pharmacovigilance and precision medicine.

Saturday Citations: Nice people are happier; Uranus may not be icy; SIM farm reporting

This week, researchers identified signaling pathways underpinning drug resistance in pancreatic cancer, a normally lethal diagnosis. A physicist proposed that conscious states in the brain may arise from the brain's ability to resonate with the quantum vacuum that permeates space. And in a ranking of species monogamy, humans came in between meerkats and beavers.

Misinformation is an inevitable biological reality across nature, researchers argue

From claims that vaccines don't work to manipulated images and deliberately misrepresenting what politicians say, social media is often rife with misinformation. But far from being a recent phenomenon, there is nothing new about so-called "fake news," according to a new paper published in the journal Interface. Researchers argue that misinformation is an inherent and inevitable property of biological systems, from bacteria to birds and human societies.

German adults outperform international peers in complex problem-solving tasks, study finds

Adults in Germany are better than the international average at coping with problems in new and complex situations. However, this adaptive problem-solving skill depends more heavily on sociodemographic characteristics than in other countries. This is shown by a new evaluation of the latest PIAAC study, in which adults in around 30 countries were tested.