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Tall 10-year-olds may be more at risk of developing an irregular heart rate in later life than their shorter counterparts, but less at risk of having a stroke.

By David Cox

A cancer drug in the final stages of clinical trials may be able to help treat a range of inflammatory diseases including gout, heart failure, cardiomyopathy, and atrial fibrillation, according to scientists at the University of Cambridge.

Their findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in an article titled, “PLK1 inhibition dampens NLRP3 inflammasome-elicited response in inflammatory disease models.”

“Unabated activation of the NLR family pyrin domain–containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome is linked with the pathogenesis of various inflammatory disorders. Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) has been widely studied for its role in mitosis,” wrote the researchers. “Here, using both pharmacological and genetic approaches, we demonstrate that PLK1 promoted NLRP3 inflammasome activation at cell interphase. Using an unbiased proximity-dependent biotin identification (Bio-ID) screen for the PLK1 interactome in macrophages, we show an enhanced proximal association of NLRP3 with PLK1 upon NLRP3 inflammasome activation. We further confirmed the interaction between PLK1 and NLRP3 and identified the interacting domains.”

The world’s largest oil company issued a warning this week that the energy sector is vulnerable to attacks, particularly with the advent of new technologies such as generative AI.

Amin H. Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, told the Global Cybersecurity Forum that the energy sector is an attractive target to those who want to do harm. “Any large-scale disruption to the steady supply of energy would have an immediate and significant impact around the world,” he said.

According to local media reports, Nasser said new technologies, such as generative AI, are game changers for many industries but must be assessed to identify how they may pose new threats, and any vulnerabilities must be addressed before being fully deployed.

Unique deep ultraviolet-ozone conversion of PDMS to silica enables fast fabrication of glass microstructures at low temperature.

If you’re like lots of us, you either have or have had back pain. WebMD looks at what can cause it.

Contrary to what we all learned in elementary school science class, it turns out that heat may not be necessary to make water evaporate. Scientists at MIT have made the surprising discovery that light alone can evaporate water, and is even more efficient at it than heat. The finding could improve our understanding of natural phenomena or boost desalination systems.

Evaporation occurs when water molecules near the surface of the liquid absorb enough energy to escape into the air above as a gas – water vapor. Generally, heat is the energy source, and in the case of Earth’s water cycle, that heat comes primarily from sunlight.

But in the last few years, different teams of scientists have noticed discrepancies in their experiments concerning water held in hydrogels. Water appeared to be evaporating at much higher rates than should be possible based on the amount of heat it was exposed to, sometimes tripling the theoretical maximum rate.

Researchers hope dimeric IgA-based immunotherapy could be more precise, long-lasting, and less toxic than current anticancer treatments.

🔐 Researchers uncover vulnerabilities in 34 Windows drivers that non-privileged hackers can exploit to take control of your device and execute code.

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Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed modular nanoparticles that can be easily customized to target different biological entities such as tumors, viruses or toxins. The surface of the nanoparticles is engineered to host any biological molecules of choice, making it possible to tailor the nanoparticles for a wide array of applications, ranging from targeted drug delivery to neutralizing biological agents.

The beauty of this technology lies in its simplicity and efficiency. Instead of crafting entirely new nanoparticles for each specific application, researchers can now employ a modular nanoparticle base and conveniently attach proteins targeting a desired biological entity.

In the past, creating distinct nanoparticles for different biological targets required going through a different synthetic process from start to finish each time. But with this new technique, the same modular nanoparticle base can be easily modified to create a whole set of specialized nanoparticles.