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Lung cancer hijacks the brain to trick the immune system

For years, scientists have viewed cancer as a localized glitch in which cells refuse to stop dividing. But a new study suggests that, in certain organs, tumors actively communicate with the brain to trick it into protecting them.

Scientists have long known that nerves grow into some tumors and that tumors containing lots of nerves usually lead to a worse prognosis. But they didn’t know exactly why. “Prior to our study, most of the focus has been this local interaction between the nerve [endings] and the tumor,” says Chengcheng Jin, an assistant professor of cancer biology at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author of the study, which was published on Wednesday in Nature.

Jin and her colleagues discovered that lung cancer tumors in mice can use these nerve endings to communicate way beyond their close vicinity and send signals to the brain through a complex neuroimmune circuit. They also confirmed the circuit exists in humans.

✍️: Jacek Krywko 📸: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images.


Lung cancer tumor cells in mice communicate with the brain, sending signals to deactivate the body’s immune response, a study finds.

By Jacek Krywko edited by Tanya Lewis.

4D-printed vascular stent deploys at body temperature, eliminating external heating

Next-generation vascular stents can make cardiovascular therapies minimally invasive and vascular treatments safe and less burdensome. In a new advancement, researchers from Japan and China have successfully proposed a novel adaptive 4D-printed vascular stent based on shape-memory polymer composite. The stent exhibits mechanical flexibility, radial strength, biomechanical compliance, and cytocompatibility in in vitro and in vivo experiments, making them promising for future clinical applications.

Cardiovascular diseases constitute a major global health concern. Various complications that affect normal blood flow in arteries and veins, such as stroke, blood clot formation in veins, blood vessel rupture, and coronary artery disease, often require vascular treatments. However, existing vascular stent devices often require complex, invasive deployment procedures, making it necessary to explore novel materials and manufacturing technologies that could enable such medical devices to work more naturally with the human body.

Moreover, the development of patient-specific, adaptively deployable vascular stents is crucial to further advance minimally invasive cardiovascular therapies and make vascular treatments safe and less burdensome for both patients and health care providers.

Human MASLD is a diurnal disease driven by multisystem insulin resistance and reduced insulin availability at night

Human MASLD is a diurnal disease!

Circadian rhythm controls hepatic lipid and glucose metabolism, but it is not known if diurnal patterns exist in functional processes governing intrahepatic lipid accumulation in humans.

By studying metabolism across day and night in human participants, the researchers show that metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a nighttime disease driven by upregulated hepatic and peripheral insulin resistance with lower plasma insulin levels at night, secondary to reduced insulin secretion and elevated insulin clearance.

These daily patterns persist after weight loss, suggesting that nighttime metabolic dysfunction is a key driver of liver fat accumulation. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/MASLD-is-a-diurnal-disease


By studying metabolism across day and night in human participants, Marjot et al. show that MASLD is a nighttime disease driven by poor insulin action and low insulin levels. These daily patterns persist after weight loss, suggesting that nighttime metabolic dysfunction is a key driver of liver fat accumulation.

Blocking PTP1B protein may slow memory loss in Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease is often measured in statistics: millions affected worldwide, cases rising sharply, costs climbing into the trillions. For families, the disease is experienced far more intimately. “It’s a slow bereavement,” says Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Professor Nicholas Tonks, whose mother lived with Alzheimer’s. “You lose the person piece by piece.”

There’s a lot of discussion about how the neurodegenerative disorder may be caused by a buildup of “plaque” in the brain. When someone refers to this plaque, they’re talking about amyloid-β (Aβ), a peptide that occurs naturally but can accumulate and come together. This is known to promote Alzheimer’s disease development.

Now, Tonks, graduate student Yuxin Cen, and postdoctoral fellow Steven Ribeiro Alves have discovered that inhibiting a protein called PTP1B improves learning and memory in an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model. The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It’s time to think about human reproduction in space, scientists urge

There are currently no widely accepted, industry-wide standards for managing reproductive health risks in space, the study notes. The researchers highlight unresolved questions around preventing inadvertent early pregnancy during missions, understanding the fertility impacts of microgravity and radiation, and setting ethical boundaries for any future reproduction-related research beyond Earth.

“If reproduction is ever to occur beyond Earth,” the study notes, “it must do so with a clear commitment to safety, transparency and ethical integrity.”

This research is described in a paper published Feb. 3 in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online.

How DNA and life experiences leave distinct marks on the human immune system

Using single-cell epigenomic profiling of immune cells from 110 individuals, researchers show that genetic variation and environmental exposures shape the human immune system through distinct DNA methylation mechanisms. Genetic effects concentrate within gene bodies of memory cells, while environmental exposures primarily remodel regulatory regions in naive immune cells.

Neuroscience Beyond Neurons? The Diverse Intelligence Era | Michael Levin & Robert Chis-Ciure

What if neurons aren’t the foundation of mind?

In this Mind-Body Solution Colloquia, Michael Levin and Robert Chis-Ciure challenge one of neuroscience’s deepest assumptions: that cognition and intelligence are exclusive to brains and neurons.

Drawing on cutting-edge work in bioelectricity, developmental biology, and philosophy of mind, this conversation explores how cells, tissues, and living systems exhibit goal-directed behavior, memory, and problem-solving — long before neurons ever appear.

We explore:
• Cognition without neurons.
• Bioelectric networks as control systems.
• Memory and learning beyond synapses.
• Morphogenesis as collective intelligence.
• Implications for AI, consciousness, and ethics.

This episode pushes neuroscience beyond the neuron, toward a deeper understanding of mind, life, and intelligence as continuous across scales.

TIMESTAMPS:

Peppermint oil plasma coating could cut catheter infections without releasing drugs

Australian researchers have developed a high‑performance coating made from peppermint essential oil that can be applied to the surfaces of many commonly used medical devices, offering a safer way to protect patients from infection and inflammation.

Matthew Flinders Professor and senior author of the new study, Professor Krasimir Vasilev, says the idea emerged after noticing that eating peppermint leaves from his drink significantly relieved his sore throat, inspiring him to explore whether its bioactivity could be converted into a durable coating using plasma technology—something he has been researching for more than two decades.

The team from Flinders’s Biomedical Nanoengineering Laboratory—including Professor Vasilev (Director), Associate Professor Vi‑Khanh Truong, Dr. Andrew Hayes, and Ph.D. candidates Trong Quan Luu and Tuyet Pham—created a nanoscale peppermint‑oil coating that protects against infection, inflammation and oxidative stress, while remaining compatible with human tissue and suitable for medical materials.

Sentience Beyond Biology — Debate w/Dmitry Volkov, Joscha Bach, Matthew MacDougall, Murray Shanahan

What happens when biology is no longer the foundation for sentience, agency, and consciousness?

This groundbreaking panel discussion brings together some of the world’s most brilliant minds in AI, neuroscience, and philosophy to tackle humanity’s most profound questions about the future of intelligence.

Chaired by neuroscientist Patrick House, the conversation explores the boundaries of machine agency, the possibility of AI emotion, and the future of human–machine interaction.

🎙 Featured Speakers:
- Joscha Bach – Cognitive Scientist, AI Researcher, Philosopher.
- Dmitry Volkov – Co-founder of the International Center for Consciousness Studies (ICCS), Philosopher, Entrepreneur, Founder of Social Discovery Group & EVA AI
- Matthew Macdougall – Head of Surgery at Neuralink, Pioneer in Brain–Computer Interfaces.
- Murray Shanahan – Professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London, Scientist at DeepMind.

Key Topics in This Debate:
- Whether giving machines “agency” is just a useful human shortcut (The Intentional Stance).
- If the deeper question is not “Is AI conscious?” but “Can it truly love?”
- How modern AI is erasing the Uncanny Valley.
- The challenge of true individuality and creativity in AI-generated art.
- How human biological hardware shapes consciousness — and what this means for building sentient machines.

00:00:00 — Introduction and Presentation of Participants.

Hypoperfusion on Early MRI Despite Successful Thrombectomy: A Prospective Imaging and Inflammatory Biomarkers Study

ISC26 After successful EVT for stroke, early MRI shows residual hypoperfusion in a substantial subset of patients. Perfusion deficits mainly reflected distal emboli and were not associated with inflammatory biomarkers.


In acute ischemic stroke (AIS) due to large-vessel occlusion (LVO), endovascular treatment (EVT) achieves over 80% recanalization rates and improves functional outcomes.1 However, nearly half of recanalized patients fail to achieve functional independence,1 a phenomenon termed futile recanalization.2,3 Mechanisms of futile recanalization include early extensive infarct core—that is, tissue that is already irreversibly damaged at the time of reperfusion—as well as edema, hemorrhagic transformation, and no-reflow.3 The latter, defined as impaired capillary reperfusion despite angiographic success, has gained increasing attention.4–15

In experimental models, no-reflow occurs early after arterial reopening and is driven by multifactorial microvascular dysfunction.16–19 Reported mechanisms include astrocyte and endothelial swelling, pericyte contraction, leukocytes, platelets and erythrocytes aggregation, and the release of inflammatory mediators.20–24 Regarding the latter, cytokines and adhesion molecules have been implicated in its pathogenesis in preclinical studies.24 These findings have led to the hypothesis that inflammation may contribute to microvascular perfusion failure after EVT, potentially opening the door to targeted therapeutic interventions.20–24 However, this has never been systematically investigated in humans.

In clinical practice, persistent hypoperfusion on post-EVT computed tomography (CT) perfusion or magnetic resonance perfusion imaging is frequently interpreted as a radiological correlate of no-reflow.4–15 Yet this interpretation remains uncertain. First, no direct histological evidence of no-reflow has been demonstrated in human stroke to date. Second, most imaging-based studies on no-reflow have included patients with residual distal emboli,10,12,25 which cause residual hypoperfusion on a macrovascular level.26 Third, many studies did not exclude confounders, such as perfusion abnormalities caused by carotid stenosis, parenchymal hemorrhage, or reocclusion.14 These limitations may explain the wide variability in the reported prevalence of postthrombectomy hypoperfusion, from 0% to 80%.14,25.

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