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There’s One Critical Thing You Can Do to Cut Your Risk of Dementia

Inside the body, a 24-hour rhythm, known as the circadian rhythm, quietly coordinates when we sleep, wake, eat, and recover. This internal timing system helps keep organs and hormones working in sync.

When it becomes disrupted, the effects may extend well beyond poor sleep, with growing evidence suggesting consequences for long-term brain health.

A large 2025 study of more than 2,000 people with an average age of 79 found that those with a strong circadian rhythm had an almost halved risk of developing dementia. Circadian rhythms regulate daily processes, including sleep timing, hormone release, heart rate, and body temperature.

This Digital Brain Could Enable “Forbidden” Human Experiments

Further Reading.

This ‘digital brain’ could soon simulate ethically forbidden experiments.
https://ebrains.eu/news-and-events/2025/ten-years-of-pd14-mi…i-research.

A foundation model to predict and capture human cognition.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09215-4

First totally synthetic human brain model has been realized.
https://newatlas.com/medical/synthetic-human-brain-models/

#science #news #explained #research #sciencenews #biotech #robots #ai #artificialintelligence #organoid

DNA Gene’s Basic Structure as a Nonperturbative Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics: Is RNA Polymerase II the Quantum Bus of Transcription?

Previously, we described that Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine nucleobases were superconductors in a quantum superposition of phases on each side of the central hydrogen bond acting as a Josephson Junction. Genomic DNA has two strands wrapped helically around one another, but during transcription, they are separated by the RNA polymerase II to form a molecular condensate called the transcription bubble. Successive steps involve the bubble translocation along the gene body. This work aims to modulate DNA as a combination of n-nonperturbative circuits quantum electrodynamics with nine Radio-Frequency Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) inside. A bus can be coupled capacitively to a single-mode microwave resonator. The cavity mode and the bus can mediate long-range, fast interaction between neighboring and distant DNA SQUID qubits.

Robotic nanoprobe enables precise extraction of a single mitochondrion from a living cell

Mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with various chronic diseases and cancers, including neurodegenerative diseases and metabolic syndrome. Gently extracting a single mitochondrion from within a living cell—without causing damage and without the guidance of fluorescent makers—has long been a challenge akin to threading a needle in a storm for scientists.

A team led by Prof. Richard Gu Hongri, Assistant Professor in the Division of Integrative Systems and Design of the Academy of Interdisciplinary Studies at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with experts in mechanical engineering and biomedicine, has developed an automated robotic nanoprobe.

The device can navigate within a living cell, sense metabolic whispers in real time, and pluck an individual mitochondrion for analysis or—all without the need for fluorescent labeling. It is the world’s first cell-manipulation nanoprobe that integrates both sensors and actuators at its tip, enabling a micro-robot to autonomously navigate inside live cells. The breakthrough holds great promise for advancing future treatment strategies for chronic diseases and cancer.

Novel AI method sharpens 3D X-ray vision

X-ray tomography is a powerful tool that enables scientists and engineers to peer inside of objects in 3D, including computer chips and advanced battery materials, without performing anything invasive. It’s the same basic method behind medical CT scans.

Scientists or technicians capture X-ray images as an object is rotated, and then advanced software mathematically reconstructs the object’s 3D internal structure. But imaging fine details on the nanoscale, like features on a microchip, requires a much higher spatial resolution than a typical medical CT scan—about 10,000 times higher.

The Hard X-ray Nanoprobe (HXN) beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, is able to achieve that kind of resolution with X-rays that are more than a billion times brighter than traditional CT scans.

From brain scans to alloys: Teaching AI to make sense of complex research data

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used to analyze medical images, materials data and scientific measurements, but many systems struggle when real-world data do not match ideal conditions. Measurements collected from different instruments, experiments or simulations often vary widely in resolution, noise and reliability. Traditional machine-learning models typically assume those differences are negligible—an assumption that can limit accuracy and trustworthiness.

To address this issue, Penn State researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence framework with potential implications for fields ranging from Alzheimer’s disease research to advanced materials design. The approach, called ZENN and detailed in a study that was featured as a showcase in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, teaches AI models to recognize and adapt to hidden differences in data quality rather than ignoring them.

ZENN, short for Zentropy-Embedded Neural Networks, was developed by Shun Wang, postdoctoral scholar of materials science and engineering; Wenrui Hao, professor of mathematics, Zi-Kui Liu, professor of materials science and engineering, and Shunli Shang, research professor of materials science and engineering.

Designer enzyme enables yeast to produce custom fatty acids, reducing need for palm oil

Whether they are laundry detergents, mascara, or Christmas chocolate, many everyday products contain fatty acids from palm oil or coconut oil. However, the extraction of these raw materials is associated with massive environmental issues: Rainforests are cleared, habitats for endangered species are destroyed, and traditional farmers lose their livelihoods.

A research team led by Prof. Martin Grininger at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, has now developed a biotechnological approach that could enable a more environmentally friendly production method. The team’s work appears in Nature Chemical Biology.

Researchers harness nonlinear Compton scattering to create sharper, multicolor gamma-ray beams

Researchers from Skoltech, MEPhI, and the Dukhov All-Russian Research Institute of Automation have proposed a new method to create compact gamma-ray sources that are simultaneously brighter, sharper, and capable of emitting multiple “colors” of gamma rays at once.

This opens up possibilities for more accurate medical diagnostics, improved material inspection, and even the production of isotopes for medicine directly in the laboratory. The work has been published as a Letter in the journal Physical Review A.

Gamma rays produced using lasers and electron beams represent a promising technology, but until now they have had a significant drawback: the emission spectrum was too “blurred.” This reduced brightness and precision, limiting their applications in areas where clarity is crucial—such as scanning dense materials or medical imaging.

Unexpected finding could offer new treatment targets for meth addiction

University of Florida neuroscientists have made a mechanistic discovery that paves the way to test immune-modulating medicines as a potential tool to break the cycle of methamphetamine addiction.

In a new preclinical study, a McKnight Brain Institute team led by Habibeh Khoshbouei, Ph.D., Pharm. D., examined the role of neuroinflammation in meth addiction to provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms at work.

“Unlike alcohol or opioids, there currently is no medicinal therapeutic approach for methamphetamine addiction,” said Khoshbouei, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry. “So this is an important societal issue.”

Two wrongs make a right: How two damaging disease variants can restore health

Scientists at Pacific Northwest Research Institute (PNRI) have overturned a long-held belief in genetics: that inheriting two harmful variants of the same gene always worsens disease. Instead, the team found that in many cases, two harmful variants can actually restore normal protein function.

Their work appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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