Arboviruses transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes have an expanding global distribution and identifying areas at risk is important for public health planning. Here, the authors present global disease maps for dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever through a multi-disease ecological niche modelling approach.
From smartphones and smartwatches to medical biosensors, the demand for thinner, lighter, and more powerful electronic components continues to grow. Now, scientists at La Trobe University have developed a groundbreaking invisible polymer film that conducts electricity as effectively as metals, yet is flexible, durable, and scalable for mass production. This innovation could transform not only consumer electronics but also advanced health monitoring devices and wearable technology.
The Breakthrough: Tethered Dopant Templating
For decades, conductive polymers — synthetic materials capable of carrying an electrical current — have been hailed as a promising alternative to metals in electronics. However, they have struggled to achieve the necessary combination of thinness, transparency, conductivity, and durability required for high-performance devices.
The obesity rate has more than doubled in the last 30 years, affecting more than one billion people worldwide. This prevalent condition is also linked to other metabolic disorders, including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic kidney disease, and cancers.
Current treatment options include lifestyle interventions, bariatric surgery, and GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic or Wegovy, but many patients struggle to access or complete these treatments or to maintain their weight loss afterward.
Salk Institute scientists are looking for a new treatment strategy in microproteins, an understudied class of molecules found throughout the body that play roles in both health and disease.
A new study reveals that fragmented sleep causes cellular damage to the brain’s blood vessels, providing further evidence to suggest that sleep disruption predisposes the brain to dementia.
The research, published in the journal Brain, is the first to offer cellular and molecular evidence that sleep disruption directly causes damage to brain blood vessels and blood flow.
“We found that individuals who had more fragmented sleep, such as sleeping restlessly and waking up a lot at night, had a change in their balance of pericytes—a brain blood vessel cell that plays an important role in regulating brain blood flow and the entry and exit of substances between the blood and the brain,” said Andrew Lim, principal investigator of the study and a sleep neurologist and scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.
Dietary fat is an important part of our diet. It provides us with a concentrated source of energy, transports vitamins and when stored in the body, protects our organs and helps keep us warm. The two main types of fat that we consume are saturated and unsaturated (monounsaturated and polyunsaturated), which are differentiated by their chemical composition.
But these fats have different effects on our body. For example, it is well established that eating a meal that is high in saturated fat, such as that self-indulgent Friday night takeaway pizza, can be bad for our blood vessels and heart health. And these effects are not simply confined to the heart.
The brain has limited energy stores, which means it is heavily reliant on a continuous supply of blood delivering oxygen and glucose to maintain normal function.
One of the ways the body maintains this supply is through a process known as “dynamic cerebral autoregulation”. This process ensures that blood flow to the brain remains stable despite everyday changes in blood pressure, such as standing up and exercising. It’s like having shock absorbers that help keep our brains cool under pressure.
But when this process is impaired, those swings in blood pressure become harder to manage. That can mean brief episodes of too little or too much blood reaching the brain. Over time, this increases the risk of developing conditions like stroke and dementia.
A team of researchers from the Spanish National Research Council has made a significant advance in plant biotechnology by developing a new method for silencing genes. The novel technique uses ultra-short ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequences carried by genetically modified viruses to achieve genetic silencing, allowing the customization of plant traits. The work, published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal, opens up new avenues for crop improvement, functional genomics, and sustainable agriculture.
Viral vector technology involves modifying viruses, removing the genetic material that causes disease, to turn them into vehicles that carry the RNA sequence to be introduced into an organism. This technique, when applied to plants, has already proven effective under experimental conditions in inducing flowering and accelerating the development of improved crop varieties, modifying plant architecture to facilitate adaptation to mechanization, improving drought tolerance, and producing metabolites beneficial to human health, among other applications.
Now, the method developed by the CSIC, together with the Valencian University Institute for Research on the Conservation and Improvement of Agrodiversity (COMAV) and the Italian Department of Applications and Innovation in Supercomputing (Cineca), represents an optimization of technological platforms to accelerate the development and validation of agricultural applications based on viral vectors.
Can artificial intelligence, robots and surveillance protect workers on the job? Yes, according to the latest report from the International Labour Organization. In this episode of the Future of Work podcast, ILO occupational safety and health expert Manal Azzi explains how AI and technology is being used as a safety net, and not a threat, for workers worldwide.
Eating pistachios every night for 12 weeks altered bacteria in the gut, according to new study. A new study reveals that swapping a typical nighttime carbohydrate snack for pistachios may beneficially alter gut bacteria in people with prediabetes. Conducted by Penn State researchers, the 12-week clinical trial found that pistachio consumption increased beneficial gut microbes like Roseburia and reduced harmful ones such as Blautia hydrogenotrophica. These microbiome changes could potentially support metabolic health and slow the progression to Type 2 diabetes. While more research is needed to confirm health outcomes, this study positions pistachios as a promising late-night snack with microbiome-boosting potential.
Prediabetes affects a third of people in the United States and most of them will develop Type 2 diabetes, yet effective dietary intervention strategies remain limited. Pistachios have shown promise in improving markers of diet quality, yet little is known about how they influence the gut microbiome — a key player in glucose regulation and inflammation.
A new study led by Kristina Petersen, associate professor of nutritional sciences at Penn State, determined that nighttime pistachio consumption affects gut bacteria in adults with prediabetes. Though the potential therapeutic implications of the findings remain unclear, according to Petersen, they may prove significant for people who are working to improve their metabolic health.
