The Age of Flames Reaches the US East Coast

Smoke from wildfires in Canada has engulfed the East Coast, cloaking cities in a hazy smog and putting some 100 million people under air quality alerts. More than 400 fires are burning in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario, and half are uncontrolled. New York City became home to the worst air quality in the world. Philadelphia […]

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People Let a Startup Put a Brain Implant in Their Skulls—for 15 Minutes

Because it penetrates the tissue, the Utah array can cause inflammation and scarring around the implantation site, which leads to a decline in signal quality over time. And signal quality is important because it affects how well the BCI performs. No one actually knows how long Utah arrays can last in the brain; so far […]

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People Let a Startup Put a Brain Implant in Their Skull—for 15 Minutes

Because it penetrates the tissue, the Utah array can cause inflammation and scarring around the implantation site, which leads to a decline in signal quality over time. And signal quality is important because it affects how well the BCI performs. No one actually knows how long Utah arrays can last in the brain; so far […]

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A Pill Version of Ozempic Is Coming

“People can also get pretty dehydrated with these medications, because not only do you forget to eat but you also forget to drink,” says Kunal Shah, an assistant professor of endocrinology at Rutgers University who specializes in obesity treatment, referring to Ozempic and Wegovy. Shah says a new pill with a higher dosage could potentially […]

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A Pill Version of Ozempic Is Coming

“People can also get pretty dehydrated with these medications, because not only do you forget to eat but you also forget to drink,” says Kunal Shah, an assistant professor of endocrinology at Rutgers University who specializes in obesity treatment, referring to Ozempic and Wegovy. Shah says a new pill with a higher dosage could potentially […]

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Gene Therapy in the Womb Is Inching Closer to Reality

Currently, very few heritable diseases have gene therapies that have been approved by the FDA. One therapy, called Zolgensma, treats spinal muscular atrophy in newborns and children up to age two. But halting the disease in childhood may still be too late to avoid lifelong health issues. “When the baby is born, in the most severe […]

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Primitive Asgard Cells Show Life on the Brink of Complexity

The finding that Lokis have actin tentacles adds plausibility to a eukaryogenesis scenario called the inside-out model, Spang and Schleper said. In 2014, the cell biologist Buzz Baum at University College London and his cousin, the evolutionary biologist David Baum of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, proposed an idea they had kicked around at family […]

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The First Crispr-Edited Salad Is Here

A gene-editing startup wants to help you eat healthier salads. This month, North Carolina–based Pairwise Plants is rolling out a new type of mustard greens engineered to be less bitter than the original plant. The vegetable is the first Crispr-edited food to hit the US market. Mustard greens are packed with vitamins and minerals but […]

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A New Study Reveals the Traits That Speed Up Evolution

If they found a mutation in around 50 percent of an offspring’s DNA, they concluded that it was likely a germline mutation—one inherited through either the mother’s egg or the father’s sperm. Natural selection can act directly on such a mutation. Less frequent mutations were deemed to have happened spontaneously in tissues outside the germline; […]

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A New Cloned Horse Offers Hope for Endangered Species

Because of this history, Novak says scientists waited to announce this latest horse’s birth until he survived infancy. Even now, they’ll have to monitor his health for the rest of his life. As for Kurt, he’s in “great health,” Novak says. He now lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park with a female Przewalski’s […]

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The Secrets of Aging Are Hidden in Your Ovaries

The ovary is a time machine. It travels to the future, reaching old age ahead of the rest of the body. At birth, each ovary contains around a million follicles—tiny, fluid-filled sacs that hold immature eggs. But the decline of these follicles is immediate and unceasing. By puberty, only about 300,000 remain. By age 40, […]

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The Supreme Court Has Delayed Its Abortion Pill Decision

The legal saga over the abortion pill mifepristone isn’t over yet. On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court extended its own deadline to decide on the fate of the drug until Friday by just before midnight Eastern Time.  The pill will remain on the market for at least the next few days. The Supreme Court’s decision on […]

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Stem Cell ‘Junk Yards’ Reveal a New Clue About Aging

This revelation offers insight into why we age and what critical cellular machinery we must keep running to combat age-related diseases, according to Maria Carolina Florian, a stem cell biologist at the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies who was not involved in the work. To Florian, it suggests the possibility of creating drugs […]

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Scientists Turned Monkey Stem Cells Into ‘Synthetic Embryos’

Rivron’s laboratory was the first to create these embryo-like structures in 2018. His team showed that mouse stem cells can self-organize into structures that resemble a blastocyst, which forms five or six days after sperm fertilizes an egg. They dubbed the balls of cells “blastoids.”  Then in 2021, several labs showed they could create human blastoids using stem cells. […]

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A Nonprofit Wants Your DNA Data to Solve Crimes

Both GEDmatch’s and FamilyTreeDNA’s terms of service outline their policies for law enforcement use. But for many users, solving crimes is not their main motivator for signing up for these sites. Plus, not everyone reads the terms of service, and companies can not only change them at any time but may even break their own terms. […]

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The Quest for Injectable Brain Implants Has Begun

Eventually, Xenofon Strakosas, an assistant professor working in Berggren’s lab, figured out the problem: In plants, hydrogen peroxide helps the injected material bond together, but there isn’t enough peroxide in animals for the reaction to work. So Strakosas added some additional elements to the mix: an enzyme that uses glucose or lactate, which are common […]

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A Gene Therapy Cure for Sickle Cell Is on the Horizon

Evie Junior’s life has been defined by pain. He was born with sickle cell disease, which causes red blood cells to be sticky and C-shaped, not smooth and round. These cells are supposed to move freely through blood vessels, carrying oxygen to the body. But in people with this inherited form of anemia, they clump […]

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How Old Are You, Really? New Tests Want to Tell You

Age is just a number—and one you may be able to change. At least that’s the pitch behind Tally Health, a new startup that’s among a crop of companies selling tests that offer to tell consumers their “biological age.” You’ve heard of at-home tests like those from 23andMe and Ancestry, which scan your DNA to provide information […]

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This Lab-Grown Skin Could Revolutionize Transplants

The breakthrough launched a debate: What do we make now? One faction wanted to grow a face, but the faction that wanted to try a hand won. They imagined a five-fingered structure that could be snipped open at the wrist, slid on like a glove, then sutured. “You would only have to apply bandages around […]

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A Stroke Paralyzed Her Arm. This Implant Let Her Use It Again

“This is very exciting,” says Jason Carmel, a motor system neuroscientist at Columbia University who wasn’t involved in the study. “It opens up a potential treatment avenue that we’ve never had before for people with chronic stroke.”  Stroke is the most common cause of disability in adults. Worldwide, one in four people over the age of […]

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