Great Lakes Otters Are a Conservation Success Story with Populations Flourishing in US and Ontario

A river otter the moment it was released into the Rio Grande – Credit J.N. Stuart, CC 2.0.

In 1986, Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources began reintroducing North American river otters to the rivers, creeks, and shorelines of the Great Lakes ecosystem.

40 years later, these adorable apex predators have recolonized much of their former aquatic acreage in Ohio, New York, Michigan, and Ontario, fastening the food chain at the top while ecosystem restoration programs have anchored it at the bottom.

The Great Lakes region holds one-fifth of the world’s fresh water. It’s a massive ecosystem that supports tens of millions of people, tens of billions in industry, and thousands of animal and plant species.

Unfortunately for the otter, an apex predator needs a vast and intact ecosystem to thrive, and as industrialization ate away at its prey species and den habitat, hunters reduced their numbers in pursuit of their pelts.

In 1980, an examination conducted on US river otter populations determined they were locally extinct in 11 states, and lost significant population in 9 other states.

It’s a story all-too-familiar the world over, but one that seems now to have had a happy ending.

After the Ohio DNR began releasing river otters from southern states like Arkansas and Louisiana, New York state began a mirrored effort of relocating otters from the Adirondacks, the Hudson Valley, and Catskills to the tributaries of the Great Lakes in the western part of the state.

“All of these efforts were bolstered by the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a landmark US–Canada treaty that pushed both countries toward reducing toxic discharges and restoring damaged habitats,” writes Timothy Mihocik at Rewilding Magazine.

Gradual waterfront revitalization and de-industrialization has allowed the otter to go beyond mere sheltered streams in protected areas back into the heart of the Great Lakes ecosystem, a return that also heralds cleaner, uncontaminated water, richer fish stocks, and more biodiverse riverbeds.

GNN has reported over the years that the character of several Midwest rivers, once so polluted they’d catch fire, has now changed. In Toronto, Ohio, and Chicago, rivers are now swimmable and fishable again, and otters stand hugely to benefit from that.Still, North American river otters have remained rare or absent in the southwestern United States. Water quality and development inhibit recovery of populations in some areas, but here too, otters are returning, with the New Mexican population tripling in the last few years. Great Lakes Otters Are a Conservation Success Story with Populations Flourishing in US and Ontario

Read More........→March 21, 2026

Apes Show Ability to Imagine in ‘Tea Party’ Experiments, and Scientists are Very Excited

43-year-old bonobo named Kanzi – Courtesy of Ape Initiative / Johns Hopkins / SWNS

Apes share the human ability to imagine and pretend, suggests new research that included a series of tea party experiments.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, called it the first study to show the capacity for pretending is not unique to mankind.

They learned that apes can use their imagination and play pretend. One bonobo engaged with cups of imaginary juice and bowls of pretend grapes “consistently and robustly” across three experiments, challenging long-held assumptions about the abilities of animals.

The findings, published this week in the journal Science, suggest that the capacity to understand pretend objects is within the cognitive potential of, at least, an “enculturated ape”, and likely dates back six to nine million years, to our common evolutionary ancestors.

“It really is game-changing that their mental lives go beyond the here and now,” said study co-author Dr. Christopher Krupenye.

“Imagination has long been seen as a critical element of what it is to be human, but the idea that it may not be exclusive to our species is really transformative.

“Jane Goodall discovered that chimps make tools and that led to a change in the definition of what it means to be human—and this, too, really invites us to reconsider what makes us special and what mental life is out there among other creatures.”

He said that, by the age of two, human children can engage in pretend scenarios, like tea parties. Even at 15-months-old, infants show measures of surprise when they see a person “drinking” from a cup after pretending to empty it.

Credit: Getty Images For Unsplash+

There had been no previous studies of pretend behavior in non-human animals, despite several reports of animals seemingly engaging in pretending behavior from both the wild and in zoos or captivity.

For instance, in the wild, young female chimps have been observed carrying and playing with sticks, holding them like mothers would hold their infants. And a chimp in captivity seemed to drag imaginary blocks along the floor after playing with real wooden blocks.

Dr. Krupenye and co-author Amalia Bastos, a former Johns Hopkins postdoctoral fellow who is now a lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, wondered if they could test the capacity to pretend in a controlled environment.

They created experiments similar to a child’s tea party to test Kanzi, a 43-year-old bonobo living at Ape Initiative in Iowa, is the world’s only research center and sanctuary dedicated exclusively to the study and conservation of bonobos, our closest primate relative.

Kanzi had been anecdotally reported to engage in pretense, and could respond to verbal prompts by pointing.

In each test, a researcher and Kanzi faced one another, tea party-style, across a table. In the first task there were two transparent cups on the table, both empty, alongside an empty transparent pitcher.

Kanzi – Courtesy of Ape Initiative / Johns Hopkins / SWNS

The researcher tipped the pitcher to “pour” a little pretend juice into each cup, then pretended to dump the juice out of one cup, shaking it a bit to really get it out.

The researcher then asked Kanzi: “Where’s the juice?”

The bonobo pointed to the correct cup that still contained pretend juice, even when the researcher changed the position of the cup filled with pretend juice.

In case Kanzi thought there was real juice in the cup, even if he couldn’t see it, the team ran a second experiment, during which a cup of real juice was placed alongside the cup of pretend juice.

When Kanzi was asked what he wanted, he pointed toward the real juice almost every time.

A third experiment repeated the same concept, except with grapes. A researcher pretended to sample a grape from an empty container, then placed it inside one of the two jars.

After pretending to empty one of the containers, he asked Kanzi: “Where’s the grape?”

Kanzi again indicated the location of the pretend object. The researchers said Kanzi wasn’t perfect, but he was consistently correct.

“It’s extremely striking and very exciting that the data seem to suggest that apes, in their minds, can conceive of things that are not there,” said Dr. Bastos.

“Kanzi is able to generate an idea of this pretend object and, at the same time, know it’s not real.”

The researchers now want to test whether other apes and animals can engage in pretend play or track pretend objects. They also hope to explore other facets of imagination in apes, perhaps their ability to think about the future or to think about what’s going on in the minds of others.

“Imagination is one of those things that in humans gives us a rich mental life,” said Dr. Krupenye.“And if some roots of imagination are shared with apes, that should make people question their assumption that other animals are just living robotic lifestyles constrained to the present. We should be compelled by these findings to care for these creatures with rich and beautiful minds and ensure they continue to exist.” Apes Show Ability to Imagine in ‘Tea Party’ Experiments, and Scientists are Very Excited

Read More........→February 10, 2026

New Ultrasonic Imaging System Can Detect Deadly Defects in All Types of Concrete

– credit Fujikawa et al. with background / SWNS

If a physician needs to see what’s gone wrong inside a human body, it’s easy enough to order an ultrasound scan. But if the structural engineer wants to do the same in a block of concrete, his options are of limited effectiveness.

The range of materials that concrete contains, such as stone, clay, chalk, slate, iron ore, and sand, scatters normal sound waves, making clear images difficult to obtain.

Now, Japanese and American scientists have teamed up to develop a system that can identify interior defects in concrete buildings and bridges without destroying their structure.

Team members explain in a news release that their method sends sound waves into the material and captures the waves that echo back to create images of what’s inside, just like an ultrasound.

“In our approach, the ultrasonic wave is broadband, using a wide range of ultrasonic frequencies rather than operating around a single, fixed frequency,” said Professor Yoshikazu Ohara from Tohoku University in Japan.

“The receiver is capable of accepting an even broader range of frequencies. By automatically adapting the frequency to the material, our system improves the contrast between defects and background material in concrete.”

Tohoku and his colleagues joined the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and Texas A&M University to create the system.

A chief challenge is that it’s hard to know which frequencies of sound waves will survive traveling through concrete, as different material therein may interfere with different wavelengths.

To accommodate the uncertainty, the team used two devices: one to generate a wide range of frequencies to send into the material and another, called a vibrometer, to capture the outcoming waves.

The system, described in the journal Applied Physics Letters, can handle a wide range of frequencies, which means that even if ultrasonic waves are scattered by materials in the concrete, those that do make it through are still detected, regardless of what frequency they are.

“As the concrete filters out certain frequencies, the laser Doppler vibrometer simply captures whatever frequencies remain,” said Professor Ohara. “Unlike conventional systems, we don’t have to swap transducers or adjust the frequency beforehand. The system adapts automatically.”

The result is a high-resolution 3D image of the defect and its location in the concrete.For a repair planner or field technician, this provides ‘concrete’ information: how deep the defect is from the surface, how large it is, and how it extends in three dimensions, making it possible to plan repairs more efficiently. New Ultrasonic Imaging System Can Detect Deadly Defects in All Types of Concrete

Read More........→February 10, 2026

Successful World First: Baby Treated with Personalized CRISPR Gene Therapy for Rare Disease is Now ‘Thriving’

Dr. Kiran Musunru (left) and Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas (right) led the researchers who developed a personalized treatment for baby KJ – Released CHOP and Penn

CRISPR has been used to create a genetic therapy option for a child born in Pennsylvania with a rare metabolic disorder.

Unable to convert ammonia to urea, newborn KJ was in serious risk of brain or liver damage, and had to be kept on medications and an extremely restrictive diet to avoid protein metabolism.

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) doctors believed they could use CRISPR to develop a treatment to correct a faulty gene in KJ’s genome that would essentially cure him.

KJ’s parents, Nicole and Kyle Muldoon, decided to place their son’s wellbeing in the hands of two pioneering genetic therapists, Dr. Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas and Dr. Kiran Musunru, who crafted a bespoke treatment that has successfully corrected the genetic defect.

“Years and years of progress in gene editing and collaboration between researchers and clinicians made this moment possible, and while KJ is just one patient, we hope he is the first of many to benefit from a methodology that can be scaled to fit an individual patient’s needs,” said Rebecca Ahrens-Nicklas, MD, PhD, director of the Gene Therapy for Inherited Metabolic Disorders Frontier Program (GTIMD) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

She, along with Dr. Musunru, are members of the NIH-funded Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium, and have spent years developing the science of using CRISPR to create individual treatment doses for the rarest of diseases.

So far, the only FDA-approved and standardized CRISPR therapies target two diseases found in tens of thousands of patients. CRISPR is an incredibly complex tool and expensive to wield, leaving its magic beyond the reach of millions of children and adults worldwide who collectively suffer from extremely rare genetic disorders.

One such disorder is called severe carbamoyl phosphate synthetase 1 (CPS1) deficiency, and it creates the inability to properly convert ammonia into urea to be excreted through urine. Ammonia is created in the body through protein metabolism. CPS1 is created in the liver to turn it into urea so as to avoid the toxic effects of the former.

KJ’s body cannot, so excess protein metabolism creates a buildup of ammonia in his liver that could be fatal. Nitrogen scavenging medication and a protein-deficient diet can keep a patient going until a liver transplant can be found, but at just months old, KJ’s body isn’t capable of enduring the procedure.

A news release from CHOP reports that Ahrens-Nicklas and Musunuru targeted KJ’s specific variant of CPS1 after years of work with similar disease-causing variants. Within 6 months, their team designed and manufactured a base editing therapy delivered via lipid nanoparticles to the liver in order to correct KJ’s faulty enzyme.

In late February, 2025, KJ received his first infusion of this experimental therapy, and since then has received follow-up doses in March and April 2025, the release details. In the newly published New England Journal of Medicine paper, the researchers, along with their academic and industry collaborators, describe the customized CRISPR gene editing therapy that was rigorously yet speedily developed for administration to KJ.

KJ has received 3 doses, and suffered no side effects. He’s been able to halt medication and work some protein back into his diet, though he will need careful monitoring the rest of his life.“We thought it was our responsibility to help our child, so when the doctors came to us with their idea, we put our trust in them in the hopes that it could help not just KJ but other families in our position,” his mother, Nicole, told CHOP. Successful World First: Baby Treated with Personalized CRISPR Gene Therapy for Rare Disease is Now ‘Thriving’

Read More........→February 06, 2026

New Eco-Friendly Tech Eliminates ‘Forever Chemicals’ With Record-Breaking Speed–And it’s Reusable

PFAs self-destruct in this layered double hydroxide material made from copper and aluminum – credit: Rice University

University researchers in Texas and Korea have collaborated to developed an eco-friendly water purifier that captures—and destroys—toxic “forever chemicals” (PFAS) more than 1,000 times better than current methods.

Their study marks a major milestone in addressing one of the world’s most persistent environmental and health threats.

PFAS are synthetic chemicals first created in the 1940s for use in products ranging from Teflon pans to waterproof clothing and food packaging. Their ability to resist heat, grease, and water has made them valuable for industry and consumers, but that same resistance means they do not easily degrade.

Current health studies have suggested their lingering residues in water are linked to possible liver damage, reproductive disorders, immune system disruption, and certain cancers.

Traditional PFAS cleanup methods typically rely on adsorption, where molecules cling to materials like activated carbon or ion-exchange resins. While these methods are widely used, they come with major drawbacks: low efficiency, slow performance, and the creation of additional waste that requires disposal.

“Our new approach offers a sustainable and highly effective alternative,” said Professor Michael Wong at Rice University, who specializes in nanotechnology, chemistry, and biomolecular engineering.

The innovation centers on a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material made from copper and aluminum, first discovered by South Korean Professor Keon-Ham Kim, while he was a grad student at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in 2021.

While experimenting with these materials, a student at Rice, Youngkun Chung, discovered that one formulation with nitrate could adsorb PFAS with record-breaking efficiency.

“To my astonishment, this LDH compound captured PFAS more than 1,000 times better than other materials,” said Chung, a lead author of the study.

“It also worked incredibly fast, removing large amounts of PFAS within minutes, about 100 times faster than commercial carbon filters.”

The material’s effectiveness stems from its unique internal structure.

Its organized copper-aluminum layers combined with slight charge imbalances create an ideal environment for PFAS molecules to bind—with both speed and strength.

Works equally well in river water, tap water and wastewater

To test the technology’s practicality, the team evaluated the LDH material in river water, tap water and wastewater. In all cases, it proved highly effective, performing well in both static and continuous-flow systems.

The results, recently published in the journal Advanced Materials, suggest strong potential for large-scale applications in municipal water treatment and industrial cleanup.

Closing the waste loop

Removing PFAS from water is only part of the challenge. Destroying them safely is equally important. The team at Rice developed a method to thermally decompose PFAS captured on the LDH material. By heating the saturated material with calcium carbonate, the team eliminated more than half of the trapped PFAS without releasing toxic by-products.

Remarkably, the process also regenerated the LDH, allowing it to be reused multiple times—refreshing itself for reuse.

“It’s a rare one-two punch against pollution,” wrote Science Daily, “fast cleanup and sustainable destruction.”

Preliminary studies showed the material could complete at least six full cycles of capture, destruction and renewal, making it the first known eco-friendly, sustainable system for PFAS removal.

“We are excited by the potential of this one-of-a-kind LDH-based technology to transform how PFAS-contaminated water sources are treated in the near future,” said Professor Wong said.“It’s the result of an extraordinary international collaboration and the creativity of young researchers.” New Eco-Friendly Tech Eliminates ‘Forever Chemicals’ With Record-Breaking Speed–And it’s Reusable

Read More........→January 13, 2026

Mom and Baby Beat 1-in-a-Million Odds to Survive the ‘Rarest of Pregnancies’

This photo provided by the family shows, from left, Kaila, Suze, Ryu and Andrew Lopez at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles in August 2025 – family photo

A Los Angeles woman recently celebrated the first Christmas with her baby boy, Ryu, born to truly remarkable circumstances.

Ryu developed outside his mother’s womb, and remained hidden for months behind an ovarian cyst that grew to be the size of a basketball. It was so unbelievable, the surgical/OBGYN team that delivered Ryu documented it for a case study in a medical journal.

The manner in which Ryu came into being represents a circumstance that’s “far, far less than 1 in a million,” said Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of labor and delivery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where Ryu was born. “I mean, this is really insane.”

Now 41, Suze Lopez has always had an irregular cycle, so missed periods—even consecutive ones—are a normal occurrence. It was almost 20 years ago that she was diagnoses with a pair of ovarian cysts, one of which was removed immediately, and one of which was not.

So in early 2025 when Lopez noted her abdomen swelling, her first thought was the cyst. She never felt kicking, and never had morning sickness—and indeed her instinct was at least partly correct.

The pressure and pain in her abdomen grew as days passed, and she was certain that, even if it risked her ability to conceive again, it was time to remove the other cyst which unbeknownst to her had grown to weigh a mind-boggling 22 pounds.

She needed a CT scan to prepare for surgery, which required a pregnancy test for the radiation, and to her utter surprise the test came back positive. Lopez was delighted, but the pain and discomfort grew and soon she had to be hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai where her medical team found a near fully-developed fetus in an amniotic sack lodged against her pelvis.

The term for where the fetus develops is “implants” and the term for a fetus that implants outside of the womb is an “ectopic pregnancy.” Almost all of these go on to rupture and hemorrhage. As such, fetal mortality can be as high as 90% in such cases and birth defects are seen in about 1 in 5 surviving babies, SF Gate reports.

However, because fetal Ryu implanted against the pelvic wall and not against the liver, it was far more manageable, and the reason why Lopez didn’t have more pain earlier.

Lopez and her boy beat the odds, despite a mammoth surgical procedure that both delivered Ryu at 8 pounds and removed the ovarian cyst—together weighing as much as an adult bobcat. During the procedure, Lopez lost half her blood, and had to be continually given transfusions.

“The whole time, I might have seemed calm on the outside, but I was doing nothing but praying on the inside,” Andrew Lopez, Suze’s husband, told SF Gate. “It was just something that scared me half to death, knowing that at any point I could lose my wife or my child.”Instead, they both survived without any maleffects. Ryu “completes” their family, said his mother, and recently celebrated his first Christmas alongside his older sister Kaila. Mom and Baby Beat 1-in-a-Million Odds to Survive the ‘Rarest of Pregnancies

Read More........→January 10, 2026

First projects selected for INL reactor experiments

(Image: INL)

The five initial selections for end user experiments at Idaho National Laboratory's Microreactor Application Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) reactor include projects related to data centres, technology application in commercial and advanced reactors, and applications for nuclear-generated process heat.

MARVEL is a sodium-potassium-cooled microreactor being developed by the US Department of Energy (DOE). It will generate 85 kilowatts of thermal energy and up to 20 kilowatts of electricity. It is to be located at the Transient Reactor Test Facility at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), and will serve as a nuclear test bed to demonstrate microreactor operations and end-use applications, providing a platform for the private sector to access to an operational microreactor to demonstrate innovative new use cases for the technology. The reactor will be connected to INL's microgrid, and is expected to be operational by late 2027.

The projects selected in a competitive process as the first potential end-users for Marvel are:

- Amazon Web Services Inc, which proposes coupling the MARVEL reactor with a modular data centre, which could potentially provide a simple and cost-effective way for government agencies to build data centres anywhere in the world by enabling the creation of a self-sustaining, rapidly deployable system that can operate independently of traditional power infrastructure;

- DCX USA and Arizona State University, with a proposal to use MARVEL to demonstrate the feasibility of a microreactor to power a data centre for artificial intelligence to yield valuable data on how to provide a stable, continuous power supply capable of handling the unique demands of AI processing;

- General Electric Vernova, which proposes to use MARVEL to demonstrate remote and autonomous reactor operations and establish controls standards for broader application of the technology with commercial reactors;

- Radiation Detection Technologies Inc, proposing to use MARVEL to test advanced high-performance sensor technologies that could help monitor the performance of advanced reactors;

- Shepherd Power, NOV and ConocoPhillips with a proposal to leverage MARVEL for a pilot-scale desalination project using nuclear-generated process heat to demonstrate the viability of advanced nuclear energy for addressing produced water challenges in oil and gas operations.

"Nowhere else in the world will you find this level of support for public sector innovation in nuclear energy," said John Jackson, national technical director for the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy's Microreactor Program. "With access to MARVEL, companies can explore how microreactors will potentially help us win the global AI race, solve water challenges and so much more."The selectees will now work with DOE and national laboratory staff to create implementation plans and to determine the feasibility of their proposed application using MARVEL. Final agreements for proposed projects are expected to be announced in 2026. First projects selected for INL reactor experiments

Read More........→January 06, 2026

Patients Thought Untreatable with Rare Disease Dramatically Improve with Common Gene Therapy

A lumbar puncture – credit, BruceBlaus CC 3.0. via Wikimedia Commons

A single-dose gene replacement therapy is found to transform the capabilities for movement in children over 2 years of age and teenagers with spinal muscular atrophy, according to research published in Nature Medicine.

The effects allowed these minors who could sit but not stand to move like they’ve never done before, including standing up, walking, and even climbing stairs.

The real-world results of this phase 3 clinical trial, involving 126 children and adolescents, could support an alternative to lifelong, repeat-dose treatments for people who couldn’t get access to corrective treatment before 2, when curing the condition is possible.

Spinal muscular atrophy is a rare genetic condition that causes muscle weakness and loss of movement over time. It develops because the body cannot make enough of a protein, called survival motor neuron, needed for healthy nerve cells.

Onasemnogene abeparvovec is a gene therapy that restores production of this missing protein in a single treatment. However, it is currently approved in the US and Europe only as a single intravenous treatment for children under 2 years of age. Therefore, those older than 2 years of age can receive treatments only to slow the disease, and these must be taken regularly, either by injection or orally.

The financial burden for patients and their families is immense, with average 5-year inpatient costs of $116,000, and outpatient costs of $55,000. Around 9,000 people live with spinal muscular atrophy in the USA.

Lead author Richard Finkel at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee and colleagues assessed the safety and efficacy of a single dose of the same gene therapy—onasemnogene abeparvovec delivered—directly into the spinal fluid of children older than 2 years of age with spinal muscular atrophy.

The year-long trial involved 126 children and adolescents between 2 and 18 years of age who were able to sit but had never walked on their own. The participants were randomly assigned to receive either the gene therapy (75 participants) or a placebo (51 participants). Those who received the active therapy achieved a significantly greater improvement in motor function scores on a validated test (which identified gains in 33 specific skills, such as moving from a lying into a sitting position, walking, and climbing stairs) compared with those who did not.

Side effects were similar in both groups and were generally manageable, and the only substantial weakness in the trial was that it lasted 12 months. Longer-term follow-ups would be necessary to establish safety and efficacy.

The findings suggest that the only treatment for spinal muscular atrophy is, in fact, effective in participants older than 2 years of age, but only when delivered directly into the spinal fluid.Dr. Finkel and his colleagues recommend broadening access to this gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy to patients beyond infancy, addressing an unmet need in older children and adolescents. Patients Thought Untreatable with Rare Disease Dramatically Improve with Common Gene Therapy

Read More........→December 29, 2025

New Underwater Tool Lets Ecologists ID Fish From Their Sounds–46 Species So Far (LISTEN to 5 of Them)

The FishEye Collaborative / Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Underwater coral reefs are filled with thumps, pops, and snaps from shrimp and fish, and ecologists often use underwater microphones to monitor the health of marine environments.

But until now, ecologists have largely been unable to interpret these sounds because reefs are crowded with hundreds of different species—very few of which have had sounds accurately attributed to them.

A new tool from the FishEye Collaborative combines underwater sound recordings and a camera equipped with a 360° view to pinpoint the sounds made by individual fish.

The collaboration between bioacoustic researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Aalto University have already identified 46 fish species from the coral reefs of Curaçao in the Caribbean—more than half of them were never known to make sound.

The findings culled from their eavesdropping along with a description of their invention, the Omnidirectional Underwater Passive Acoustic Camera (UPAC-360), were published recently in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

“The diversity of fish sounds on a coral reef rivals that of birds in a rainforest,” explained Marc Dantzker, lead author and the Director of FishEye Collaborative. “In the Caribbean alone we estimate that over 700 fish species produce sounds. The same biodiversity we aim to protect is also our greatest challenge, when it comes to identifying sounds.”

The FishEye Collaborative / Cornell Lab of Ornithology

“Spatial Audio lets you hear the direction from which sounds arrive at the camera,” explained Dantzker. “When we visualize that sound and lay the picture on top of the 360° image, the result is a video that can reveal which sound came from which fish.”

Now the most extensive collection of fish sounds ever published—and the growing library—is available to everyone at fisheyecollaborative.org/library.

The researchers say that identified sounds from the library can be used to automatically train machine learning systems to detect fish species in underwater recordings.

The technology is similar to smartphone apps like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Merlin Bird ID that automatically identifies bird species by song or call, but no one needs to be on site. The UPAC-360 can be placed in reefs and left to collect data without the need for a diver or boat to be present.

The FishEye Collaborative / Cornell Lab of Ornithology

“We are a long way from being able to build ‘Merlin’ for the oceans, but the sounds are useful for scientists and conservationists right away,” says Aaron Rice, a senior author of the study and principal ecologist at the Cornell Lab.

Dantzker adds, “We’re making it possible to decode reef soundscapes, transforming acoustic monitoring into a powerful tool for ocean conservation.”

“By discovering the identity of these hidden voices, acoustics will become a powerful indicator of reef health and a strategy to monitor wider and deeper,” said Matt Duggan, co-author and PhD candidate at Cornell.

“The fact that our recording system is put out in nature and can record for long periods of time means that we’re able to capture species’ behaviors and sounds that have never before been witnessed,” said Rice.

The researchers are expanding the research, growing the library for the Caribbean, and broadening their efforts to other reefs around the world, including Hawai’i and Indonesia, in the coming months.

LISTEN to 5 fish sounds below… [NOTES: It’s loud at first. Also, be sure to read the text.]

New Underwater Tool Lets Ecologists ID Fish From Their Sounds–46 Species So Far (LISTEN to 5 of Them)

Read More........→December 19, 2025

First Human Cornea Transplant Using 3D Printed, Lab-Grown Tissue Restores Sight in a ‘Game Changer’ for Millions Who are Blind

File photo – credit: Maria Maximova

The first successful human implant of a 3D-printed cornea made from human eye cells cultured in a laboratory has restored a patient’s sight.

The North Carolina-based company that developed the cornea described the procedure as a ‘world first’—and a major milestone toward its goal of alleviating the lack of available donor tissue and long wait-times for people seeking transplants.

According to Precise Bio, its robotic bio-fabrication approach could potentially turn a single donated cornea into hundreds of lab-grown grafts, at a time when there’s currently only one available for an estimated 70 patients who need one to see.

“This achievement marks a turning point for regenerative ophthalmology—a moment of real hope for millions living with corneal blindness,” Aryeh Batt, Precise Bio’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.

“For the first time, a corneal implant manufactured entirely in the lab from cultured human corneal cells, rather than direct donor tissue, has been successfully implanted in a patient.”

The company said the transplant was performed Oct. 29 in one eye of a patient who was considered legally blind.

“This is a game changer. We’ve witnessed a cornea created in the lab, from living human cells, bring sight back to a human being,” said Dr. Michael Mimouni, director of the cornea unit at Rambam Medical Center in Israel, who performed the procedure.

“It was an unforgettable moment—a glimpse into a future where no one will have to live in darkness because of a shortage of donor tissue.”

Dubbed PB-001, the implant is designed to match the optical clarity, transparency and bio-mechanical properties of a native cornea. Previously tested in animal models, the company said its graft is capable of integrating with a patient’s own tissue.

The outer layer of the eye—covering the iris and pupil—can end up clouding a person’s vision following injuries, infections, scarring and other conditions. PB-001 is currently being tested in a single-arm phase 1 trial in Israel, which aims to enroll between 10 and 15 participants with excess fluid buildups in the cornea due to dysfunction within its inner cell layers.

Precise Bio said it plans to announce top-line results from the study in the second half of 2026, tracking six-month efficacy outcomes.

The corneas are designed to be compatible with current surgery hardware and workflows. Shipped under long-term cryopreservation, it is delivered preloaded on standard delivery devices and unrolls during implantation to form a natural corneal shape.

“PB-001 has the potential to offer a new, standardized solution to one of ophthalmology’s most urgent needs—reliable, safe, and effective corneal replacement,” said Anthony Atala, M.D., co-founder of Precise Bio and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.


“The ability to produce patient-ready tissue on demand could lead the way towards reshaping transplant medicine as we know it.”(Edited from original article by Conor Hale) First Human Cornea Transplant Using 3D Printed, Lab-Grown Tissue Restores Sight in a ‘Game Changer’ for Millions Who are Blind

Read More........→December 17, 2025

Iron-Air Batteries Powered by Rust Could Revolutionize Energy Storage By Using Only Iron, Water, and Air

Iron-air batteries for stable power – Credit: Form Energy

Edited with permission of EarthTalk® and E – The Environmental Magazine, Dear EarthTalk: What’s new regarding more efficient batteries that can help usher in a new age of renewable energy?

Batteries are everywhere—in your phone, your car—even the artificial organs many depend on for life. Fortunately, new innovations have increased the efficiency and sustainability of our ubiquitous batteries.

One of the most novel innovations unveiled recently is the iron-air battery system which usees rust to produce energy in a sustainable way.

The iron-air system from Form Energy is built from safe, low-cost, abundant materials—iron, water, and air—and uses no heavy or rare-earth metals. The company touts that approximately 80% of its components are sourced domestically from within the United States.

As air passes through the cathode (the negatively-charged portion of the battery) and reacts with the liquid, a water-based electrolyte, ions subsequently latch onto the positively-charged iron anode, producing rust. The movement of ions through this rust produces electricity, a process that can be repeated by continually un-rusting the battery after each reaction.

Form energy co-founder and Chief Scientist Yet-Ming Chiang notes the economic viability of iron-air batteries for large-scale usage: “Air is still free and iron is one of the most widely produced, lowest cost materials in the world.”

In Minnesota, a 1.5 megawatt pilot project was shown to be able to power 400 homes for 100 hours. It also successfully completed UL9540A safety testing, demonstrating the highest safety standards with no fire or thermal threats across all scenarios.

Besides iron-air batteries, solid-state batteries are what George Crabtree, director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, believes to be “very likely… the next big thing at the commercial level.”

Solid-state batteries use electrolytes like argyrodite, garnet and perovskite that are more efficient than liquid-electrolytes in nearly all aspects: they’re lighter, take up less space and can hold more energy per unit of mass. These qualities make them effective for electrical vehicles and grid-scale energy storage.

However, researchers like University of Houston professor Yan Yao, who recently developed a glass-like electrolyte, are still looking for materials that fulfill all four factors for viability in the market: low-cost, easy-to-build, having a high degree of mechanical stability, and chemical stability.

With lithium-based batteries being so ubiquitous, some scientists are looking to improve on the existing model rather than supplanting it entirely. Batteries made out of lithium-sulfur, for example, exhibit four times greater energy density than traditional lithium batteries due to their usage of light, active materials.

Ultimately, innovations in batteries are a cornerstone to shaping a more sustainable future, making renewable energy more reliable and energy grids more stable.

EarthTalk® is produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss for the 501(c)3 nonprofit EarthTalk. See more at emagazine.com. To donate, visit Earthtalk.org. Send questions to: question@earthtalk.org.

Iron-Air Batteries Powered by Rust Could Revolutionize Energy Storage By Using Only Iron, Water, and Air

Read More........→November 03, 2025

Rapid BP fluctuations may signal risk of brain degeneration in elderly

(Photo: AI generated image/IANS)

New Delhi, (IANS) Older adults whose blood pressure fluctuates widely may indicate a greater risk of brain shrinkage and nerve cell injury, according to a new study.

The study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, reveals that short-term “dynamic instability” in blood pressure -- moment-to-moment changes measured over just minutes -- is linked to loss of brain tissue in regions critical for memory and cognition, as well as to blood biomarkers of nerve cell damage.

“Our findings show that even when average blood pressure is normal, instability from one heartbeat to the next may place stress on the brain,” said Daniel Nation, from the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

“These moment-to-moment swings appear to be associated with the same kinds of brain changes we see in early neurodegeneration,” added the Professor of Gerontology and Medicine.

While high average blood pressure has long been known to increase the risk of dementia, this study focuses on blood pressure variability, or how much blood pressure rises and falls over short time periods.

Recent evidence suggests that such fluctuations can strain small blood vessels in the brain and reduce their ability to deliver steady blood flow.

In this study, the researchers combined two complementary measures: Average Real Variability (ARV) and Arterial Stiffness Index (ASI).

ARV captures how much systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) changes between each heartbeat, while ASI reflects how flexible or stiff the arteries are as they respond to those changes in pressure.

Together, these measures indicate how much blood flow changes over a short period of time, or what the researchers call “blood pressure dynamic instability.”

"This study suggests that excessive fluctuations could be a sign of vascular ageing that contributes to brain injury,” Nation explained.

The team conducted MRI scans of 105 community-dwelling older adults between the ages of 55 and 89 who were generally healthy and had no major neurological disease.

Participants with both high ARV and high ASI were found to have smaller hippocampal and entorhinal cortex volumes -- brain regions vital for learning and memory, also the first affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

Blood samples showed that the same individuals also had higher levels of neurofilament light (NfL), a blood-based marker that rises when nerve cells are damaged.The findings open a new window into how cardiovascular changes contribute to cognitive decline and may offer novel prevention strategies. Rapid BP fluctuations may signal risk of brain degeneration in elderly | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com

Read More........→November 01, 2025

First Antidote for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning 'Cleans' Blood in Minutes

A plug-in carbon monoxide detector – credit Fastily CC 4.0. BY-SA

It’s invisible, it’s lethal, and it’s been with us for decades, but carbon monoxide poisoning can now be fought with the first-ever antidote that rapidly removes the toxic molecule from the bloodstream.

Carbon monoxide or CO, poisoning accounts for 50,000 emergency room visits in the US each year and causes about 1,500 deaths, each one being lamented as a shameful waste and tragic oversight.

Currently, the only treatments for CO poisoning are oxygen-based therapies, which help the body eliminate the toxic gas. However, even with treatment, nearly half of survivors suffer long-term heart and brain damage. This has created an urgent need for faster, more effective interventions.

In a study published by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) in PNAS, the research team developed a new engineered protein-based therapy called RcoM-HBD-CCC, which acts like a sponge to soak up carbon monoxide from the blood.

RcoM (short for “regulator of metabolism”) is a natural protein isolated from the bacterium Paraburkholderia xenovorans which uses it to sense minute levels of carbon monoxide in its environment.

The researchers engineered a version that is highly selective, grabbing CO without interfering with oxygen or other important molecules in the bloodstream like nitric oxide, which is vital for the regulation of blood pressure.

In tests on mice, the new therapy worked quickly to remove CO from red blood cells and was safely flushed out of the body through urine.

CO is known commonly as the “silent killer,” because this odorless, invisible gas, typically released from combustion sources, including stovetops, propane heaters, car exhausts, and firewood, poisons in a gradual manner that isn’t immediately obvious to the victim.

In healthy bodies, oxygen inhaled from the air binds to the protein hemoglobin on the surface of red blood cells, which then ferry the oxygen to all the tissues of the body. CO however, competes with oxygen for hemoglobin. It enters the bloodstream and binds to hemoglobin with a 200 to 400-fold greater affinity than oxygen. That means CO hogs most of the hemoglobin seats, so not enough oxygen molecules can get a ride to the tissues that need them.

Currently, the only available treatments for carbon monoxide poisoning involve giving 100% pure oxygen, sometimes under pressure in a hyperbaric chamber.

All too often, patients are not transported, diagnosed, and treated in time to reverse the effects of CO poisoning, which can cause lasting cardiac and neurological injuries or even death.

Infused in the bloodstream, scavenger hemoproteins like RcoM-HBD-CCC rapidly bind to carbon monoxide molecules, reducing the time it takes to clear half of the carbon monoxide in the blood to less than a minute, compared to more than hour with pure oxygen therapy and five hours without any treatment.

A potential drawback the researchers were aware of is that so-called “scavengers” like RcoM also have an affinity for oxygen, and so may uptake the nitric oxide mentioned earlier. This can cause wild and potentially unsafe changes in blood pressure, but RcoM-HBD-CCC caused no such side effects.

“Unlike other protein-based treatments, we found the compound caused only minimal changes in blood pressure, which was an exciting finding and raised the potential for this new molecule to have clinical applications,” said study corresponding author Mark T. Gladwin, MD, Dean of UMSOM.

“This has the potential to become a rapid, intravenous antidote for carbon monoxide that could be given in the emergency department or even in the field by first-responders.”Future studies will likely include more pre-clinical research to determine the safe and effective dosage range for RcoM-HBD-CCC in treating carbon monoxide poisoning. It could also form the basis for new research in other fields, including as an oxygen delivery therapy or blood substitute. This could include hemorrhagic shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), severe anemias, and the preservation of organs for transplantation. First Antidote for Carbon Monoxide Poisoning 'Cleans' Blood in Minutes

Read More........→October 17, 2025

Six Baby Cheetahs Born in the Richmond Zoo's Prolific Breeding Program – 167 Cats Since 2013 (WATCH)

Six cheetah cubs with their mother –Courtesy of Metro Richmond Zoo

At a zoo in Richmond, a raucous litter of cheetah cubs is delighting onlookers having spent the summer months growing in secret.

One of the largest litters born at the zoo, the three-month-old cubs are hitting milestones and progressing well towards adolescence.

Named after African capitals, such as Lusaka, Kampala, and Cairo, the cubs were born in April but were kept hidden away to develop in peace through their most sensitive period with mother Zuri.

Sprinting, jumping on each other, and investigating every object in their enclosure, they seem well on their way to becoming the world’s fastest land animal.

“Some are shy; one is bold and brave — that’s Lusaka,” said Kristina Coonley, a lead zookeeper at the Metro Richmond Zoo, Virginia. “[Cairo] is always the last one out and the last one to come in.”

Though just the 99th most populated city in America, the Richmond Zoo nevertheless boasts one of the country’s most prolific and successful cheetah breeding program for purposes of conservation. Zuri’s litter of 6 takes the total number of captive-born cubs in the program’s history to 167 since 2013.

Coonley told the Washington Post that the Cheetah Conservation Center looks carefully and genetics and disposition when deciding which of their cats are suitable for breeding. Zuri is 5 years old, and has already mothered one litter. Her partner was Ramses, a 13-year-old sire of 25 other cubs.

Though losing out on conservation column inches to the likes of the lion and tiger, cheetah are considered Vulnerable by the IUCN. With around 6,500 individuals across the whole of Africa, a relic populations in Iran, and a diminishing introduced population in India, they are the most at-risk of the African big cats because of their need for space befitting the world’s greatest sprinters.It’s no bad thing then that the Metro Richmond Zoo has seen even bigger litters than these 6, with a resident female last year bringing 9 little mohawked babies into the world. Six Baby Cheetahs Born in the Richmond Zoo's Prolific Breeding Program – 167 Cats Since 2013 (WATCH)

Read More........→October 01, 2025

Researchers Blown Away After Finding Jaguar Population up 30% Across Mexico

A jaguar on the Piquiri river – credit, Charles J. Sharp from Sharp Photography CC 4.0. BY-SA via Wikimedia

Imagine sitting in southern Texas and knowing that in less than a day you could drive to se the world’s third largest cat.

That is absolutely the reality in Mexico today, following a second national jaguar population census which found this charismatic cat is actually increasing in numbers across the country, reaching around 5,300 animals.

Gerardo Ceballos and colleagues conducted the first census in 2010, hoping to grasp more or less the gravity of the risk of extinction faced by the jaguar. They were estimating they’d find around 1,000 in the whole of Mexico.

But rather than the risk of extinction, their results conveyed a different narrative. They found four-times as many cats as they expected.

“It was a great surprise, terrific news,” Ceballos said. “Obviously 4,000 means the species is still in danger of extinction, but 4,000 is a lot better than 1,000.”

Then in 2025, Ceballos completed a second survey, employing over 50 national and local research institutions and community leaders, who together set up 920 motion-activated camera traps.

Staggered again, the count showed that in 15 years, jaguar numbers had increased 30%. It turns out that even though the twenty-teens saw hundreds of thousands of acres of forest cleared, there were almost as many jaguars in Mexico as there are cheetahs on the entire African continent.

“The fact that the country has managed to maintain and increase its population over the last 14 years is extraordinary,” Ceballos told the Guardian. “For me it’s great news for the country. Mexico and the world need good news.”

The populations came in as follows: the Yucatán peninsula region had the most (1,699), followed by the south Pacific area (1,541), north-east and central Mexico (813), the north Pacific (733) and the central Pacific coast (540).

The jaguar is a compact, muscular predator, with exceptionally strong jaws that allow it to pierce the shells of turtles and the hides of crocodilians. They’re good tree climbers, avid swimmers, and will even hunt in the water. Like tigers, it employs a stalk and ambush hunting strategy, and is considered peerless in terms of its catch rate.

In short, and by comparison, the jaguar is maybe the most versatile and adaptable of any of the big cats.

This gives the animal an advantage in the gradually shrinking forests of Mexico.Ceballos told the Guardian that the spotted hunter would face multiple threats, including from the continued construction of new highways across Mexico, as well as habitat loss and zoonic diseases being passed to them via livestock which they occasional poach. Researchers Blown Away After Finding Jaguar Population up 30% Across Mexico

Read More........→September 22, 2025

Scientists Find Answer to Sea Star Population Devastated by Pathogen Along the California Coast

A sunflower sea star – credit, Ed Bierman CC 2.0.

For years, a wasting disease has been turning sea stars to goo off the California coast. Scientists now finally know the cause, and are beginning to fight back.

Whether it has over 20 arms like the sunflower sea star, or just 5, billions of Pacific sea stars were being wiped out by an unknown assailant.

After four years of experiments from a huge collaborative effort led by the Hakai Institute, biologists finally identified the culprit: a kind of bacteria called Vibrio.

Devastating to coral, shellfish, and human beings, this strain of Vibrio has been labeled FHCF-3. The scientists determined it was the cause of the epidemic by examining what might be called the sea star’s blood. It doesn’t have blood as we would recognize it, but a circulatory fluid called coelomic fluid.

As to what is causing the spread of FHCF-3, ranging from Washington state down to the Baja Peninsula, the scientists point to warming waters.

“We have evidence that there is a link between increasing ocean temperatures and this sea star wasting disease epidemic,” said Melanie Prentice, one of the co-authors of the paper published on the discovery in Nature, to CBS News.

Sunflower sea stars, one of the species that’s been most affected, are voracious eaters of sea urchins. This slow motion game of lion and gazelle plays out on the seafloor and on reefs, and is a major cog in the overall machine of marine ecosystem stability.

Themselves voracious eaters of kelp, the urchins were unleashed following the sea star’s decline, and like the bacteria that decimated the sea stars, the urchins devastated the kelp.

With the cause identified, a large collaboration involving Prentice’s Hakai Institute, as well as the universities of British Columbia and Washington, the Nature Conservancy, Tula Foundation, US Geological Survey, and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, are beginning to plan strategies for the sea stars’ recovery.

A breeding program for sunflower stars was set up between the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Birch Aquarium, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, and the Sunflower Star Laboratory. Hundreds have already been raised, and biologists can now screen for the pathogen routinely.

Some of the juveniles are living in these aquariums, where members of the public can learn about the sea stars’ struggle to survive, and the critical role they play in the ecosystem.

WATCH the story below from CBS News’ ‘Project Earth’ segment…

 Scientists Find Answer to Sea Star Population Devastated by Pathogen Along the California Coast

Read More........→September 15, 2025

US scientists developing single-dose vaccines for HIV, Covid

New Delhi, August 28 (IANS) A team of scientists in the US is working to develop vaccines that can protect against HIV, Covid, and potentially other diseases, with a single dose.

The team from MIT and the Scripps Research Institute treated mice with a vaccine that combines two different adjuvants, materials that help stimulate the immune system. They found that the combination helped generate more robust immune responses.

The dual-adjuvant vaccine was found to accumulate in the lymph nodes, where white blood cells known as B cells encounter antigens and undergo rapid mutations that generate new antibodies.

The vaccine’s antigens remained there for up to a month -- allowing the immune system to build up a much greater number and diversity of antibodies against the HIV protein than the vaccine given alone or with one adjuvant.

According to MIT professor J. Christopher Love, the approach may mimic what occurs during a natural infection and could lead to an immune response so strong and broad that vaccines only need to be given once.

“It offers the opportunity to engineer new formulations for these types of vaccines across a wide range of different diseases, such as influenza, SARS-CoV-2, or other pandemic outbreaks,” Love said.

Separately, Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine maker is also set to develop an mRNA-based HIV vaccine, RIA Novosti, the Russian Information Agency, said.

The vaccine to be developed by Gamaleya Center in Moscow, which will trigger an immune response against the AIDS causing virus, could be ready in around two years.

The much-anticipated HIV vaccine is based on mRNA technology, the head of the institute’s epidemiology department, Vladimir Gushchin, told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

“We are currently at the stage of creating the first antigens that will generate a broadly neutralising immune response. The success of the vaccine will depend on whether the immunogen we use can trigger a response capable of protecting against all variants,” said Vladimir Gushchin, epidemiologist at the Centre.The Gamaleya Center also developed Sputnik V, one of the world’s first Covid-19 vaccines, which was rolled out in August 2020. The shot, showing up to 97.8 per cent efficacy with no serious side effects, has been approved in nearly 70 countries. US scientists developing single-dose vaccines for HIV, Covid | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com

Read More........→September 10, 2025

Why Do Animals Play? Because They Need To Play – Just Like Children Do

Photo by Tambako The Jaguar, CC license

As much as it’s a time for growing and learning, childhood is also a time for unabashed joy. Pastimes like careening down a snowy hillside on your sled, flying off a rope swing into a cool lake on a hot summer day, or even just a game of catch are part and parcel of growing up.

But the joys of playtime aren’t just reserved for human kids—animal offspring are just as likely to get into the act as well, and some of their activities are startlingly similar to our own.

Young ravens hold body-surfing “competitions” down the slopes of wintery rooftops; juvenile elephants create impromptu waterslides along muddy riverbanks; herring gulls engage in their own version of airborne hacky sack substituting seashells for bean-filled projectiles.

Scientists believe that for certain animal species, some fun and games is strictly that—play for the sake of play—but as with humans, other forms of diversion are preparing youngsters for the rigors of adulthood.

“Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth,” wrote Kenneth R. Ginsburg in the American Journal of Pediatrics. “Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children.”

Those same tenets, it seems, hold true in the animal kingdom as well.

“Horses…are known to engage in play almost as soon as they are born. Once they can walk, they immediately start to gallop, frolic and buck, again, honing the motor skills they may need when they’re mature,” notes BBC Earth.

Play with purpose

But along with social and motor skills, play also teaches animals essential hunting and survival skills.

Inge Wallmrod

While the antics of cute cavorting kittens is the stuff that’s spawned a myriad of viral videos, whether it’s an opportunity to take down an errant mouse or to avoid harm in the face of unexpected danger, their ninja-like antics may in fact be helping kittens learn to be ready when life hands them a surprise.

Even natural-born predators, such as kestrels, use play to hone their hunting skills by practicing with targets that look like real prey when they’re young.

In the oceans, dolphins chase underwater air rings to fine-tune their sonar skills.

And while it’s unclear why bear cubs are so quintessentially playful, zoologists believe at least some of their shenanigans have a more serious purpose that aids in their survival as adults.

One of the most important teaching aspects of play is socialization. These days, for human kids, that usually means the basics like learning to share, teamwork, and knowing boundaries.

For animals, especially those that live in packs, flocks, or herds, play (often in the form of play fighting) imparts an understanding of where each animal fits into the community hierarchy.

In ways that are remarkably similar to the training children of traditional tribal cultures receive, it is through the rules of play that lion cubs, kangaroo joeys, and wolf pups discover and establish the roles they’ll be expected to perform as adults.

But for animals, not all socializing play is about fighting or establishing dominance. Some of it’s about learning to be better parents—and that involves playing with dolls. While they might lack a perambulator and a fancy wardrobe, female chimpanzees are known to lavish their doll babies with love and emulate their own mothers’ attentive care.

So whether it’s frolicking in the pasture, hanging from a tree, or rollicking in the surf, it seems that play will always be an intrinsic—and fun—part of both human and animal development.And we’re pretty sure when those ninja-kitten TikTok stars stop climbing that curtain, they’ll be thrilled to hear about it. Why Do Animals Play? Because They Need To Play – Just Like Children Do:

Read More........→September 03, 2025

Retooled Cancer Drugs Eliminated Aggressive Tumors in ‘Remarkable’ New Trial

Cancer drugs that have been used for two decades were retooled until they were able to eliminate aggressive tumors in a “remarkable” clinical trial.

Two of the patients—one with the deadliest form of skin cancer called melanoma and another with breast cancer—were told their tumors disappeared completely.

Scientists at Rockefeller University in New York engineered an upgrade to an antibody that improved a class of drugs—called CD40 agonist antibodies—which have struggled to make good on their early promise, but showed great potential.

While effectively activating the immune system to kill cancer cells in animal models, the drugs had only “limited” impact on humans, while also triggering dangerous adverse reactions.

So, five years ago, the team at the New York university engineered an enhanced CD40 agonist antibody so that it improved its efficiency and limited any serious side effects for mice, with the next step being a clinical trial with cancer patients.

The results from the phase 1 clinical trial of the drug, dubbed 2141-V11, showed that six out of 12 cancer patients saw their tumors shrink, including two that saw them disappear completely.

“Seeing these significant shrinkages and even complete remission in such a small subset of patients is quite remarkable,” said study first author Dr. Juan Osorio.

He said the effect wasn’t limited to tumors that were injected with the drug; tumors elsewhere in the body either got smaller or were destroyed by immune cells.

“This effect—where you inject locally but see a systemic response—that’s not something seen very often in any clinical treatment,” said Professor Jeffrey Ravetch who oversaw the study.

“It’s another very dramatic and unexpected result from our trial.”

Oral squamous cancer cell (white) being attacked by two cytotoxic T cells (red) – Credit: NIH

He explained that CD40 is a cell surface receptor and member of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor “superfamily”—proteins that are largely expressed by immune cells. When triggered, CD40 prompts the rest of immune system to spring into action, promoting anti-tumor immunity and developing tumor-specific T cell responses.

In 2018, Prof. Ravetch’s lab engineered the 2141-V11, a CD40 antibody that binds tightly to human CD40 receptors and is modified to enhance its cross-linking by also engaging a specific Fc receptor.

It proved to be 10 times more powerful in its capacity to elicit an anti-tumor immune response.

The research team then changed how they administered the drug. When previously given intravenously, too many non-cancerous cells picked it up, leading to the well-known toxic side effects.

They instead injected the drug directly into tumors. When they did that, they saw “only mild toxicity”, said Prof. Ravetch.

The new trial included 12 patients who had various types of cancer, and of those 12, six experienced systemic tumor reduction, of which two had their cancers (notorious for being aggressive and recurring) disappear entirely.

“The melanoma patient had dozens of metastatic tumors on her leg and foot, and we injected just one tumor up on her thigh. After multiple injections of that one tumor, all the other tumors disappeared,” Ravetch said.

“The same thing happened in the patient with metastatic breast cancer, who also had tumors in her skin, liver, and lung. And even though we only injected the skin tumor, we saw all the tumors disappear.”

Tissue samples from the tumor sites revealed the immune activity that the drug stimulated.

“We were quite surprised to see that the tumors became full of immune cells—including different types of dendritic cells, T cells, and mature B cells—that formed aggregates resembling something like a lymph node,” said Dr. Osorio.

“The drug creates an immune micro-environment within the tumor, and essentially replaces the tumor with these tertiary lymphoid structures, which are associated with improved prognosis and response to immunotherapy.”

The team also found TLS in the tumors they didn’t inject.

“Once the immune system identifies the cancer cells, immune cells migrate to the non-injected tumor sites,” said Dr. Osorio.

The findings, published in the journal Cancer Cell, sparked several other clinical trials that the Ravetch lab is currently working on with researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering and Duke University.

The trials are investigating 2141-V11’s effect on specific cancers, including bladder cancer, prostate cancer, and glioblastoma—all aggressive and hard to treat.Nearly 200 people are enrolled in the various studies that the researchers hope will explain why some patients respond to 2141-V11 and others do not—and how to potentially change that.Retooled Cancer Drugs Eliminated Aggressive Tumors in ‘Remarkable’ New Trial

Read More........→September 01, 2025

AI can help detect early larynx cancer from sound of voice: Study

New Delhi, (IANS): A team of US scientists showed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help detect early larynx or voice box cancer from the sound of the patient’s voice.

Cancer of the voice box is an important public health burden. In 2021, there were an estimated 1.1 million cases of laryngeal cancer worldwide, and approximately 100,000 people died from it.

Risk factors include smoking, alcohol abuse, and infection with human papillomavirus.

The prognosis for laryngeal cancer ranges from 35 per cent to 78 per cent survival over five years when treated, depending on the tumour’s stage and its location within the voice box.

Now, researchers from the Oregon Health & Science University showed that abnormalities of the vocal folds can be detected from the sound of the voice using AI.

Such ‘vocal fold lesions’ can be benign, like nodules or polyps, but may also represent the early stages of laryngeal cancer.

These proof-of-principle results open the door for a new application of AI: namely, to recognise the early warning stages of laryngeal cancer from voice recordings, said the team in the paper published in the journal Frontiers in Digital Health.

“Here we show that with this dataset we could use vocal biomarkers to distinguish voices from patients with vocal fold lesions from those without such lesions,” said Dr Phillip Jenkins, postdoctoral fellow in clinical informatics at Oregon.

In the study, Jenkins and team analysed variations in tone, pitch, volume, and clarity with 12,523 voice recordings of 306 participants from across North America.

A minority were from patients with known laryngeal cancer, benign vocal fold lesions, or two other conditions of the voice box: spasmodic dysphonia and unilateral vocal fold paralysis.

The researchers focused on differences in a number of acoustic features of the voice: for example, the mean fundamental frequency (pitch); jitter, variation in pitch within speech; shimmer, variation of the amplitude; and the harmonic-to-noise ratio, a measure of the relation between harmonic and noise components of speech.

They found marked differences in the harmonic-to-noise ratio and fundamental frequency between men without any voice disorder, men with benign vocal fold lesions, and men with laryngeal cancer.

They didn’t find any informative acoustic features among women, but it is possible that a larger dataset would reveal such differences.Variation in the harmonic-to-noise ratio can be helpful to monitor the clinical evolution of vocal fold lesions, and to detect laryngeal cancer at an early stage, at least in men, the researchers said. AI can help detect early larynx cancer from sound of voice: Study | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com

Read More........→August 22, 2025