Know What's Happening in Science
Know What's Happening in Science
High‑altitude hypoxia curbs blood‑sugar spikes in mice
A mouse study found that low‑oxygen (hypoxic) conditions cause red blood cells to absorb far more glucose and convert it into a molecule that eases oxygen release, acting as a glucose sink. Mice exposed to 8% oxygen showed markedly smaller blood‑sugar spikes after glucose injections, and the effect persisted after they returned to normal air.
The author recounts publishing a lemming study in Science, which landed on the journal's front cover. The piece challenges the long‑standing myth that lemmings commit mass suicide by leaping off cliffs. By tracing the myth’s origins to early 20th‑century observations and popular media, the article explains why such behavior is evolutionarily untenable. Recent ecological research shows lemmings disperse opportunistically, not deliberately self‑destructing.
Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences have engineered plants to glow when their immune systems are activated, using a bioluminescent pathway from mushrooms linked to the plant hormones salicylic and jasmonic acid. The genetically modified Nicotiana benthamiana and...
Two doses of magic mushrooms degraded my sperm count from the 99.6th percentile to the 77.7th. This may be a first-in-human observation. Context: we ran the most quantified magic mushroom (psilocybin) experiment ever conducted. We were asking if psilocybin is...
Astronomers at Cornell’s Carl Sagan Institute released a catalog of 45 rocky exoplanets that lie within their stars' habitable zones, with a stricter count of 24 when narrower temperature limits are applied. The list highlights familiar targets such as Proxima...
Researchers published in Cell Reports identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as a neural hub for moral consistency. Using fMRI, participants who judged their own and others’ actions similarly showed heightened vmPFC blood flow, while morally inconsistent individuals exhibited reduced...
The author notes that despite the Inflation Reduction Act and post‑Paris Agreement momentum, new research shows global warming has accelerated since 2015, with sea levels rising and glaciers melting faster. Leading scientists, including Katharine Hayhoe, warn that the current rate...
Johns Hopkins received a five‑year, $15 million NIH grant to build the Drug Research Organoid Intelligence Development Platform (DROIDp). The platform will combine human brain organoids, advanced electrical sensors and AI analytics to evaluate learning, memory and neurotoxicity. It targets Alzheimer’s,...
Researchers have identified the oldest direct evidence of plate motion, dating to about 3.48 billion years ago, by analyzing magnetic signatures in rocks from Western Australia and South Africa. The study shows the Australian craton drifted northward while the South African...
A new study led by Todd Surovell argues Monte Verde in Chile was occupied only 4,200‑8,200 years ago, far younger than the previously accepted 14,500‑year date that supported a pre‑Clovis presence in South America. The researchers base their claim on...
Researchers analyzing magnetite crystals in Western Australia’s Pilbara region have identified definitive plate movement dating back 3.48 billion years. The rocks show a 2,500‑kilometer poleward drift over a few million years, moving at roughly 47 cm per year—about six times faster than...
On December 2025 the FDA officially qualified dual‑energy X‑ray absorptiometry (DXA) bone density scans as the first surrogate endpoint for fracture outcomes in osteoporosis trials involving post‑menopausal women. The qualification, achieved through a request from the Foundation for the National...
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has merged AI with high‑throughput robotics to speed microbial biotechnology development. Researchers adapted the open‑source BacterAI platform to model continuous growth‑boundary conditions, then paired it with a Tecan Fluent liquid‑handling system that can execute thousands of...
Katrine Bosley: There's no question “hopes and aspirations” got ahead of the pace of any new science on gene editing #STATBreakthrough Seng Cheng: “The promise of gene therapy is correct. I think it has made that promise. and that's demonstrated by...
A recent investigation identified the gut bacterium Roseburia inulinivorans as being linked to greater muscle strength in humans, with younger participants showing higher levels of the microbe. Parallel mouse experiments demonstrated that introducing the bacterium boosted grip strength, enlarged muscle...
![Why Early Detection Matters: Transforming Lung Cancer Care [PODCAST]](/cdn-cgi/image/width=1200,quality=75,format=auto,fit=cover/https://kevinmd.com/wp-content/uploads/unnamed-2-7.jpg)
Early detection of lung cancer, especially through low‑dose CT screening, can cut mortality by 20% and prevent one death per 320 screened. Yet only 18% of eligible U.S. patients undergo screening, due to awareness and access barriers. Eli Lilly’s senior oncology...
A Finnish cohort of 2,601 men revealed that 68% were vitamin D deficient, and those with the lowest levels faced twice the risk of chronic headaches compared to men with higher concentrations. The study also noted a seasonal pattern, with headaches...
Portal Space Systems has teamed with Australian startup Paladin Space to launch a commercial orbital‑debris removal service. The partnership will mount Paladin’s Triton payload on Portal’s highly maneuverable Starburst spacecraft, which can change velocity by one kilometre per second. Scheduled...
$BIIB’s Jane Grogan on the impact of China on biotech innovation. “There's three times more PhDs that have been given last year in China than in the US. ... That's a lot of bright young things out there who are going...
$BMY chief scientist Robert Plenge: says there is “a joke” drug developers often repeat. “It's an overnight sensation a decade in the making. These things can actually be going on for a very long time, and then suddenly the field catches...
Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech unveiled SpeQtrum QaaS, a cloud‑based platform that grants remote access to a Barcelona data centre housing digital QPUs, analog fluxonium QPUs, and classical HPC accelerators. The tri‑modal architecture blends digital gate‑based processing with continuous‑dynamics analog computation to...
Astronomy Magazine’s latest picture‑of‑the‑day showcases spiral galaxy M106, located roughly 24 million light‑years away in Canes Venatici. The galaxy’s disk appears slightly warped, a relic of a past gravitational encounter. The deep‑field exposure also captures several background galaxies, notably NGC 4217 and NGC 4220....
Andy Weir’s novel Project Hail Mary has been turned into a $200 million cinematic event starring Ryan Gosling, with the author serving as producer. Critics applaud the film’s fidelity to real science while debating its heavy use of humor. The release...
The author invites a high‑stakes debate on whether COVID‑19 vaccines produced a net mortality benefit, demanding analysis of all‑cause mortality data from mid‑2021 to the end of 2022. Participants must rely on up to three official government datasets and five...
Eileen Collins, the first woman to pilot and later command a Space Shuttle, appears on SpaceNews’ Space Minds podcast to discuss the habits and leadership principles that propelled her career. Hosted by David Ariosto, the episode blends personal anecdotes with...
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) has launched its 2026 AI for Science call, offering up to 10,000 GPU node hours on the Perlmutter supercomputer and up to 20,000 CPU node hours for AI‑ready dataset generation. The open...
Alice & Bob announced a 9.25× speedup in quantum error‑correction decoding by moving simulations from a 16‑core AMD Ryzen CPU to an NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper GPU using the CUDA‑Q platform. The runtime for 100,000 syndrome‑decoding shots fell from 18 hours 2 minutes...
The UK government announced it will reduce overseas climate finance by more than 10%, cutting the annual allocation to about £2 billion for the next three years. The savings are being redirected to fund the largest peacetime defence budget increase since...
A large Japanese birth cohort of 38,219 mother‑child pairs found that mothers who were physically active before and during pregnancy had infants who scored higher on early developmental screenings, especially in gross motor, fine motor, and problem‑solving domains between six...
In February 2026 the UK National Space Operations Centre (NSpOC) logged 66 re‑entries, most of which were satellites, while collision alerts for UK‑licensed assets dropped to 2,117, the lowest figure of the year. The in‑orbit population rose to 33,165 objects,...
Scientists introduced TH07, a topical blend of finasteride, minoxidil, and latanoprost, aimed at treating androgenetic alopecia. In a pilot trial of 34 men, the 23 participants receiving TH07 reported 52% dense hair growth and higher satisfaction versus groups using each...
Robert Trivers, a leading evolutionary psychologist, died this week, prompting reflections on his provocative personality and scholarly impact. The post also raises a speculative astrobiology question about the existence of “space dolphins” beyond Alpha Centauri. It revisits Virginia Woolf’s early‑century feminist...
Researchers at Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology unveiled an AI‑for‑Science framework that merges experimental alloy data, computational models, and expert knowledge extracted from scientific literature using large language models. The system fuses these evidence streams with Dempster‑Shafer theory,...
Sarepta Therapeutics will submit a supplemental NDA to the FDA seeking to convert the accelerated approvals of its Duchenne exon‑skippers Amondys 45 and Vyondys 53 into traditional approvals, despite the confirmatory ESSENCE trial failing to improve motor function. The company bolsters its...
I read from an influencer nurse that measles is “going around”. She is selling vitamin A supplements. Having measles is not inevitable. Especially if a population is vaccinated. And that has been proven in the US for the past 30...
Global surface air temperature anomalies have reached lowest value in several years, as weak La Nina conditions (following 23/24 El Nino) begin to dissipate. It will be interesting to see what happens if the forecast El Nino takes hold later this...
Senior Ensembl Outreach Officer Aleña Mushtaq leverages her molecular biology background to deliver global training on the Ensembl genome browser. Ensembl, a free 26‑year‑old platform, integrates gene, variation and regulatory data, supporting projects like the Darwin Tree of Life. Mushtaq’s...
But one set of trials (TAD) were open label and other set of trials (psychedelic) included impt elements of experimental control, procedures like randomization and blinding. Does functional unblinding mid-session justify treating these trials as procedurally equivalent? No.
Geothermal energy is a rare bright spot in clean tech in the US, and more stories on today’s Green Daily newsletter https://t.co/tFnbmfK7CX
More than 20 states are legally challenging the Trump administration’s decision to roll back a landmark scientific determination that greenhouse gases threaten human health, which underpins various federal climate rules https://t.co/FVlljxzbJ1
Sub-Saharan Africa has made incredible progress on Malaria. And there is still so far to go. The world really is getting better. And the work is so very far from finished. https://t.co/tTKVS5Pegh
Amazing. Lithium ion batteries were once good for maybe 1,000-2,000 full discharge cycles. Now we're reaching multi-decade lifespans.
New @ScienceMagazine Discovery of a circuit that connects stress and skin inflammation https://t.co/Dkmmcs96JT https://t.co/chrXyKrG2N https://t.co/7nOPn9fCoU
There is a lot to worry about with climate change, but "runaway" feedbacks are not one of them. Good piece by Andrew Dessler over at The Climate Brink on how climate feedbacks work and why the Earth is different from...
The 4 biomarkers to meaningfully assess a person's risk of coronary artery disease @rayshafarah @aklfahed @pnatarajanmd @JACCJournals @uk_biobank https://t.co/CPfBPVRENq https://t.co/xTlj2ykr45
The negative oral Ozempic randomized trials (EVOKE, EVOKE+) for Alzheimer's disease have now been published @TheLancet https://t.co/Xx0YknTSC2
GLP-1 drugs have established benefit for Type 2 diabetes. New data suggests that extends to Type 1 diabetes, with heart, vascular, and kidney protection https://t.co/nZDKHoFIRm https://t.co/lTHIgoj4ir
Leeches to improve testosterone and sexual function. Will look into this and see if worth doing an experiment.
I Feel, Therefore I Am – neuroscientist Antonio Damasio on consciousness as a full-body phenomenon https://t.co/F7gTEhWLHS
"The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and coupled with a form of fusion, the machines had found all the energy source they would ever need."
🌧️A wetter start to U.S. spring planting? The Climate Prediction Center favors an above-average precipitation scenario across the U.S. Corn Belt for April. Planting delays could result pending the timing/intensity. Typically, about 25-30% of U.S. corn is planted by April 30. https://t.co/96Z1EtnnTx
