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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 12 hours ago

Understanding unconsciousness during general anaesthesia

Brain marker signals when anaesthesia takes hold

De-synchronized electrical activity marks the loss of awareness.

Scientists have identified a distinctive brain-wave pattern that marks the slide into unconsciousness during general anaesthesia with the drug propofol. Data taken from people about to have surgery show that, as anaesthesia takes hold, a specific type of activity in brain areas such as the parietal cortex and deeper structures slips out of synchronicity. If verified in studies that gather deep-brain data, and use other anaesthetics, this shift could serve as a biomarker of loss of consciousness that doctors could use to avoid sedating patients too deeply — or not deeply enough.

Neurophysiological connectomic signatures of consciousness during p...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 12 hours ago

Another kind of student debt is entrenching inequality: 'Time inheritance'

Inequality in education is shaped not only by financial resources but also by "time inheritance." Students from privileged backgrounds benefit from "banked time," allowing them to take risks and pursue opportunities, while those from less advantaged families operate on "borrowed time," facing pressure to earn quickly and support relatives. This temporal disparity limits educational and career choices, reinforcing social inequality.

Another kind of student debt is entrenching inequality

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 12 hours ago

Most doctor-made YouTube health videos lack strong proof, study finds

Many health videos on YouTube, even those made by doctors, may not be giving viewers reliable medical information, a new study suggests.

Researchers reviewed 309 popular YouTube videos about cancer and diabetes and found that fewer than 1 in 5 were supported by high-quality scientific evidence.

About two-thirds had low, very low or no evidence at all to back up their health claims.

Even more concerning: Videos with weaker evidence often attracted more viewers than those backed by strong science.

The study, published recently in JAMA Network Open, looked only at videos created by health professionals that had at least 10,000 views.

This reveals a substantial credibility-evidence gap in medical content videos, where physician authority frequently legitimizes claims lacking robust empirical support.

Videos with the weakest evidence were 35% more likely to get higher view counts than videos with strong scientific evidence, the study found.

Physician-spread misinformation is a long-standing problem, dating back well before the internet era.

 This study authors say that some doctors still rely on personal experience and beliefs instead of hard data, even though evidence-based medicine (EBM) is considered the gold standard.

And EBM seemingly devalues the individual clinician's judgment!

EunKyo Kang et al, The Quality of Evidence of and Engagement With Video Medical Claims, JAMA Network Open (2026). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.52106

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 13 hours ago

Scientists teached microorganisms to build molecules with light

Engineered Escherichia coli were shown to perform light-driven enzymatic reactions in vivo, enabling new chemical transformations such as hydroalkylations, hydroaminations, and hydroarylations without external radical precursors. This integrated photobiocatalytic platform expands the biosynthetic capabilities of microbes, offering potential for sustainable production of complex molecules.

Yujie Yuan et al, Harnessing photoenzymatic reactions for unnatural biosynthesis in microorganisms, Nature Catalysis (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41929-025-01470-y

Scientists teach microorganisms to build molecules with light

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 13 hours ago

AI is failing 'Humanity's Last Exam'—so what does that mean for machine intelligence?
Current AI models perform poorly on "Humanity's Last Exam," a benchmark of 2,500 expert-level questions designed to probe the limits of machine capabilities, with top models initially scoring below 10%. Improved scores reflect targeted optimization, not human-like understanding. Benchmark results do not equate to general intelligence, as human and machine intelligence differ fundamentally.

A benchmark of expert-level academic questions to assess AI capabil...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 13 hours ago

Radiotherapy is more effective when administered at the right time of day, study finds

A team of researchers have identified a fundamental mechanism that links the 24-hour circadian cycle to the precise repair of DNA breaks. This study, conducted by researchers focused on the circadian protein Cryptochrome1 (CRY1), suggests that the time of day when radiotherapy is administered can significantly influence the effectiveness of treatment for certain types of cancer. The paper is published in Nature Communications.

Maintaining genomic stability is essential to prevent the onset of cancer. It is therefore important that DNA breaks are repaired as accurately as possible. Indeed, it is relatively common for cancer cells to be unable to repair their DNA efficiently. Consequently, multiple cancer treatments, such as radiotherapy, exploit this weakness by generating DNA breaks that tumor cells are unable to repair.

This study shows that DNA break repair in human cells exhibits a circadian oscillation. In other words, its efficiency is not homogeneous, but varies cyclically depending on the time of day. In a normal human cycle, repair activity peaks in the early morning and then decreases gradually until nightfall, subsequently increasing again during the night.

The research has identified that this regulation depends on a central component of the biological clock, namely the CRY1 protein. This protein acts as a timer and its abundance changes naturally during the day/night cycle. In fact, the repair process reacts directly to CRY1 levels.

When CRY1 levels are low (corresponding to early morning in humans), efficient DNA repair is stimulated. Conversely, when CRY1 levels increase (which occurs naturally in the afternoon/evening), repair is reduced, thereby increasing the sensitivity of cells to DNA-breaking agents such as ionizing radiation.

This circadian regulation has a direct impact on cancer progression and response to radiotherapy in specific tumors. The study findings suggest that the reduction in repair that occurs when CRY1 levels are high can be exploited therapeutically.

Thus, breast cancer patients with tumors expressing higher levels of CRY1 were found to be more sensitive to radiotherapy. In addition, a retrospective analysis of patient data from the Virgen Macarena University Hospital revealed a significant difference in overall survival based on the time of irradiation: treatment in the afternoon/evening, when CRY1 levels are naturally higher, made tumor samples more sensitive to radiotherapy and improved patient prognosis. This effect was also observed in patients with prostate cancer and breast cancer, but not in lung cancer or gliomas.

Therefore, these findings open the door to exploring the therapeutic potential of irradiation at specific times of the day, a phenomenon known as chronoradiotherapy.

Amador Romero-Franco et al, Circadian regulation of homologous recombination by cryptochrome1-mediated dampening of DNA end resection, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-65854-1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 13 hours ago

This raises the possibility that future cancer care could pair immunotherapy with tailored diets and microbiome-targeted strategies, such as the design of probiotics, engineered native gut bacteria or personalized dietary plans that fine-tune amino acid availability.

Shanshan Qiao et al, Microbiota utilization of intestinal amino acids modulates cancer progression and anticancer immunity, Cell Host & Microbe (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2025.12.003

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 13 hours ago

Gut bacteria may tip the balance between feeding tumors and fueling immunity

A new study reveals how bacteria in the gut can help determine whether the amino acid asparagine from the diet will feed tumor growth or activate immune cells against the cancer, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. This casts the gut microbiome, comprising the trillions of microorganisms that live in the intestine, as a central player in the body's response to cancer and to modern cancer treatments like immunotherapies.

The findings, published in Cell Microbe and Host, could lead to a novel cancer treatment approach and monitoring strategy: Instead of targeting tumors directly, clinicians may one day be able to reshape the gut microbiome or diet to starve tumors while supercharging immune cells.

This study suggests that we need to think about how the interplay of diet, gut microbiota and tumor-infiltrating immune cells could affect cancer growth and response to therapy. We can't overlook this key level regulation.

Microbes deplete intestinal asparagine The researchers first established in mouse models with human gut microbiota that some bacteria could deplete amino acids and affect tumor progression. Next, they focused on asparagine, an amino acid that supports protein synthesis and promotes cell survival. Both cancer cells in the nutrient-poor environment inside tumors and CD8+ T cells, the cytotoxic immune cells that directly attack and destroy tumor cells, require the amino acid to be active.

To understand the impact of microbiota asparagine metabolism, the team worked with Bacteroides ovatus, a common gut bacterium with a gene called bo‑ansB, which encodes an enzyme that breaks down asparagine. Using mouse models, the researchers showed that when the bo‑ansB gene is present, B. ovatus consumes more asparagine in the gut, so less of it is absorbed into the bloodstream and delivered to tumors.

When the bo‑ansB gene was knocked out, the bacteria was not able to deplete asparagine in the intestine, so more of the amino acid reached the blood circulation and tumor. This demonstrated that the bacteria control the overall level of asparagine that leaves the gut and shapes the battlefield that tumors and immune cells share.

In mouse models of colorectal cancer fed extra dietary asparagine, bacteria with bo-ansB helped tumors grow. In mice with the bo‑ansB‑deleted bacteria, the same asparagine‑rich diet had the opposite effect: More asparagine reached the tumor and was taken up by CD8+ T cells. This triggered the immune cells into a "stem-like" state associated with long-lasting, effective anti-tumor responses. In contrast, without sufficient asparagine, CD8+ T cells were less effective at suppressing tumor growth.

The study showed that higher asparagine levels in the tumor microenvironment—when bo‑ansB was removed—drove CD8+ T cells to express more of a protein transporter (SLC1A5) on their cell surface, which was important in fighting cancer cells. Stem-like CD8⁺ T cells serve as a renewable source of immune cells that can mature into cancer-killing T cells. Once activated, these killer cells attack tumors by producing strong immune factors that help destroy cancer cells. Blocking SLC1A5 erased the gains from the higher asparagine levels.

Many studies suggest that enzymes produced by our microbiota, as well as the metabolites like small molecules and proteins, could be potential biomarkers for cancer progression.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 13 hours ago

Three scientific journals are already piloting the tool as part of their editorial screening. It will allow editors to identify potentially fabricated manuscripts before they are sent for peer review.

The team plans to expand the tool to other fields of research and improve the model as more confirmed cases of paper-mill activity become available. They stress the findings are not confirmed cases of research fraud and should be checked by human specialists.
Cancer research influences clinical trials, drug development and patient care.
If fabricated studies make their way into the evidence base, they can mislead real scientists and ultimately slow progress for patients. That's why it's vital we get ahead of this problem.

Machine Learning-Based Screening of Potential Paper Mill Publications in Cancer Research: Methodological and Cross-Sectional Study, BMJ (2026). DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2025-087581

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 13 hours ago

Scientific 'spam filter' flags over 250,000 potentially fake cancer studies

A new machine learning tool has identified more than 250,000 cancer research papers that may have been produced by so-called "paper mills." Developed by QUT researcher Professor Adrian Barnett, from the School of Public Health and Social Work and Australian Center for Health Services and Innovation (AusHSI), and an international team of collaborators, the study, published in The BMJ, analyzed 2.6 million cancer studies from 1999 to 2024.

The study, "Machine Learning-Based Screening of Potential Paper Mill Publications in Cancer Research: Methodological and Cross-Sectional Study," found more than 250,000 papers with writing patterns similar to articles already retracted for suspected fabrication.

Paper mills are companies that sell fake or low-quality scientific studies. They are producing 'research' on an industrial scale, and these findings suggest the problem in cancer research is far larger than most people realized.

Selling authorships and entire ready-made research papers, paper mills often use recycled text, awkward phrasing or fabricated data and images.

Most likely, they're relying on boilerplate templates which can be detected by large language models that analyze patterns in texts.

Researchers trained a language model called BERT to recognize the subtle textual "fingerprints" that repeatedly appear across known paper-mill products.

When tested on verified examples, the model correctly identified suspicious papers 91% of the time.

Key findings from the large-scale analysis include: Flagged papers have increased dramatically over two decades, rising from around 1% in the early 2000s and peaking at over 16% in 2022. The issue affects thousands of journals across major publishers, including high-impact titles. The problem is most concentrated in fields such as molecular cancer biology and early-stage laboratory research. Some cancer types, including gastric, liver, bone and lung cancer, show especially high rates of suspicious papers.

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