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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 3, 2026 at 12:14pm

How sleep loss can damage your brain's wiring

Sleep loss damages the fatty insulation protecting the nerve cells in our brain, according to a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research also explains why we often feel slow and groggy after a bad night's sleep.

Most of us will experience sleep loss at one time or another and suffer the consequences of tiredness and slower reactions the next day. The biological mechanisms for these are not well understood and often attributed to tired or overworked neurons. Researchers thought there might be other factors at play, so they decided to investigate.

The team studied MRI scans of 185 volunteers who self-reported poor sleep quality, which confirmed previous studies that found a link between inadequate sleep and changes in the structure of white matter (the bundles of nerve fibers that carry impulses between neurons). To find the cause, the researchers ran tests on rats that had their sleep restricted for ten days.

First, they performed electrical tests on the rats' brains and discovered that sleep loss caused nerve signals to take around 33% longer to travel between the two hemispheres. Later analysis of brain tissue found a likely cause. The myelin sheaths were much thinner. These are the fatty layers that wrap around nerve fibers to insulate them and speed up electrical signals.

Analysis of the lipid composition of the brain and the activity of genes that regulate oligodendrocytes revealed that the main issue was cholesterol deficiency. The scientists focused on these cells because they are responsible for creating and maintaining myelin. They found that cholesterol, which is essential for keeping the insulation thick and healthy, was not being properly transported to the myelin sheaths, so they were thinner and less able to do their job.

To test this, the researchers administered a compound called cyclodextrin, which works to flush trapped cholesterol out of cells and back into circulation. This prevented myelin sheaths from thinning any further and eliminated the roughly 33% delay in signal speed. In behavioral tests, the rodents performed just as well as those that were well-rested.

It is too early to talk about treatments for sleep deprivation based on the conclusions of this study. However, if confirmed in humans, the results would open up new possibilities, as the researchers acknowledge in their paper.

Reyila Simayi et al, Sleep loss induces cholesterol-associated myelin dysfunction, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2026). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2523438123

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 2, 2026 at 12:55pm

Beetle hoodwinks bees with floral smell

Larvae of the European blister beetle (Meloe proscarabaeus) mimic the scent of flowers to find a ride to their next meal. The larvae produce floral-smelling compounds to lure bees, then hitchhike back to the bees’ nest and eat the eggs they find there. This trickery is the first known example of an animal imitating the scent of a flower.

The floral illusion: A parasitic beetle mimics the scent of flowers...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 2, 2026 at 12:13pm

Lilliputian hallucinations: A mushroom that makes you see tiny people!

Lilliputian hallucinations concern hallucinated human, animal or fantasy entities of minute size. 

Some mysterious mushrooms are found in different parts of the world, but they give people the same exact visions.

Unlike other hallucinogenic fungi, the mushroom Lanmaoa asiatica causes strikingly similar visions in people who eat it before it’s properly cooked — hordes of tiny people everywhere. Cases of these ‘lilliputian hallucinations’ have been documented in scientific literature since the 1990s, but researchers only pinned down the species that causes them in 2015. Even with their culprit in hand, scientists are still working to discover what about the mushroom gives rise to the sometimes days-long hallucinations, and why the apparitions are almost always the same.

Leroy’s elusive little people: A systematic review on lilliputian h...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2026 at 11:21am

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 on January 31, 2026 at 10:58am

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 on January 31, 2026 at 10:36am

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 on January 31, 2026 at 10:27am

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 on January 31, 2026 at 10:24am

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 on January 31, 2026 at 10:00am

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 on January 31, 2026 at 9:54am

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

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