Before treatment, all children exhibited visual acuity limited to light perception. By the final follow-up, treated eyes showed a mean visual acuity improvement to 0.9 logMAR (range 0.8–1.0) from a baseline equivalent of 2.7 logMAR.

Untreated eyes of the children showed no improvement in visual acuity and either deteriorated to unmeasurable levels or lost light perception by the final follow-up.

Objective testing in two older children using the PopCSF touchscreen assay and steady-state visually evoked potentials (ssVEPs) confirmed significant enhancements in visual function and cortical response specific to treated eyes. Retinal imaging revealed better-preserved thickness and lamination in three treated eyes compared to untreated counterparts.
Gene therapy with rAAV8.hRKp.AIPL1 resulted in sustained visual improvements without serious adverse effects, supporting early intervention for AIPL1-associated retinal dystrophy.

 Michel Michaelides et al, Gene therapy in children with AIPL1-associated severe retinal dystrophy: an open-label, first-in-human interventional study, The Lancet (2025). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)02812-5

Part 2

Laser-powered device tested on Earth could help detect microbial fossils on Mars

The first life on Earth formed four billion years ago, as microbes living in pools and seas: what if the same thing happened on Mars? If it did, how would we prove it? Scientists hoping to identify fossil evidence of ancient Martian microbial life have now found a way to test their hypothesis, proving they can detect the fossils of microbes in gypsum samples that are a close analogy to sulfate rocks on Mars.

The findings provide a methodological framework for detecting biosignatures in Martian sulfate minerals, potentially guiding future Mars exploration missions.

The new  laser ablation ionization mass spectrometer, a spaceflight-prototype instrument, can effectively detect biosignatures in sulfate minerals. This technology could be integrated into future Mars rovers or landers for in-situ analysis.

Billions of years ago, the water on Mars dried up. Gypsum and other sulfates formed when pools evaporated, leaving behind minerals that precipitated out of the water and potentially fossilizing any organic life left behind. This means that if microbes such as bacteria lived there, traces of their presence could be preserved as fossils.

Gypsum has been widely detected on the Martian surface and is known for its exceptional fossilization potential. It forms rapidly, trapping microorganisms before decomposition occurs, and preserves biological structures and chemical biosignatures.

But to identify these microbial fossils we first need to prove we can identify similar fossils in places where we know such microbes existed—such as Mediterranean gypsum formations that developed during the Messinian Salinity Crisis.

The Messinian Salinity Crisis occurred when the Mediterranean Sea was cut off from the Atlantic Ocean. This led to rapid evaporation, causing the sea to become hypersaline and depositing thick layers of evaporites, including gypsum. These deposits provide an excellent terrestrial analog for Martian sulfate deposits.

The scientists selected an instrument that could be used on a spaceflight: a miniature laser-powered mass spectrometer, which can analyze the chemical composition of a sample in detail as fine as a micrometer.

They sampled gypsum from Sidi Boutbal quarry, Algeria, and analyzed it using the mass spectrometer and an optical microscope, guided by criteria which can help distinguish between potential microbial fossils and natural rock formations. These include morphology which is irregular, sinuous, and potentially hollow, as well as the presence of chemical elements necessary for life, carbonaceous material, and minerals like clay or dolomite which can be influenced by the presence of bacteria.

Part 1

The scientists identified long, twisting fossil filaments within the Algerian gypsum, which have previously been interpreted as benthic algae or cyanobacteria, and are now thought to be sulfur-oxidizing bacteria like Beggiatoa. These were embedded in gypsum, and surrounded by dolomite, clay minerals, and pyrite.

The presence of these minerals signals the presence of organic life, because prokaryotes—cells without a nucleus—supply elements which clay needs to form. They also facilitate dolomite formation in an acidic environment like Mars by increasing the alkalinity around them and concentrating ions in their cell envelopes.

For dolomite to form within gypsum without the presence of organic life, high temperatures and pressures would be needed that would have dehydrated the gypsum, and which aren't consistent with our knowledge of the Martian environment.

If mass spectrometers identify the presence of clay and dolomite in Martian gypsum in addition to other biosignatures, this could be a key signal of fossilized life, which could be reinforced by analyzing other chemical minerals present and by looking for similar organically formed filaments.
While these findings strongly support the biogenicity of the fossil filament in gypsum, distinguishing true biosignatures from abiotic mineral formations remains a challenge.
An additional independent detection method would improve the confidence in life detection. Additionally, Mars has unique environmental conditions which could affect biosignature preservation over geological periods. Further studies are needed.

The search for ancient life on Mars using morphological and mass spectrometric analysis: an analog study in detecting microfossils in Messinian gypsum, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fspas.2025.1503042

Part 2

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A completely new type of microscopy based on quantum sensors

Researchers  have invented an entirely new field of microscopy called nuclear spin microscopy. The team can visualize magnetic signals of nuclear magnetic resonance with a microscope. Quantum sensors convert the signals into light, enabling extremely high-resolution optical imaging.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners are known for their ability to look deep into the human body and create images of organs and tissues. The new method, published in the journal Nature Communications, extends this technique to the realm of microscopic detail.

The quantum sensors used make it possible to convert magnetic resonance signals into optical signals. These signals are captured by a camera and displayed as images.

The resolution of the new MRI microscope reaches ten-millionths of a meter—that is so fine that even the structures of individual cells can be made visible in the future. At the heart of the new microscope is a tiny diamond chip.

This diamond, specially prepared at the atomic level, serves as a highly sensitive quantum sensor for MRI magnetic fields. When irradiated with laser light, it generates a fluorescent signal containing the MRI signal's information. This signal is recorded with a high-speed camera and enables images with a significantly higher resolution down to the microscopic level.

The potential applications of magnetic resonance microscopy are up-and-coming: In cancer research, individual cells could be examined in detail to gain new insights into tumor growth and spread. In pharmaceutical research, the technology could be used to efficiently test and optimize active ingredients at a molecular level. It also offers excellent potential in materials science, such as analyzing the chemical composition of thin-film materials or catalysts.

 Karl D. Briegel et al, Optical widefield nuclear magnetic resonance microscopy, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-55003-5

Why Mars is red: New insights

Mars is easily identifiable in the night sky by its prominent red hue. Thanks to the fleet of spacecraft that have studied the planet over the last decades, we know that this red color is due to rusted iron minerals in the dust. That is, iron bound up in Mars's rocks has at some point reacted with liquid water, or water and oxygen in the air, similar to how rust forms on Earth.

Over billions of years, this rusty material—iron oxide—has been broken down into dust and spread all around the planet by winds, a process that continues today.

But iron oxides come in many flavors, and the exact chemistry of Martian rust has been intensely debated because how it formed is a window into the planet's environmental conditions at the time. And closely linked to that is the question of whether Mars has ever been habitable.

Previous studies of the iron oxide component of the Martian dust based on spacecraft observations alone did not find evidence of water contained within it. Researchers had therefore concluded that this particular type of iron oxide must be hematite, formed under dry surface conditions through reactions with the Martian atmosphere over billions of years after Mars's early wet period.

However, new analysis of spacecraft observations in combination with novel laboratory techniques shows that Mars's red color is better matched by iron oxides containing water, known as ferrihydrite.

The work is published in Nature Communications.

Ferrihydrite typically forms quickly in the presence of cool water, and so must have formed when Mars still had water on its surface. The ferrihydrite has kept its watery signature to the present day, despite being ground down and spread around the planet since its formation.

Detection of ferrihydrite in Martian red dust records ancient cold and wet conditions on Mars, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56970-z. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56970-z

Street dogs like yellow colour: 

Indian street dogs show strong preference for yellow bowls, even empty ones

A team of animal behaviorists at the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research in India has found that street dogs living in that country prefer eating from yellow bowls to those of other colors. Their paper is published in the journal Animal Cognition.

Prior research has shown that dogs have just two types of cone photoreceptors in their eyes compared to the three in humans. This means that they don't see colors the same way. Dogs see the difference between blue and yellow, for example, but other colors such as green, orange and red appear to them as muted shades of gray or yellow. This means that for dogs, the color yellow stands out.

In this new effort, the research team wondered if the prominence of yellow in dog photoreception made the color more important to dogs. To find out, they carried out experiments on free-range dogs living in rural, semi-urban and urban areas in or near the city of Kolkata in India. The team coaxed 458 of the dogs to take part in experiments involving choosing between colored bowls.
In India, free-range street dogs are common—they survive through the generosity of people feeding them, generally from a bowl of some type. Thus, they are accustomed to being presented with bowls, which they expect will be filled with food.

In the first experiment, involving 134 dogs, each was given a single chance to choose one of three food-filled bowls placed a short distance apart on the ground as the researchers watched and recorded their choices. They found that 72 of the dogs chose the yellow bowl. They repeated the experiment with empty bowls and found much the same result.

Part 1

In the second experiment, the researchers gave the dogs a choice between an empty yellow bowl and food-filled gray bowls. Most of the dogs still went for the yellow bowl, 41 out of 52 times. The team repeated the experiment with even more desirable food, and found the results much the same.

In the third and final experiment, the researchers covered the bowls to prevent the dogs from being able to tell their color and found they then picked randomly, ruling out the possibility of the dogs choosing the yellow bowls in earlier experiments due to scent.
The research team suggests there are potential explanations for the dogs' preference for yellow, such as the ecological valence theory and species-confidence hypothesis, but they acknowledge that these do not fully explain the observed behavior. The authors suggest that further research is needed to understand the ecological advantages or reasons behind this preference.

Anamitra Roy et al, Ready, set, yellow! color preference of Indian free-ranging dogs, Animal Cognition (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s10071-024-01928-9

Part 2

How and why the same mutations give rise to very different types of leukemia

Myeloid leukemias are among the most aggressive blood cancers and have low survival rates. Today, leukemia patients undergo genetic analysis to identify mutations and select the most appropriate treatment. However, even among patients with the same mutation, disease progression and response to therapy can vary significantly.

A new study has revealed these differences can be explained by the fact that not all blood stem cells respond in the same way when they acquire a mutation, and the previous "state" of the cell influences the development of cancer.

In this regard,  researchers have identified two cell types—one "stronger" and the other more "sensitive" to inflammatory stimuli. This previous feature affects how the disease develops after the acquisition of oncogenic mutations.

By gaining the mutations, both cell states can give rise to leukemia, but with distinct biological properties that respond in a different way to treatment. 

Published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the findings represent a step forward in understanding the vast diversity of these types of cancers and highlight the importance of analyzing the cellular "state" prior to mutation.

To perform this study, the researchers developed the STRACK technique (Simultaneous Tracking of Recombinase Activation and Clonal Kinetics). STRACK uses genetic bar codes to track each cell and monitor its behavior before and after acquisition of the mutation.

This approach has allowed them for the first time to link the initial state of each cell with later cancerous features.

Furthermore, the use of mouse models has made it possible to study the process in a fully physiological environment, and with controlled genetic features, which reinforces the significance of the findings.

The conclusions drawn by this study suggest that, for leukemia, identifying the genetic mutation alone is not enough to determine the most appropriate treatment. The "previous state" of the cells, which can include their response to repeated inflammation or epigenetic changes, is crucial when predicting the tumor type and its response to treatment.

These findings could apply to other types of cancer as cells in distinct tissues also accumulate "memories" of inflammation or other damage, which would affect their behavior.

Understanding these factors, as well as the mutation, would facilitate the development of even more personalized treatments and preventive strategies focused on the avoidance of habits that predispose to the development of the most aggressive forms of the disease.

Pre-existing stem cell heterogeneity dictates clonal responses to the acquisition of leukemic driver mutations, Cell Stem Cell (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2025.01.012. www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fu … 1934-5909(25)00012-8

Magnetic microrobots remove blood clots from sheep iliac artery

Researchers  have removed blood clots with wireless magnetic robots. This innovation promises to transform treatment for life-threatening vascular conditions like thrombosis.

Cardiovascular diseases such as thrombosis are a major global health challenge. Each year worldwide, 1 in 4 people die from conditions caused by blood clots. A blood clot blocks a blood vessel, preventing the blood from delivering oxygen to certain areas of the body.

Traditional treatments struggle with clots in hard-to-reach areas. But magnetic microrobots bring hope to patients with otherwise inoperable clots. The screw-shaped robots can navigate through intricate vascular networks since they are operated wirelessly.

In a new study, researchers 

showcase the potential of these microrobots for precise and minimally invasive clot removal. In their experiments, the microrobots removed enough material of a blood clot inside an iliac artery to resume blood flow. The iliac artery, obtained from sheep, was chosen due to its straight and accessible structure.

Their article, titled "Wireless mechanical and hybrid thrombus fragmentation of ex vivo endovascular thrombosis model in the iliac artery," is published in the journal Applied Physics Reviews.

The research highlights three methods for removing blood clots: mechanical fragmentation, chemical dissolution, and a combination of both. The combined approach is the most consistent and safest, as it breaks up clots and dissolves the fragments.

With X-ray guidance, the tiny robot accurately targets clots in complex blood vessels.

The robots are 3D-printed and shaped like tiny screws, each containing a small permanent magnet.

"This tiny magnet, just one millimeter long and one millimeter in diameter, is positioned to rotate the 'screw' in both directions

This allows the robot to swim against the flow and then turn around to swim back. The screw-like design allows them to drill through blood clots effectively.

In addition to breaking up blood clots and restoring blood flow in arteries, the technology has the potential for other targeted treatments. The robots can deliver drugs directly to specific areas in the body where they are needed most.

Marcus C. J. de Boer et al, Wireless mechanical and hybrid thrombus fragmentation of ex vivo endovascular thrombosis model in the iliac artery, Applied Physics Reviews (2025). DOI: 10.1063/5.0233677

Hidden risks from plastic-coated fertilizers in soil

Farmers are always looking for smarter ways to boost crop health, and one of the industry's latest game-changers is polymer-coated, controlled-release fertilizers (PC-CRFs). These high-tech soil enhancers deliver nutrients gradually, ensuring plants get exactly what they need when they need it without the waste of traditional methods.

While PC-CRFs can boost crop efficiency, a new study by researchers uncovers a downside—microplastic pollution. As the polymer coatings break down in the soil, they release tiny plastic particles into the environment.

In PC-CRFs, the plant nutrients are enclosed within a microcapsule. This microcapsule is designed to slowly release the fertilizers into the farmland over time. The non-biodegradable coatings left over after this process is complete can be considered microplastics.

This raises concerns about the long-term impact of this microplastic pollution to the health of people and animals.

Since previous studies have detected microplastics in farmland, we are left with big questions like how much is being released, and what kinds of plastics are involved.

 But if PC-CRFs must be used, scientists urge farmers to implement effective storm water management to prevent these microplastics from running off into nearby water sources.

Various soil environments, moisture conditions and soil organisms can impact the disintegration of the microcapsule differently. Also, PC-CRFs may use different types of plastics, so further research is needed to determine the variations between them.

Linkon Bhattacharjee et al, Mechanisms of microplastic generation from polymer-coated controlled-release fertilizers (PC-CRFs), Journal of Hazardous Materials (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.137082

Slowing food spoilage without chemicals: Natural tree sap gum and light extend fruit shelf life

Recent studies  have used a natural tree sap gum and light to extend the shelf life of fresh fruit and vegetables to combat food waste.

Researchers used edible coatings made from gum Arabic or acacia gum enriched with extracts from native Australian plants to stop the growth of spoilage causing microorganisms.

The research team also used light and curcumin, a compound extracted from turmeric, to deactivate fungal spores on food.

 Both methods were found to be effective in keeping food fresh for longer.

This was mostly due to the organic acids and phenolic compounds found in the aqueous extracts of plants like Cape York lilly pilly, boonjee tamarind, and Tasmanian pepper leaves.  These extracts showed promising antimicrobial properties and the sensory analysis also revealed the fruit looked and smelled better.

The curcumin-based photosensitization technique completely deactivated the fungal spores responsible for gray mold in fresh produce.

When applied to strawberries, it reduced decay incidence and severity by 20% without compromising the fruit's color or firmness.

 Maral Seididamyeh et al, Gum Arabic edible coating embedded aqueous plant extracts: Interactive effects of partaking components and its effectiveness on cold storage of fresh-cut capsicum, Food Control (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.foodcont.2023.110267

Maral Seididamyeh et al, Curcumin‐mediated photodynamic treatment to extend the postharvest shelf‐life of strawberries, Journal of Food Science (2024). DOI: 10.1111/1750-3841.17341

Maral Seididamyeh et al, Effect of gum Arabic on antifungal photodynamic activity of curcumin against Botrytis cinerea spores, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2024.137019

Schizophrenia is reflected in the brain structure, study shows

The symptoms of schizophrenia vary greatly from person to person. A new study appearing in the American Journal of Psychiatry shows how these differences manifest themselves in the structure of the brain.

Schizophrenia is a complex mental health condition that affects perception, thought and emotions. This complexity is reflected in the individual manifestations of the disease: for some patients, perceptual disturbances are the main problem, while for others, cognitive impairments are more prevalent.

In this sense, there is not one schizophrenia, but many, each with different neurobiological profiles, say the specialists.

To do justice to each of these types of schizophrenia, a precision medicine approach would have to be adopted – for example, with therapies that precisely match the respective neurobiological profile.

This requires approaches that look for both individual differences and similarities at the neurobiological level.

In an international multicenter study, a research team examined the variability of brain structure in patients with schizophrenia: Which brain networks show a high degree of individuality and which a high degree of similarity?

The researchers examined several characteristics, including the thickness and surface area of the cerebral cortex, as well as the folding pattern and volume of deeper brain regions.

The data was taken from the ENIGMA collaboration, an international research project that combined imaging data from more than 6,000 people in 22 countries. By comparing the brain structures of several thousand patients with schizophrenia and healthy individuals, the variability of brain structure could be studied with a high degree of reliability.

While variable brain structures in schizophrenia may reflect differences in symptoms between patients, the uniformity of brain folding in the mid-frontal brain area suggests a developmental trait common to people with schizophrenia. Because brain folding is largely completed in early childhood, brain development during this period appears to be less flexible in schizophrenia patients, particularly in areas responsible for linking thinking and feeling processes.

These findings broaden our understanding of the neurobiological basis of schizophrenia.

While uniform brain folding may indicate possible mechanisms of disease development, regions with high variability in brain structure may be relevant for the development of individualized treatment strategies.

Wolfgang Omlor et al, Estimating Multimodal Structural Brain Variability in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: A Worldwide ENIGMA Study, American Journal of Psychiatry (2025). DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.20230806 , psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.20230806

A protein from tiny tardigrades may help cancer patients tolerate radiation therapy

Radiation can have severe side effects that often end up being too difficult for cancer  patients to tolerate.

Drawing inspiration from a tiny organism that can withstand huge amounts of radiation, researchers  have developed a new strategy that may protect patients from this kind of damage. Their approach makes use of a protein from tardigrades, often also called "water bears," which are usually less than a millimeter in length.

When the researchers injected messenger RNA encoding this protein into mice, they found that it generated enough protein to protect cells' DNA from radiation-induced damage. If developed for use in humans, this approach could benefit many cancer patients, the researchers say.

Radioprotection of healthy tissue via nanoparticle-delivered mRNA encoding for a damage-suppressor protein found in tardigrades, Nature Biomedical Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41551-025-01360-5

Study finds influencers promote 'overwhelmingly' misleading information about medical tests on social media

Influencers are promoting "overwhelmingly" misleading information about medical tests on Instagram and TikTok, according to a global University of Sydney-led study published in JAMA Network Open.

Researchers analyzed almost 1,000 posts about five controversial medical screening tests that had been promoted by social media influencers to almost 200 million followers. They found most posts had no reference to scientific evidence, were promotional, had explicit financial interests and failed to mention potential harms.

The tests included full-body MRI scans; genetic testing claiming to identify early signs of 50 cancers; blood tests for testosterone levels; the anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) test which surveys a woman's egg count; and the gut microbiome test. Experts say these tests have limited evidence of benefit in healthy people and could lead to overdiagnosis and overuse.

The vast majority of these posts were overwhelmingly misleading, the study concludes. They are being promoted under the guise of early screening, as a way to take control of your own health. The problem is they are unnecessary for most people and, in some cases, the science backing their efficacy is shaky.

One example is the 'egg timer' or AMH test. It is being heavily marketed to women by influencers as a way of measuring fertility, but experts do not consider it to be reliable. There is the concern that a low result discovered outside the context of a specific medical issue may drive some women to unnecessary, costly fertility interventions.

Another example is the testosterone test, often marketed to men using fear-mongering tactics to then promote testosterone supplements which claim to enhance masculinity and sexual performance. This is risky as the long-term safety of testosterone replacement therapy on cardiovascular health and mortality is still unknown.

One of the underlying themes being used by influencers promoting these tests is that knowledge is power, but most information is cherry-picked. When it comes to health, getting the full picture is so important, and half-truths are often lies.

Among the 982 posts on Instagram and TikTok:

• 87% mentioned the benefits of the tests, yet only 15% mentioned potential harms;
• Only 6% mentioned the risk of overdiagnosis or overtreatment;
• Only 6% mentioned scientific evidence, while 34% used personal anecdotes to promote the test;
• 68% of influencers and other account holders had financial interests in promoting the test (e.g. partnership, collaboration, sponsorship or selling for own profit in some way).

Part 1

The study found 85% of the posts did not mention any test downsides or risks. These tests carry the potential for healthy people to receive unnecessary diagnoses, which could lead to unnecessary medical treatments or impact mental health.

These findings suggest social media is an open sewer of medical misinformation.

This is a public health crisis that exacerbates overdiagnosis and threatens the sustainability of health systems.

A detailed analysis of the results found that posts from medical doctors, posts mentioning scientific evidence, or scientists themselves and posts from influencers with no financial interest in the tests, tended to be more balanced overall. The research group is currently investigating ways to better regulate this type of misleading medical information on social media.

Given that social media platforms like Instagram are moving away from fact-checking their content, the need for stronger regulation to prevent misleading medical information has gained urgency, say the researchers. 

Part 2

Five common controversial tests in Instagram and TikTok posts
Full-body MRI scan: Claimed to test for up to 500 conditions, yet no evidence of benefit for healthy people, while real dangers exist of unnecessary diagnoses and overtreatment.

Multi-cancer early detection tests: Claimed to screen for more than 50 cancers, yet clinical trials are still underway. As yet, there is no evidence that the benefits of screening healthy populations will outweigh the harms of unnecessary cancer diagnoses.

AMH or "egg-timer" test: While beneficial for certain women, this test is falsely promoted to healthy women as a test for fertility, with concerns the results can lead to unnecessary, costly fertility treatments.

Gut microbiome test: Test promises "wellness" via early detection of many conditions—from flatulence to depression—without good evidence of benefit, alongside concerns that test results could lead to medical overuse, causing harm and waste.

Testosterone test: No evidence of benefit for testing healthy men, yet the danger of overuse of treatments; long-term safety of testosterone therapy, in relation to adverse cardiovascular events and early death, has not yet been established.

 Social Media Posts about Medical Tests with Potential for Overdiagnosis, JAMA Network Open (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.61940

Part 3

Aged biomass emissions could pose greater risk to lungs than fresh wildfire smoke

Biomass burning—whether from wildfires, wood stoves or agricultural fires—sends massive amounts of tiny particles and chemicals into the air. These emissions are not just an environmental issue; they pose serious health risks, especially for our lungs.

An Environmental Pollution study reveals how two key components of biomass smoke—levoglucosan and 4-nitrocatechol—affect human lung cells. Their findings suggest that aged smoke, which has undergone chemical changes in the atmosphere, could be even more dangerous than fresh smoke.

Biomass burning refers to the combustion of organic materials like wood, leaves and crop residues. This process releases large amounts of carbon-based aerosols, which contribute to air pollution. Among the many chemicals produced in the smoke, levoglucosan and 4-nitrocatechol serve as important markers.

Levoglucosan is a sugar-like compound released when wood burns, while 4-nitrocatechol forms when smoke interacts with nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, a process known as chemical aging. While scientists have long studied the environmental effects of biomass burning, less is known about how these compounds directly impact human health.

Researchers used two different types of lung cells: BEAS-2B cells, which represent normal lung-lining cells, and A549 cells, which come from lung cancer tissue and are commonly used in respiratory studies. The researchers exposed these cells to different concentrations of levoglucosan and 4-nitrocatechol over 24 and 48 hours. They then measured cell survival, stress levels and signs of damage to the cells' mitochondria—the "power plants" of cells that generate energy.

Part 1

Their key findings were that aged smoke is more toxic:

The study found that 4-nitrocatechol was significantly more toxic to lung cells than levoglucosan. At relatively low doses, 4-nitrocatechol reduced cell survival and caused oxidative stress—an imbalance that damages cells and can lead to lung diseases.
Exposure to 4-nitrocatechol disrupted the function of mitochondria in lung cells, leading to a process called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. This damage could contribute to long-term lung problems.
While levoglucosan exposure also led to cellular stress, its effects were much less severe compared to 4-nitrocatechol. Cells exposed to levoglucosan showed signs of mitochondrial stress, but they were able to recover over time.
Since 4-nitrocatechol forms when biomass smoke reacts with urban air pollutants like nitrogen oxides, areas affected by both wildfires and traffic pollution may be particularly at risk.
While wearing an N95 or P100 mask can help filter out fine particles, it may not fully protect against toxic gases and chemicals present in aged smoke. Here are some steps individuals can take:

Use HEPA air purifiers to remove fine particles from indoor air, and keeping windows and doors closed can help minimize smoke infiltration.
Ensure that homes are properly sealed to prevent smoke from entering through cracks, vents or poorly fitted windows and doors; avoid using candles, gas stoves or burning wood indoors, as these can add to indoor air pollution;
In extreme conditions, individuals with respiratory issues or prolonged exposure may consider investing in gas masks with activated carbon filters, which can help remove both particles and harmful gases.
If air quality levels are hazardous and exposure is prolonged, relocating to an area with cleaner air—either indoors with filtered ventilation or to a different location—might be the safest option.
This study reinforces concerns that exposure to biomass smoke—especially aged smoke containing 4-nitrocatechol—can have serious health consequences.
Long-term exposure to these pollutants has been linked to respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. People who live in wildfire-prone areas or who frequently burn wood for heating should take extra precautions, say the researchers.

Faria Khan et al, Evidence for cytotoxicity and mitochondrial dysfunction in human lung cells exposed to biomass burning aerosol constituents: Levoglucosan and 4-nitrocatechol, Environmental Pollution (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2024.125173

Part 2

High microplastic levels in bird lungs suggest widespread air pollution impact

Microscopic plastic pollutants drifting through the air are lodging in the lungs of birds, a new study finds. Researchers worldwide are increasingly alarmed by how pervasive these harmful particles are in the air humans breathe and the food they eat.

Birds were chosen for the study because they are found in almost every corner of the world and often share environments with humans. Birds serve as important indicators of environmental conditions. They help us understand the state of the environment and make informed decisions about conservation and pollution control.

The researchers  studied 56 different wild birds from 51 distinct species, all sampled from the Tianfu airport in western China. They collected lung samples from each bird and performed two types of chemical analyses.

They used laser direct infrared technology to detect and count microplastics in the birds' lungs. Pyrolysis gas chromatography-mass-spectrometry helped identify even smaller nanoplastics, which can enter the lungs through the bloodstream. Together, the tests allowed scientists to measure the amount of plastic in the birds' lungs and determine the specific types of plastics present.

The study found high concentrations of microplastics in bird lungs, with an average of 221 particles per species and 416 particles per gram of lung tissue. The most common types identified were chlorinated polyethylene, used for insulating pipes and wires, and butadiene rubber, a synthetic material in tires.

While no official "safe" level of plastic particles in lung tissue exists, high levels of microplastics have been linked to serious health conditions, including heart disease, cancer, respiratory problems and fertility issues.

The research highlights an urgent need to address plastic pollution in our environments, as these contaminants can have far-reaching impacts on ecosystem health, as well as human health.

 Mengzhu Wang et al, Assessing microplastic and nanoplastic contamination in bird lungs: evidence of ecological risks and bioindicator potential, Journal of Hazardous Materials (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2025.137274

Experts call for ban on toxic chemicals in plastics

Researchers are calling for a substantial reduction in the number of chemicals used in plastics manufacturing, and a complete ban of chemicals known to be detrimental to both human health and the environment—in a new paper published by Cambridge University Press in Cambridge Prisms: Plastics.

Plastics pollution is a major threat to human well-being and planetary health. While plastics recycling is often presented as the answer to plastics pollution, the presence of toxic chemicals in plastics, which enter plastics at various stages of the manufacturing process intentionally and otherwise, means that this is not a viable solution. To address the plastics pollution crisis, the safety and sustainability of plastics manufacturing must be improved.

Policymakers need to make changes to global, regional, and national policies to reduce the toxicity present in the plastics life cycle and address chemicals at each stage of manufacturing.

The researchers identified five policy strategies to support a transition to safer, more sustainable plastics:

Improving reporting, transparency and traceability of chemicals in plastics throughout their full life cycle

Advocating for chemical simplification and group-based approaches to regulating hazardous chemicals

Implementing chemical monitoring, testing and quality control

Creating economic incentives that follow the waste hierarchy

Generating support for a just transition to protect people, including waste pickers, impacted throughout the plastics life cycle.

Plastics contain a vast range of chemicals, including monomers, polymers, processing agents, fillers, antioxidants, plasticizers, pigments, microbiocides and stabilizers—and plastics production has already reached levels that threaten the stability of the Earth's functions. Moreover, the amounts and types of chemicals in plastics products varies, and there are few requirements for transparency and reporting.

We need a compulsory, globally standardized mandate that ensures transparent reporting regarding the chemicals used in plastics, to facilitate a safer and more sustainable reuse, refill, repurpose and recycling market, say the experts.

 Bethanie Carney Almroth et al, Addressing the toxic chemicals problem in plastics recycling, Cambridge Prisms: Plastics (2025). DOI: 10.1017/plc.2025.1

Robot Headbutting Woman Raises Safety Questions

Humanoid robots are supposed to be our loyal assistants, but we saw another side to them the other day.

Chinese robot manufacturer Unitree was demonstrating its latest H1 robots at a lantern festival in the city of Taishan, Guangdong province, when one walked up to the crowd barrier and seemed to lunge at an elderly woman, nearly headbutting her.

Experts are now demanding these things to reduce the danger:

Robots that looks sleek and can dance and flip are fun to watch, but how safe are the audiences?

Safe designs should consider everything from reducing cavities where fingers could get caught, to waterproofing internal components.

Protective barriers or exoskeletons should be added to further reduce unintended contact, while cushioning mechanisms could reduce the effect of an impact.

Robots should be designed to signal their intent through lights, sounds and gestures. For example, they should arguably make a noise when entering a room so as not to surprise anyone.

Operators should be trained well and the public should be educated appropriately.

Brain creates 'summaries' while reading, unlike AI models that process full texts

Unlike artificial language models, which process long texts as a whole, the human brain creates a "summary" while reading, helping it understand what comes next.

In recent years, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Bard have revolutionized AI-driven text processing, enabling machines to generate text, translate languages, and analyze sentiment. These models are inspired by the human brain, but key differences remain.

A new study, published in Nature Communications, explores these differences by examining how the brain processes spoken texts.

The study analyzed fMRI brain scans of 219 participants while they listened to stories. Researchers compared the brain's activity to predictions made by existing LLMs. They found AI models accurately predicted brain activity for short texts (a few dozen words). However, for longer texts, AI models failed to predict brain activity accurately.

The reason? While both the human brain and LLMs process short texts in parallel (analyzing all words at once), the brain switches strategies for longer texts. Since the brain cannot process all words simultaneously, it stores a contextual summary—a kind of "knowledge reservoir"—which it uses to interpret upcoming words.

In contrast, AI models process all previously heard text at once, so they do not require this summarization mechanism. This fundamental difference explains why AI struggles to predict human brain activity when listening to long texts.

To test their theory, the researchers developed an improved AI model that mimics the brain's summarization process. Instead of processing the entire text at once, the model created dynamic summaries and used them to interpret future text. This significantly improved AI predictions of brain activity, supporting the idea that the human brain is constantly summarizing past information to make sense of new input.

This ability allows us to process vast amounts of information over time, whether in a lecture, a book, or a podcast. Further analysis mapped brain regions involved in both short-term and long-term text processing, highlighting the brain areas responsible for context accumulation, which enables us to understand ongoing narratives.

Refael Tikochinski et al, Incremental accumulation of linguistic context in artificial and biological neural networks, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56162-9

A brain that turned to glass: scientific explanation

A young man was lying in his bed when a viciously hot cloud of ash swept down from the erupting Mount Vesuvius and turned his brain to glass almost 2,000 years ago.

That is the theory Italian scientists proposed this week  to explain the strange case of the ancient Roman's brain, which they said is the only human tissue ever known to have naturally turned to glass.

This unique brain could rewrite the story of one of history's most famous natural disasters—and help protect people against this little-understood phenomenon during future volcanic eruptions, the scientists suggested.

When Mount Vesuvius—near the modern-day Italian city of Naples—erupted in 79 AD, the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried in a fast-moving blanket of rock and ash called a pyroclastic flow.

Thousands of bodies have been discovered at the sites effectively frozen in time, offering a glimpse into the daily life of ancient Rome.

In the 1960s, the charred remains of a man aged roughly 20 were found on a wooden bed in a Herculaneum building dedicated to worshiping the Roman Emperor Augustus.

Italian anthropologist Pier Paolo Petrone, a co-author of a new study, noticed something strange in 2018.

He saw that something was shimmery in the shattered skull! What was left of the man's brain had been transformed into fragments of shiny black glass!!

These "chips" are up to a centimeter wide, say the volcanologist Guido Giordano, the lead author of the new study in Scientific Reports.

When scientists studied the glass using an electron microscope, they discovered an "amazing, truly unexpected thing". 

Complex networks of neurons, axons and other identifiable parts of the man's brain and spinal cord were preserved in the glass, according to the study.

How this happened is something of a mystery.

Glass occurs rarely in nature because it requires extremely hot temperatures to cool very rapidly, leaving no time for crystallization. It is usually caused by meteorites, lightning or lava.

This is even more unlikely to happen to human tissues, because they are mostly made out of water.

The Roman's brain being preserved in glass is the "only such occurrence on Earth" ever documented for human or animal tissue, the study said.

The scientists determined that the brain must have been exposed to temperatures soaring above 510 degrees Celsius (950 Fahrenheit).

That is hotter than the pyroclastic flow that buried the city, which topped out at around 465C.

Then the brain needed to rapidly cool down—and all this had to happen before the flow arrived.

Part 1

The "only possible scenario" was that an ash cloud emitted by Vesuvius delivered an initial hot blast before quickly dissipating, the study said.

This theory is supported by a thin layer of ash that settled in the city shortly before it was smothered.

This would mean the people of Herculaneum were actually killed by the ash cloud—not the pyroclastic flow as had long been thought.
Giordano hoped the research would lead to more awareness about the threat posed by these hot ash clouds, which remain "very poorly studied" because they leave little trace behind.
And some of the 215 people killed during the 2018 eruption of Guatemala's Fuego volcano were also victims of this phenomenon.
There is a window of survivability" for these hot blasts, he emphasized, adding that fitting houses near volcanoes to withstand high heat could help.

But why did the man with the glass brain uniquely suffer this fate?

Unlike Pompeii, Herculaneum had some time to respond to the eruption. All the other bodies discovered there were clearly trying to flee into the Mediterranean Sea.
However the man, who is thought to have been the guardian of the Collegium building, stayed in bed in the middle of town, so was the first hit.

The answer to the question 'why' is blowing in the wind!

Guido Giordano, Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE, Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-88894-5. www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-88894-5

AI too faces cognitive decline like living beings with brains

It's barely been two years since OpenAI's ChatGPT was released for public use.

Today, the famous large language model (LLM) is just one of several leading programs that appear convincingly human in their responses to basic queries. That uncanny resemblance may extend further than intended, with researchers from Israel now finding LLMs suffer a form of cognitive impairment similar to decline in humans, one that is more severe among earlier models.

The team applied a battery of cognitive assessments to publicly available 'chatbots': versions 4 and 4o of ChatGPT, two versions of Alphabet's Gemini, and version 3.5 of Anthropic's Claude.

Were the LLMs truly intelligent, the results would be concerning.

In their published paper, neurologists and  data scientists  describe a level of "cognitive decline that seems comparable to neurodegenerative processes in the human brain."

ChaptGPT 4o scored the highest on the assessment, with just 26 out of a possible 30 points, indicating mild cognitive impairment. This was followed by 25 points for ChatGPT 4 and Claude, and a mere 16 for Gemini – a score that would be suggestive of severe impairment in humans.

Digging into the results, all of the models performed poorly on visuospatial/executive function measures.

Similarly, a lack of empathy shown by all models in a feature of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination could be interpreted as a sign of frontotemporal dementia.

As might be expected, earlier versions of LLMs scored lower on the tests than more recent models, indicating each new generation of AI has found ways to overcome the cognitive shortcomings of its predecessors.

The authors acknowledge LLMs aren't human brains, making it impossible to 'diagnose' the models tested with any form of dementia. Yet the tests also challenge assumptions that we're on the verge of an AI revolution in clinical medicine, a field that often relies on interpreting complex visual scenes.

As the pace of innovation in artificial intelligence continues to accelerate, it's possible, even likely we'll see the first LLM score top marks on cognitive assessment tasks in future decades.

Until then, the advice of even the most advanced chatbots ought to be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.

https://www.bmj.com/content/387/bmj-2024-081948

 The Youngest Person Ever Diagnosed With Alzheimer's

In 2023, neurologists at a memory clinic in China diagnosed a 19-year-old with what they believed to be Alzheimer's disease, making him the youngest person ever to be diagnosed with the condition in the world.

The male teenager began experiencing memory decline around age 17, and the cognitive losses only worsened over the years.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is often thought of as an old person's ailment, and yet early-onset cases, which include patients under the age of 65, account for up to 10 percent of all diagnoses.

Almost all patients under 30 years of age can have their Alzheimer's explained by pathological gene mutations, putting them into the category of familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD). The younger a person is when they receive a diagnosis, the more likely it is the result of a faulty gene they've inherited.

Yet researchers at the Capital Medical University in Beijing couldn't find any of the usual mutations responsible for the early onset of memory loss, nor any suspect genes when they performed a genome-wide search.

Cases like the one in China pose something of a mystery. None of the 19-year-old's family had a history of Alzheimer's or dementia, making it hard to categorize as FAD, yet the teenager had no other diseases, infections, or head trauma that could explain his sudden cognitive decline either.

Ultimately, the cognitive decline became so bad, the young man was unable to finish high school, although he could still live independently.

A year after being referred to the memory clinic, he showed losses in immediate recall, short-delay recall after three minutes, and long-delay recall after 30 minutes.

The case study, published in February 2023, just goes to show that Alzheimer's doesn't follow a single pathway, and is much more complex than we thought, emerging via numerous avenues with varying effects.

https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-disease...

Animals That Keep Their Whole Ecosystem Together

Immune 'fingerprints' aid diagnosis of complex diseases

Your immune system harbors a lifetime's worth of information about threats it's encountered. Often the perpetrators are viruses and bacteria you've conquered; others are undercover agents like vaccines given to trigger protective immune responses or even red herrings in the form of healthy tissue caught in immunological crossfire.

Now researchers  have devised a way to mine this rich internal database to diagnose diseases as diverse as diabetes COVID-19 responses to influenza vaccines. Although they envision the approach as a way to screen for multiple diseases simultaneously, the machine-learning-based technique can also be optimized to detect complex, difficult-to-diagnose autoimmune diseases such as lupus.

In a study of nearly 600 people—some healthy, others with infections including COVID-19 or autoimmune diseases including lupus and type 1 diabetes—the algorithm the researchers developed, called Mal-ID for machine learning for immunological diagnosis, was remarkably successful in identifying who had what based only on their B and T cell receptor sequence and structures.

Combining information from the two main arms of the immune system gives us a more complete picture of the immune system's response to disease and the pathways to autoimmunity and vaccine response.

In addition to aiding the diagnosis of tricky diseases, Mal-ID could track responses to cancer immunotherapies and subcategorize disease states in ways that could help guide clinical decision making, the researchers think.

In a follow-the-dots approach, the scientists used machine learning techniques based on large language models those that underlie ChatGPT to home in on the threat-recognizing receptors on immune cells called T cells and the business ends of antibodies (also called receptors) made by another type of immune cell called B cells.

In the case of this study, the scientists applied a large language model trained on proteins, fed the model millions of sequences from B and T cell receptors, and used it to lump together receptors that share key characteristics—as determined by the model—that might suggest similar binding preferences.

Doing so might give a glimpse into what triggers caused a person's immune system to mobilize—churning out an army of T cells, B cells and other immune cells equipped to attack real and perceived threats.

Part 1

The sequences of these immune receptors are highly variable.

This variability helps the immune system detect virtually anything, but also makes it harder for us to interpret what these immune cells are targeting.

In this study, the researchers could decode the immune system's record of these disease encounters by interpreting this highly variable information with some new machine learning techniques.

B cells and T cells represent two separate arms of the immune system, but the way they make the proteins that recognize infectious agents or cells that need to be eliminated is similar. In short, specific segments of DNA in the cells' genomes are randomly mixed and matched—sometimes with an additional dash of extra mutations to spice things up—to create coding regions that, when the protein structures are assembled, can generate trillions of unique antibodies (in the case of B cells) or cell surface receptors (in the case of T cells).

The randomness of this process means that these antibodies or T cell receptors aren't tailored to recognize any specific molecules on the surface of invaders. But their dizzying diversity ensures that at least a few will bind to almost any foreign structure. (Auto-immunity, or an attack by the immune system on the body's own tissues, is typically—but not always—avoided by a conditioning process T and B cells go through early in development that eliminates problem cells.)

The act of binding stimulates the cell to make many more of itself to mount a full-scale attack; the subsequent increased prevalence of cells with receptors that match similar three-dimensional structures provides a biological fingerprint of what diseases or conditions the immune system has been targeting.

To test their theory, the researchers assembled a dataset of more than 16 million B cell receptor sequences and more than 25 million T cell receptor sequences from 593 people with one of six different immune states: healthy controls, people infected with SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) or with HIV, people who had recently received an influenza vaccine, and people with lupus or type 1 diabetes (both autoimmune diseases). Zaslavsky and his colleagues then used their machine-learning approach to look for commonalities between people with the same condition.

The researchers compared the frequencies of segment usage, the amino acid sequences of the resulting proteins and the way the model represented the 'language' of the receptors, among other characteristics.

Part 2

The researchers found that T cell receptor sequences provided the most relevant information about lupus and type 1 diabetes while B cell receptor sequences were most informative in identifying HIV or SARS-CoV-2 infection or recent influenza vaccination. In every case, however, combining the T and B cell results increased the algorithm's ability to accurately categorize people by their disease state regardless of sex, age or race.
Although the researchers developed Mal-ID on just six immunological states, they envision the algorithm could quickly be adapted to identify immunological signatures specific to many other diseases and conditions. They are particularly interested in autoimmune diseases like lupus, which can be difficult to diagnose and treat effectively.
Mal-ID may also help researchers identify new therapeutic targets for many conditions.

Maxim E. Zaslavsky et al, Disease diagnostics using machine learning of B cell and T cell receptor sequences, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adp2407

Part 3

How to trick the body's metabolism: Study reveals new path for weight-loss and diabetes treatments

Many people who have tried to lose weight by cutting calories are familiar with this frustrating reality: At some point, the body stops shedding pounds. It senses the reduced calorie intake and responds by slowing down metabolism, causing it to burn fewer calories than before the diet.

This happens because the body perceives a potential starvation threat and adapts by conserving energy while still carrying out essential functions. 

Now, a new study has identified a possible way to maintain calorie burning even when consuming fewer calories. The work appears in Cell Metabolism.

This discovery could be particularly important for patients using weight-loss or diabetes medicines like Wegovy and Ozempic. Many people taking these medications find that their weight loss plateaus after losing about 20–25% of their body weight. This stall is likely due to the body's natural response.

If we could develop a medication that helps maintain fat or sugar burning at its original high level alongside weight-loss treatments, people could continue losing weight beyond the usual plateau.

However,  the findings are currently based on mouse models, meaning human trials are still a long way off, and potential treatments even further down the line.

Part 1

The researchers' discovery was unexpected when they were investigating the function of a gene called Plvap in certain liver cells in mice. The team knew from previous studies that humans born without this gene have problems with their lipid metabolism, a connection the research team set out to investigate.

It turned out that the Plvap gene enables the body's metabolic shift from burning sugar to fat when fasting. And when Plvap is turned off—as the researchers did in their laboratory mice—the liver does not recognize that the body is fasting and continues burning sugar.
In other words, the research team has found an entirely new way in which the liver's metabolism is regulated, which may have medical applications.
Beyond the intriguing ability of Plvap knockout to "trick" the liver into thinking it is not fasting, the researchers made several other important observations in their study:

The signal that triggers metabolic changes during fasting comes from the liver's stellate cells rather than hepatocytes, the liver's most abundant cells responsible for carrying out metabolic processes. This suggests that stellate cells play a previously unknown role in controlling liver metabolism by directing other cell types, introducing a new mode of cell-to-cell communication.
Although fat was redirected to the muscles instead of the liver, the mice showed no negative effects. In fact, they experienced improved insulin sensitivity and lower blood sugar levels.
This discovery could have far-reaching implications—not just for obesity treatments, but also for improving our understanding of how fat and sugar are processed in metabolic diseases. In the long run, it may open new avenues for treating conditions like type 2 diabetes and steatotic liver disease.

 Hepatic stellate cells regulate liver fatty acid utilization via plasmalemma vesicle2 associated protein, Cell Metabolism (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2025.01.022. www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/f … 1550-4131(25)00022-1

Part 2

Melting Antarctic ice sheets are slowing Earth's strongest ocean current, research reveals

Melting ice sheets are slowing the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC), the world's strongest ocean current, researchers have found. This melting has implications for global climate indicators, including sea level rise, ocean warming and viability of marine ecosystems.

Researchers have shown the current slowing by around 20% by 2050 in a high carbon emissions scenario. The work is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

This influx of fresh water into the Southern Ocean is expected to change the properties, such as density (salinity), of the ocean and its circulation patterns.

The ocean is extremely complex and finely balanced. If this current 'engine' breaks down, there could be severe consequences, including more climate variability, with greater extremes in certain regions, and accelerated global warming due to a reduction in the ocean's capacity to act as a carbon sink.

 Taimoor Sohail et al, Decline of antarctic circumpolar current due to polar ocean freshening, Environmental Research Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/adb31c

Synthetic microbiome therapy suppresses bacterial infection without antibiotics

A synthetic microbiome therapy, tested in mice, protects against severe symptoms of a gut infection that is notoriously difficult-to-treat and potentially life-threatening in humans, according to a team of researchers who developed the treatment for Clostridioides difficile, or C. difficile, a bacterium that can cause severe diarrhea, abdominal pain and colon inflammation.

C. difficile can overgrow when the balance of the gut microbiome—the trillions of organisms that keep your body healthy—is disrupted. The team said their findings could lead to the development of new probiotic strategies for humans to treat C. difficile infections as an alternative to antibiotics and conventional fecal microbiota transplants.

While it draws on the idea of human fecal transplants, a medical procedure where bacteria from a healthy donor's stool is transferred to a patient's gastrointestinal tract to restore balance to the microbiome, the new approach doesn't require any fecal matter.

Instead, this microbiome therapy uses fewer but more precise bacteria strains that have been linked to C. difficile suppression. It was as effective as human fecal transplants in mice against C. difficile infection and with fewer safety concerns.

The findings were published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe and the researchers also filed a provisional application to patent the technology described in the paper.

Typically, the organisms in the microbiome keep each other in check. While many people carry C. difficile in their gut, it usually doesn't cause a problem. However, antibiotics can tip the scales, creating an environment where C. difficile can flourish by knocking out good bacteria along with harmful ones. C. difficile accounts for 15% to 25% of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Infection can often set in after a visit to the hospital or other health care setting.

Treating these infections is challenging. Antibiotics aren't effective against C. difficile because the bacteria are drug-resistant. Antibiotics also further disrupt the gut microbiome, creating a positive feedback loop that leads to recurrent infections.

Part 1

One therapy that has proven effective is a fecal microbiota transplant, which is designed to restore a healthy balance of bacteria in the gut. However, it's not without risks.

To a certain extent, a fecal transplant is almost like going to the pharmacist where they take a little bit of everything off the shelf and put it into one pill, assuming that something will probably help. But we don't know 100% what's in there.The research team set out to identify C. difficile's "friends" and "foes;" in other words, those that tend to either co-occur with C. difficile or those that may reduce the growth of C. difficile. They gathered information on the human microbiome from 12 previously published studies, which included microbiome sequencing data and clinical diagnoses of C. difficile colonization.

They then used machine learning to home in on the key features of microorganisms that were positively and negatively associated with C. difficile.

Thirty-seven strains of bacteria were found to be negatively correlated with C. difficile. In other words, when these microorganisms were present, there was no C. difficile infection. Another 25 bacteria were positively correlated with C. difficile, meaning that they were present alongside C. difficile infection.
In the lab, the researchers then combined bacteria that appeared to repress C. difficile and developed a synthetic version of a fecal transplant.

When tested in vitro and given orally to mice, the synthetic microbiome therapy significantly reduced growth of C. difficile, resisted infection and was as effective as a traditional human fecal transplant. In mice, it was also shown to protect against severe disease, delay relapse and decrease the severity of recurrent infections caused by antibiotic use.

Through experiments, the researchers determined that just one bacterial strain was critical for suppressing C. difficile. Alone, it was just as effective as a human fecal transplant in preventing infection in a mouse model.
If you have this Peptostreptococcus strain, you don't have C. difficile. It's a very potent suppressor and is actually better than all 37 strains combined.

The team's approach to microbiome science could be used to understand complex host-microbial interactions in other conditions like inflammatory bowel disease with the potential to develop novel therapies.

The goal is to develop the microbes as targeted drugs and therapies.

A designed synthetic microbiota provides insight to community function in Clostridioides difficile resistance, Cell Host & Microbe (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2025.02.007. www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe … 1931-3128(25)00055-1

Part 2

Polymers used in everyday products can degrade into toxic chemicals, study finds

The scientific community has long believed that polymers—very large molecules—are too big to migrate out of products into people and therefore pose no health risks. As a result, polymers have largely evaded regulation. For example, polymers are exempt from the major toxics acts. However, a study published recently in Nature Sustainability demonstrates that polymers used as flame retardants can break down into smaller harmful chemicals.

The study suggests polymers can act as a trojan horse for toxic chemicals.

They are added to products as inert large molecules, but over time they can degrade, exposing us to their harmful breakdown products.

The researchers tested two polymeric brominated flame retardants (polyBFRs) that were developed as "non-toxic" alternatives to banned flame retardants. They found that both polyBFRs broke down into dozens of types of smaller molecules. Toxicity testing of these smaller molecules in zebrafish showed significant potential for causing mitochondrial dysfunction and developmental and cardiovascular harm.

The scientists went on to search for these polymer break-down products in the environment and, further raising alarm, detected them in soil, air, and dust. The levels were highest near electronic waste recycling facilities and lessened moving away from the facilities. These results confirm that the use of polyBFRs in electronics leads to the release of toxic breakdown products into the environment with potential for human and wildlife exposure and harm.

Widespread use of these polyBFRs in electronics may result in exposures when these products are manufactured, when they're in our homes, and when they're discarded or recycled, the researchers say.

Xiaotu Liu et al, Environmental impacts of polymeric flame retardant breakdown, Nature Sustainability (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-025-01513-z

Study links intense energy bursts to ventilator-induced lung injury

A new study  suggests that repeated collapse and reopening of tiny alveoli—air sacs in the lungs essential for breathing—during mechanical ventilation may cause microscopic tissue damage, playing a key role in ventilator-related injuries that contribute to thousands of deaths annually.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study sheds light on ventilator-induced lung injury, a complication that gained increased attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a surge in patients requiring mechanical ventilation. These devices pump oxygen-rich air into a patient's airways when they are unable to breathe adequately on their own.

The study identified that alveolar recruitment/derecruitment—when collapsed air sacs in the lungs repeatedly open and close—accounts for only 2–5% of energy dissipation during ventilation but correlates directly with lung injury in a model of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

It's like a tiny explosion at the delicate lung surface. Though small in magnitude, it creates a power intensity of about 100 watts per square meter—comparable to sunlight exposure.

ARDS is a severe lung condition that affects roughly 10% of intensive care unit patients and carries a mortality rate of 30–40%, even with modern ventilation techniques. Using a pig model of ARDS, the team examined how ventilator energy is transferred and dissipated in the lungs.

The researchers found that reducing this type of energy dissipation led to rapid recovery, while patients continued to deteriorate when 5–10% of alveoli underwent repetitive recruitment/derecruitment.

The study suggests that minimizing these repetitive collapse-and-reopening cycles could significantly reduce ventilator-induced lung injury. Researchers noted that adjusting ventilation strategies to prevent such events may improve outcomes for critically ill patients.

The study's findings could also help inform the development of new ventilation protocols aimed at reducing lung injury and improving patient care in intensive care units worldwide.

Gaver, Donald P., Mechanical ventilation energy analysis: Recruitment focuses injurious power in the ventilated lung, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2419374122. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2419374122

Vesuvius volcano turned this brain to glass

Scientists observe that smartphone restriction for three days can alter brain activity

A smartphone's glow is often the first and last thing we see as we wake up in the morning and go to sleep at the end of the day. It is increasingly becoming an extension of our body that we struggle to part with. In a recent study in Computers in Human Behavior, scientists observed that staying away from smartphones can even change one's brain chemistry.

The researchers recruited young adults for a 72-hour smartphone restriction diet where they were asked to limit smartphone use to essential tasks such as work, daily activities, and communication with their family or significant others.

During these three days, the researchers conducted psychological tests and did brain scans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the effects of restricting phone usage. Brain scans showed significant activity shifts in reward and craving regions of the brain, resembling patterns seen in substance or alcohol addiction.

For this study, 25 young adults aged 18 to 30 who regularly used smartphones were selected. Before the 72-hour restriction period, participants were screened for the severity of physical, psychological, and social issues related to smartphone use and computer gaming, as well as to ensure they did not have any existing mental health conditions.

To assess their mood, smartphone habits, and cravings, participants completed two questionnaires before their first brain scan. They were then instructed to limit phone use for the next 72 hours.

After the three-day restriction period, participants underwent fMRI scans while being shown different sets of images: neutral scenes (such as landscapes and boats), smartphones turned on, and smartphones turned off.

The scans revealed that limiting smartphones led to brain activity changes in areas associated with dopamine and serotonin—neurotransmitters that regulate mood, emotions and also addiction.

The researchers noted that smartphone restriction can resemble withdrawal from addictive substances or even food cravings in some ways, which was noticeable in both heavy (ESU) and regular smartphone (non-ESU) participants.

Mike M. Schmitgen et al, Effects of smartphone restriction on cue-related neural activity, Computers in Human Behavior (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2025.108610

Preclinical Alzheimer's disease: Study finds faster tau accumulation in females

An international team of researchers has conducted a meta-analysis revealing that women with high β-amyloid (Aβ) exhibit significantly faster tau accumulation in key brain regions compared to men. Findings suggest that sex differences in Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology may influence treatment efficacy, prompting a need for sex-specific therapeutic strategies.

The paper is published in the journal JAMA Neurology.

Alzheimer's disease is nearly twice as prevalent in women compared to men, yet the biological mechanisms driving this disparity remain unclear. While both sexes show similar levels of Aβ burden, studies indicate that women may be more susceptible to tau pathology, a protein linked to neurodegeneration and cognitive decline.

Previous research has shown higher tau deposition in women through cross-sectional studies, but longitudinal evidence confirming whether women experience faster tau accumulation has been limited.

In the study, titled "Sex Differences in Longitudinal Tau-PET in Preclinical Alzheimer Disease: A Meta-Analysis," researchers performed a meta analysis of longitudinal data from six major aging and Alzheimer's disease cohorts. The objective was to determine whether the female sex is associated with faster tau accumulation in the presence of high Aβ levels and to examine whether sex modifies the relationship between APOEε4 carrier status and tau accumulation.

Data was sourced from 1,376 participants across the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), Berkeley Aging Cohort Study (BACS), BioFINDER 1 (BF-1), Harvard Aging Brain Study (HABS), Mayo Clinic Study of Aging (MCSA), and the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer Prevention (WRAP).

Among individuals with high Aβ, women showed significantly faster tau accumulation in specific brain regions compared to men. These accelerated accumulations were detected in the inferior temporal cortex, temporal fusiform gyrus, and lateral occipital cortex.

Women who carried the APOEε4 allele also experienced faster tau accumulation in the inferior temporal region. No significant differences were observed in other brain regions.

Findings indicate that sex differences in tau accumulation rates may contribute to the increased prevalence of Alzheimer's disease in women.

Elevated tau in women with high Aβ may accelerate disease progression, warranting sex-specific considerations in future therapeutic interventions.

Gillian T. Coughlan et al, Sex Differences in Longitudinal Tau-PET in Preclinical Alzheimer Disease, JAMA Neurology (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.0013

Heat from the sun plays a role in seismic activity on Earth

Seismology has revealed much of the basics about earthquakes: Tectonic plates move, volcanic activity, causing strain energy to build up, and that energy eventually releases in the form of an earthquake.

In recent years, research has focused on a possible correlation between the sun or moon and seismic activity on Earth, with some studies pointing to tidal forces or electromagnetic effects interacting with the planet's crust, core, and mantle.

Researchers  explored the likelihood that Earth's climate, as affected by solar heat, plays a role.

The study builds on one that a pair of the researchers had published in the same journal in 2022; that study connected solar activity, particularly sunspot numbers, with seismic systems on Earth to establish a causal effect.

Solar heat drives atmospheric temperature changes, which in turn can affect things like rock properties and underground water movement.

Such fluctuations can make rocks more brittle and prone to fracturing, for example—and changes in rainfall and snowmelt can alter the pressure on tectonic plate boundaries. While these factors may not be the main drivers of earthquakes, they could still be playing a role that can help to predict seismic activity.

Using mathematical and computational methods, the researchers analyzed earthquake data alongside solar activity records and surface temperatures on Earth. Among other findings, they observed that when they included Earth surface temperatures into their model, the forecasting became more accurate, especially for shallow earthquakes. That makes sense, since heat and water mostly affect the upper layers of the Earth's crust.

The findings suggest the transfer of solar heat to the surface of the Earth does affect seismic activity, however minutely, and that incorporating solar activity predictions into detailed Earth temperature models may help issue earthquake forecasts.

 The role of solar heat in earthquake activity, Chaos An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science (2025). DOI: 10.1063/5.0243721

Smoking and antibiotic resistance: How cigarette waste promotes the spread of resistant germs

Antibiotic resistance is a major global health problem: it implies that vital drugs are no longer effective. A new study by researchers demonstrates that pollutants from cigarette smoke and cigarette waste can promote the growth and spread of resistant bacteria in the environment. The interdisciplinary and international research group also shows that smoking increases the spread of resistant bacteria in the human lung. The study is published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Every year, millions of people die from the direct consequences of smoking. The study by the  scientists now shows that smoking also poses indirect health risks when pollutants from cigarette smoke and cigarette butts are released into the lung and the environment.

Cigarette filters contain many of the toxic substances found in cigarette smoke.  When these filters end up in waterbodies, they are increasingly colonized by potentially pathogenic bugs and bacteria displaying antibiotic resistance, as these are particularly well adapted to the adverse conditions on the filters.

The cigarette butts colonized with resistant and pathogenic bacteria can then be transported to rivers, other waterbodies, or beaches, contributing to the spread of dangerous bacteria. "This underlines the need for stricter measures against the careless discarding of cigarette butts and highlights another hidden health hazard caused by smoking.

The study also confirms the effects for the consumers of tobacco products: Smokers could promote a faster spread of resistant germs in their own lungs, resulting in a lower effectiveness of administered antibiotics in the case of future lung infections.

Different bacterial species can exchange resistance genes via so-called plasmids—small DNA molecules that bacteria pass on to each other. This enables bacteria that were previously treatable with antibiotics to acquire resistance to these antibiotics, making them no longer treatable.

In their experiments the researchers were able to show that the toxic substances that accumulate in the lung fluid due to cigarette smoke trigger a stress reaction in the bacteria, which, among other things, more than doubles the frequency with which resistance genes are passed on between bacteria via plasmids.

Peiju Fang et al, Effects of cigarette-derived compounds on the spread of antimicrobial resistance in artificial human lung sputum medium, simulated environmental media and wastewater, Environmental Health Perspectives (2025). DOI: 10.1289/EHP14704

Environmental scientists highlight role of paint in microplastic pollution

Plastic waste is recognized as a major cause of environmental harm, with products like water bottles, plastic bags and clothing fibers acknowledged as major contributors to plastic pollution—but research by  environmental scientists shows another source deserves more attention: paint.

In a study published in the journal Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry, researchers show how paint has been severely understudied when it comes to research on microplastics.

Defined as plastic particles less than five millimeters in size, microplastics are known to accumulate in air, water, food and even our bodies over time—and have been shown to have toxic effects on both marine life and human health.

The researchers say paint has been severely underestimated as a microplastic pollutant because it can be difficult to identify. Often, paint will show up as 'anthropogenic unknowns' when characterizing microplastics. Researchers have been wondering what such particles are and hypothesizing, based on computer modeling, that paint might be responsible for a large portion of them.

To investigate this further, the researchers surveyed existing literature to determine where paint pollution comes from. They found there were around 800 studies published on microplastics in 2019, but only 53 focused on paint, making for a significant research gap.

Although paint has traditionally been considered a form of plastic, on average, 37% of it is composed of synthetic resins that bind pigments together.

However, special vacuums  can prevent paint emissions from leeching into the environment during building construction.

There's paint from boats. There's also paint on buildings, on our roads. Once you walk around the city, you start to see it everywhere you look. So it's vital to devise and deploy more measures to reduce paint pollution, given the ubiquitous nature of paint, say the researchers.

 Zoie T Diana et al, Paint: a ubiquitous yet disregarded piece of the microplastics puzzle, Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (2025). DOI: 10.1093/etojnl/vgae034

Triple bond formed between boron and carbon for the first time

Boron, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen: these four elements can form chemical triple bonds with each other due to their similar electronic properties. Examples of this are the gas carbon monoxide, which consists of one carbon and one oxygen atom, or the nitrogen gas in the Earth's atmosphere with its two nitrogen atoms.

Chemistry recognizes triple bonds between all possible combinations of the four elements—but not between boron and carbon. 

There have long been stable double bonds between boron and carbon. In addition, many molecules are known in which triple bonds exist between two carbon atoms or between two boron atoms.

Chemists have now closed this gap: A team has succeeded for the first time in synthesizing a molecule with a boron-carbon triple bond, a so-called boryne, which exists as an orange solid at room temperature.

In the novel molecule, the boron atom is in a linear arrangement with carbon atoms. In combination with the triple bond, this is about as uncomfortable as it gets for boron, requiring very special conditions.

The scientists characterized the new molecule and also carried out initial reactivity studies. They present the results in the journal Nature Synthesis.

Maximilian Michel et al, The synthesis of a neutral boryne, Nature Synthesis (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44160-025-00763-1. www.nature.com/articles/s44160-025-00763-1

Scientists genetically engineer mice with thick hair like the extinct woolly mammoth

This week scientists announced that they have simultaneously edited seven genes in mice embryos to create mice with long, thick, woolly hair. They nicknamed the extra-furry rodents as the "Colossal woolly mouse.

Results were posted online, but they have not yet been published in a journal or vetted by independent scientists.

World's critical food crops at imminent risk from rising temperatures, research reveals

Global warming is already reshaping our daily lives, with storms, floods, wildfires and droughts around the world. As temperatures continue to rise, a third of global food production could be at risk. Now, a new study in Nature Food offers a more precise picture of exactly where and how warming will affect our ability to grow food.

Researchers studied how future changes in temperature, precipitation and aridity will affect growing conditions of 30 major food crop species across the globe.

They found that low-latitude regions face significantly worse consequences than mid- or high-latitudes. Depending on the level of warming, up to half of the crop production in low-latitude areas would be at risk as climate conditions become unsuitable for production. At the same time, those regions would also see a large drop in crop diversity.

The loss of diversity means that the range of food crops available for cultivation could decrease significantly in certain areas. That would reduce food security and make it more difficult to get adequate calories and protein, the scientists say.

Up to half of the world's food crop production may be affected

Warming will severely decrease the amount of global cropland available for staple crops––rice, maize, wheat, potato and soybean––which account for over two-thirds of the world's food energy intake.

In addition, "tropical root crops such as yam, which are key to food security in low-income regions, as well as cereals and pulses, are particularly vulnerable. In sub-Saharan Africa, the region which would be impacted most, almost three quarters of current production is at risk if global warming exceeds 3°C.

By contrast, mid- and high-latitude areas will probably retain their productive land overall, though zones for specific crops will change. These areas are also likely to see an increase in crop diversity. For example, the cultivation of temperate fruits, such as pears, could become more common in more northerly regions.

However, even if climatic conditions are favorable, other factors could hamper agriculture in these areas. There's climatic potential but, for example, warming might bring new pests and extreme weather events, which this model doesn't include. So the situation isn't really that black and white.

Part 1

Many of the low-latitude regions most threatened by warming are already vulnerable in numerous ways. They face problems with food sufficiency, and economic and systemic forces make them less resilient than northern countries.
But still there are ways that these regions could, at least partly, meet the challenge.
In many low latitude areas, especially in Africa, the yields are small compared to similar areas elsewhere in the world. They could get higher yields with access to fertilizers and irrigation as well as reducing food losses through the production and storage chain. However, ongoing global warming will add a lot of uncertainty to these estimates and probably even more actions are needed, such as crop selection and novel breeding, the scientists say.
While policy-makers in low-latitude countries should work to close those gaps, in mid- and high-latitude regions farmers and policy-makers need more flexibility.
Warming will likely change which crops are grown in those areas, and further changes will come from the array of pressures on the global food system. Coping with those changes will require the ability to adjust and adapt as the consequences of climate change unfold.

Climate change threatens crop diversity at low latitudes, Nature Food (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-025-01135-w. www.nature.com/articles/s43016-025-01135-w

Part 2

Diesel exhaust exposure leads to disarray in liver function in mice; could also indicate health issues for humans

Health researchers have discovered significant changes in liver function following exposure to diesel exhaust (DE) in a controlled study involving mice. The study identified disrupted activity in 658 genes and 118 metabolites. These changes led to a higher production of triglycerides, fatty acids, and sugars, largely due to problems with mitochondria, an organelle in the cell responsible for energy production.

The research is published in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology.
The researchers also exposed liver cells to diesel particles and confirmed that the particles were sufficient to activate a gene called Pck1, which led to increased glucose production. Taking it one step further, the researchers inhibited Pck1 to tease out its function. This step reduced glucose levels, confirming Pck1's role in glucose production.

DE emissions play a large role in air pollution and its links to type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Previous research by the same investigators had shown that diesel particles cause mitochondrial dysfunction in liver tissue cells, but the researchers wanted to study the effects in mice. This is the first study to demonstrate the ability of DE exposure to induce mitochondrial dysfunction in vivo.
While there is emerging evidence of a connection between air pollution exposure and metabolic diseases, the exact mechanisms and genes involved are unknown. The researchers say these findings may indicate some of the factors that cause humans to get fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes after being exposed to DE. 

Gajalakshmi Ramanathan et al, Integrated hepatic transcriptomics and metabolomics identify Pck1 as a key factor in the broad dysregulation induced by vehicle pollutants, Particle and Fibre Toxicology (2024). DOI: 10.1186/s12989-024-00605-6

Current antivenom ineffective against a saw-scaled viper bite finds study

The ‘big four’ - Russell’s viper, saw-scaled viper, krait, and Indian cobra, are responsible for most of the snakebite incidents in India.

A new study has now shed light on a concerning issue: the antivenom used to treat bites from the saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus sochureki) isn't as effective as it should be in certain regions. A team from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) studied data from a centre treating snakebite victims in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. They found that many patients bitten by the saw-scaled viper weren't responding well to the standard Indian polyvalent antivenom.

Antivenom is a unique mixture made from the antibodies of animals (usually horses) that have been exposed to snake venom. The polyvalent antivenom is designed to work against the venom of the big four snakes, including the saw-scaled viper. When a person is bitten by a venomous snake, the venom can cause a range of problems, from tissue damage and bleeding disorders to paralysis and even death. Antivenom works by binding to the venom in the body and neutralising its harmful effects. Ideally, it should quickly reverse the effects of the venom, allowing the person to recover fully.

The study found that over two-thirds (68.4%) of the patients who received antivenom didn't respond as expected. 103 of the 105 patients experienced venom-induced consumption coagulopathy (VICC), where the venom caused their blood to clot abnormally, leading to bleeding. Around 35% of patients also experienced local and specialised bleeding at the bite site and in other parts of their bodies. Meanwhile, 3 out of 4 patients  (75.7%) also experienced delayed Hypofibrinogenaemia, where their body wasn’t producing enough fibrinogen, a protein essential for blood clotting, even days after the bite. The researchers also found that patients who were bitten in certain areas (the ‘West zone’ of Rajasthan) and those who received higher doses of antivenom were more likely to be unresponsive.

The researchers think the most likely reason for the antivenom's ineffectiveness is that the venom of saw-scaled viper in Rajasthan is different from the venom used to produce the antivenom. Most of the venom used to make India’s polyvalent antivenom comes from saw-scaled vipers in South India. Snakes from different regions can have variations in their venom composition. This means that the antibodies in the antivenom may not bind as effectively to the venom of the vipers in Rajasthan, leaving the venom free to cause damage.

The researchers suggest that the most urgent need is to develop a region-specific antivenom tailored to the venom of Echis carinatus sochureki, the saw-scaled viper in Rajasthan and other regions. This would involve collecting venom from vipers in the region and using it to produce antivenom.

The research highlights a critical gap in our understanding of antivenom and our methods of administering it. The ineffectiveness of the current antivenom against saw-scaled viper venom is a serious concern that begs the question: Does the antivenom work in other regions? Does it work for other venomous snakebites? A comprehensive analysis is the need of the hour to know how we are fair in combating snakebites 

https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd....

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39749523/#:~:text=Conclusions%3A%20....

Lightning and Landscapes: How Land and Weather Shape Lightning in India

Lightning is one of the most spectacular natural phenomena, having captivated humans for centuries, sparking both awe and fear.

Today, scientists know exactly why lightning strikes, but predicting where it will strike is much more difficult due to all the factors at play. In fact, the word has become synonymous with unpredictability. But scientists all over the world are trying to uncover these mysteries.

In a new study, researchers have studied how the landscape affects lightning strikes. They have delved into understanding the frequency of lightning in North India (NI) and North-East India (NEI), discovering how land use and topography might predict when and where these electrical bursts will occur.

For their study, the researchers poured thorough data from the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, recording the location and frequency of lightning strikes between 2001 and 2014. They then combined this lightning data with information about the different types of land in the area - forests, farms, cities, and so on -  obtained from another satellite, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). For topographical details, they consulted the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission or SRTM—a source of detailed 3D maps of Earth's surface.

They also looked at weather-related factors like temperature, humidity, and something called Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE). CAPE measures how unstable the atmosphere is and how likely it is to produce thunderstorms. They also analysed total cloud cover liquid water (TCCLW) and total cloud cover ice water (TCCIW) along with lightning flash rate density (LFRD) to determine the local temperatures and amount of moisture in the air. They then used computer programs to classify each strike, overlaying their locations on MODIS images to see which land types were struck by lightning. By examining topographical elevations, they categorised these lightning locations by height, revealing patterns at different altitudes.

Part 1.