A study shows that microplastics block blood flow in the brain
How Research Gets Better: A Study of Research Promotion Policies in Low- and Middle-Income Countries and Their Use in Autonomous Cell Technologies and Self-Driving Labs
mathematician William Dunham said that only one person in the history of mathematics was better known for less. But Venn’s creation — the interlocking circles known as Venn diagrams — are useful when simple and provocative when complex, argues maths writer and puzzle-maker Jack Murtagh. As the number of circles in the diagram increases, the number of regions delineated by their intersection becomes larger, leading to questions about geometry and symmetry.
Using hundreds of policy documents covering 121 countries and 27 languages, researchers have identified trends in the academic-promotion criteria of nearly 250 universities and government agencies. Research output was included as a criterion for promotion in 98% of the documents. However, high-income countries increasingly rely on detailed assessments of researcher quality — more so than upper-middle-income countries, in which quantitative metrics remain the gold standard. Yensi Flores Bueso, one of the authors of the study, hopes the work will help rethink policies that foster inclusivity, equity and research integrity as fundamental pillars of our research culture.
Self-Driving labs that userobots and artificial intelligence to help ramp up speed and capacity, CAR-T-cell therapies that attack solid tumors are among the technologies you should keep an eye on this year.
Source: Daily briefing: Cancer ‘poisons’ the immune system by giving it faulty machinery
The cancer of the immune system is not a company that sells: global quantification of the stock market volatility in the 2024 Google announcements
The immune cells can be sabotaged by cancer cells if they fill them with bad mitochondria, the part of the cell that makes energy. Researchers found a similarity between the genes of the tumour cells and immune cells in three people with cancer. The TILs took on faulty mitochondria after only a few hours after they had grown cancer cells with fluorescent-tagged mitochondria. By 15 days, their native mitochondria had been replaced almost entirely. The TILs had less ability to divide and commit suicide.
The current volatility in the quantum-computing share market isn’t justified by the breakthroughs and setbacks in the field, says Global Quantum Intelligence (GQI), a company that tracks the quantum market. The share prices of several quantum-computing companies went down in response to comments from the CEO. Google announcements in 2024 had pushed them to record highs. The stock market overreacted to all the announcements, says computer scientist Doug Finke, who is the chief content officer. The difficulty with properly valuing quantum stocks is that no firm has mature products to sell, and no one company appears to have truly pulled ahead in the race to make a useful quantum computer.
Microplastic Injections into Mice: Results from an Environmental Health Research Scientist at U.S. Department of Medicine, University of New Mexico
The researchers gave mice water laced with fluorescent spheres of polystyrene, a popular product used to make appliances, packaging and even toys. The fluorescent cells appeared about three hours later. Further investigation suggested that immune cells known as neutrophils and phagocytes had ingested the bright plastic specks. The cells may have got trapped in the cortex, a area of the brain that has tiny blood vessels. It is said that more plastic-packed cells would pile on like a car crash in the blood vessels. obstructions cleared, but others remained during the four week observation period.
The glowing cells were visible when the plastic spheres were injected into the mice. Smaller particles resulted in fewer obstructions.
Eliane El Hayek is an environmental health researcher at University of New Mexico. It is very useful and interesting.
Microplastics are small specks of plastic that can be found anywhere in the world. They are in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. They can even enter our bloodstreams directly through plastic medical devices.
