Sarah Okonkwo
325 stories · Page 11 of 14
Berlin Physicists Bolted a Metamaterial to a 7-Tesla MRI, and the Living Eye Came Into Focus
It clips onto a 7-tesla scanner a hospital already owns, draws no extra power, and lifted the signal inside a living human eye by up to half.
Nutrition & FoodScientists Measured the Salt in 39 Takeaways. Nearly Half Had More Than the Label Claimed.
Chemists at the University of Reading ran 39 takeaway dishes through a mass spectrometer. Almost half the labeled ones held more salt than the menu admitted, and one pasta dish carried nearly two days' worth.
Metabolic & WeightBoth Groups Lost the Same Seven Kilos. Only the Calorie Counters Had to White-Knuckle It.
In an 18-month Adelaide trial, fasting and daily calorie-cutting stripped off the same seven kilos, but for the counters part of that loss ran on constant conscious restraint the fasters' scores never showed.
CancerPregnancy Stations Killer T Cells in the Milk Ducts, and a Decade Later They Haven't Left
Melbourne researchers found that pregnancy stations killer T cells in the milk ducts, where they persist for at least a decade and track with better breast cancer outcomes. Now the race is on to summon them with a hormone shot instead of a pregnancy.
Brain & AgingA Brain Full of Plaques and a Mind That Held: The Cells That May Explain Alzheimer's Resilient Third
About a third of people whose brains show the full pathology of Alzheimer's never develop dementia. Dutch researchers say the difference may not be how many young neurons they have, but whether those cells switch on a survival program instead of dying.
CancerWhether a T Cell Keeps Killing Cancer or Quits Is Written in How Its Genome Folds
Exhausted CD8 T cells are why checkpoint drugs and CAR-T so often stall. New maps of the 3D genome show their fate is set by how the DNA is physically folded, and by CTCF, the protein that does the folding.
Metabolic & WeightThe Kratom Crackdown Its Biggest Trade Defenders Wanted
A concentrated 7-OH compound reported at up to 40 times morphine's receptor potency is sold in gas stations as herbal kratom. The plant's biggest trade defenders are cheering the DEA for banning it.
Metabolic & WeightOld Muscle Forgets How to Clean Itself. A Gene Called DEAF1 Is Why, and Exercise Silences It.
In aging muscle one gene keeps the growth pathway jammed on and the cleanup crew locked out. Exercise suppresses it in flies and mice, no pill required.
Brain & AgingIn Mice, Early Stress-Drinking Corroded a Brain Region a Long Sobriety Couldn't Repair
In mice, pairing alcohol with stress in early adulthood damaged a tiny noradrenaline hub in the brainstem, and a prolonged stretch of abstinence didn't reverse it. The cognitive cost surfaced in middle age.
Brain & AgingLongevity Clinics Sell Growth Hormone by the Vial. In Deep Sleep, Your Brain Makes It Free.
The muscle-building, fat-burning hormone that anti-aging clinics inject at a premium is the same one your hypothalamus releases every night you reach deep sleep. Berkeley mapped how, in mice, and the headline is already running ahead of the biology.
Brain & AgingThe Box-and-Banana Test Was Built for Apes. A Bumble Bee Worked It Out on Its Own.
Researchers in Finland trained bumble bees on two unrelated facts, a flower with sugar and a ball that rolls. With the flower moved out of reach, the bees combined the two into a solution nobody had shown them, on a task built for apes.
Metabolic & WeightSwitch Off One Protein Called Mitch, and Cells Start Eating Their Own Fat
Women with obesity carry more of it. Disable it in mice and they turn lean and muscular at once, the opposite of what the injectable weight-loss drugs do to your body.
Brain & AgingFor Decades They Treated This Stroke Like a Clog. The Arteries Were Actually Too Wide.
People with widened brain arteries were four times more likely to have had a lacunar stroke, the type doctors have treated for decades as if it were a clog.
Metabolic & WeightObesity Stopped Denting Older Adults' Metabolic Numbers: In the Young It's Biting Harder Than Ever
For middle-aged and older adults, extra weight no longer tracks with the cardiovascular damage it once did. For the young, the same fat is biting harder and earlier. The lab panels converged; the fat didn't.
Brain & AgingAlzheimer's Hitches a Ride on a Virus Your Neurons Tamed for Memory
In mice and in human Alzheimer's brains, toxic tau rides a protein called Arc, a virus your neurons domesticated for memory, from sick cells into healthy ones. Delete Arc and the spread nearly stops.
Brain & AgingSenescence Built Your Hands Before It Ever Aged Your Skin
Cellular senescence, the process blamed for aging and disease, is also how an embryo sculpts fingers and clears its own tissue. That double life scrambles the anti-aging industry's tidy 'kill the zombie cells' pitch.
Brain & AgingLead Strips Dopamine From the Exact Brain Circuit ADHD Drugs Are Built to Rescue
Childhood lead keeps landing on the same target: the striatal dopamine circuit that ADHD drugs are built to rescue. A Philadelphia cohort just tied it to real diagnoses, not test scores.
Brain & AgingGroup Mindfulness Beat Standard Back-Pain Care for a Full Year, No Prescription Required
Boston researchers taught 451 patients to work with their pain instead of medicating it, and the gains outlasted the program. The university's press release skipped the part where the edge over usual care fell short of the bar the team set for itself.
InvestigationsA Road Made From Recycled Fishing Nets Shed Less Microplastic Than the Tires Rolling Over It
Hawaii scientists laid ocean-net plastic into a real Oahu street, then measured what came off. The recycled plastic barely registered. Tire wear, the source almost nobody regulates, swamped it by orders of magnitude.
Brain & AgingA Federally Backed Trial Got High-Dose Fish Oil Into the Brain Fluid. The Memory Scores Never Moved.
DHA in the spinal fluid climbed 17 percent. Cognitive scores rose 2.76 points on fish oil, 2.67 on placebo. Two years of high-dose pills bought a rounding error.
Brain & AgingA Federal Court Put This Pesticide Back on Your Food. UCLA Just Showed It More Than Doubles Parkinson's Risk.
Chlorpyrifos was pulled from American homes in 2001 and ordered off food crops in 2021. A manufacturer sued, won, and it's back on apples and strawberries while the science against it gets stronger.
Brain & AgingYour Brain Has 170 Billion Cells and No Blueprint. Here's How One Cell Pulls It Off.
For fifty years the textbook said chemical gradients tell brain cells where to go. A new model says cells inherit their address from their family tree instead.
Metabolic & WeightThe Belly Fat You Gain After 40 Comes From a Cell That Barely Existed in Your Twenties
Transplant old fat stem cells into a young mouse and they keep churning out fat; young ones in an old mouse stay quiet. In mice, the fat-making program travels with the cell, not the body around it.
Metabolic & WeightSame Calories, Different Wiring: Why Fructose Leaves Your Hunger Neurons Running
Glucose flips off the brain cells that drive hunger. Fructose barely nudges them, and the corn-syrup blend in your soda quiets them even better, which is exactly why it's so easy to keep drinking.