Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have discovered that electrically stimulating 'macrophages' – one of the immune system's key players – can 'reprogramme' them in such a way to reduce inflammation and encourage faster, more effective healing in disease and injury. This breakthrough uncovers a potentially powerful new therapeutic option, with further work ongoing to [...]
When Alex Sprackland caught Covid-19 in March 2020, he thought he’d be back to normal in no time. Yet, five years on, the 34-year-old still grapples with the severe, life-limiting effects of the infection. ‘I was diagnosed with long Covid seven months after my initial illness – my life has never been the same,’ Alex, from [...]
Researchers at Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute (TBSI) have found that nanoplastics, which are even smaller than microplastics, impair energy metabolism in brain cells. The results were reported in the Journal of Hazardous Materials: Plastics. In addition to providing fresh insight into learning and memory problems, their discoveries may help better understand neurodegenerative diseases, which are characterized by [...]
For the first time, researchers are leading a national study to see if the onset of nearsightedness can be delayed – and consequently reduced in magnitude over a lifetime – with the use of eyedrops in young children. Scientists at The Ohio State University and the University of Houston have received two grants from [...]
Eliezer Yudkowsky says superintelligent AI could wipe out humanity by design or by accident. The researcher dismissed Geoffrey Hinton's "AI as mom" idea: "We don't have the technology." Leaders, from Elon Musk to Roman Yampolskiy, have voiced similar doomsday fears. AI researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky doesn't lose sleep over whether AI models sound "woke" or "reactionary." Yudkowsky, [...]
Signals are processed only if they reach the brain during brief receptive cycles. This timing mechanism explains how attention filters information and may inform therapies and brain-inspired technologies. It has long been recognized that the brain gives priority to the information we direct our attention toward. A well-known example is the cocktail party effect. [...]
Is time something that flows — or just an illusion? Exploring space-time as either a fixed “block universe” or a dynamic fabric reveals deeper mysteries about existence, change, and the very nature of reality. Few ideas in modern science have changed how we understand reality as deeply as space-time, the intertwined union of space [...]
Most bacteria cannot be cultured in the lab-and that's been bad news for medicine. Many of our frontline antibiotics originated from microbes, yet as antibiotic resistance spreads and drug pipelines run dry, the soil beneath our feet has a vast hidden reservoir of untapped lifesaving compounds. Now, researchers have developed a way to access [...]
The story of the princess and the pea evokes an image of a highly sensitive young royal woman so refined, she can sense a pea under a stack of mattresses. When it comes to human biology, it also takes an abnormal individual to sense far beyond its surroundings, in this case, a cancer cell. [...]
Scientists at Gladstone Institutes uncovered a surprising reason why dopamine-producing neurons, crucial for smooth body movements, die in Parkinson’s disease. In mice, when these neurons were kept overactive for weeks, they began to falter, first losing their connections and then dying altogether. This mirrors the selective neuron loss seen in patients, where overworked cells [...]
