Star-shaped brain cells guard your memories, and creatine fights cancer

A UCLA study published in iScience changes that framing [8]. The finding centers on dendritic cells, the specialized immune cells that act as generals in the body's fight against cancer: they detect tumors, then train the killer T cells that destroy them. Without creatine, the UCLA team found, dendritic cells survive less effectively, become less active, and are far worse at preparing T cells to recognize and attack tumors. The creatine transporter gene, which carries creatine into cells, was much more active in tumor-infiltrating dendritic cells than in healthy tissue. The cells are specifically hungry for creatine right where the fight matters most. This builds on earlier work from the same UCLA lab showing creatine also boosts the T cells themselves. "Creatine doesn't just help the T cells fighting cancer," said senior author Lili Yang. "It also energizes the entire infrastructure that supports and guides them."

A new study from the Institute of Basic Science found that astrocytes are the active gatekeepers of which long-term memories survive [83]. The team identified a protein called ankyrin-2 (Ank2) as the molecular switch. Astrocytes with working Ank2 grow branches that reach out and physically embrace "engram neurons," the clusters of cells that store specific memories, maintaining the synaptic strengthening that holds a memory in place. The researchers then engineered mice without Ank2 in their astrocytes. Those mice formed memories completely normally. Tested two weeks later, the memories were gone. Short-term recall was perfectly intact. Long-term recall had collapsed entirely. Without Ank2, astrocytes developed stunted branches and could no longer maintain contact with the engram neurons they were supposed to hold.

The AI's job was to find the features evolution has left largely untouched across all of them: the parts a virus is unlikely to mutate without losing fitness. Those conserved targets became the basis of a new vaccine designed to protect against the entire family, including strains that don't exist yet. The vaccine uses DNA rather than mRNA, making it stable without refrigeration. It is also delivered without a needle; a high-pressure stream of liquid pushes it through the skin. It has now been tested in people for the first time.

By studying a centimeter-sized crystal made from a type of material called a strange metal, they detected a high degree of quantum entanglement woven through the whole material, using a mathematical tool from quantum information called quantum Fisher information [7]. They weren't trying to put the crystal into superposition as a whole. They asked whether the particles inside were collectively acting in a coordinated quantum way. They were. Lead researcher Silke Bühler-Paschen compared it to an anthill: no individual ant carries the colony's response, but when the colony acts, it acts as one. Strange metals have been physics' open wound since the 1980s, conducting electricity in a way that defied every known theoretical model [27]. Physicists have had to invoke quantum soups and even black holes to try to explain it. The TU Wien result suggests the strangeness isn't a glitch; it's a signature of deep collective quantum order.

In 18th-century America, a one-name marker almost always meant the person had been enslaved or had only recently gained freedom. Research in historical records revealed the story. The man was born Sebastian, enslaved, and died free at age 70 on February 28, 1729, having chosen the name Boston. Mayor Michelle Wu called the discovery "likely one of the oldest gravestones of a free Black person in America" in a July 4 speech. The stone sits in the same cemetery as the graves of Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and Crispus Attucks. It bears the death's head symbol common in New England at the time, a stylized skull flanked by wings, associated with spiritual resurrection. Historical records show Boston and his wife Jane Lake had children together in 1701.

The brain actively pumps out its own waste. Molecular pumps called P-glycoprotein line the blood-brain barrier and push amyloid-beta proteins out into the bloodstream, where they can be cleared. In Alzheimer's, those pumps progressively weaken, proteins accumulate, and cognitive damage follows. The Monash team treated an Alzheimer's mouse model with a copper compound called Cu(ATSM) for 56 days. P-gp pump abundance rose 24.1 percent. Amyloid-beta in the brain dropped 42 percent. Spatial learning improved by nearly 44 percent. Lead author Dr. Jae Pyun called it "the first study to show that Cu(ATSM) can increase the abundance of P-gp clearance pumps in an Alzheimer's model."

The average actual sleep shortened by 80 minutes per night. Over those six weeks, participants gained an average of one full pound and spent 17 more minutes per day being entirely sedentary. Men and postmenopausal women showed the sharpest effects, averaging nearly 30 extra inactive minutes daily. The researchers checked whether people were simply sitting more because they had more waking hours. Even after accounting for the extra time awake, participants still chose to be less active than before. The sedentary behavior followed the sleep loss independently of the extra time available.