AI spots pancreatic cancer 475 days early; a 709 BCE eclipse times Earth

It flagged early signs of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma an average of 475 days before diagnosis, and it was nearly twice as sensitive as experienced radiologists 8. The researchers examined abdominal CT scans from 219 patients treated at multiple hospitals 8. REDMOD also finds and outlines the pancreas by itself, which removes a step where different people trace the organ differently 8.

When the team calculated the eclipse's path from existing estimates of Earth's ancient rotation, a total eclipse should not have been visible from where the chronicle put it 3. The fix was a map correction: the location of the ancient capital, Qufu, was off by eight kilometers 3. With that repaired, the researchers reconstructed the eclipse and got a more accurate measurement of how fast Earth spun at the time, in a paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters 3. A later addendum in the "Hanshu," written about seven centuries after the event, describes the eclipsed Sun as "completely yellow above and below." That may be one of the earliest written descriptions of the solar corona 3.

In the study, published in Nature Mental Health, higher daily step counts and more minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity weakened the statistical link between high genetic susceptibility to major depression and the severity of symptoms 66. The researchers scored severity on a spectrum rather than as a yes-or-no diagnosis, so the buffering showed up in milder and moderate symptoms too 66.

Behavioral ecologists Nadja Geiger and Daniela Rößler at the University of Bonn report the first evidence of sleep rebound in an invertebrate. Sleep rebound is the body's habit of repaying a sleep debt, and it is one of the tests that separates real sleep from motionless resting 51. A 2022 study by Rößler's group had recorded REM-like twitching in another jumping spider, Evarcha arcuata, but could not yet show those spiders were truly asleep 51.

The writers of this STAT opinion piece call it the first neoantigen and mRNA therapy to meet a Phase 3 endpoint in oncology 73. Their question is what happens next. They point to BRCA testing: the first gene was located in 1990, a commercial test arrived in 1996, and thirty years later the test costs a few hundred dollars yet still doesn't reach most of the patients who could benefit 73.

The Lismore Historical Society hired Dr. Clare Ellis of Argyll Archaeology to find out whether the site was also home to the early monastery of Lios Mòr, founded by Saint Mo Luóc in the 6th century 201. The dig turned up six burials dated between 650 and 1040 CE among large carved stone cross fragments, an oval building with a limestone-paved foundation, handmade pottery, and toolmaking remains 201. A trench produced more than 1,000 pieces of debris pointing to precious metalwork, along with small crucibles and casts for melting what was likely copper, silver, and gold 201. The findings were published in Antiquity on October 1 220.

The ban takes effect on August 7 next year, and a two-year transition window ends all remaining operations by August 2029 198. Nature Minister Christian Rabjerg Madsen said a business "should not continue just because it has existed for a long time. It should also make sense for society, for the economy and for the animals" 198.