Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Physiology & Pharmacology

Beetroot juice may benefit pregnant women with chronic kidney disease

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 18:31:11 +0000

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1138394

INTRO: A daily beetroot juice supplement could offer a simple and accessible approach to supporting kidney function during pregnancy for women living with chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to new research led by King's College London.

Pregnancy places extra strain on the kidneys, and for women with moderate to severe CKD, around half will experience a decline in kidney function during pregnancy. Despite these risks, outcomes for pregnant women with CKD have changed little over the past 30 years, and many of the treatments used to manage kidney disease are not safe during pregnancy, meaning women often need to stop their medication for at least nine months.

In the new study, published in Kidney International Reports, researchers investigated whether dietary nitrate from beetroot juice could offer a simple, safe way to support kidney health during pregnancy.

Beetroot juice is naturally rich in nitrate, which the body converts into nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps widen blood vessels and improve blood flow, leading researchers to investigate whether it could help reduce the strain placed on the kidneys during pregnancy.

The team recruited 108 pregnant women with stage 2–5 chronic kidney disease from eight hospitals across the UK. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either standard care or a daily beetroot juice supplement containing dietary nitrate before 25 weeks of pregnancy.

While the study was designed primarily to assess whether a larger clinical trial would be feasible, the findings also suggested potential benefits for both mothers and babies.

Kate Bramham, Consultant Nephrologist at King’s College Hospital, Professor at King's College London and senior author of the paper, said: "For women living with chronic kidney disease, pregnancy has always meant navigating a difficult trade-off between preserving their own health and keeping their baby safe, often with few tools to do both. These results are an encouraging first step towards a low-cost, low-risk intervention that could genuinely make a difference for this group of women, who have been underserved by research for far too long."

Women receiving beetroot juice experienced around 70% fewer serious adverse events overall than those receiving standard care. Of the serious adverse events that did occur, around half affected newborn babies.

Among women with more advanced kidney disease, the researchers also observed trends towards better kidney function after pregnancy, fewer admissions of newborn babies to neonatal care, and a reduced need for blood pressure medication during pregnancy.

Importantly, the researchers found no safety concerns associated with beetroot juice supplementation during pregnancy, including no increase in high blood potassium levels (hyperkalaemia). There have been concerns that beetroot juice could increase the risk of hyperkalaemia in pregnant women with CKD, with some online advice recommending that they avoid it. However, in this study, the authors highlight that no increase in hyperkalaemia was observed among the women receiving beetroot juice... (MORE - details)

Shark design & swimming styles + Orcas ram world’s heaviest fish so hard it explodes

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 22:26:15 +0000

Sharks, spines and speed: The hidden architecture behind different swimming styles
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1137557

INTRO: “Shark Week,” which kicks off this week, has captivated audiences for decades with stories of these powerful ocean predators. But the secret behind their extraordinary swimming abilities lies far deeper than their impressive teeth or iconic tails – it’s hidden inside their spines.

For more than 400 million years, sharks have evolved a unique cartilage-based skeleton that provides the strength and flexibility needed to endure millions of powerful movements. While scientists understand how shark muscles drive different swimming styles, far less is known about how the internal structure of their spines helps them achieve remarkable speed, agility and endurance.

Now, Florida Atlantic University researchers and collaborators from NOAA Fisheries are taking a closer look inside the shark spine to uncover how its hidden design enables these ancient predators to move with such power, precision and stamina.

The new study, published in the Journal of Anatomy, reveals that the internal architecture of shark vertebrae is remarkably specialized, with each species evolving a vertebral column uniquely suited to the way it moves through the water. By examining the intricate mineralized structures inside the cartilaginous vertebrae of six species – the great white, shortfin mako, porbeagle, common thresher, sand tiger and basking shark – researchers discovered that the spine is far more than a flexible support column. It’s a finely engineered biomechanical system designed to maximize strength, flexibility and swimming efficiency.

To uncover these hidden adaptations, the research team analyzed vertebrae collected from different regions of each shark’s spine. Using high-resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), they created detailed 3D images that allowed them to look inside the vertebrae without damaging them... (MORE - no ads)

Orcas filmed ramming one of the world’s heaviest fish so hard it explodes, possibly for fun
https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2026/07...h-explodes

INTRO: A sunfish being blown to bits is the result of a never before described behavior of an orca pod in the Gulf of California. Researchers observed two separate events in which one orca held a sunfish carcass by the fin and another torpedoed toward it, blowing it into smithereens. The behavior could be a way to portion off more manageable pieces of food for calves present during the interaction, but it’s also possible that it serves an entirely different function: fun. The team said more observations of such events involving sunfish are needed to determine the exact ecological and evolutionary significance of the strategies in orca populations.

Orcas are known to be smart and ruthless hunters. They’ve been observed hunting a variety of prey, with some species, such as whales, larger than them. They use a wide range of strategies to hunt and kill prey, but now, in the Gulf of California, researchers have observed one that hasn’t been described before.

“We document how one orca holds the sunfish and lets go just before another orca hits it at high speed, causing the tissue to break apart into thousands of pieces,” said first author of the Frontiers in Ethology article, Dr Kathryn Ayres, a scientist at Beneath The Waves, a non-profit organization promoting ocean health. “We think this may help younger orcas feed more easily or it could also just be for fun. Orcas are known for playing with their food.” (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/r02T9w47foU

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/r02T9w47foU

Solved: contradictory causes of new weight-loss drugs + New drug could stop measles

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:43:36 +0000

New drug could contribute to stopping measles outbreaks
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1137366

INTRO: A new oral antiviral drug candidate administered either before or after direct contact or airborne exposure to canine distemper virus, which causes measles-like disease in ferrets, blocks transmission of the virus and reduces clinical symptoms, according to a study published in the journal Nature Microbiology by researchers in the Center for Translational Antiviral Research (CTAR) at Georgia State University.

The study explored whether prophylactic (shortly before or after exposure) administration of the recently developed clinical candidate GHP-88310 (described in Science Advances2), a broad-spectrum inhibitor of the viral polymerase, prevents virus transmission through close contact or through the air. The results demonstrate that GHP-88310 efficiently blocks both forms of viral spread. In addition, the study showed that treatment of infected animals shortened the time period in which infected animals could transmit the virus.

“Silencing measles outbreaks quickly is essential to reestablish control over the virus,” said senior author Richard Plemper, a Regents’ Professor and director of the CTAR. “This study follows our recent development of the drug candidate GHP-88310. It demonstrates that the drug is suitable to augment traditional ring vaccination against measles.”

Since 2025, measles has reemerged in the United States with thousands of cases across multiple states, hundreds of hospitalizations and three confirmed deaths. Large outbreaks in Canada and Mexico with multiple deaths have challenged the measles elimination status of North America.

“We were very excited to see that GHP-88310 given by mouth completely prevented airborne transmission in our ferret model of measles,” said first author Carolin Lieber, a senior postdoctoral fellow in the Plemper lab. “This finding is unprecedented for a viral polymerase inhibitor and demonstrates the extraordinary antiviral potency of this drug.” (MORE - no ads)

Scientists solve mystery behind contradictory behaviours of new weight-loss drugs
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1137252

EXCERPTS: Cambridge scientists have solved the mystery of why both stimulating and blocking a particular ‘switch’ in the brain can help people lose weight – findings which could help boost the effectiveness of obesity drugs.

Published today in Nature Metabolism, the study in mice shows that the answer lies in where the switch is located: stimulating the switch in the brainstem suppresses appetite, while the same effect can be achieved by blocking the switch in the hypothalamus.

More than a billion people worldwide are living with obesity, which increases the risk of diseases such as 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Weight loss can help mitigate these complications, but losing weight through diet and exercise alone can prove challenging.

In the past few years, a new generation of weight loss drugs has emerged that target particular receptors in the brain, reducing appetite and leading to weight loss, as well as helping control blood sugar levels. Several of these, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, work by stimulating a protein ‘switch’ known as the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor (GLP-1R).

Other weight loss drugs act on both this receptor and a second one, the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR). However, some of these drugs, such as Mounjaro and Zepbound, stimulate GIPR, while others, such as MariTide, block it. Why these opposite actions have the same result has puzzled scientists.

Now, researchers at the Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, have used mice to solve the puzzle, showing that the two different types of GIPR drugs act on distinct regions of the brain – but also that they can boost weight loss when combined with certain GLP-1-based weight-loss drugs.

[...] The findings explain why drugs such as MariTide, currently in phase 3 clinical trials, which combines GIPR antagonism with GLP-1 receptor agonism, are effective, and suggests how to design even better combination therapies.

Dr Jo Lewis, the study’s first author from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge, said: “Understanding which brain circuits respond to these medications – and how they do so – could help us design better drugs that produce more weight loss with fewer side effects, and which might work in combination with other obesity medicines to even greater effect.

“Our work also strengthens the idea that the brain is central to obesity treatment. Obesity drugs are not acting simply on the gut or pancreas. Instead, they have important effects on specific, identifiable brain circuits that regulate appetite and food intake.” (MORE - missing details, no ads)

I lived a whole other life in a coma, and am still dreaming it.

Tue, 21 Jul 2026 05:08:54 +0000

"After the birth of my son, I got sick, really sick, with a mysterious blood clotting disorder, and because the panicked doctors couldn’t figure out what to do, they put me into a medical coma, with memory blockers. They didn’t want me remembering the pain or any of the procedures.

But coma is a mysterious thing. Nobody knows exactly what happens in a coma. Some scientists believe coma patients don’t see or feel or hear a thing. Others say something different. Some scientists believe that coma patients actually dream.

I don’t know if I dreamed. But I do remember something the memory blockers couldn’t stem. When I woke up, it felt like someone had pulled me violently from one world I knew to another, as if I had stepped from one room to another. I began to talk to Jeff, my husband, to my friends Nancy and Lindy, who had sat by me every day, that I had been living in this imaginary town, and that it had been, well, incredible. It had all these stores, and my apartment was hard to get to, but it was big and beautiful and I knew the streets, the people, and I knew it was real.

They nodded supportively. They encouraged me to talk, but when I told the doctors, they just said, “Well, you’re on a lot of nasty medications.” They told me I was just adjusting now, that all those crazy thoughts and feelings would pass.

Except they didn’t. I kept dreaming about the town.

By the time I got home, the imaginary town kept coming back in my dreams, so real, so vivid, that I knew it was something different than a regular dream. It felt as if it were calling me and I didn’t know why, or what it wanted, or what I was supposed to do. I knew it wasn’t lucid dreaming, where you know in the dream you are dreaming even though everything looks and feels and seems like real life, because I’ve had those dreams. This one felt different.

I just knew that it was real.

The dream kept coming back. Over and over. I was always surprised to see the imaginary town again, surprised that I knew which streets to go down, that I knew how to progress through it. At first, I was living in a house that had no way to get to anywhere at first. there were no subways, and the house had a moat and dangerous animals guarding it.

The next time I dreamed about the town, I heard that someone I had loved who had died shockingly had actually not died at all. He had faked his death and everyone had agreed to pretend about it, and now he was living in California. I bolted awake. But the dream wasn’t gone. Instead, I believed it was true, as if I could hold two realities in my mind.

I’ve kept dreaming over the years, always the same town, the same people in it, but things change. I’ve moved out of the house with the moat and to a place close to the subway, now in the West Village, where I’ve always wanted to live. Do our dreams come out of our emotions? Maybe they do, but I can’t figure out the emotions of this dream, other than I have this complete sense of familiarity and wonder all at once.

I feel like I need to figure out these dreams. I talk to my therapist about them, and she points out, well, they started in the trauma of a coma. It makes sense that they still reappear. Maybe, she says, this is just like the way I immerse myself in another world writing fiction, that I live other lives through my characters in order to understand my own. After all, the worlds I write about in my novels feel just as real to me as the world I navigate. But then I talk to a quantum physicist friend of mine, who tells me about parallel worlds, different realities that can coexist. “Is that just theory or true?” I ask her, and she shrugs. “Who knows for sure?” she says. Maybe the coma did something to my brain to make my dreams appear like real life. Maybe I’m processing some cellular memory from an ancestor. “Who knows?” she tells me.

"But isn’t it exciting?”

The truth is, I don’t know whether to be scared or excited by these strange dreams. All I know is something is happening and I’m choosing to see it as an adventure, to stick around for what might come next. Or not come next. Remember that old song, "Life Is But a Dream"? Maybe in this case, it’s the dreams that are a real life."

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...reaming-it

People can lose their zest for life after starting GLP-1s, docs warn

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 17:39:02 +0000

https://gizmodo.com/people-can-lose-thei...2000786586

INTRO: Weight isn’t the only thing people can lose while taking a GLP-1 medication like semaglutide (Wegovy and Ozempic) or tirzepatide (Zepbound and Mounjaro). Some might also experience a profound loss of joy, doctors are warning.

In a report out this week, doctors have detailed three cases of their patients developing anhedonia—an inability to feel pleasure—after they started taking tirzepatide for their obesity. Fortunately, this potential side effect seems to be linked specifically to the largest doses of the drug, and all three people began to regain their zest for life after reducing their dosage. Still, doctors should be on the lookout for this possible complication in GLP-1 users, the authors say.

“Clinicians should consider monitoring for changes in motivation and reward perception during treatment, particularly at higher doses,” they wrote in their paper, published Tuesday in Obesity Pillars.

GLP-1s help people lose weight through several mechanisms, which include reducing people’s cravings for food. In recent years, researchers have found these drugs can also tamp down people’s unhealthy urges for alcohol and other addictive vices like gambling. As a result, scientists are now trialing these drugs as treatments for substance use disorders.

These effects are linked to how GLP-1s can affect regions of the brain associated with reward-seeking and pleasure. Useful as that might be for helping people with addiction, there has been some concern about the unwanted consequences of these changes to the brain. According to the authors, some people have anecdotally reported anhedonia-like symptoms after they started taking a GLP-1, but so far, there’s been little written about the phenomenon...(MORE - details)

Aliens can talk to us through psychedelics, scientists claim (ET pharmacology)

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:54:40 +0000

PAPER: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/8qvgy_v2
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SABINE HOSSENFELDER
https://youtu.be/3px9R9HnTeI

INTRO: For over half a century, people taking the psychedelic drug DMT have reported meeting alien beings. Now a scientist says these aliens might be real, and that he has the mathematics to prove it. Forget string theory and extra dimensions; here come aliens and psychedelics. Let's take a look...

Are DMT aliens real? ... https://youtu.be/3px9R9HnTeI

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/3px9R9HnTeI

Female ejaculation is common, a new study concludes

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:08:00 +0000

And yet the Japanese study made it pretty clear that it's largely what it was already suspected to be. So by classifying it as "climax emission", even the science establishment can't stop itself from feeding the erotic commercialization of the idea.
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Female ejaculation is common, a new study concludes
https://www.sciencenorway.no/orgasm-sex/...er/2689723

EXCERPTS: In a study recently published by Walløe and medical student Hijab Fatima Ali, the proportion was quite high: 26 of 53 women had experienced some form of ejaculation before, during, or just after an orgasm. The study’s conclusion is clear: Female ejaculation is common among young, sexually active women.

[...] Walløe is professor emeritus at the University of Oslo's Faculty of Medicine. He remembers a time when female ejaculation was dismissed as a pornographic fantasy. "For a long time, the medical community believed this simply did not happen. It was considered a form of wishful thinking among people who were especially interested in sexuality. But this is a real phenomenon. And it involves many women," he says.

[...] Exactly what female ejaculation consists of has not been explored in great detail either, but a few studies provide some insight. In a Japanese study from 2022, researchers emptied the bladders of five women and filled them with a blue liquid. All of the fluid released during subsequent sexual stimulation was blue. The bladder was the source.

Female ejaculation therefore consists partly of urine, Walløe and Ali confirm. But some fluid also comes from the Skene’s glands, which are located on either side of the opening of the urethra.

"Studies suggest that it's generally a mixture of the two, some urine and some fluid from the glands," says Ali. A Swedish study found that some women feel ashamed of their ejaculation because they believe they have wet themselves during intercourse. Others were more disappointed that it was not accompanied by any distinct orgasmic sensation...... (MORE - missing details)

Are memories stored anywhere?

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:55:25 +0000

"If we assume from the start that everything mental must be reducible to something physical, then we close the possibility of understanding the mind on its own terms. We have consigned ourselves to translating the wealth of subjective experience into impoverished neural patterns, only to then realize that this has not helped us to “explain” memory in any meaningful sense of the word. A genuine science of memory would begin by questioning the storage metaphor itself. Perhaps memories are not stored “anywhere.” Perhaps the brain’s role is not to house the past, but to facilitate our engagement with it."--- https://iai.tv/articles/memory-is-not-st..._auid=2020

Where then, and in what sense, are memories when we are not remembering? Does not the very metaphor of "storing" memories in some container contradict the very nature of a memory being only a present and subjective experience--a moment of pure conscious recollection? A memory could therefore no more be stored in a physical form than a perception of our immediate environment could be. It is a state of first-hand experience of the past--roughly as we experienced it. This suggests to me a sort of fractal-like structure of the mind, retaining within its own non-physical depths of its structures all the events that occurred to us in the past. Think of memories as the mind's stitchwork interweaving together our sense of one present state of consciousness. I don't agree with the above author that memories are outside of space. I feel like they generate their own space or simultaneity in how they all seem to present themselves without any of their original sequence. Our past is just this randomly flashing montage of moments all seeming to be in the same location, wherever that may be. Perhaps some sort of cognitive hyperspace like cyberspace.

Are memories stored anywhere?

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:44:38 +0000

Study links birth control pills to more binge eating

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:39 +0000

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1135008

EXCERPTS: Birth control pills are safe and effective for millions of women, but researchers are still working to understand how the hormones they contain may influence eating behavior.

A new study in JAMA Network Open followed 422 women who were already using combined oral contraceptives, tracking their eating patterns daily for 49 consecutive days. The goal: to examine whether binge-related eating changes depending on whether women are taking hormone-containing pills or hormone-free pills within the same cycle.

In a typical birth control pack, women take about three weeks of “active” pills that contain hormones, followed by about a week of “inactive” pills that contain no hormones.

“Because we tracked the same women day to day, we could see how eating changed with hormone exposure,” said Dr. Shaunna Clark, a co-author and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Texas A&M University’s Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine.

[...] The analysis focused on average changes across the group, but the study emphasizes that not all women experience these shifts in the same way. ... “These findings show a pattern at the group level,” she said, “but individual responses can vary.”

The study does not establish that birth control pills cause binge eating. Instead, it identifies a specific association between hormone exposure and increased emotional eating within individuals... (MORE - no ads)

Why surge in sex diseases in Europe should worry us (pharma losing the war)

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 17:14:50 +0000

https://www.theguardian.com/global-devel...cteria-amr

EXCERPTS: Why should a surge in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Europe be a concern across Africa or for people who don’t consider themselves to be at risk? Because it points to a bigger problem: the ease with which drug-resistant infections are now spreading, and not just in hospitals but within the community too.

[...] This is what is now happening with gonorrhoea through sexual contact, as extensively drug-resistant strains detected in Cambodia have spread as far afield as France and Australia. This is particularly worrying because Neisseria gonorrhoeae has developed resistance to the antibiotics used to treat it, with only one last remaining recommended antibiotic, ceftriaxone, available. With a growing number of cases that are resistant even to this, gonorrhoea is in danger of becoming one of the first diseases to be no longer treatable.

While this is also happening with other drug-resistant bacteria, it is often not until they reach hospitals that they are detected. But they are out there and spreading. A gene that renders bacteria resistant to last-resort antibiotics was first identified in the 1990s and quickly moved between countries until it became established all over the world within little more than a decade.

Drug-resistant infections can flourish and become entrenched in hospitals. But evidence now shows that drug-resistant infections such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) acquired in everyday environments are also becoming more common – and more dangerous, particularly for vulnerable groups such as cancer patients. In LMICs, where outpatient care plays a larger role and infection prevention resources are limited, the risks amplify.

Large studies report high rates of drug-resistant infections among cancer patients receiving outpatient care, with infections such as pneumonia occurring far more frequently and carrying a significant risk of death... (MORE - details)

Sound Waves Shatter Opioid Addiction

Mon, 29 Jun 2026 05:31:10 +0000

Sound Waves Shatter Opioid Addiction In Stunning Medical First
Israeli docs used futuristic brain tech to kill a patient's cravings in 20 minutes flat

Doctors in Israel just pulled off something that addiction specialists have been chasing for decades — and it didn’t require a single scalpel.

In a jaw-dropping medical first, physicians at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa used focused sound wave technology to essentially switch off a patient’s opioid addiction. In less time than it takes to watch a sitcom, a man who had been swallowing roughly 130 pills a day walked away craving zero.

The patient, identified only as H., is a family man in his forties who originally hurt his neck years ago. Doctors prescribed opioids for the pain. The pain eventually faded — but the addiction didn’t. He was trapped, needing the drug just to feel normal and function day-to-day.

That’s when Rambam’s team stepped in with technology developed by Israeli firm Insightec. Using MRI-guided ultrasound waves, physicians targeted the nucleus accumbens — the brain’s pleasure and reward hub — and modulated its electrical activity without cutting, burning, or destroying a single cell. No surgery. No anesthesia. No recovery room.

Within a week, H. tested completely clean. His self-reported craving level: zero out of ten. But the surprises didn’t stop there. The man who used to smoke three packs of cigarettes daily nearly quit cold turkey. His desire for alcohol vanished too. The treatment essentially hit the reset button on his entire reward system.
...

I don't even suffer from any addictions, but I wouldn't mind having my reward system reset. A lifetime of little dopamine hits probably builds up some kind of tolerance.

Apes and humans have been sharing a laugh for 15 million years

Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:33:32 +0000

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-026-10499-z

PRESS RELEASE: Great apes may have been laughing with a similar rhythm to modern humans for at least 15 million years, a University of Warwick study reveals. The finding offers unexpected clues to how human speech evolved.

All living great apes - chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans - laugh. But until now, it has been unclear how our laughter may have changed over millions of years of evolution, and how it might relate to the evolution of speech in humans.

In a new Communications Biology study, Warwick researchers analysed laughter recordings from four orangutans, two gorillas, three bonobos, four chimpanzees, and four humans. Across 140 laughter sequences, they found the same pattern: all species produce laughter with evenly spaced rhythmic intervals between successive sounds.

The researchers propose this basic rhythmic structure was already present in a shared common ancestor 15 million years ago and has remained remarkably conserved with all living great apes still show the same underlying pattern.

Dr Chiara De Gregorio, Honorary Research Associate, Department of Psychology, University of Warwick said: “How did humans evolve the remarkable ability to speak? Speech leaves no fossils, and complex language exists only in our own species. But we've found a 15-million-year-old clue in an unexpected place: our laughter. Unlike speech, laughter is shared by all living great apes. By comparing how different species laugh, we can see that a basic rhythmic structure has remained unchanged since our last common ancestor. That's extraordinary.”

The researchers found that while the basic rhythm stayed constant, human laughter has become faster, more variable, and gained sophisticated context-dependent control. Of the great apes, humans alone have the ability to control when and how they laugh depending on context: an uncontrollable laugh when tickled differs sharply from a polite laugh in a meeting, a nervous laugh after a mistake, or the infectious laughter that spreads through a group of friends. The same underlying rhythm, shaped by conscious control to communicate different emotions and intentions.

The findings of this study suggest that throughout great ape evolution, our ancestors gradually developed greater control over the timing of their vocalisations, including laughter. Sophisticated vocal control is a fundamental building block of speech.

Dr Adriano Lameria, Associate Professor, ApeTank, Department of Psychology, University of Warwick said: “It is impossible to assess the precursor forms of language directly from our extinct ancestors. Laughter, being evolutionarily older and having remained shared between all living great apes, provides a rare evolutionary window into the vocal transformations that unfolded across hominid evolution until the first humans appeared on scene. Contrary to the classic notion that the first humans suddenly acquired vocal control capacities remarkably different from their predecessors, laughter evolution tells us that humans lay on a continuum, a prolongation of vocal control capacities that were already being cumulatively honed in for 15 million years.”

Vitamin C might protect some people from dementia?

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 20:06:43 +0000

Vitamin C levels in blood plasma linked with brain connectivity and volume in older adults
https://plos.io/3RI4XB1

PRESS RELEASE: A study of 2,044 older Japanese adults found that those with lower vitamin C levels in their blood plasma tended to have a lower volume of gray matter in their brains, as well as lower connectivity amongst a collection of brain regions known as the default mode network. Haruka Nagaya of Hirosaki University, Japan, and colleagues present these findings in the open access journal PLOS One.

Previous research has uncovered associations between diets higher in vitamin C and lower risk of cognitive impairment in older adults. However, few studies have looked directly at vitamin C levels in blood plasma and potential associations with brain structure and connectivity within brain networks. To help fill that gap, Nagaya and colleagues analyzed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and plasma vitamin C levels of 2,044 Japanese adults over the age of 64.

Specifically, they measured the volume of each participant’s gray and white brain matter (accounting for individual differences in total brain volume between participants). They also evaluated connectivity within the default mode network, which is associated with several cognitive functions, such as attention and autobiographical memory.

After statistically accounting for other factors that could affect brain structure and connectivity—such as age, physical activity habits, and education level—the researchers found that participants with lower plasma vitamin C levels tended to have lower gray matter volume, as well as lower connectivity within the default mode network.

These findings suggest the possibility that optimal levels of vitamin C in blood plasma could potentially support cognitive function and counteract cognitive decline. However, the findings do not confirm any such cause-effect relationship between vitamin C levels and brain health, and further research is needed to explore the biological mechanisms behind the observed statistical associations.

The authors also note that future research could build on this study by taking repeated plasma vitamin C measurements over time, accounting for additional lifestyle and nutritional factors, and including participants of additional ethnicities and socioeconomic status.

Tomohiro Shintaku adds: “Our study demonstrates that higher plasma vitamin C levels are associated with better preserved structural connectivity of the default mode network (DMN), a key brain network involved in cognitive function. This finding generates the exciting hypothesis that a diet rich in vitamin C might play a supportive role in maintaining brain health and mitigating age-related cognitive decline in older adults.”

“What I found most fascinating about this research is that we were able to detect these subtle but significant associations between a single nutritional factor and large-scale brain networks by utilizing a robust, community-based cohort of over 2,000 older adults. It truly highlights the potential impact of our everyday dietary habits on our brain structures.”

Some drugs ‘fail’ because of unrealistic testing conditions

Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:42:27 +0000

More "duh" territory for anyone who has individually had repeated success with ___ in ways that don't package into a placebo context. But still realizes the futility (and recklessness?) of an outlier promoting it for either the general public or the statistically engendered and commercially deified "average person". (Sans the financial opportunism of the successful mountebank, who in this instance would unwittingly and perversely reap from an item actually effective under contingent circumstances.)
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Some drugs ‘fail’ because of unrealistic testing conditions
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131347

INTRO: A drug once dismissed as ineffective suddenly worked — when scientists tested it under more realistic conditions that mimic the human body.

In this surprising new discovery, Northwestern University scientists uncovered a hidden rule of drug behavior. A medicine’s effectiveness can change dramatically depending on the conditions inside our cells.

In the new study, scientists found that two fundamental features of human biology — body temperature and calcium levels inside cells — can change how drugs interact with their targets, sometimes even flipping a drug’s effect entirely.

The findings could help explain why some drug candidates look promising in early lab tests but fail later in development. They also could point toward a smarter way to design more effective medicines with fewer unwanted side effects.

The study was published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

“Drugs don’t act in isolation,” said Northwestern’s Wei Lü, who co-led the study with longtime collaborator Juan Du. “They act within the physiological environment of the cell. By incorporating temperature and calcium into our experiments, we uncovered drug activities that were completely invisible before.”

Lü and Du are professors of molecular biosciences at Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, professors of pharmacology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and members of Northwestern’s Chemistry of Life Processes Institute. Jinhong Hu, a postdoctoral fellow in the Du and Lü labs, is the study’s first author... (MORE - no ads)