Neuroscience research shows how mindfulness meditation fosters a unique state of relaxed alertness

Mindfulness meditation promotes a unique state of relaxed alertness, characterized by specific changes in brain activity related to attention and awareness, according to a study published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology. By examining brain oscillations and physiological arousal, researchers found that mindfulness meditation induces neural patterns different from those seen during simple rest, challenging the view that its benefits are solely rooted in stress reduction.

Mindfulness meditation is a practice that encourages individuals to focus their attention on the present moment in a nonjudgmental way. Originating from ancient contemplative traditions, mindfulness has become increasingly popular in modern contexts for its ability to promote mental clarity, emotional balance, and overall well-being.

Despite its growing popularity, the precise mechanisms by which mindfulness benefits the brain and body remain unclear. Neuroscientific research has consistently shown that meditation induces changes in patterns of neural oscillations or “brain waves,” particularly theta and alpha waves.

Theta waves (4–8 Hz) are often associated with deep relaxation and meditative focus, while alpha waves (8–13 Hz) are linked to calmness, wakeful rest, and the brain’s ability to suppress distractions. These two bands are thought to underpin the sense of relaxed alertness that practitioners often experience during mindfulness meditation.

However, it is less understood whether these changes are primarily a result of relaxation, akin to what one might experience during simple rest, or if they represent a distinct mental state characterized by active engagement and heightened alertness. The motivation behind the study was to address these gaps in knowledge and clarify the mechanisms that underpin mindfulness meditation.

“There has been considerable growth in the popularity of mindfulness meditation, with trends highlighting its integration into healthcare, education, and corporate sectors,” said study author Alexander T. Duda, a PhD candidate at the Brain & Behaviour Research Institute and School of Psychology at the University of Wollongong.

“However, while its benefits for mental health and well-being are well-documented, the mechanisms underlying these effects remain underexplored. I have a personal interest in understanding how mindfulness influences brain activity and arousal, and this study provided an opportunity to investigate these questions using the research facilities at my institution.”

The research involved 52 healthy young adults aged 18 to 35, with varying levels of meditation experience, though most participants were novices. Before the study, participants were asked to abstain from substances like caffeine or alcohol to avoid any confounding effects. They provided written consent and completed demographic questionnaires before undergoing brainwave and physiological arousal measurements.

Participants first engaged in a resting task with their eyes closed while researchers recorded their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG), which measures electrical signals in the brain to capture neural oscillations. Skin conductance level (SCL) was also measured to assess physiological arousal.

Participants then performed a 15-minute mindfulness meditation exercise based on a well-established guided breathing technique. During meditation, EEG and SCL data were continuously recorded. The researchers compared the brainwave patterns and arousal levels from the meditation session with those from the resting state.

To analyze the data, they employed both traditional EEG methods, which focus on predefined frequency bands (such as theta, alpha, beta, and gamma), and a data-driven approach called Frequency Principal Components Analysis. This advanced technique identifies natural groupings in brainwave data.

The researchers found that mindfulness meditation induces distinct changes in brainwave activity, supporting the idea that it creates a unique state of relaxed alertness rather than simply promoting relaxation. These changes were most evident in the theta and alpha frequency bands, which are associated with deep focus, attention, and a calm mental state.

The researchers observed increases in certain theta-related brainwave components during meditation, suggesting heightened awareness and internal focus. This supports previous findings that theta oscillations play a key role in mindfulness practices.

“Mindfulness meditation is associated with changes in brain activity that are distinct from simple relaxation, promoting a state of relaxed alertness,” Duda told PsyPost. “This suggests that its benefits go beyond stress reduction, which may include enhanced attention and awareness.”

Interestingly, the study also revealed a decrease in alpha oscillations during meditation, particularly in the lower-frequency alpha range. While alpha activity is typically associated with calmness and reduced sensory distractions, this decrease further supports the idea that meditation involves active engagement with the present moment rather than a passive state of rest.

“The significant decrease in alpha oscillations during mindfulness meditation was unexpected, as previous studies have often reported increases in this frequency band,” Duda said. “Additionally, these changes in alpha oscillations did not correlate with arousal, as measured by skin conductance level, which contrasts with prior research conducted in resting states that typically find such associations.

“This suggests that the neural mechanisms underlying mindfulness meditation may operate independently of the arousal-related changes traditionally linked to alpha oscillations, highlighting the unique nature of the meditative state.”

The findings shed light on the complexity of mindfulness meditation and its distinct neural effects. But as with all research, there are some limitations.

“The findings are limited to young, healthy, novice meditators, which may not generalize to experienced practitioners or diverse demographics,” Duda noted. “Additionally, the study focused on a single session of mindfulness meditation, without examining longitudinal changes or other meditation styles, which may yield different outcomes.”

“Future research should address these gaps by including diverse populations, exploring long-term effects, and incorporating complementary measures like heart rate variability to better understand the physiological mechanisms and broader impacts of mindfulness.”

“A key goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the role of arousal as a mechanism contributing to the benefits of mindfulness meditation,” Duda explained. “Investigating how changes in arousal and neural oscillations interact to enhance attention, awareness, and overall well-being will help refine mindfulness practices. Ultimately, this research aims to inform and improve the use of mindfulness meditation in clinical interventions, making them more effective and widely applicable.”

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By Lauren Perkins

When you think of NASA, disasters such as hurricanes may not be the first thing to come to mind, but several NASA programs are building tools and advancing science to help communities make more informed decisions for disaster planning.

Empowered by NASA’s commitment to open science, the NASA Disasters Program supports disaster risk reduction, response, and recovery. A core element of the Disasters Program is providing trusted, timely, and actionable data to aid organizations actively responding to disasters.

Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana Aug. 21, 2021, as a category 4 hurricane, one of the deadliest and most destructive hurricanes in the continental United States on record. The effects of the storm were widespread, causing devastating damage and affecting the lives of millions of people.

During Hurricane Ida, while first responders and other organizations addressed the storm’s impacts from the ground, the NASA Disasters program was able to provide a multitude of remotely sensed products. Some of the products and models included information on changes in soil moisture, changes in vegetation, precipitation accumulations, flood detection, and nighttime lights to help identify areas of power outages.

The NASA team shared the data with its partners on the NASA Disasters Mapping Portal and began participating in cross-agency coordination calls to determine how to further aid response efforts. To further connect and collaborate using open science efforts, NASA Disasters overlaid publicly uploaded photos on their Damage Proxy Maps to provide situational awareness of on-the-ground conditions before, during, and after the storm.

Immediate post-storm response is critical to saving lives; just as making informed, long- term response decisions are critical to providing equitable recovery solutions for all. One example of how this data can be used is blue tarp detection in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) with NASA satellite images, the Interagency Implementation and Advanced Concepts Team (IMPACT), based at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, conducted a study to detect the number of blue tarps on rooftops in the aftermath of hurricanes, such as Ida, as a way of characterizing the severity of damage in local communities.

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AI could soon be making major scientific discoveries. A machine could even win a Nobel Prize one day

It may sound strange, but future Nobel Prizes, and other scientific achievement awards, one day might well be given out to intelligent machines. It could come down just to technicalities and legalities.

Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel established the prestigious prizes in his will, written in 1895, a year before his death. He created a fund whose interests would be distributed annually “to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.

Nobel explained how to divide those interests in equal parts, to be given, “one part to the person who made the most important discovery or invention in the field of physics… the most important chemical discovery… the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine”.

He also created prizes for the person responsible for the most outstanding work of literature and to the person who did most to advance fellowship among nations, oppose war and promote peace (the peace prize).

What should we draw from the use of the term “person” in Alfred Nobel’s will? The Nobel peace prize can be awarded to institutions and associations, so could it include other non-human entities, such as an AI system?

Whether an AI is entitled to legal personhood is one important question in all this. Another is whether intelligent machines can make scientific contributions worthy of one of Nobel’s prestigious prizes.
Grand challenge

I do not consider either condition to be impossible and I am not alone. A group of scientists at the UK’s Alan Turing Institute has already set this as a grand challenge for AI. They have said: “We invite the community to join us in… developing AI systems capable of making Nobel quality scientific discoveries.” According to the challenge, these advances by an AI would be made “highly autonomously at a level comparable, and possibly superior, to the best human scientists by 2050”.

Such a milestone may be closer than we think. But it will depend on what we are prepared to consider as worthy scientific contributions. These can range from standard data analysis to generating whole new scientific explanations for observed phenomena. There is a whole spectrum in between these two conditions, which is already being explored.

In a few weeks, the computer scientists Demis Hassabis and John Jumper of Google DeepMind will be presented with their Nobel medals (they won this year in the chemistry category). The prize was awarded for the development of AI that can predict the structures of proteins from the order, or sequences, of their molecular building blocks, called amino acids.

This had been a notoriously difficult problem in biology, with a history going back to at least the 1970s. But, in 2020, Hassabis and Jumper unveiled an AI system called AlphaFold2, which has enabled researchers to predict the structures of virtually all the 200 million proteins that have so far been identified.

The success of AlphaFold2 is no isolated case; there are analogous situations in other sciences.

In 2023, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used AI to discover a novel class of compounds that can kill drug-resistant bacteria. Then, in 2024, major archaeological discoveries – in South America and in the Arabian Peninsula – were made using machine intelligence.

Also this year, a study at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) tested the impact of AI in materials science research. It concluded that “AI-assisted researchers discover 44% more materials, resulting in a 39% increase in patent filings and a 17% rise in downstream product innovation”. The study found that these new materials possess relatively novel chemical structures and lead to more radical inventions.

There is even recent evidence that drug candidates discovered by AI may be of better quality than those discovered by traditional means.

Should we consider these as “scientific contributions”? AI generally makes such discoveries through a process of systematic screening of different possibilities. It’s a highly structured process that’s just the kind of thing we would assume machines are good at. But humans come up with scientific breakthroughs through the kind of innate creativity that a machine can’t emulate, right?

Well, without trying to diminish the roles of great scientists, systematic screening – this time carried out by humans – was involved in the discovery of artemisinin as an important antimalarial treatment, and the discovery of prontosil – a crucial antibiotic. These also led to Nobel prizes. So we should remember that tasks such as screening can make important contributions to science and are not something carried out only by machines.

So, can we imagine a machine going one step further, generating scientific hypotheses with a high degree of autonomy? Hypotheses are preliminary explanations for natural phenomena that can be tested by means of experiments. A hypothesis is a key stage in the scientific method, a kind of educated guess pending evidence from real testing. Furthermore, could the AI then go on to test its hypothesis and present the results to us in our own language?

It may surprise you to know that his has been attempted already, within the domain of computer science research. In August, an international research group demonstrated an AI system that was able to carry out a scientific investigation, and even write a scientific paper describing the results.

It seems very likely that AI will one day take an active part in scientific investigations. But will it be able to compete for Nobel prizes, perhaps as junior partners to humans? That remains to be seen.

Even if a machine could one day win one of the science prizes, the literature prize should remain safely in the hands of humans. Or will it too be opened up to artificial intelligence? A recent scientific study compared human reactions to poetry generated by machines and poetry produced by humans. Its main finding was that people cannot distinguish between them, and “AI-generated poems were rated more favourably in qualities such as rhythm and beauty”.

If there is a limit to what AI can achieve in what had been exclusively human fields of endeavour, we’re currently struggling to find it.

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A Cure for Multiple Sclerosis? Scientists Say Within Our Lifetime

Ageneration ago, most people with multiple sclerosis could expect to rely on walkers and wheelchairs or be limited to their bed within 15 years of diagnosis. Today, UC San Francisco’s discoveries are keeping millions with MS healthier for longer – many disability-free. Now, the university is paving the way for an MS cure in our lifetimes.

But the breakthrough almost didn’t happen. “Biologically implausible,” is what the National Institutes of Health’s rejection letter said. It was the late ’90s and UCSF Neurology Professor Stephen Hauser, MD, and team had applied for federal funding for the first clinical trial of the new medicine, rituximab, as a potential MS treatment.

The study wouldn’t just test a new drug, but a revolutionary new theory about MS’ inner workings. So outlandish was the idea that the largest public funder of scientific research said it couldn’t be done.

The rejection “hit like a ton of bricks,” Hauser remembered in his 2023 memoir, The Face Laughs While the Brain Cries. But if Hauser’s team proposed another trial, following conventional wisdom, the institutes assured him there was money.

The message was clear: “Just forget your last 15 years of work, kid, and do what we think.”
Stephen Hauser,

‘I decided right there that this would be my life’s work’

Two decades earlier as a young medical resident, Hauser treated 27-year-old Andrea. A recent Harvard Law graduate, Andrea was a rising star in President Jimmy Carter’s administration. Then, as sudden as a lightning strike, her behavior became erratic. By the time Hauser saw her, she was propped up in a hospital bed, the right side of her mouth drooping, saliva pooling at the corner.

“How are you,” he remembered asking her. Andrea tried to speak but her words came out garbled. A single tear rolled down her face.

MS is a disease of the brain and immune system. Our brains contain a network of billions of neurons, nerve cells that send messages telling our mouth to speak, our legs to move and our lungs to breathe. Each neuron is wrapped in myelin, a protective coating like the plastic sheath around a copper electrical wire. But with MS, our immune system – which normally protects us against germs – mistakes myelin for a foreign invader. This case of mistaken identity prompts an all-out assault. The immune system attacks the myelin, short-circuiting our neurons like frayed power cords.

“Over time, the connections between nerves are lost, nerve cells die. MS robs people of basic functions we take for granted – vision, sensation, motor strength … and sometimes, as with Andrea, even the ability to speak, eat or breathe independently,” Hauser said.

With no effective treatment, there was nothing Hauser could do for Andrea. “I decided right there that this common, crippling disease of young adults would be my life’s work.”

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Scientists Map Out the Human Body One Cell at a Time

Researchers have created an early map of some of the human body’s estimated 37.2 trillion cells





Researchers have created an early map of some of the human body's estimated 37.2 trillion cells.

Each type of cell has a unique role, and knowing what all the cells do can help scientists better understand health and diseases such as cancer.

Scientists focused on certain organs — plotting the jobs of cells in the mouth, stomach and intestines, as well as cells that guide how bones and joints develop. They also explored which cells group into tissues, where they're located in the body and how they change over time.

They hope the high-resolution, open-access atlas — considered a first draft — will help researchers fight diseases that damage or corrupt human cells.

“When things go wrong, they go wrong with our cells first and foremost," said Aviv Regev, co-chair of the Human Cell Atlas consortium who was involved with the research.

The findings were published Wednesday in Nature and related journals.

The group plans to release a more complete atlas in 2026, profiling cells across 18 organs and body systems. That includes the skin, heart, breasts and more.

The current cell map not only charts the many types of human cells, but it also shows the relationships of cells to each other, said Dr. Timothy Chan, a cancer expert at the Cleveland Clinic.

Chan said it's a deep dive into human biology that's sure to have practical impact such as identifying and treating cancer cells.

“Different types of cells have different Achilles’ heels,” said Chan, who was not involved in the studies. “This is going to be a boon" for cancer research.

Scientists are also creating other atlases that could help them learn more about the underpinnings of health and disease in specific parts of the body.

With brain atlases, they’re seeking to understand the structure, location and function of the many types of brain cells. A new gut microbiome atlas looks at the collection of microorganisms in the intestines, which plays a key role in digestion and immune system health.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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OpenAI is funding research into ‘AI morality’

OpenAI is funding academic research into algorithms that can predict humans’ moral judgements.

In a filing with the IRS, OpenAI Inc., OpenAI’s nonprofit org, disclosed that it awarded a grant to Duke University researchers for a project titled “Research AI Morality.” Contacted for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson pointed to a press release indicating the award is part of a larger, three-year, $1 million grant to Duke professors studying “making moral AI.”

Little is public about this “morality” research OpenAI is funding, other than the fact that the grant ends in 2025. The study’s principal investigator, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, a practical ethics professor at Duke, told TechCrunch via email that he “will not be able to talk” about the work.

Sinnott-Armstrong and the project’s co-investigator, Jana Borg, have produced several studies — and a book — about AI’s potential to serve as a “moral GPS” to help humans make better judgements. As part of larger teams, they’ve created a “morally-aligned” algorithm to help decide who receives kidney donations, and studied in which scenarios people would prefer that AI make moral decisions.

According to the press release, the goal of the OpenAI-funded work is to train algorithms to “predict human moral judgements” in scenarios involving conflicts “among morally relevant features in medicine, law, and business.”

But it’s far from clear that a concept as nuanced as morality is within reach of today’s tech.

In 2021, the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI built a tool called Ask Delphi that was meant to give ethically sound recommendations. It judged basic moral dilemmas well enough — the bot “knew” that cheating on an exam was wrong, for example. But slightly rephrasing and rewording questions was enough to get Delphi to approve of pretty much anything, including smothering infants.

The reason has to do with how modern AI systems work.

Machine learning models are statistical machines. Trained on a lot of examples from all over the web, they learn the patterns in those examples to make predictions, like that the phrase “to whom” often precedes “it may concern.”

AI doesn’t have an appreciation for ethical concepts, nor a grasp on the reasoning and emotion that play into moral decision-making. That’s why AI tends to parrot the values of Western, educated, and industrialized nations — the web, and thus AI’s training data, is dominated by articles endorsing those viewpoints.

Unsurprisingly, many people’s values aren’t expressed in the answers AI gives, particularly if those people aren’t contributing to the AI’s training sets by posting online. And AI internalizes a range of biases beyond a Western bent. Delphi said that being straight is more “morally acceptable” than being gay.

The challenge before OpenAI — and the researchers it’s backing — is made all the more intractable by the inherent subjectivity of morality. Philosophers have been debating the merits of various ethical theories for thousands of years, and there’s no universally applicable framework in sight.

Claude favors Kantianism (i.e. focusing on absolute moral rules), while ChatGPT leans every-so-slightly utilitarian (prioritizing the greatest good for the greatest number of people). Is one superior to the other? It depends on who you ask.

An algorithm to predict humans’ moral judgements will have to take all this into account. That’s a very high bar to clear — assuming such an algorithm is possible in the first place.

TechCrunch has an AI-focused newsletter! Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.

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Bacteria found in asteroid sample – but they're not from space

A rock from the asteroid Ryugu that was brought back to Earth appears to be festooned with microbial life. But these microbes almost certainly came from Earth rather than outer space, say researchers. This contamination serves as a cautionary tale in the search for extraterrestrial life in future sample return missions, such as from NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars.

In 2020, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft returned to Earth with 5.4 grams of rock from the 4.5-billion-year-old asteroid Ryugu. After the sample capsule landed in Australia, it was transported to a custom-built facility in Sagamihara, Japan. There, the capsule was first opened inside a vacuum room, itself located within a clean room, before moving to a pressurised nitrogen-filled room for longer-term storage. From there, parts of the sample could be put inside nitrogen-filled containers and sent out for researchers to study.

One of these samples was sent to the UK to be studied by Matthew Genge at Imperial College London and his colleagues. Genge and his team initially scanned the sample using X-rays, which showed no evidence of bacteria.

Three weeks later, they transferred the sample to a resin, and a week after that they looked at it more closely using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). When Genge and his colleagues first looked at the sample and saw what looked like filament-shaped bacteria, his students were almost “falling off their chairs” at the prospect they had discovered extraterrestrial life. “It was an exciting moment, but also in the back of my mind I knew from previous studies how easy it is for bacteria to colonise rocks,” says Genge.


By tracking the growth of the bacteria with follow-up SEM measurements, they found the number of bacteria changed in a similar way to known microorganisms. When combined with their familiar shape and their absence during the first X-ray scan, it is highly likely they were terrestrial in origin, says Genge.

He thinks the sample was probably contaminated after it was embedded in resin. This took place in a facility that was also handling terrestrial space rocks, which often contain bacteria that are adapted to living in rock specimens. “It only needs one bacterium or one bacterial spore in order for this to happen,” he says. “When we’re preparing meteorite samples, for example, we usually don’t see this colonisation occurring, and that’s because the chances are really low. In this case, a single bacterium fell on that sample and started to grow.”

However, it should serve as a warning for any future sample return missions, adds Genge. “The discovery of microbes within a space return sample really should be the gold standard for discovering extraterrestrial life. If we were ever to do that — if we flew to Mars, took some samples, brought them back and found microbes in them — you would say that was the smoking gun,” says Genge. “But our discovery really shows that you have to be so incredibly careful about that interpretation, because samples are so easy to contaminate with terrestrial bacteria.”

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How To Avoid AI Misinformation: 2 Essential Steps For Smarter Research

AI can be a powerful ally or a risky gamble, depending on how you use it. If you’re relying on AI for research, taking shortcuts can backfire—and cost you your credibility. To avoid AI misinformation, follow these two essential steps:

Ask for references.
Verify those references yourself.

Here’s why these steps are critical.

Case study: trends in AI—fact or fiction?
Recently, a colleague asked the generative AI tool Perplexity to identify this year’s trends in artificial intelligence. The app provided several impressive statistics, including:
73% of businesses believe generative AI will increase workforce productivity.
60% of companies see generative AI as an opportunity to gain a competitive edge.

These claims sound promising—but are they true? Without verifying the sources, we can’t be sure. Unfortunately, AI tools are notorious for fabricating information.

The productivity claim examined

Perplexity’s statement that “73% of businesses believe generative AI will increase workforce productivity” was linked to a blog post titled “Generative AI Trends: Transforming Business and Shaping the Future,” published by Masters of Code, Inc. The post states, “73% [of executives] believe new technology will boost workforce productivity.”

Although Perplexity accurately quoted the blog post, the post itself doesn’t provide any evidence for this claim. Masters of Code may have obtained it from another source, but without proof, it’s impossible to trust the number.

Even if this claim were verified, its phrasing raises another issue. A belief that generative AI might increase productivity isn’t as compelling as evidence showing it has increased productivity.

Perplexity’s statement that “60% of companies see generative AI as an opportunity to gain a competitive edge” comes from the same Masters of Code blog post. Again, the post doesn’t explain where this number came from.

Although the post does reference reputable sources like Gartner and McKinsey, neither of these reports appears to support the competitive edge claim. Without clear attribution, this statistic remains suspect.


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New study on moons of Uranus raises chance of life

The planet Uranus and its five biggest moons may not be the dead sterile worlds that scientists have long thought.

Instead, they may have oceans, and the moons may even be capable of supporting life, scientists say.

Much of what we know about them was gathered by Nasa’s Voyager 2 spacecraft which visited nearly 40 years ago.

But a new analysis shows that Voyager's visit coincided with a powerful solar storm, which led to a misleading idea of what the Uranian system is really like.

Uranus is a beautiful, icy ringed world in the outer reaches of our solar system. It is among the coldest of all the planets. It is also tilted on its side compared to all the other worlds – as if it had been knocked over – making it arguably the weirdest.

We got our first close-up look at it in 1986, when Voyager 2 flew past and sent back sensational pictures of the planet and its five major moons.

But what amazed scientists even more was the data Voyager 2 sent back indicating that the Uranian system was even weirder than they thought.

The measurements from the spacecraft’s instruments indicated that the planets and moons were inactive, unlike the other moons in the outer solar system. They also showed that Uranus’s protective magnetic field was strangely distorted. It was squashed and pushed away from the Sun.

A planet’s magnetic field traps any gases and other material coming off the planet and its moons. These might be from oceans or geological activity. Voyager 2 found none, suggesting that Uranus and its five largest moons were sterile and inactive.

This came as an enormous surprise because it was unlike the solar system’s other planets and their moons.

But the new analysis has solved the decades-long mystery. It shows that Voyager 2 flew past on a bad day.

The new research shows that just as Voyager 2 flew past Uranus, the Sun was raging, creating a powerful solar wind that might have blown the material away and temporarily distorted the magnetic field.

So, for 40 years we have had an incorrect view of what Uranus and its five largest moons are normally like, according to Dr William Dunn of University College London.

“These results suggest that the Uranian system could be much more exciting than previously thought. There could be moons there that could have the conditions that are necessary for life, they might have oceans below the surface that could be teeming with fish!”.


Linda Spilker was a young scientist working on the Voyager programme when the Uranus data came in. She is now still serving as the project scientist for the Voyager missions. She said that she was delighted to hear about the new results, which have been published in the Journal Nature Astronomy.

“The results are fascinating, and I am really excited to see that there is potential for life in the Uranian system,” she told BBC News.

“I’m also so pleased that so much is being done with the Voyager data. It’s amazing that scientists are looking back at the data we collected in 1986 and finding new results and new discoveries”.

Dr Affelia Wibisono of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, who is independent of the research team, described the results as “very exciting”.

“It shows how important it is to look back at old data, because sometimes, hiding behind them is something new to be discovered, which can help us design the next generation of space exploration missions”.

Which is exactly what Nasa is doing, partly as a result of the new research.

It has been nearly 40 years since Voyager 2 last flew past the icy world and its moons. Nasa has plans to launch a new mission, the Uranus Orbiter and Probe, to go back for a closer look in 10 years’ time.

According to Nasa’s Dr Jamie Jasinski, whose idea it was to re-examine the Voyager 2 data, the mission will need to take his results into account when designing its instruments and planning the scientific survey.

“Some of the instruments for the future spacecraft are very much being designed with ideas from what we learned from Voyager 2 when it flew past the system when it was experiencing an abnormal event. So we need to rethink how exactly we are going to design the instruments on the new mission so that we can best capture the science we need to make discoveries”.


Nasa’s Uranus probe is expected to arrive by 2045, which is when scientists hope to find out whether these far-flung icy moons, once thought of as being dead worlds, might have the possibility of being home to life.


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What Premed Students Should Know About Emerging Fields of Medical Research

Aspiring physician-scientists should bone up on areas such as gene editing, nanotechnology and regenerative medicine.





Premedical students aspiring to become physician-scientists will be tasked with navigating emerging fields in research and translating exciting discoveries into the clinical realm. Understanding the latest trends and breakthroughs in biomedical science is paramount for those hoping to bridge the gap between such cutting-edge research and clinical practice – a career goal for many aspiring physician-scientists.

What are these emerging fields, what should aspiring physician-scientists – including those applying to combined M.D.-Ph.D. programs – know about getting involved in these fields, and are there any pitfalls?

This is an extraordinarily exciting time in scientific research, with recent breakthroughs in diverse fields such as gene editing, immunotherapies, nanotechnology, precision medicine, machine learning and regenerative medicine. Highlights run the gamut of the biomedical spectrum, including evolutionary genomics, novel neurotechnology, advances in cardiovascular imaging, cell-based therapies and therapeutic manipulation of the microbiome, to name a few.


Aspiring physician-scientists will undoubtedly be tempted to ride this wave of exciting discoveries and join laboratories moving the needle in these fields, many of which are still in their infancy.


Premed students should be aware of these emerging fields, as these advances are expected to contribute increasingly to health care throughout the coming decades and will undoubtedly remain important for the duration of a lengthy career in medicine.

Related: Premed Research That Impresses Medical Schools

These fields are likely to hold long-term career opportunities for students interested in biomedical research. They also represent opportunities to contribute to innovation, be involved in groundbreaking discoveries and help shape the future of science and medicine.

Many emerging fields are exciting in part due to new or newly appreciated applications to clinical practice, with direct implications for patient care. By understanding these emerging fields, premed students will remain informed and up to date regarding novel treatment paradigms, new diagnostic tools and different preventive strategies that could benefit their future patients.

Students’ research interests often evolve during undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate education. Many fascinating fields of biomedical science are neither new nor well known, and they deserve serious consideration. You will have multiple opportunities to change fields should your interests diverge at any point, so you should not feel locked in to the discipline of your first research experience.

However, if you do have a genuine intellectual interest in a popular scientific field at an early phase of training, don’t hesitate to join such a like-minded laboratory.

Finding a Laboratory in Emerging Research Fields

If you are a premed student interested in an exciting field like cancer immunotherapy, genomics, AI-enabled precision medicine, etc., you may struggle to understand which laboratories would be appropriate and rewarding to join and a good fit for your career goals.

To start, assess the research landscape at your home institution through departmental web pages and note which faculty in your field of interest are involved in active research projects. Get in touch with a few faculty members and discuss the possibility of joining their laboratory.

Read: Primary Care vs. Research: Which Med School Is Right for You?

As you learn about their research projects, you can also ask if they know of other labs in the same field that may also be of interest. Often, research faculty themselves are the best resource for understanding the current research landscape of the university, as departmental web pages and related resources can be out of date.

Departmental administrators or undergraduate research coordinators may also be quite helpful in finding a lab in a specific area that would be a good fit for an undergraduate student. If you read a lay press article – especially from a local publication – about an area of exciting, “hot” science, pay attention to which studies and researchers they reference or quote. These investigators are often leading voices in the field.

Use PubMed to find the latest work in a field or by a specific investigator. Explore the "trending articles" section to see which articles have had recent activity – a sign of a field gaining broad interest. If you find investigators doing work that is particularly interesting to you, use the "saved searches" function to get updates about their work directly in your email inbox.

Appreciate that emerging fields are often a result of novel collaboration across disparate disciplines such as distinct subfields in biology and medicine, biomedical engineering or computer science.

Application of a known technology to a new field can also yield exciting advancements. A recent example is cryo-EM-mediated determination of complex structures, such as ligand-bound receptors, which could not previously be accurately determined.

Look for labs that are working in an interdisciplinary manner to tackle an important question in medicine or biology, and you are likely to find stimulating research in an important emerging field.

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Audiences are declining for traditional news media in the U.S. – with some exceptions

A declining share of U.S. adults are following the news closely, according to recent Pew Research Center surveys. And audiences are shrinking for several older types of news media – such as local TV stations, most newspapers and public radio – even as they grow for newer platforms like podcasts, as well as for a few specific media brands.

Pew Research Center has long tracked trends in the news industry. In addition to asking survey questions about Americans’ news consumption habits, our State of the News Media project uses several other data sources to look at various aspects of the industry, including audience size, revenue and other metrics.For the most part, daily newspaper circulation nationwide – counting digital subscriptions and print circulation – continues to decline, falling to just under 21 million in 2022, according to projections using data from the Alliance for Audited Media (AAM). Weekday circulation is down 8% from the previous year and 32% from five years prior, when it was over 30 million. Out of 136 papers included in this analysis, 120 experienced declines in weekday circulation in 2022.
While most newspapers in the United States are struggling, some of the biggest brands are experiencing digital growth. AAM data does not include all digital circulation to three of the nation’s most prominent newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. But while all three are experiencing declines in their print subscriptions, other available data suggests substantial increases in digital subscriptions for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. (Similar data is not available for The Washington Post.) For example, The New York Times saw a 32% increase in digital-only subscriptions in 2022, surpassing 10 million subscribers and continuing years of growth, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). There are many reasons this data is not directly comparable with the AAM data, including the fact that some digital subscriptions to The New York Times do not include news and are limited to other products like cooking and games. Still, these brands are bucking the overall trend.
Overall, digital traffic to newspapers’ websites is declining. The average monthly number of unique visitors to the websites of the country’s top 50 newspapers (based on circulation, and including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post) declined 20% to under 9 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, down from over 11 million in the same period in 2021, according to Comscore data. The length of the average visit to these sites is also falling – to just under a minute and a half in the last quarter of 2022.
Traffic to top digital news websites is not picking up the slack. Overall, traffic to the most visited news websites – those with at least 10 million unique visitors per month in the fourth quarter of a given year – has declined over the past two years. The average number of monthly unique visitors to these sites was 3% lower in October-December 2022 than in the same period in 2021, following a 13% drop the year before that, according to Comscore. The length of the average visit to these sites is getting shorter, too. (These sites can include newspapers’ websites, such as that of The New York Times, as well as other digital news sites like those of CNN, Fox News or Axios.


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'Is It Ethical?': Netizens Divided After Scientist Treats Her Cancer Using Experimental Vaccine

Halassy self-administered an experimental treatment usually reserved for patients with advanced or resistant cancers.







Beata Halassy (53), an expert infectious disease researcher, has divided the internet after she treated her cancer using an experimental vaccine she developed in her laboratory. Halassy discovered she had Stage 3 breast cancer at the site of a previous mastectomy in 2020. Not willing to face another bout of chemotherapy, Halassy, a virologist at the University of Zagreb, took matters into her hands and started trying out an unproven treatment by combining a measles virus and a flu-like pathogen to create a potent shot that attacked the tumour directly and restored the immune system. Fast forward to 2024, Halassy is now cancer-free for four years.

Halassy self-administered an experimental treatment called oncolytic virotherapy (OVT) which is usually reserved for patients with advanced or resistant cancers. "The short-term and middle-term outcome of this unconventional treatment, which was devoid of any significant toxicity, was undoubtedly beneficial," Halassy said in a report published in Vaccines.

Halassy also advocated for using OVT as the first line of defence for cancer treatment instead of sticking with current treatment procedures involving surgery, chemotherapy, biological therapy, or radiation.

"They will probably work much better than they do today, and maybe they don't always work as well as other treatments, but they are certainly less destructive. So maybe we can use them as first line or treatment, or in combination with other treatments," Ms Halassy told Uncharted Territories.

She added that "it took a brave editor to publish" her report as the practice of conducting experimentation on oneself is considered a stigmatised and ethically fraught practice.
'She's a genius'

The netizens were seemingly divided on the issue with the majority praising Halassy for taking control of the situation and curing herself while a minority raised questions over the ethical side of the issue.

"She's a genius and a hero and instead of s****ing themselves over dumb procedural questions, the scientific community should be figuring out how to replicate and adopt her findings to save other women," said one user, while another added: "Where is there an ethical problem here? They say there is, but I just can not for the life of me imagine where it is."

Meanwhile, Blair Strang, a lecturer in Virology at St George's, University of London said: "I heard whispers but hoped it wasn't true. I'm delighted the subject is well, but the ethical dimensions are very troubling: Ethics of self admin, her own doctors, the reagents used, the funding, the institutional oversight, and the journal publishing the work. Where to begin?"

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Researchers seek, and find, a magical illusion for the ears

Close your eyes and imagine a sound, someone’s voice, coming from your left. It slowly shifts to come from behind you, then moves to your right. Around and around, it circles. Suddenly, the voice jumps. It was clearly in front of you but now it’s coming from somewhere else. How did it get there? Did it leap…magically?

That’s the premise of the winning magic trick, announced November 13, in a contest to craft a magical experience based solely on sound. The challenge, proposed by researchers in England a few months ago, is part of an effort to answer a simple question: Can magic tricks, which typically rely on a surprising visual element, ever be witnessed through the ears alone?

“Imagine a world where you’ve never heard music,” says magician-turned-psychologist Gustav Kuhn of the University of Plymouth. Magic tricks, he says, can be like this for the blind.

Kuhn studies magic to understand the human mind (SN: 10/20/09). “A lot of the questions that psychologists are interested in are really central to magic: perception, consciousness, but also free will, how you can influence people’s decisions and belief,” he says.

His interest in nonvisual magic was sparked last year by his student Tyler Gibgot, who is visually impaired. Gibgot’s childhood birthday celebrations would feature magic performances for his friends. “I was the only one that was in the corner not paying attention to the tricks because I couldn’t see what was going on,” Gibgot says.

Even though Gibgot couldn’t see the magic tricks as a child, hearing his friends’ awestruck squeals ignited his interest. He taught himself card tricks and took up cognitive science in college to learn how magicians manipulate people’s perception of reality — which led him to work with Kuhn.

The contest is, in part, an endeavor to make magic more inclusive for people like Gibgot. But it’s also a scientific exploration of why magic tricks rarely involve the sense of hearing.

The lack of auditory magic tricks, Kuhn says, points to fundamental differences between how our minds encode sight and sound. “We don’t know why that difference is.” One reason could be that our eyes give us continuous information about the world, but what our ears tell us is fleeting.

“Sounds constantly appear and disappear … but that’s not magic. If a rabbit appears and disappears, that is magic,” Kuhn says.

At the center of every magic trick is a conflict: We believe something is impossible, but our senses tell us it is happening. “Because we don’t tend to trust our hearing quite as much as our vision, it may be that it’s just not sufficiently powerful to elicit this type of conflict,” Kuhn says. Humans are visual beings, so we’re more surprised when our vision fools us compared to our hearing.

Conventional magic tricks that do involve hearing — like ringing a bell that doesn’t emit any sound — are either supported by other senses or rely on language. All of the 11 submissions to the contest relied somewhat on language. An auditory magic trick that doesn’t involve language could even be impossible, Kuhn admits.

Kuhn plans to reopen the competition next year and broaden its scope to engage all nonvisual senses, not just sound. And he’s hoping future submissions will move even further outside the box.


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New Uranus Research Suggests All We Knew About Planet Could Be Wrong

Scientists gathered much of the knowledge about Uranus after NASA's robotic spacecraft conducted a five-day flyby in 1986.
New Delhi:

The Voyager 2 spacecraft, the first and only mission to fly by Uranus in 1986, passed through it when its magnetosphere was unusually squashed by the solar wind, according to a study. It means that scientists' present understanding of the planet was shaped by an unusual stellar coincidence.

Scientists gathered much of the knowledge about Uranus, the third largest planet in our solar system, when NASA's robotic spacecraft conducted a five-day flyby. However, scientists have now discovered that the spacecraft might have visited under unusual conditions that led to misleading observations about the planet, especially its magnetic field, Reuters reported.

Taking a fresh look at the data from Voyager 2's 1986 visit, researchers found that the spacecraft encountered the planet only a few days after the solar wind squashed its magnetosphere -- the protective magnetic bubble around Uranus, to around 20% of its usual volume.

"We found that the solar wind conditions present during the flyby only occur 4% of the time," space plasma physicist Jamie Jasinski of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said.

The lead author of the study also noted that the flyby occurred "during the maximum peak solar wind intensity in that entire eight-month period," adding that scientists would have observed a much bigger magnetosphere had the spacecraft arrived a week earlier.

Data show the planet's magnetosphere was home to unexpectedly powerful electron radiation belts, with their intensity similar to the massive bands of radiation found around Jupiter, CNN reported.

Researchers added the observations from the spacecraft left a misimpression about the Uranus' magnetosphere as lacking in plasma and in possession of uncommonly intense belts of energetic electrons.

While the Voyager 2 observations earlier suggested that Titania and Oberon, the two largest moons of Uranus, often orbit outside the magnetosphere, the latest study suggested they stay inside the protective bubble.
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Jasinski concluded that a future mission to Uranus is crucial to understand not only the "planet and magnetosphere but also its atmosphere, rings and moons".

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Editorial: Advances in molecular plant pathology, plant abiotic and biotic stress

Editorial on the Research Topic



Advances in molecular plant pathology, plant abiotic and biotic stress


Frontiers in Plant Science is delighted to present a diverse and comprehensive collection of research articles in the esteemed Research Topic titled “Advances in Molecular Plant Pathology, Plant Abiotic and Biotic Stress”. Among the 18 articles featured within this Research Topic, several investigations offer significant contributions to our understanding of molecular plant pathology and plant responses to abiotic and biotic stresses. This compilation serves as a testament to the relentless efforts of researchers worldwide in unraveling the complexities of plant responses to various stressors, thereby advancing our understanding of plant biology, and bolstering agricultural sustainability.
Abiotic stress responses

Contributions focusing on plant responses to abiotic stresses offer valuable insights into stress perception, signal transduction, and tolerance mechanisms. Tu et al. present a comprehensive review discussing the current advances in understanding the molecular regulation of abiotic stress tolerance in sorghum. This review synthesizes recent progress in physiological, transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic studies, highlighting the molecular mechanisms underlying sorghum’s remarkable tolerance to diverse stressors. Furthermore, it emphasizes the importance of studying combined abiotic stresses, offering valuable insights for enhancing stress tolerance in crops crucial for global food security.

In the work carried out by Guo et al. explore the influence of temperature on glyphosate efficacy on glyphosate-resistant and -susceptible goosegrass (Eleusine indica). This study reveals the intricate interplay between temperature and herbicide efficacy, demonstrating that temperature fluctuations significantly affect glyphosate performance on different biotypes of E. indica. By elucidating the mechanisms underlying temperature-mediated variations in herbicide efficacy, this research provides valuable insights for glyphosate application and resistance management in weed control practices.

Qiu et al. delve into the adaptation mechanisms of NaHCO3-tolerant chlorella and uncover the critical role of cellulose in conferring resistance to carbonate stress. By investigating cell wall polysaccharide composition and gene expression patterns, the researchers unveil the molecular basis of NaHCO3 tolerance in chlorella, highlighting the significance of cell wall-related genes, particularly JbKOBITO1, in mediating cellulose accumulation and stress resistance. These findings offer valuable insights into the genetic resources for crop breeding and the genetic modification of microalgae for sustainable biofuel production.
Advances in plant-pathogen interactions: insights from systems genomics to molecular mechanisms

Several articles within this Research Topic deepen into the molecular mechanisms underlying plant-pathogen interactions, shedding light on strategies employed by both plants and pathogens during infection.
Deciphering resistance mechanisms across multiple pathosystems

Notable among these is the work by Million et al., which employs a systems genomics approach to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underpinning quantitative resistance to Phytophthora sojae in Glycine max. Furthermore, Tun et al. elucidate the role of sucrose in promoting defense responses to blast fungus in rice through the preferential expression of defense-related genes.

In the study by Xu et al., the authors investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying iron (Fe)-mediated tobacco resistance to potato virus Y (PVY) infection. This study provides novel insights into the regulatory network of Fe-mediated resistance to PVY infection in plants. By elucidating the transcriptomic responses and identifying key candidate genes involved in PVY resistance, this research offers important theoretical bases for improving host resistance against PVY infection, thus contributing to the development of effective disease management strategies. Another contribution in the realm of plant-pathogen interactions is the study elaborated by Chang et al. which sheds light on the intricate dynamics of virus-virus interactions and their impact on mechanical transmissibility and host range alterations of begomoviruses. Their findings reveal how mixed infections can influence the transmission efficiency and host specificity of these pathogens, providing valuable insights for disease management strategies.

Zhao et al. investigate the responses of sugarcane to two strains of Xanthomonas albilineans differing in pathogenicity. By employing molecular analyses, they elucidate the differential modulation of salicylic acid and reactive oxygen species in the sugarcane defense response to pathogen attack. This study provides novel insights into the pathogenic diversity of X. albilineans and the molecular mechanisms underlying sugarcane defense strategies. Similarly, Gao et al. conduct a comparative transcriptome profiling of susceptible and tolerant citrus species infected with “Candidatus liberibacter asiaticus,” offering novel perspectives on citrus Huanglongbing disease management. Chen et al. characterize gene expression patterns in response to orthotospovirus infection between two diploid peanut species and their hybrid, shedding light on the genetic basis of virus resistance in peanut. In the publication led by Zhao et al., the authors explore genetic and morphological variants of Acidovorax avenae subsp. avenae causing red stripe disease of sugarcane in China, offering insights into the genetic diversity and virulence mechanisms of this pathogen.
Understanding plant immunity and stress responses

The Research Topic also encompasses studies addressing a range of other pathogens and stress factors. In the study by Lipps et al., the authors delve into the inhibition of ethylene and its role in resistance to Northern corn leaf blight (NCLB) in maize. By employing a multifaceted approach combining genome-wide association studies, metabolic pathway analyses, and ethylene inhibition experiments, the researchers elucidate the complex interplay between genetic factors, metabolic pathways, and hormonal signaling in maize resistance to NCLB. This study not only identifies novel markers associated with NCLB resistance but also underscores the importance of ethylene in plant defense against fungal pathogens, paving the way for future investigations into the genetic basis of disease resistance. In addition, Yang et al. shed light on the pivotal role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in tobacco defense against Phytophthora nicotianae, the causal agent of tobacco black shank. Through meticulous experimentation and genetic manipulation, the researchers demonstrate that overexpression of Nta-miR6155 enhances tobacco resistance to P. nicotianae infection by modulating reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels, salicylic acid signaling, and the expression of key defense-related genes. Moreover, the study elucidates the regulatory role of Nta-miR6155 in tobacco growth and development, underscoring the multifaceted functions of species-specific miRNAs in plant stress responses.

The contribution to this Research Topic coming from Shang et al. explore the dynamic interplay between light intensity and soybean mosaic virus (SMV) infection in soybean. Through RNA-seq analysis and gene expression profiling, the researchers uncover the pivotal role of light in modulating soybean defense responses to viral infection. This study enhances our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying plant-virus interactions and highlights the importance of environmental factors in shaping plant defense strategies.

An original approach is presented by Li et al.. The authors investigate the potential of exogenous melatonin application in enhancing radish defense against Alternaria brassicae, the causative agent of radish blight disease. Through a combination of physiological assays and transcriptomic analyses, the researchers reveal the dose-dependent effects of melatonin on both host immunity and pathogen virulence. Their findings provide a mechanistic understanding of melatonin-mediated defense responses in radish, offering promising prospects for the development of melatonin-based strategies for disease control in vegetable crops.
Unraveling soil-pathogen interactions

Gauthier et al. contribute to our understanding of soil-borne wheat mosaic virus (SBWMV) and Soil-borne cereal mosaic virus (SBCMV) infection in wheat by investigating the influence of soil properties and plant nutrition on virus infection rates. Through meticulous analyses of soil structure parameters, nutrient contents, and infection rates, the researchers reveal the intricate relationship between soil characteristics, plant nutrition, and virus transmission. These findings not only offer insights into the environmental factors influencing virus infection but also provide potential avenues for developing microenvironment-adapted agricultural practices to mitigate virus spread.
Investigating alternative disease management strategies and exploring herbicide resistance mechanisms in weed species

Trouvelot et al. investigate the impact of sodium arsenite on grapevine physiology and its potential as an alternative treatment for grapevine trunk diseases (GTDs). By employing metabolomic and histological analyses, the researchers elucidate the effects of sodium arsenite on wood tissues and secondary metabolite production, shedding light on its mode of action against GTD pathogens. This study contributes valuable insights into the development of sustainable strategies for GTD management, addressing the urgent need for eco-friendly alternatives to conventional treatments.

Cao et al. provide a comprehensive analysis of metamifop resistance in Digitaria ciliaris var. chrysoblephara, a problematic grass weed in China. Through genome sequencing, gene expression profiling, and whole-plant bioassays, the researchers unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying metamifop resistance, identifying a target-site mutation in the ACCase gene associated with resistance. Additionally, the study elucidates cross-resistance patterns to other herbicides, offering valuable insights into the management of herbicide-resistant weed populations.
Future directions and implications/concluding remarks

As global climate change escalates, understanding plant stress responses becomes increasingly critical. By deciphering the molecular basis of these responses, researchers not only empower farmers with tools to mitigate crop losses but also contribute to the sustainable intensification of agriculture, promoting both environmental stewardship and economic viability.

Collectively, these articles underscore the interdisciplinary nature of research in plant science and highlight the interconnectedness of molecular mechanisms governing plant responses to diverse stressors. By elucidating these mechanisms, researchers pave the way for the development of resilient crops capable of withstanding environmental challenges, thereby ensuring global food security and sustainability.
Author contributions

LM-P: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.
Acknowledgments

My deepest and most sincere gratitude to the authors, reviewers, and co-editors (Kun Zhang, Xiaofeng Zhang, and Zhenggang Li) whose dedication and expertise have enriched this Research Topic. It is my hope that the findings presented herein will inspire further inquiry, innovation, and collaboration, fostering continued advancements in the dynamic field of plant science.
Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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