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Making the most of your time at work <b>80,000 Hours: How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good</b> <i>Benjamin Todd</i> Harmony, 2026. 384 pp.
Thinking strategically from the start could help you do more good over the course of your career
Exploration of key stress granule-related genes in chronic sinusitis based on transcriptomics
Abstract Chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) frequently induces the formation of intracellular stress granules (SGs). This study aims to identify key genes linked to both CRSwNP and SGs, offering novel perspectives for improving CRSwNP treatment and management. Data from GSE136825, GSE179265, and SG-related gene sets were retrieved from public databases. Key genes were identified via machine learning, ROC analysis, and expression validation. Subsequently, nomogram construction, Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), immune infiltration analysis, and drug prediction were performed to explore the regulatory mechanisms of these genes. Three candidate genes—ANG, CRYAB, and FBP1—passed ROC and expression validation and were ultimately identified as key players. GSEA revealed that these genes collectively participate in the cell cycle pathway. Immune infiltration analysis showed 23 differentially abundant immune cell types between the CRSwNP and control groups, with ANG, CRYAB, and FBP1 all exhibiting significant positive correlations with Type 2 T helper cells. Furthermore, estradiol, copper sulfate, and trichostatin A were identified as drugs interacting with all three key genes. These findings provide valuable insights for advancing CRSwNP diagnosis.
Transistors on a roll: 3D circuits built from stacks of flexible membranes
Age and early life adversity shape heterogeneity of the epigenome across tissues in macaques
Age and early life adversity (ELA) are key determinants of health, but whether they affect similar physiological mechanisms across tissues is unknown. We generated DNA methylation (DNAm) profiles across 14 tissues in 237 semi–free-ranging rhesus macaques with naturally occurring ELA. Age-associated DNAm was predominantly tissue dependent, yet tissue-specific epigenetic clocks showed that epigenetic aging was relatively consistent within individuals. ELA effects were adversity dependent, but each ELA exerted coordinated effects across tissues. Although ELA targeted many of the same loci as age, the directions of effects differed, which indicates that ELA does not uniformly increase epigenetic age. Instead, ELA leaves a coordinated, cross-tissue epigenetic signature that is distinct from—yet intertwined with—age-related differences, which advances our understanding of how early environments sculpt the molecular foundations of aging and disease.
Symptom phenotypes and their associations with fear of cancer recurrence and social support among breast cancer patients: a latent profile analysis
Britain’s next research choice
Ten years ago, the Brexit referendum began the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union (EU), forcing British science to confront a serious question: What place should the UK occupy in European research? No longer qualified to be a full-fledged member of Horizon Europe, the matter of whether to rejoin as an associate member became a totemic issue for the UK. There were serious questions around whether rejoining would be worth the money, especially if it had to pay in more funding than it could win back in grants. UK researchers, however, insisted that association was the best way to protect their access to the most prestigious and attractive funding opportunities. So, when the UK eventually associated in 2024, it was to sighs of relief. But times have changed.
Pueraria lobata extract mitigates diabetic nephropathy via NLRP3 inflammasome and Caspase-1 regulation
Strain-induced fully coherent triphase nanoarchitecture in refractory high-entropy alloys
Nanostructured materials have exceptional properties, yet scalable fabrication of bulk, three-dimensional, nanograined structures remains a formidable challenge. We report the self-assembly of a fully coherent, triphase nanostructure—resembling a mesocrystal—formed through solid-state phase separation in an equiatomic refractory alloy. The resulting architecture integrates three common metallic crystal structures—face-centered cubic, body-centered cubic, and hexagonal close-packed—interwoven through strain-induced phase separation and unconventional transformation pathways triggered by the separation itself. This nanostructure accommodates large atomic-size mismatches and lattice misfits while maintaining full coherency and thermal stability. The resulting material exhibits a compressive yield strength exceeding 2 gigapascals. These findings provide a method for nanostructure engineering in compositionally complex alloys through strain-induced transformation pathway engineering.
Perinatal mood and anxiety diagnoses and treatment increased among medicaid births, 2017–2021
Abstract Despite funding the most births in the United States (US), we know little about basic patterns and trends of mental health conditions among Medicaid-insured women during pregnancy and after delivery. We sought to characterize the prevalence of diagnosis and treatment for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMAD) among women with Medicaid health insurance coverage. We conducted serial, cross-sectional analyses of women with live-birth deliveries during 2017–2021 using Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) claims. To construct state-specific PMAD diagnosis and treatment trajectories including antidepressant prescriptions and psychotherapy visits, we examined geographic variations by state and year among reproductive aged women. In a national cohort of 4,579,289 women with Medicaid and a live birth, 635,785 (13.88%) had a PMAD diagnosis during the study period. Perinatal women in all age, race, ethnicity, geographic regions, comorbidity burdens, and all but one state experienced growth in PMAD diagnoses. Substantial variation occurred among states for antidepressant use, while national trends remained stable. Characterizing PMAD diagnosis and treatment patterns represents an important public health contribution. Future research should aim to better understand factors underlying variation in PMAD diagnoses and treatment across subgroups and geographic areas.
New list of political jobs at science agencies called ‘weird and capricious’
NIH programs and leadership are hit hard; other science agencies are barely mentioned
Influence of trough currents on Permian reef–shoal belts and reef-capping dolomite reservoirs, Damaoping Block, Sichuan Basin, China
Another red alert for American science
Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation’s scientific enterprise. After the scientific community persuaded Congress to restore most of the president’s draconian cuts to research funding last year, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under Russell Vought, has found new ways to circumvent the will of Congress and starve American science. At the beginning of this year, OMB dragged its feet in releasing instructions to federal agencies for how to distribute the funding appropriated by Congress, leading to lags in dispersal. Now, OMB has proposed revising the rules that govern how federal dollars are spent. The changes would inevitably lead to unlegislated reductions in funding and damage US leadership in science, both in academia and industry.
Independent contribution of emotion dysregulation to suicide attempts in adolescents beyond the role of depressive symptoms
<i>Viola</i> seed pod architecture shapes sequential, force-augmented pinching
Many plants explosively launch seeds, but these natural catapults often display inefficient, unpredictable energy transfer in seed ejection. Violets ( Viola spp.) address this problem by ejecting seeds successively with consistent propulsive force from a single pod, a strategy that requires sophisticated energy release. In this work, we show that Viola achieves this feat with a simple and compact structure that generates adaptive force augmentation through sequential pinching. Our biological and mathematical analyses indicate that the pod valve’s morphogeometry optimizes pinching with sufficient strength for seed ejection with limited material cost and creates a shifting force-amplifying hotspot, which allows consecutive seed ejections. We use this design principle to create autonomous zipping actuators for a range of applications, including biomedical soft machines.
A prototype differential atom interferometer for fundamental physics
Abstract Gravitational waves and ultralight dark matter are among the most compelling frontiers in fundamental physics, motivating proposals for very-long-baseline atom interferometerssuch as AION 1 , MAGIS 2 , AICE 3 and AEDGE 4 that aim to detect at frequencies at which ground-based 5 and space-borne 6 laser interferometers lose sensitivity. Very-long-baseline atom interferometers look for signals by comparing the quantum phase evolution of widely separated atomic ensembles interrogated by a common laser. However, their performance depends critically on suppressing noise sources, particularly laser phase noise. The experimental validation of such noise rejection remains an important challenge. Here we demonstrate a prototype differential atom interferometer based on the single-photon clock transition of fermionic 87 Sr. Thus, we obtain a gradiometer configuration with a species intrinsically suited to kilometre-scale and space-baseline operation. The instrument operates at the standard quantum limit 7 with no excess noise beyond atom shot noise. The differential configuration maintains quantum-limited sensitivity in the presence of several radians of artificially injected laser phase noise per shot, which emulates the conditions expected in a very-long-baseline atom interferometer. We also demonstrate the recovery of coherent oscillatory signals across a broad frequency range under fully phase-randomized conditions, a capability that is inaccessible to a single interferometer operating in the same regime. These results provide an experimental validation of the noise-immune measurement principle underlying very-long-baseline atom interferometers and mark an important step towards next-generation quantum sensors for gravitational-wave detection and searches for ultralight dark matter 8,9 .
Federated learning and digital twins for lifecycle optimization in Urban building renewal
Spatiotemporal transcriptome atlas of human embryos after gastrulation
Lethal plague outbreaks in Lake Baikal hunter-gatherers 5,500 years ago
Abstract Plague is among the most devastating diseases in human history 1 . However, early strains of the plague-causing bacterium Yersinia pestis lacked virulence factors that are required for the bubonic form until around 3,800 years ago 2,3 . Consequently, the morbidity and mortality of early plague strains remain unclear. Here we describe early plague strains that are associated with two phases of outbreaks among mid-Holocene hunter-gatherers near Lake Baikal in southeast Siberia, beginning from about 5,500 years ago. These outbreaks occur across four hunter-gatherer cemeteries, with a 39% detection rate for plague infection. By reconstructing kinship pedigrees, we show that small familial groups were affected, consistent with human-to-human spread of disease, and that the first outbreak occurred within a single generation. The infections appear to have resulted in acute mortality, especially among children (aged 8 to 11 years). We further note functional differences, including in the ypm superantigen locus, which is also present in present day Yersinia pseudotuberculosis . The new strains diverge ancestrally to known Y. pestis and constrain the timing of its emergence, indicating that this happened before approximately 5,700 years ago. These findings show that plague outbreaks happened earlier than previously thought and were indeed lethal. We contend that the occurrence of outbreaks among mid-Holocene hunter-gatherer communities well outside the sphere of Late Neolithic Europe challenges the notion that higher population densities and lifestyle changes during the Neolithic agricultural transition were prerequisites for plague epidemics.
Management insulin dosing for diabetes using a partially observable Markov decision process with missing data imputation
Abstract Missing data in continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) poses a significant challenge for applying sequential decision-making models to diabetes management. This study evaluates how missing-data imputation affects downstream Partially Observable Markov Decision Process (POMDP)-based policy outputs using real CGM trajectories from the Stanford Continuous Glucose Monitoring Database. Three imputation methods are compared: mean imputation, linear interpolation, and a bridge-based adjusted Metropolis-Hastings (M-H) algorithm. The adjusted M-H algorithm incorporates a local temporal bridge, Markovian state-transition information, and a smoothness constraint to generate model-compatible imputations. Numerical experiments are conducted under two missingness scenarios, random missingness and block missingness, with missing rates of 5%, 15%, and 25%. The methods are evaluated using mean squared imputation error (MSIE), policy disagreement rate, and absolute reward gap relative to the complete-data POMDP benchmark. The results show that mean imputation produces substantially larger reconstruction errors and greater downstream POMDP deviations across missingness scenarios. Linear interpolation and adjusted M-H both preserve CGM trajectories and POMDP-derived policy outputs much better than mean imputation. Linear interpolation achieves slightly lower global MSIE under random missingness, whereas adjusted M-H shows comparable POMDP-level performance and local advantages in nonlinear postprandial trajectories and block-missing segments. These findings suggest that temporally informed imputation methods are preferable to mean imputation for incomplete CGM data, and that adjusted M-H provides a model-compatible alternative for preserving sequential decision outputs under partially observed glucose trajectories.