Exhausted by today's political and environmental instability, Annalee Newitz investigated what a future Earth might look like. Get ready for green mining, soft cities and robo-taxis

The skull of Shanidar Z was found in the Shanidar cave in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and has been painstakingly put back together

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Category: Health News
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Category: Health and Living
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Solid tumors that arise in the body interact with neurons, which influences cancer progression and treatment response. Here, we discuss key questions in the field, including defining the nature of interactions between tumors and neural circuits and defining how neural signals shape the tumor microenvironment. This information will allow us to optimally target neural signaling to improve outcomes for cancer patients.

Thermoregulation, responsible for maintaining a stable core temperature during wide fluctuations in external and internal thermal environments, is an iconic homeostatic process. However, we suggest that despite its fundamental physiological significance, the potential for required cool housing temperatures and thermoregulatory mechanisms to influence the interpretation of experimental data is not sufficiently appreciated. Moreover, although it is generally assumed that the major thermoregulatory pathways are well understood, here we discuss new research that suggests otherwise and reveals the emergence of a new wave of exciting ideas for this "old" field of research.

Recent work has highlighted the central role the brain–body axis plays in not only maintaining organismal homeostasis but also coordinating the body's response to immune and inflammatory insults. Here, we discuss how science is poised to address the many ways that our brain is directly involved with disease. In particular, we feel that combining cutting-edge tools in neuroscience with translationally relevant models of cancer will be critical to understanding how the brain and tumors communicate and modulate each other's behavior.

The brain's capacity to predict and anticipate changes in internal and external environments is fundamental to initiating efficient adaptive responses, behaviors, and reflexes that minimize disruptions to physiology. In the context of feeding control, the brain predicts and anticipates responses to the consumption of dietary substances, thus driving adaptive behaviors in the form of food choices, physiological preparation for meals, and engagement of defensive mechanisms. Here, we provide an integrative perspective on the multisensory computation between exteroceptive and interoceptive cues that guides feeding strategy and may result in food-related disorders.

Neural reflexes occupy a central role in physiological homeostasis. The vagus nerve is a major conduit for transmitting afferent and efferent signals in homeostatic reflex arcs between the body and the brain. Recent advances in neuroscience, immunology, and physiology have revealed important vagus nerve mechanisms in suppressing inflammation and treating rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune conditions. Numerous clinical trials indicate that there is significant benefit to vagus nerve stimulation therapy. Although many questions are still unanswered, it will be important, even necessary, to pursue answers that will be useful in guiding interventions to modulate immunological and physiological homeostasis.

The world of cancer science is moving toward a paradigm shift in making connections with neuroscience. After decades of research on genetic instability and mutations or on the tumor microenvironment, emerging evidence suggests that a malignant tumor is able to hijack and use the brain and its network of peripheral and central neurons as disrupters of homeostasis in the body. Whole-body homeostasis requires brain–body circuits to maintain survival and health via the processes of interoception, immunoception, and nociception. It is now likely that cancer disturbs physiological brain–body communication in making bidirectional brain tumor connections.

The study of biological mechanisms, while crucial, cannot fully explain complex phenomena like the instinct to eat. The mind–body connection, as exemplified by the concept of "voodoo death," highlights the profound influence of belief and cultural context on physiology. Indigenous knowledge systems further emphasize the interconnectedness of humans with their environment. Recent discoveries in gut–brain communication reveal the intricate neural circuits that drive our visceral desires, but a holistic approach that integrates both physiological mechanisms and the subjective experience of life, informed by diverse cultural perspectives, will be essential to truly understand what it means to be alive.

The dorsal vagal complex contains three structures: the area postrema, the nucleus tractus solitarii, and the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus. These structures are tightly linked, both anatomically and functionally, and have important yet distinct roles in not only conveying peripheral bodily signals to the rest of the brain but in the generation of behavioral and physiological responses. Reports on the new discoveries in these structures were highlights of the symposium. In this outlook, we focus on the roles of the area postrema in mediating brain–body interactions and its potential utility as a therapeutic target, especially in cancer cachexia.

Our approaches toward understanding cancer have evolved beyond cell-intrinsic and local microenvironmental changes within the tumor to encompass how the cancer interfaces with the entire host organism. The nervous system is uniquely situated at the interface between the brain and body, constantly receiving and sending signals back and forth to maintain homeostasis and respond to salient stimuli. It is becoming clear that various cancers disrupt this dialog between the brain and body via both neuronal and humoral routes, leading to aberrant brain activity and accelerated disease. In this outlook, I discuss this view of cancer as a homeostatic challenge, emphasize cutting-edge work, and provide outstanding questions that need to be answered to move the field forward.

Background

Long COVID is a heterogeneous clinical syndrome characterised by a variety of reported symptoms and signs. Its clinical management is expected to differ significantly worldwide.

Over the past 20 years, quantitative proteomics has contributed a wealth of protein expression data, which are currently used for a variety of systems pharmacology applications, as a complement or a surrogate for activity of the corresponding proteins. A symposium at the 25th North American International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics meeting, in Boston, in September 2023, was held to explore current and emerging applications of quantitative proteomics in translational pharmacology and strategies for improved integration into model-informed drug development based on practical experience of each of the presenters. A summary of the talks and discussions is presented in this perspective alongside future outlook that was outlined for future meetings.

Kelley ruins Warcraft by including Conker. Chris mortgages his Xbox. Josh's cat won't let him control his Xbox. And Microsoft has announced their new Candy Crush themed Windows 12.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 615: “The New Dialga Looks Like My Brother’s Broken Vacuum Cleaner” appeared first on RPGamer.

Welcome to A Late Look, a series of articles where I take a belated look at games from yesteryear that I missed out on the first time around. Not quite review and not quite rant, it’s more a casual assessment of what I – the gamer of the future – consider to be each game’s strengths and weaknesses in retrospect.

This time we’re saddling up for a look at Red Dead Redemption II, one of the biggest critical and commercial successes of the last ten years. It conveniently went completely under my radar, allowing me to look at it now. I was ten years late to the first game, this time it’s only six, so at this rate I’ll definitely be playing Red Dead Redemption IV on launch day. I'm looking forward to that, but for now let’s see how the second game fares in 2024.

Strength: The Van der Linde Gang

Travel back to a time before former-outlaw John Marston got pulled from his farmer life in the first title, to when he was… well, an outlaw. While you might play as Arthur Morgan, in this game you become part of John’s old gang – the Van der Linde gang – together with Marston himself and other familiar and unfamiliar characters. While RDR2 also boasts a few other strong characters, this gang is at the heart of the game and, luckily, is also its strongest element, with plenty of faces and personalities that (almost) all get their time to shine. What adds all the more to the connection and believability of these characters is the living nature of the camp itself; it's your home base outside of missions, where the gang will go about their daily tasks and have conversations & arguments that you can occasionally join in on – there are even celebrations and songs around the campfire. Even if it’s mostly just flavor, the strength of this particular feature and what it adds in terms of immersion shouldn’t be understated.

Weakness: Red Dead Redemption II: Usability Nightmare

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