CiVL

AI combed old research and found 33 ultrathin materials nobody had recognized. Researchers at @liu_universitet then made seven of them with a method that finishes within minutes, as reported in @ScienceMagazine. How many more are hiding in old lab records?

A meteorite called Teghaza 001 holds a piece of Mars crust at least 4.1 billion years old. Scientists at @NASAJPL and @UNM found its minerals show hot water once flowed through it, as reported in @ScienceMagazine. What else could it tell us about early Mars?

Could gene therapy help people with advanced blindness see light again? In a study of 10 people with advanced retinitis pigmentosa, seven had improved light sensitivity after an experimental optogenetic treatment using genetic engineering and specialized goggles.

Tiny magnets placed in the leg muscles of 3 amputees let them steer an onscreen stand in for a prosthetic ankle. Engineers at @MIT and the @medialab ran the study with surgeons at @BrighamWomens. A larger study with real prosthetic legs is now underway.

Daily and weekly fasting both trimmed weight in women, weekly a bit more Korean nutrition researchers assigned 68 women to daily or weekly fasting, with both groups losing weight in a month. Korean nutrition researchers randomly assigned 68 women with overweight or obesity to 16:8 daily fasting or 5:2 weekly fasting for four weeks. Both groups lost weight, mostly fat, and the weekly group pulled ahead by the end, 3.13 versus 2.19 kilograms, while waist size and blood pressure fell similarly. The trial in Obesity from @ObesitySociety lasted only a month, so long term effects still need testing. Which would you stick with longer, a daily eating window or two light days a week?

A common diabetes pill that may help protect the aging brain from insulin resistance Mayo Clinic doctors gave 40 adults metformin or placebo for 40 weeks; four brain regions used more sugar. Doctors at @MayoClinic gave 40 older adults with insulin resistance metformin or a dummy pill for 40 weeks in a randomized trial. Brain scans showed greater sugar uptake in four regions with metformin, along with a modest gain on a combined test of processing speed and working memory. Other thinking skills did not improve, and the authors call for larger trials before metformin is used to protect brain health. Should doctors treat insulin resistance earlier to protect the aging brain?

A new drug that blocks a cancer helping enzyme slows tumors in mice Cambridge researchers screened 250,000 compounds to find a drug that slowed blood and solid cancers in mice. Researchers at @Cambridge_Uni and @storm_tx developed what they call the first selective drug that blocks an enzyme many aggressive cancers rely on. In mice it slowed melanoma, pancreatic and lung tumors and helped animals with leukemia live longer, with no signs of toxicity in these short studies. The work appears in @Nature, and so far it is mice and cells only, with no person treated yet. Could cutting off a single enzyme become a new way to treat several cancers at once?

Smart drug drip software kept blood flowing to injured spinal cords in animals Johns Hopkins engineers built software that steers a drug drip; 4 rats per group on it kept their walking scores. Engineers at @JohnsHopkins built a controller that reads blood flow at a spinal cord injury by ultrasound once a second and adjusts a norepinephrine drip to match. In injured rats put through repeated blood pressure crashes, those on the controller kept their walking scores, while rats on a fixed dose lost significant function. This was tested in animals only, 4 rats per group plus 5 pigs, and the study in Nature Biomedical Engineering has no patient trial yet. Should intensive care drugs be steered by live readings from the injury itself?

A remote control system finishes a deepwater well without hydraulic umbilical cables Halliburton and Petrobras engineers completed 1 deepwater well in Brazil without control umbilicals, with no performance figures released. @petrobras finished a deepwater well in Brazil using a control system from @Halliburton that works without the control umbilical, which Halliburton calls the most expensive element of subsea completion. The system carries its own hydraulic reservoir, backup batteries and pumps, and talks to the surface wirelessly through the fluids in the well. Neither company released time or money saved on this well, so the job shows the system works in Brazilian deepwater but not yet by how much it helps. Should companies publish the savings when they announce a new offshore technology?