It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Gender disparities in Italian medical academia have persisted or worsened since 2014, with a continued "leaky pipeline" of women not progressing to senior roles
Gender disparities in Italian medical academia have persisted or worsened since 2014, with a continued "leaky pipeline" of women not progressing to senior roles
Credit: Magnano San Lio et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Gender disparities in Italian medical academia have persisted or worsened since 2014, with a continued "leaky pipeline" of women not progressing to senior roles
Article title: Gender differences in the Italian academic landscape: Examining inequalities within the medical area in the last decade
Author countries: Italy
Funding: This work was partially funded by the University of Catania, Italy, Department of Medical and Surgical Science and Advanced Technologies ‘GF Ingrassia’ (UPB: 5C130011075), awarded to A.M.
A treasure trove of exceptionally preserved early animals from more than half a billion years ago has been discovered in the Grand Canyon, one of the natural world’s most iconic sites.
The rich fossil discovery – the first such find in the Grand Canyon – includes tiny rock-scraping molluscs, filter-feeding crustaceans, spiky-toothed worms, and even fragments of the food they likely ate.
A treasure trove of exceptionally preserved early animals from more than half a billion years ago has been discovered in the Grand Canyon, one of the natural world’s most iconic sites.
The rich fossil discovery – the first such find in the Grand Canyon – includes tiny rock-scraping molluscs, filter-feeding crustaceans, spiky-toothed worms, and even fragments of the food they likely ate.
By dissolving the rocks these animals were fossilised in and examining them under high-powered microscopes, researchers led by the University of Cambridge were able to get a highly detailed picture of a unique period in the evolution of life on Earth.
The fossilised animals date from between 507 and 502 million years ago, during a period of rapid evolutionary development known as the Cambrian explosion, when most major animal groups first appear in the fossil record.
In some areas during this period, nutrient-rich waters powered an evolutionary arms race, with animals evolving a wide variety of exotic adaptations for food, movement or reproduction.
Most animal fossils from the Cambrian are of hard-shelled creatures, but in a handful of locations around the world, such as Canada’s Burgess Shale formation and China’s Maotianshan Shales, conditions are such that softer body parts could be preserved before they decayed.
So far, however, fossils of non-skeletonised Cambrian animals had been known mostly from oxygen and resource-poor environments, unlikely to kickstart the most complex innovations that shaped early animal evolution.
Now, the Grand Canyon has revealed the first soft-bodied, or non-mineralised, Cambrian fossils from an evolutionary ‘Goldilocks zone’ that would have provided rich resources for the evolution of early animals to accelerate. The results are reported in the journal Science Advances.
“These rare fossils give us a fuller picture of what life was like during the Cambrian period,” said first author Giovanni Mussini, a PhD student in Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “By combining these fossils with traces of their burrowing, walking, and feeding – which are found all over the Grand Canyon – we’re able to piece together at an entire ancient ecosystem.”
Mussini and colleagues from the US located the fossils during a 2023 expedition along the Colorado River, which began carving the Grand Canyon in what is now Arizona between five and six million years ago.
“Surprisingly, we haven’t had much of a Cambrian fossil record of this kind from the Grand Canyon before – there have been finds of things like trilobites and biomineralised fragments, but not much in the way of soft-bodied creatures,” said Mussini. “But the geology of the Grand Canyon, which contains lots of fine-grained and easily split mud rocks, suggested to us that it might be just the sort of place where we might be able to find some of these fossils.”
The researchers collected several samples of rock and returned them to Cambridge. The fist-sized rocks were first dissolved in a solution of hydrofluoric acid, and the sediment was passed through multiple sieves, releasing thousands of tiny fossils within. None of the animals were preserved in their entirety, but many recognisable structures helped the researchers identify which groups the animals belonged to.
Further examination of the fossils revealed some of the most complex ways animals were evolving during the Cambrian to capture and eat their food. “These were cutting-edge ‘technologies’ for their time, integrating multiple anatomical parts into high-powered feeding systems,” said Mussini.
Many of these fossils are of crustaceans, likely belonging to the group that includes brine shrimp, recognisable by their molar teeth. These tiny creatures had hair-like extensions on triangular grooves around their mouths, and used their hairy limbs to sweep up passing food particles like a conveyer belt. Tiny grooves on their teeth could then grind up their food. The detail on the fossils is such that several plankton-like particles can be seen near the crustaceans’ mouths.
Other modern-looking animals from the Cambrian of the Grand Canyon include slug-like molluscs. These animals already had belts or chains of teeth not dissimilar to modern garden snails, which likely helped them scrape algae or bacteria from rocks.
The most unusual creature identified by the researchers is a new species of priapulids, also known as penis or cactus worms, which were widespread during the Cambrian but are nearly extinct today. The Grand Canyon priapulid had hundreds of complex branching teeth, which helped it sweep food particles into its extensible mouth. Due to the size of the fossil and its exotic rows of teeth, the researchers named this new animal Kraytdraco spectatus, after the krayt dragon, a fictional creature from the Star Wars universe.
“We can see from these fossils that Cambrian animals had wide variety of feeding styles used to process their food, some which have modern counterparts, and some that are more exotic,” said Mussini.
During the Cambrian, the Grand Canyon was much closer to the equator than it is today, and conditions were perfect for supporting a wide range of life. The depth of the oxygen-rich water, neither too deep or too shallow, allowed a balance between maximising nutrients or oxygen and reducing wave damage and exposure to UV radiation from the Sun.
This optimum environment made it a great place for evolutionary experimentation. Since food was abundant, animals could afford to take more evolutionary risks to stay ahead of the competition, accelerating the overall pace of evolution and driving the assembly of ecological innovations that still shape the modern biosphere.
“Animals needed to keep ahead of the competition through complex, costly innovations, but the environment allowed them to do that,” said Mussini. “In a more resource-starved environment, animals can’t afford to make that sort of physiological investment. It’s got certain parallels with economics: invest and take risks in times of abundance; save and be conservative in times of scarcity. There’s a lot we can learn from tiny animals burrowing in the sea floor 500 million years ago.”
The research was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation and the UK Natural and Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Giovanni Mussini is a Bye-Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
A new species of priapulids, also known as penis or cactus worms, which were widespread during the Cambrian but are nearly extinct today. The Grand Canyon priapulid had hundreds of complex branching teeth, which helped it sweep food particles into its extensible mouth. Due to the size of the fossil and its exotic rows of teeth, the researchers named this new animal Kraytdraco spectatus, after the krayt dragon, a fictional creature from the Star Wars universe.
Credit
Rhydian Evans
A treasure trove of exceptionally preserved early animals from more than half a billion years ago has been discovered in the Grand Canyon, one of the natural world’s most iconic sites.
Why do so many people relapse after quitting cocaine? A new study from The Hebrew University reveals that a specific “anti-reward” brain circuit becomes hyperactive during withdrawal—driving discomfort and pushing users back toward the drug. Surprisingly, this circuit may also serve as a built-in protective mechanism, offering new hope for addiction treatment.
Cocaine addiction has long been understood as a tug-of-war between reward and restraint. The rush of dopamine keeps users hooked, while withdrawal triggers anxiety, depression, and despair. But a new study by researchers at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem reveals that it’s not just the craving for pleasure—but the brain’s aversion to pain—that plays a powerful role in relapse.
Led by Prof. Yonatan M. Kupchik and PhD student Liran Levi from the Faculty of Medicine, the study identifies a specific “anti-reward” network deep in the brain that undergoes lasting changes during cocaine use, withdrawal, and re-exposure. This glutamatergic network, located in the ventral pallidum, is emerging as a key player in addiction—and a promising target for future therapies.
The rollercoaster inside the brain
While the ventral pallidum is known for regulating pleasure and reward, this research highlights a lesser-known group of neurons that suppress dopamine release and amplify negative emotions. During abstinence, this anti-reward network ramps up its activity—intensifying discomfort and emotional distress. When cocaine is reintroduced, the network quickly quiets, reinforcing the cycle of relief-seeking and relapse.
“It’s a switch,” says Prof. Kupchik. “This network tracks the emotional cost of abstinence. When it’s highly active, it can drive someone to seek out the drug again—just to escape the negative feelings.”
The study also shows that this brain circuit connects with other key centers involved in emotional regulation and reward processing. During withdrawal, these connections become stronger, increasing sensitivity to negative emotional states. When the drug returns, the system resets—temporarily easing distress.
Surprisingly, discomfort may serve a purpose
In a striking finding, the researchers discovered that when this anti-reward circuit was inhibited, drug preference and motivation actually increased. This suggests that the brain’s negative signals may serve a protective role—creating an internal brake that discourages excessive drug use by making it emotionally costly.
A shift in the addiction treatment paradigm
While most current addiction therapies aim to dampen the brain’s reward system, this study points to a different path: targeting the emotional pain of withdrawal. By understanding and potentially modulating the brain’s aversive signals, future treatments may better address the root causes of relapse.
Published by PhD student Liran A. Levi and Prof. Kupchik at Hebrew University’s IMRIC Center for Addiction Research (ICARe), the study offers a new framework for understanding addiction—not just as the pursuit of pleasure, but as the escape from pain.
A ventral pallidal glutamatergic aversive network encodes abstinence from and re-exposure to cocaine
Article Publication Date
23-Jul-2025
Immunity to seasonal flu protects against severe illness from bird flu in ferrets
A study in ferrets — which have remarkably similar respiratory systems to humans — suggests that widespread immunity to H1N1 seasonal influenza virus may explain why exposure to H5N1 bird flu causes only mild symptoms in humans
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The fatality rate for H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in humans historically has been high, with more than half of people dying. Why, then, is the current H5N1 bird flu outbreak — which has caused massive die-offs in wild birds, farmed poultry and even wild mammals — causing mostly mild symptoms in the people it has infected? New research, led by scientists at Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh and published today (July 23) in the journal Science Translational Medicine, indicates that immunity to a seasonal influenza virus known as pandemic H1N1 that began circulating in 2009, provides protection from severe illness from H5N1 in a laboratory animal model.
“Every person has been exposed to H1N1 as the virus caused a pandemic in 2009 and is now the predominant circulating influenza strain in 1 out of every 3-4 years” said lead author Troy Sutton, associate professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences at Penn State. “Our findings suggest that this immunity is protective against the more recent H5N1 strain and may explain why we’re seeing fewer cases and less severe disease than we would expect.”
H5N1 viruses from clade 2.3.4.4b emerged in 2020 and were carried around the world by wild migratory birds, where they have since infected farmed poultry, wild mammals and, most recently, dairy cattle. As of June 2025, 70 human cases of H5N1 have been confirmed in the United States with one death. Most of the individuals were exposed to dairy cows or poultry and exhibited mild symptoms of conjunctivitis, fever and cough, among others. By contrast, previous human infections with H5N1 resulted in far more severe symptoms, such as seizures and respiratory failure, and some infected people died from the infection or related complications.
"We wanted to know why H5N1 2.3.4.4b was not causing severe outcomes so we investigated whether pre-existing immunity to seasonal influenza could be providing protection," said Katherine Restori, assistant research professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences, Penn State. Restori explained that this research was conducted in ferrets, which are widely recognized as one of the best animal models for studying influenza virus infections.
To conduct their study, Sutton and his colleagues, including Valerie LeSage, research assistant professor, University of Pittsburgh, who co-led the research, studied ferrets with immunity to three common types of seasonal flu: Influenza B, H1N1 and H3N2. They also studied a control group of ferrets that had no immunity to flu. Ninety days after infecting the ferrets with these common seasonal flu viruses, the team confirmed immunity by testing the animals’ blood for antibodies. Next, the team exposed the ferrets through an inoculation in the nose to a version of the H5N1 virus that caused an outbreak on mink farms in Spain in 2022.
They found that all the ferrets without immunity to the seasonal flu viruses, as well as those with immunity to Influenza B, became sick, lost weight and reached a humane endpoint. The H3N2-immune ferrets lost 10% of their body weight but all survived. In contrast, the ferrets with immunity to H1N1 did not lose any weight and all survived.
Next, the team studied the potential protective effects of the same three seasonal influenza viruses against the more recent H5N1 virus that has been circulating in dairy cattle. This time, instead of inoculating the ferrets with H5N1 in the nose, the team exposed ferrets with immunity to H1N1, H3N2, or without immunity to a seasonal virus, to ferrets already infected with an H5N1 virus from dairy cows. Sutton said by examining exposure to H5N1-infected ferrets, the team could assess the transmissibility of the virus in addition to the effects of pre-existing immunity.
The researchers found that upon exposure to ferrets with dairy cow H5N1 infections, ferrets without any influenza immunity rapidly developed severe and lethal disease. When exposed to H5N1-infected ferrets, all the ferrets with pre-existing immunity to H3N2 became infected and replicating H5N1 virus was detected in their noses. These ferrets lost weight and half of them reached a humane endpoint. In contrast, only half of the ferrets previously infected with the 2009 H1N1 virus became infected, and the infected animals were protected against disease and had very low levels of viral replication in the nose.
“These findings demonstrate that pre-existing immunity to the 2009 H1N1 virus or H3N2 virus reduces the severity of H5N1 disease, with H1N1 providing even greater protection than H3N2,” Sutton said. “This study provides a potential explanation for the mostly mild disease we are seeing in humans, as humans already have immunity to H1N1.” However, Sutton noted, as the H5N1 virus continues to circulate in animals, it has opportunities to evolve to become more dangerous.
Experiments using the mink H5N1 and dairy cattle H5N1 viruses were performed in Penn State’s biosafety level 3 Eva J. Pell Laboratory for Advanced Biological Research. This facility is approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and United States of Department of Agriculture for work with highly pathogenic avian influenza. All experiments were performed in compliance with all local, state and federal rules and regulations.
Other Penn State authors on the paper include Veronika Weaver, research technologist; Devanshi Patel, graduate student; Kayla Septer, graduate student; Cassandra Field, graduate student; Michael J. Bernabe, graduate student; Ethan Kronthal, graduate student; Allen Minns, research technician; and Scott Lindner, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. Grace Merrbach, laboratory research technician, University of Pittsburgh, and Seema Lakdawala, associate professor of microbiology and immunology, Emory University, also are authors of the paper.
The National Institutes of Health, Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR) and United States of Department of Agriculture supported this research.
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A team of McGill University researchers, working with colleagues in the United States and South Korea, has developed a new way to make high-performance lithium-ion battery materials that could help phase out expensive and/or difficult-to-source metals like nickel and cobalt.
The team’s breakthrough lies in creating a better method of producing “disordered rock-salt” (DRX) cathode particles, an alternative battery material. Until now, manufacturers struggled to control the size and quality of DRX particles, which made them unstable and hard to use in manufacturing settings. The researchers addressed that problem by developing a method to produce uniformly sized, highly crystalline particles with no grinding or post-processing required.
“Our method enables mass production of DRX cathodes with consistent quality, which is essential for their adoption in electric vehicles and renewable energy storage,” said Jinhyuk Lee, the paper’s corresponding author and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mining and Materials Engineering.
The researchers say the findings, published in Nature Communications, offer a promising path toward more sustainable and cost-effective lithium-ion batteries, a critical component in the global shift to electrified transportation and the use of renewable power.
A materials breakthrough
The researchers devised a two-step molten salt process to synthesize the DRX particles. Molten salt enables better control over particle formation, improving quality and efficiency. First, the researchers promoted nucleation (the formation of small, uniform crystals) of the particles, and then limited their growth. This allowed them to produce battery-ready particles that are smaller than 200 nanometres, a size considered important for unlocking these materials’ performance in lithium-ion batteries.
“We developed the first method to directly synthesize highly crystalline, uniformly dispersed DRX single particles without the need for post-synthesis grinding,” said Lee. “This morphological control enhances both battery performance and the consistency of large-scale DRX cathode production.”
When tested in battery cells, the new materials maintained 85 per cent of their capacity after 100 charge-discharge cycles. That’s more than double the performance of DRX particles produced using older methods.
From lab to industry
The research was carried out by a McGill team in collaboration with scientists at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). It was supported in part by Wildcat Discovery Technologies, a U.S.-based battery company interested in scaling DRX technologies for commercial use.
The team’s method could also make the process more scalable and energy efficient, addressing a key hurdle to the widespread adoption of DRX cathodes. Given the global demand for batteries, that could have a major ripple effect.
“Acceptance of our work highlights both the fundamental insight and industrial potential of the method,” said Hoda Ahmed, the lead author of the paper and a PhD student in McGill’s Department of Materials Engineering. “It shifts the field toward scalable manufacturing.”
With this synthesis strategy, the researchers say the door is now open to next-generation lithium-ion batteries that are more sustainable, more affordable, and easier to produce at scale.
