Journalists

We often see headlines claiming that new research has found a ‘cure’ for diseases. However, what are the real chances of this being true? How does the current stage of the research affect its ultimate outcome? Has it already been tested on humans, or only on laboratory animals? In this article, we explain why animals are used in biomedicine, the reasons why mice are the most commonly used, the steps and timeframes involved from when a treatment appears effective until it can be determined whether it works in people, the characteristics and limitations of various disease models, and how results should be communicated to inform the public without raising false hopes.

Countries’ current climate commitments fall short of the targets needed to limit global warming to 1.5 °C this century, with a shortfall of more than 5 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2050. This is one of the conclusions of the third edition of the report The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal. To offset this shortfall, the report estimates that carbon dioxide removal would need to grow at a rate comparable to that of the fastest clean energy transitions, such as solar power or electric vehicles. The report highlights that the world removes around 2.2 billion tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year, almost entirely through land-based actions such as forest restoration. New technologies that use machinery or minerals to store carbon account for just 0.1% of total removal.

An article published in Brain Health proposes using the concept of the ‘criticome’ to refer to the sensory, motor, social, cultural and environmental information recorded from pregnancy up to the age of 25, which is the period of greatest brain plasticity. According to the authors, this concept reframes autism, schizophrenia and depression as developmental disorders rather than purely synaptic disorders. Besides, they say this approach would have implications for educational policy, mental health care and screen use, amongst other issues.

An international team led by the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) and the University of Toronto (Canada) has discovered that Homo erectus were already using fire on a regular basis 1.07 million years ago and 1.79 million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave (South Africa). Previous evidence had placed more regular and controlled use of fire one million years ago in Africa at that same site. The team, whose study is published in PLoS ONE, used a novel non-invasive technique based on luminescence.

An international team has published the five-year follow-up results of a phase 2b clinical trial testing a personalised cancer vaccine in combination with standard immunotherapy treatment for melanoma. After this period, the probability of cancer recurrence was around 50% lower in the group of patients who received the vaccine. Furthermore, the probability of metastasis was almost 60% lower. The results are being presented at the ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) conference and published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

A team from the University of California (USA) has published an article questioning the scientific evidence supporting bans on social media for teenagers. Among other reasons, they argue that studies conducted to date on restricting social media use have focused on adults. Furthermore, as one of the authors points out in a press release, these restriction experiments "show weak, negligible, and mixed effects, with 40% of experimental studies reporting harmful effects (e.g., lower life satisfaction and increased loneliness) or no effect from social media restrictions." Some of the authors, whose article is published in Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, declare having ties to companies in the social media industry.

A team from the United States analyzed blood levels of three biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease in 1,350 people without dementia, with an average age of 61. Higher levels were associated with poorer cognitive performance five years later, leading the authors to state that the findings “demonstrate the potential for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease in middle-aged adults through blood tests.” In a related commentary, two experts who did not participate in the study state that, in young populations without cognitive impairment, these tests “may generate a higher rate of false positives” and caution that “they are not suitable for mass, non-selective screening for Alzheimer’s disease pathology in cognitively healthy populations or in the general community.” The study is published in The Lancet.

Sea cucumbers are known for their regenerative capacity and for exhibiting minimal cellular ageing. An article published in the journal Science Advances has documented the viability of amputated tissue from the species Psolus fabricii for over three years in natural seawater. Samples taken from three individuals of this species showed cellular diversification, immune activity, tissue reorganisation and the uptake of dissolved amino acids—properties that are unparalleled in the current scientific literature, according to the article. The authors also note that the finding may pave the way for a new experimental model, free from ethical concerns, for regenerative biology, biomedical research and tissue engineering.

Society prefers immigrants who are women, young, highly educated and in skilled employment – even though there is greater demand in the labour market for low-skilled workers – according to a meta-analysis that brings together data on more than 140,000 people from 36 countries. Respondents also expressed a preference for immigrants who do not come from Muslim countries and who migrate to escape violent situations rather than for economic reasons, according to the article published in Science Advances.

Ageing is characterised by the accumulation of cellular damage. Among the biomarkers associated with this process are epigenetic ‘clocks’, which analyse non-genetic modifications of DNA over time. However, these approaches have certain limitations, as they do not reflect the activity of specific genes. Now, a study published in Nature has analysed more than 11,000 transcriptomes from over 25 tissues in mice, rats, macaques and humans, showing that ageing-associated changes are conserved across species and cell types. The findings reveal universal transcriptomic signatures of ageing and mortality in mammals. Using these data, the authors developed their own molecular ‘clocks’, capable of estimating biological age and expected mortality.