Scientists

An American team has developed a ‘smart’ computer keyboard that could be used for the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. The prototype is a flexible device, linked to a mobile application, whose keys detect slight variations in the pressure applied by the user, allowing for the quantitative analysis of motor symptoms. The study, published in Science Advances, presents the validation of the keyboard with three people with Parkinson's.

One characteristic that is considered distinctive of human language is its capacity to combine elements and form more complex and meaningful structures, which is known as compositionality. Its most complex form, in which meaning is not simply the result of the sum of words, has not been found in any other animal species. Now, an international team claims to have observed it for the first time in bonobos. The results, published in Science, call into question assumptions about the uniqueness of human language and open up new avenues for understanding the evolution of communication, according to the journal.

US President Donald Trump has announced that all goods imported into the United States will be subject to a 10 % tariff. In the case of goods from the European Union, this will increase to 20 %, according to the executive order signed by Trump, which will affect the EU's science and health industry. This tariff will be even higher with other trading partners. The measure will not affect pharmaceuticals for the time being.

An experimental drug called mavoglurant can reduce the consumption of both cocaine and alcohol in people with cocaine use disorder, according to the results of a phase 2 clinical trial with 68 participants. Although trials with more participants are needed, the results suggest that this drug should be studied further. The findings, in which Spanish teams have participated, are published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

A study published in Nature magazine analysed the medical records of elderly Welsh men and women and discovered that those who had been vaccinated against shingles were 20% less likely to develop dementia in the following seven years. This effect was greater in women. The findings support the theory that viruses that affect the nervous system can increase the risk of dementia.

An international team has created a tiny temporary pacemaker, smaller than a grain of rice (1.8 mm × 3.5 mm × 1 mm). The device is resorbable by the body, achieves effective pacing in human and various animal cardiac models, and could be implanted less invasively than existing pacemakers, according to a study published in Nature.

Exposure to mild ozone air pollution during the first two years of life is linked to the development of asthma and wheezing in children between the ages of four and six, both individually and in combination with nitrogen dioxide and fine particles. This relationship was not found in children under eight or nine years old, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open. The epidemiological study is based on data from more than 1,000 children in the U.S.

A team led by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has shown in mice that a high-fat diet increases metastasis in triple-negative breast cancer, which has the worst prognosis. In addition, it has identified several of the mechanisms that would explain this, such as the activation of platelets and coagulation, which would help the tumour hide from the body's defences and prepare the so-called ‘pre-metastatic niche’. According to the researchers, who published the results in Nature Communications, ‘this mechanism could be extrapolated to other tumour types and other organs’. The results suggest that ‘dietary intervention, together with the control of platelet activity, may increase the efficiency of certain anti-tumour treatments’.

EMA’s human medicines committee has recommended not authorising the marketing of Kisunla (donanemab), a drug intended for the treatment of early-stage Alzheimer's disease. The committee considered that the benefits of this drug were not great enough to outweigh the risk of potentially fatal events. In recent years, several patients have died due to microbleeds in the brain.

A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake with an epicentre near the city of Mandalay in Myanmar (formerly Burma) has been felt in cities as far away as Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, more than 1,300 kilometres away. The earthquake was shallow - 10 kilometres - and has been followed by several aftershocks, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).