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Complex systems may work better when their parts are not perfectly alike. Northwestern physicists found that carefully balanced variation, or “disorder,” can make networks such as power grids, ecosystems, neurons, and materials more stable. Even random differences sometimes improved stability compared with completely uniform systems. The discovery could help researchers design more resilient technologies and explain why natural systems are so rarely perfectly uniform.

Scientists have identified the genetic cause behind the mysterious AnWj blood group antigen, solving a puzzle that began in 1972 and establishing a new blood group system called MAL. The discovery could make it much easier to find extremely rare AnWj-negative patients and donors and protect them from potentially dangerous transfusion reactions.

BackgroundSubjective cognitive impairment (SCI) predicts Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). Identifying SCI correlates may identify cognitive risk earlier in the ADRD continuum. We examined SCI correlates among older non-Hispanic Black (NHB) and non-Hispanic White (NHW) men.MethodCross-sectional data were from 669 men in the 2012 National Health and Aging Trends Study. Logistic regression was used to identify SCI correlates, accounting for complex sampling and...

With the global aging population and increasing burden of age-related diseases, delaying aging and maintaining healthspan have become important research priorities. Aging is a complex biological process involving progressive declines in physiological function, stress resistance, proteostasis, and metabolic homeostasis, driving the development of aging modulators that target conserved longevity-associated pathways. Although pharmacological and natural aging modulators have attracted growing...

CONCLUSION: High BMI-attributable stage 2-4 CKM burden has risen sharply in China and will continue to increase, driven mainly by worsening epidemiological risks. AFF, IHD, and LEPAD show the fastest growth. Men had higher age-standardized mortality and DALY rates for several selected diseases. Early-life obesity prevention and sex-tailored interventions are urgently needed.

CONCLUSION: LLM-derived mobility functional status assessment was associated with ED visits and hospitalization, but not with all-cause mortality after adjustment. Prospective validation and evaluation of incremental discrimination, calibration, and clinical utility are needed before clinical implementation.

Scientists discovered a population of cells that can start the process of programmed cell death, survive it, and then help rapidly rebuild damaged tissue. Their descendants become far more resistant to future damage, revealing a mechanism that could improve healing but may also help cancers return after treatment.

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Alzheimer disease (AD) is defined biologically by the presence of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles in the brain; however, these pathologies do not affect all brain regions equally. Typical AD usually presents with memory impairment, whereas atypical forms of AD, including posterior cortical atrophy, logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia, behavioural and dysexecutive AD, and corticobasal syndrome, manifest with prominent non-memory symptoms. Aβ biomarkers usually...

The ability to initiate stepping promptly and accurately is critical for safe mobility in later life. Choice stepping reaction time (CSRT) is an independent predictor of recurrent falls in older adults and is often prolonged in dementia. Although the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is crucial for rapid response execution, existing studies primarily focus on regional activation, leaving the topological reorganization of prefrontal functional networks poorly understood. In this study, twenty-six healthy...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) biomarkers may be associated with decline in non-cognitive domains of intrinsic capacity (IC), but such evidence has not been synthesized. This narrative review, based on a structured PubMed search (last search: December 31, 2025), included 119 human studies examining associations of core AD biomarkers (e.g., amyloid-beta (Aβ) and tau protein) and biomarkers of non-specific processes involved in AD pathophysiology (including neurofilament light chain (NfL), glial...

CONCLUSION: Frailty in older adults with cancer is affected by multi-dimensional, complex determinants. Targeted screening and intervention strategies can be formulated upon identification of these factors to reduce frailty incidence and improve clinical prognosis.

Although women live longer, they paradoxically face heightened susceptibility to cognitive and systemic decline emerging in midlife-an underexplored transition from resilience to vulnerability. Here, we investigate biological processes associated with this female-biased vulnerability and their molecular regulation. Senescence-associated features were preferentially elevated in middle-aged females in human brain and spleen tissues, with similar changes in mice. In female mice, epigenetic...

Microglia, the brain's resident immune cells, rely on histone modifications and chromatin remodeling to sculpt their identity across the trajectory from development through aging. Recent studies have identified enhancer rewiring and metabolic-epigenetic coupling-exemplified by histone lactylation-as central drivers of microglial plasticity. Disruption of this regulatory balance drives the transition from homeostatic microglia toward disease-associated microglia (DAM) in Alzheimer's and...

APOE gene variants encoding the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) protein are strong genetic modifiers of risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) with the APOE ε4 allele (APOE4) associated with substantially increased disease risk, APOE ε2 allele (APOE2) associated with decreased risk and APOE ε3 allele (APOE3) considered neutral. Recently the Christchurch variant of APOE3 (APOE3CH) has been shown to protect people from familial AD. Despite this strong evidence for APOE mediating AD risk, the exact biological...

Although women live longer, they paradoxically face heightened susceptibility to cognitive and systemic decline emerging in midlife-an underexplored transition from resilience to vulnerability. Here, we investigate biological processes associated with this female-biased vulnerability and their molecular regulation. Senescence-associated features were preferentially elevated in middle-aged females in human brain and spleen tissues, with similar changes in mice. In female mice, epigenetic...

Nuclear factor I (NFI) misexpressions in humans are associated with severe brain malformations, yet the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here, we show that NFIs regulate the broad lineage progression and lifespan of radial glial progenitors (RGPs), thereby bidirectionally controlling neocortical development. Human cerebral organoids carrying patient-mimicking NFI mutations exhibit expression-level-dependent bidirectional impairments in RGP temporal development, coinciding with...

Oligodendrocytes are a specialized class of glial cells responsible for myelination, which sustains central nervous system (CNS) function. Though long considered a passive and static cell, the oligodendrocyte is now recognized to actively support axonal energy demands through metabolic provision, modify neural signaling in response to environmental stimuli through adaptive myelination, and repair or regenerate myelin following injury. However, oligodendrocytes become dysfunctional in aging and...

Microglia, the brain's resident immune cells, rely on histone modifications and chromatin remodeling to sculpt their identity across the trajectory from development through aging. Recent studies have identified enhancer rewiring and metabolic-epigenetic coupling-exemplified by histone lactylation-as central drivers of microglial plasticity. Disruption of this regulatory balance drives the transition from homeostatic microglia toward disease-associated microglia (DAM) in Alzheimer's and...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) involves complex neuroimmune dysregulation, and the role of immune checkpoint pathways in regulating neuro-glial interactions and intrinsic glial homeostasis remains unclear. In AD, glial expression of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and its ligand (PD-L1) is elevated in mouse models and human patients, suggesting involvement of immune checkpoint signaling in glial function. To define the role of this pathway in the AD brain, we locally modulated PD-1/PD-L1...