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A major analysis suggests Phelan-McDermid syndrome, a genetic disorder closely linked to autism, may affect about 1 in 7,300 people and more than 45,000 Americans. Researchers warn that thousands of cases may remain hidden because genetic testing is often not performed, even as targeted treatments move into clinical trials.

Researchers used CRISPR to remove CD33 from donor stem cells, potentially giving doctors a way to attack aggressive blood cancers without destroying the healthy cells patients need after a transplant. In a 30-patient trial, the edited cells successfully took hold and appeared to shield blood cells from a CD33-targeted cancer treatment.

Imminent change in legal status raises concerns that national academy will serve political interests

First clean pictures from a muon beam point to a new way to peer inside suspicious packages and ancient structures

CONCLUSION: Gait mat and stopwatch measurements showed acceptable agreement, supporting clinical use. However, greater disagreement at faster speeds suggests gait mats may be more appropriate for faster walking speeds. These findings support future investigations of ST and DT gait performance within ARIC and other aging cohorts, including relationships with cognitive decline, mobility limitations, and adverse health outcomes.

INTRODUCTION: Since many hospitalized older adults have delirium, assessment of baseline cognitive function often requires proxy-based measures. While the 16-item Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in Elderly (IQCODE) specifies cutoff scores for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, the 8-item Informant Interview to Differentiate Aging and Dementia (AD8) provides only a single cutoff for "cognitive impairment," limiting its usefulness and precision. Our aim was to develop a...

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A magnet-producing bacterium extended the average lifespan of C. elegans worms by more than 43% while helping protect their neurological and intestinal health. Researchers traced much of the effect to suppression of ferroptosis, a damaging form of cell death linked to iron buildup and oxidative stress.

Scientists discovered a surprising backup system that lets mammalian cells make the essential amino acid cysteine even when the pathways once considered indispensable are disabled. The same survival mechanism may help cancer cells resist treatment, raising the possibility that shutting it down could make tumors easier to kill.

The brain may have a built-in way to quickly settle disagreements between regions processing the same scene. Researchers found that matching signals between two visual areas lasted longer, while conflicting signals rapidly faded away. This “consensus building” mechanism could help explain how the brain turns many specialized inputs into one unified view of the world.

A 70-year-old leukemia drug is still revealing new secrets. Researchers found that removing a protein called NUDT5 protected cells from the drug, even though simply blocking the protein had little effect. The unexpected result points to a hidden cellular role that could help explain why people respond differently to certain leukemia treatments.

A newly identified breakdown in communication between nerves and muscles could help explain why people lose strength as they age. Researchers were able to improve muscle strength in an animal model by targeting a key protein, raising hopes that some age-related weakness could eventually be treated.

Alzheimer disease begins in the brain many years before symptoms, but early changes are usually studied after death or indirectly through fluid and imaging biomarkers. Here we show that small brain biopsies collected during ventriculoperitoneal shunt surgery can be used to study Alzheimer disease pathology and protein turnover during life. We analysed biopsies from 18 individuals with suspected normal pressure hydrocephalus, alongside matched ventricular and lumbar cerebrospinal fluid and...

Retinal fundus images offer a non-invasive window into systemic aging. Here, we fine-tune a foundation model (RETFound) to predict chronological age from color fundus images in 71,343 participants from the UK Biobank, achieving a mean absolute error of 2.85 years. The resulting retinal age gap, i.e. the difference between predicted and chronological age, is associated with cardiometabolic traits, inflammation, cognitive performance, all-cause mortality, dementia, cancer, and incident...