Saturday, November 1, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

The first patient in the world treated with a new gene editing technology

Published May 26, 2025 – By Editorial staff
The only CRISPR-based treatment approved for clinical use so far costs around $2 million per treatment session.

A teenager with a rare immune disorder has become the first in the world to be treated with the new gene editing technique prime editing. The aim: to restore the function of the body's white blood cells.

One month after the procedure, the first results show that the technique seems to work – apparently without any serious side effects.

The treatment was performed on a teenager with chronic granulomatous disease – a rare, inherited condition in which the immune cells lack an enzyme that normally helps kill bacteria. This makes it difficult for the body to fight infections. Through prime editing, the researchers were able to correct the mutation in the DNA that causes the disease.

According to the biotech company Prime Medicine, which developed the treatment, after one month, enzyme function was restored in two-thirds of the patient's neutrophils – a type of white blood cell that plays an important role in the body's defense against bacteria. This was announced by the company on May 19.

Prime editing is a new and more precise variant of the well-known CRISPR technique, often described as a "gene scissors". While traditional CRISPR cuts out parts of DNA and replaces them, prime editing works more like a text editor that can correct errors in the genetic code without making major changes to the genome. The technique was developed in 2019 and is considered both safer and more versatile than previous methods.

Extremely expensive method

Despite the promising results, Prime Medicine says it does not plan to continue developing the treatment, known as PM359, on its own.

– The science has moved far enough that many patients would benefit from these gene-editing treatments. But it boils down to an issue not just of science and technology, but of economics, says David Liu, a chemical biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and co-founder of the company.

For very rare diseases, development costs are often high relative to the limited number of patients. The only CRISPR-based treatment approved for clinical use so far, for blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia, currently costs more than $2 million per treatment.

– It's like upgrading your iPhone. NThere are new versions coming out all the time and the tools are constantly being refined, says Joseph Hacia, a medical geneticist at the University of Southern California.

Longer follow-up needed

Prime editing is one of several emerging techniques developed as alternatives to classical CRISPR. It has the potential to treat more diseases with greater precision, but time and follow-up are needed before firm conclusions can be drawn about its long-term effects.

It will take between six months and a year to be certain that the edited stem cells are thriving, says Annarita Miccio, a gene therapy expert at the Imagine Institute in Paris.

Critics have also raised several ethical concerns about prime editing and similar techniques, even though they are described as highly accurate. A recurring objection is the risk of genetic changes occurring in the wrong place in the genome and thus causing unwanted side effects and mutations.

Concerns have also been raised that the technology could be used in the future to modify traits rather than treat diseases - raising the debate about so-called 'designer babies' and how far we are prepared to go in altering the human genetic code.

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Study: Testosterone does not control men’s economic risk-taking

Published October 25, 2025 – By Editorial staff
The researchers tested nine different economic behaviors – from risk-taking to generosity – but found no difference between the groups.

Testosterone has no effect on men's economic decisions, according to the largest study to date in this field. One thousand Canadian men who received testosterone made the same decisions as those who received a placebo – a result that challenges previous research.

In the study, published in the scientific journal PNAS, 1,000 Canadian men aged 18 to 45 participated. The men were randomly assigned to receive either an 11-milligram dose of testosterone or a placebo in a double-blind study. Once the hormone began to take effect, the men participated in various experiments to measure risk-taking, generosity, competitiveness, and fairness preferences.

A total of nine different outcomes were measured, and the results showed that both groups behaved on average in the same way, regardless of whether they received testosterone or placebo – across all outcomes.

Our results provide strong evidence that short-term increases in testosterone have no meaningful impact on men's economic decisions, says Anna Dreber Almenberg, professor at the Department of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden, in a press release.

Largest study in the field

Previous studies have suggested that testosterone can influence the propensity to take risks or compete in economic situations, but this study shows that this is not necessarily the case. This study is also the largest of its kind in the field, with ten to twenty times more men participating than in previous studies.

However, the researchers emphasize that they only tested one dose and one time perspective in the men, which means that other possible effects could occur at different doses or time perspectives. Women were also not included in the trial.

The study is important because it directly challenges the idea that short-term fluctuations in testosterone levels explain why some people take greater economic risks, reject unfair offers, or act more competitively in life, says Justin M. Carré, professor at the Faculty of Arts and Science at Nipissing University in Canada.

Record-breaking dinosaur trackway unearthed in England

Published October 16, 2025 – By Editorial staff
Replica of a Cetiosaurus skeleton. Hundreds of footprints were discovered during the excavation in Oxfordshire, England.

British researchers have unearthed a 220-meter-long dinosaur trackway and evidence that dozens of individuals moved as a herd. It is the longest footprint trail ever found from a dinosaur in Europe.

It was last year that researchers discovered a new paleontological site full of dinosaur footprints. At the location, situated at Dewars Farm quarry near Bicester in Oxfordshire, England, footprints were found from, among others, the nine-meter-long carnivore Megalosaurus.

This year, researchers from the University of Birmingham and Oxford University Museum of Natural History returned to the "Jurassic Highway", as the site is called, to investigate it further. They then discovered hundreds of new footprints from sauropods, commonly known as "long-necks".

Largest trackway site

This site in Oxfordshire is the largest dinosaur track site in the UK, and arguably now the largest mapped dinosaur track site in the world when we consider finds dating back to the 1990s on the same surface nearby, says Kirsty Edgar, professor at the University of Birmingham, to Sci News.

Sauropods are a group of herbivorous dinosaurs and were the largest animals that ever walked on land. The researchers believe the footprints came from a cetiosaurus, a sauropod that can reach approximately 20 meters in length.

In total, four different trackways were discovered that the dinosaurs had walked, dated to 166 million years old. One of these trackways was 220 meters long – making it the longest footprint trail found from a dinosaur in Europe.

What is most exciting about this site is the sheer size and number of footprints. We now have evidence of tens of individuals moving through this area at around the same time, perhaps as a herd, says Dr Duncan Murdock at Oxford University Museum of Natural History in a press release.

Two meters per second

The footprints were up to one meter long, and researchers have analyzed the dinosaurs' direction and pace, calculating that they could move at approximately two meters per second.

The other three trackways are not yet fully exposed, which means they may prove to be even longer. Additionally, smaller finds of marine invertebrates, plant material, and a crocodile jaw have been discovered.

Richard Butler, professor at the University of Birmingham, believes that footprints can provide important information about how dinosaurs lived.

Most of what we know about dinosaurs comes from their skeletons, but footprints and the sediments that they are in can provide valuable additional information about how these organisms lived and what their environment looked like over 166 million years ago, he tells Sci News.

Vultures collect archaeological finds

Published October 15, 2025 – By Editorial staff
The bearded vulture is an endangered species that lives in mountainous regions of Asia, Africa and southern Europe.

Researchers have discovered hundreds of years old human artifacts in vulture nests – including shoes, crossbow arrows, and a spear.

Many bird species have a habit of collecting various artificial objects, such as plastic pieces, strings, or debris, to bring to their nests. Often this is about building nests and these materials are simply readily available to the birds.

Bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchidae), found primarily in Australia and New Guinea, also have a habit of decorating their homes with advanced methods to impress females. They build structures and collect colorful items such as shells, flowers, stones, and also plastic objects.

Larger birds such as eagles, falcons, and vultures also collect items for their nests, but something unique to many of these bird species is that the same nest can be reused for generations if it's in a good location. In this way, birds continue to use the same nest, and thus also fill them, for centuries.

Reused for Hundreds of Years

The bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) is a bird species that lives in mountainous areas in Asia, Africa, and southern Europe, and this behavior of reusing nests has been documented in this species.

The endangered species often builds nests in cliff caves, mountain cliffs, or on ledges, and many of these regions are often dry, especially in European mountain ranges where the species frequently resides. Particularly in cave-like structures, conditions can become ideal for long-term preservation, and researchers have now examined this more closely.

Researchers in Spain examined twelve abandoned bearded vulture nests in an area in southern Spain where the species became extinct 70–130 years ago. In total, they found 226 human-made objects in the nest layers.

Natural Museums

Among other things, they found a slingshot, shoes, a crossbow arrow, a spear, a decorated sheepskin, and fragments of a basket that the bearded vultures used as material to build their nests. Many of the objects were made from esparto grass, a traditional fiber plant used in the Mediterranean region for thousands of years. What surprised the researchers was the age of the objects – many of them were hundreds of years old.

One shoe was dated to be 675 years old and the sheepskin was 650 years old. The basket piece was younger and dated to 150 years old. The objects were also in surprisingly good condition.

"Thanks to the solidity of Bearded Vulture nest structures and their locations in the western Mediterranean, generally in protected places such as caves and rock shelters with relatively stable temperature and low humidity conditions, they have acted as natural museums, conserving historical material in good condition", the researchers write in the study published in the journal Ecology.

Time Capsules

In addition to the artificial objects, researchers also found 2,117 bones, 86 hooves, 72 leather remains, 11 hair remains, and 43 eggshells. Bearded vultures actively collect bones and objects for their nests, and these findings provide interesting information about the species' diet since medieval times, as well as about wild animal populations and human-animal interactions in the area.

The eggshells also enable further studies on environmental toxins and pesticides and whether there may be any connection to why the species became extinct in the area. The hope is also that the objects can be used to provide important information regarding reintroduction of the species.

The study shows how old nests can function as time capsules that preserve both natural history and cultural history information. The findings provide not only insights into the bearded vulture's past, but also about people's lives in these mountain areas hundreds of years ago.

WHO sounds alarm: Common infections becoming impossible to treat

Published October 14, 2025 – By Editorial staff
Bacteria develop resistance when antibiotics are used incorrectly or unnecessarily.

Common infections are becoming increasingly difficult – and sometimes impossible – to treat.

New data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that one in six bacterial infections globally is resistant to standard antibiotics, threatening millions of lives and straining healthcare systems worldwide.

According to WHO's latest report, antibiotic resistance increased in over 40 percent of the tracked combinations of bacteria and drugs between 2018 and 2023, with average annual increases of 5 to 15 percent.

— Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide, says WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The report, based on data from over 100 countries, shows that one in three infections in WHO's South-East Asia and Eastern Mediterranean regions were resistant to antibiotics, compared to one in five in Africa.

Overuse of antibiotics

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites evolve to resist the drugs designed to kill them.

This is primarily driven by overuse and misuse of antibiotics in humans, animals, and agriculture. Poor infection control, limited access to quality medicines, and inadequate sanitation and clean water further exacerbate the problem.

WHO estimates that bacterial AMR directly caused 1.27 million deaths in 2019 and contributed to nearly five million deaths globally. Without action, experts warn that resistant infections could cause an estimated €2.7 trillion in global GDP losses annually by 2030.

"We must innovate"

The greatest danger comes from certain disease-causing gram-negative bacteria, as their protective outer shell makes them difficult to kill and they often develop drug resistance. E. coli and K. pneumoniae, two common causes of bloodstream infections, show alarming resistance levels.

Globally, more than 40 percent of E. coli strains and 55 percent of K. pneumoniae strains were resistant to third-generation cephalosporins – the first-line treatment for many serious infections. In parts of Africa, levels exceed 70 percent.

— Our future also depends on strengthening systems to prevent, diagnose and treat infections and on innovating with next-generation antibiotics and rapid point-of-care molecular tests, declares the WHO Director-General, who as usual calls for more resources to be allocated to vaccination programs.

— We must use antibiotics responsibly, and make sure everyone has access to the right medicines, quality-assured diagnostics, and vaccines, the statement reads.

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