GoKawiil
Tech News
Astrophysicist Samuel Lai and colleagues reprocessed the 2019 Event Horizon Telescope data using different algorithms and produced new images of the black hole. Their results largely matched the original findings, countering claims that the famous ring-shaped image was an artifact of the team's reconstruction methods.
Researchers led by neuroscientist Andrew Yang at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease developed a labeling technique to track nearly 900 blood proteins and identified 92 that cross into the brain, many originating in organs like the liver. The team focused on apolipoprotein A1 (APOA1), which prompts astrocytes to release cholesterol needed for synapse maintenance, and found two receptors, SR-B1 and ABCA1, that help ferry it across the barrier. In mice modeling early Alzheimer's disease, this protein transport system broke down.
Washington Post reporting cited by Futurism describes several recent studies finding that microscopic airborne particles can cross the blood-brain barrier and accumulate in brain tissue, including regions like the amygdala. UK Biobank data covering roughly half a million people found those with the highest exposure to fine particulate matter were 14 percent more likely to develop dementia, alongside reduced brain volume on scans.
The OpenAI Foundation, the nonprofit created in October 2025 during OpenAI's governance restructuring, has begun distributing part of its committed $25 billion in philanthropic funding. Recent grants include a $125 million package for open health and life-sciences data, covering $40 million for a University of North Carolina cancer vaccine project, $500,000 to repurpose data from failed biotech firms, and $15 million for research on drug transport across biological membranes, following an earlier $100 million commitment to Alzheimer's disease research. Jacob Trefethen, the foundation's head of life sciences, says this is an early phase of a broader, faster-moving funding effort.
Scientists are engineering particle-based delivery systems intended to ferry large molecules such as proteins and messenger RNA past the blood-brain barrier, a membrane that normally blocks such compounds from reaching brain tissue. Small chemicals like paracetamol already pass through naturally, but bigger therapeutic molecules cannot, limiting treatment options for brain disorders.