Women's Unique Health Needs and the Sustainable Development Goals: A Meeting Report from the 79th United Nations General Assembly Science Summit.

Biological sex, hormones, and gender uniquely affect health and disease, often resulting in disparities for women across the lifespan and from different racial and ethnic groups, geographical locations, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Without intentional investment and infrastructure to support good health and wellbeing for women, half of the world's population remains vulnerable to preventable morbidity and mortality. The Society for Women's Health Research and ECHAlliance-The Global Health Connector convened a women's health program as part of the 10th Annual Science Summit during the United Nations 79th General Assembly.

Many Will Enter, Few Will Win: Cost and Sensitivity of Exploratory Dynamics.

A variety of biomolecular systems rely on exploratory dynamics to reach target locations or states within a cell. Without a mechanism to remotely sense and move directly towards a target, the system must sample over many paths, often including resetting transitions back to the origin. We investigate how exploratory dynamics can confer an important functional benefit: the ability to respond to small changes in parameters with large shifts in the steady-state behavior.

Complement C4b as a Key Mediator of Synaptic Loss and Cognitive Decline in Brain Aging.

Brain aging is a major risk factor for cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases, driven by synaptic loss, reduced synaptic function, and inflammation. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these dysfunctions remain unclear. Here, we conducted comparative transcriptomic analyses of brain regions (cortex and hippocampus) and kidney tissues, a peripheral organ with documented age-related dysfunction.

Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars.

The Perseverance rover has explored and sampled igneous and sedimentary rocks within Jezero Crater to characterize early Martian geological processes and habitability and search for potential biosignatures. Upon entering Neretva Vallis, on Jezero Crater's western edge, Perseverance investigated distinctive mudstone and conglomerate outcrops of the Bright Angel formation. Here we report a detailed geological, petrographic and geochemical survey of these rocks and show that organic-carbon-bearing mudstones in the Bright Angel formation contain submillimetre-scale nodules and millimetre-scale reaction fronts enriched in ferrous iron phosphate and sulfide minerals, likely vivianite and greigite, respectively.

Late fluid flow in a primitive asteroid revealed by Lu-Hf isotopes in Ryugu.

Carbonaceous asteroids are the source of the most primitive meteorites and represent leftover planetesimals that formed from ice and dust in the outer Solar System and may have delivered volatiles to the terrestrial planets. Understanding the aqueous activity of asteroids is key to deciphering their thermal, chemical and orbital evolution, with implications for the origin of water on the terrestrial planets. Analyses of the objects, in particular pristine samples returned from asteroid Ryugu, have provided detailed information on fluid-rock interactions within a few million years after parent-body formation.

Digging into the evolutionary history of the fungus-growing-ant symbiont, Escovopsis (Hypocreaceae).

Symbiotic relationships shape the evolution of organisms. Fungi in the genus Escovopsis share an evolutionary history with the fungus-growing "attine" ant system and are only found in association with these social insects. Despite this close relationship, there are key aspects of Escovopsis evolution that remain poorly understood.

Modulating the PPARγ pathway upregulates NECTIN4 and enhances chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy in bladder cancer.

With the approval of the antibody-drug conjugate enfortumab vedotin (EV), NECTIN4 has emerged as a bona fide therapeutic target in urothelial carcinoma (UC). Here, we report the development of a NECTIN4-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell, which exhibits reactivity across cells expressing a range of endogenous NECTIN4, with enhanced activity in high expressors. We demonstrate that the PPARγ pathway, critical for luminal differentiation, transcriptionally controls NECTIN4, and that the PPARγ agonist rosiglitazone primes and augments NECTIN4 expression, thereby increasing sensitivity to NECTIN4-CAR T cell-mediated killing.

A critical affinity window for IgSF proteins DIP-α and Dpr10 is required for proper motor neuron arborization.

For neurons to establish the correct connections in animal nervous systems, interactions between cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), expressed presynaptically and postsynaptically, are thought to guide neurons to their targets. Here, we assess the role that affinity between two cognate CAMs-DIP-α and Dpr10-plays in establishing the leg neuromuscular system in If affinity decreases or, surprisingly, increases past certain thresholds, motor neuron (MN) terminal branches fail to be maintained. Live imaging during development shows that when affinities are aberrant, MN filopodia are unable to productively engage their muscle targets.

Oxytocin-mediated empathy internally facilitates cooperative behaviors in rats.

Reciprocity is considered one of the vital mechanisms that sustain the evolution of cooperative behavior. However, free-riding, where assistance is received but not reciprocated, poses a serious threat to reciprocity behavior, which relies on future payback. Previous theories proposed that third-party punishment plays a vital role in preventing free-riding behavior.

Comparison of Vascular Injury From Intravascular Lithotripsy, Cutting, or Ultra-High-Pressure Balloons During Coronary Calcium Modification.

Background: Effective modification of heavily calcified coronary lesions is critical for successful percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Intravascular lithotripsy (IVL), cutting balloons (CBs), and ultra-high-pressure balloons (UHBs) are used commonly, yet data comparing their effectiveness and safety for calcified lesion modification remain unavailable.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the effects of IVL, a CB, and a UHB on calcified coronary lesions in human cadaveric arteries, focusing on calcium fracture formation and vascular injury.

RNA in plasma extracellular vesicles of adolescent rhesus macaques reveal immune, bioenergetic and microbial imprints of early life adversity - an exploratory analysis.

Background: Exposure to early life adversity (ELA), including childhood maltreatment, is one of the most significant risk factors for the emergence of psychosomatic disorders in adolescence and adulthood. Most investigations into biological processes that have been perturbed by ELA have profiled DNA methylation in whole blood and coalesced around perturbations of immunobiology being centrally insulted by ELA.

Methods: To identify novel molecular signatures that are enduringly perturbed by childhood maltreatment, we isolated circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) from plasma collected from adolescent rhesus macaques that had either experienced nurturing maternal care (CONT, n = 7, 4M 3F) or maltreatment in infancy (MALT, n = 6, 3M 3F).

From prediction to precision: Artificial intelligence and emerging technologies in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Background: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a vital intervention for managing cardiac arrest; however, enhancing survival rates remains a significant challenge. Recent advancements highlight the importance of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) to overcome existing limitations in prediction, intervention, and post-resuscitation care.

Methods: A thorough review of contemporary literature regarding AI applications in CPR was undertaken, explicitly examining its role in the early prediction of cardiac arrest, optimization of CPR quality, and enhancement of post-arrest outcomes.

Culture-independent meta-pangenomics enabled by long-read metagenomics reveals associations with pediatric undernutrition.

The human gut microbiome is linked to child malnutrition, yet traditional microbiome approaches lack resolution. We hypothesized that complete metagenome-assembled genomes (cMAGs), recovered through long-read (LR) DNA sequencing, would enable pangenome and microbial genome-wide association study (GWAS) analyses to identify microbial genetic associations with child linear growth. LR methods produced 44-64× more cMAGs per gigabase pair (Gbp) than short-read methods, with PacBio (PB) yielding the most accurate and cost-effective assemblies.

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles - From synthesis to nanomedicine.

Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) have emerged as powerful tools in nanomedicine owing to their heavy-metal-free composition, distinct magnetic properties, biocompatibility, and customizable surface chemistry. While traditionally employed as T-weighted MRI contrast agents, recent innovations have enabled the development of ultra-small SPIONs-such as exceedingly small SPIONs (ES-SPIONs) and single-nanometer iron oxide nanoparticles (SNIOs)-that offer T-weighted MRI capabilities, which are favored by radiologists for their superior anatomical clarity. This review highlights the synthesis of monodisperse SPIONs via thermal decomposition and controlled oxidation, as well as their functionalization with zwitterionic dopamine sulfonate (ZDS) ligands, which confer colloidal stability, minimal protein adsorption, and efficient renal clearance.

Imaging Valence Electron Rearrangement in a Chemical Reaction Using Hard X-Ray Scattering.

We have observed the signatures of valence electron rearrangement in photoexcited ammonia using ultrafast hard x-ray scattering. Time-resolved x-ray scattering is a powerful tool for imaging structural dynamics in molecules because of the strong scattering from the core electrons localized near each nucleus. Such core-electron contributions generally dominate the differential scattering signal, masking any signatures of rearrangement in the chemically important valence electrons.

Positive Neutrino Masses with DESI DR2 via Matter Conversion to Dark Energy.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is a massively parallel spectroscopic survey on the Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak, which has released measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations determined from over 14 million extragalactic targets. We combine DESI Data Release 2 with CMB datasets to search for evidence of matter conversion to dark energy (DE), focusing on a scenario mediated by stellar collapse to cosmologically coupled black holes (CCBHs). In this physical model, which has the same number of free parameters as ΛCDM, DE production is determined by the cosmic star formation rate density (SFRD), allowing for distinct early- and late-time cosmologies.

Rigidity Criteria for Chainmail Consisting of Tessellations of Torus Knots.

Interlocked and polycatenated material systems, consisting of discrete, nonconvex particles linked to their nearest neighbors, such as chainmail fabrics, have been shown to undergo a jamming transition that increases their rigidity under boundary compression. This rigidity transition is associated with an increase in contact number between particles. In architected materials, rigidity is described by theories such as the Maxwell criterion.

Half-Life and Precision Shape Measurement of the 2νββ Decay of ^{130}Te.

We present a new measurement of the 2νββ half-life of ^{130}Te (T_{1/2}^{2ν}) using the first complete model of the CUORE data, based on 1038 kg yr of collected exposure. Thanks to optimized data selection, we achieve a factor of two improvement in precision, obtaining T_{1/2}^{2ν}=(9.32 _{-0.

Search for an Anomalous Production of Charged-Current ν_{e} Interactions without Visible Pions across Multiple Kinematic Observables in MicroBooNE.

This Letter presents an investigation of low-energy electron-neutrino interactions in the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beam by the MicroBooNE experiment, motivated by the excess of electron-neutrino-like events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment. This is the first measurement to use data from all five years of operation of the MicroBooNE experiment, corresponding to an exposure of 1.11×10^{21} protons on target, a 70% increase on past results.

The weak land carbon sink hypothesis.

Over the past three decades, assessments of the contemporary global carbon budget consistently report a strong net land carbon sink. Here, we review evidence supporting this paradigm and quantify the differences in global and Northern Hemisphere estimates of the net land sink derived from atmospheric inversion and satellite-derived vegetation biomass time series. Our analysis, combined with additional synthesis, supports a hypothesis that the net land sink is substantially weaker than commonly reported.

Magnetic field-enhanced vertical integration enables embodied intelligence in untethered soft robots.

Embodied intelligence in soft robotics offers unprecedented capabilities for operating in uncertain, confined, and fragile environments that challenge conventional technologies. However, achieving true embodied intelligence-which requires continuous environmental sensing, real-time control, and autonomous decision-making-faces challenges in energy management and system integration. We developed deformation-resilient flexible batteries with enhanced performance under magnetic fields inherently present in magnetically actuated soft robots, with capacity retention after 200 cycles improved from 31.

Evidence for Similar Collectivity of High Transverse-Momentum Particles in p-Pb and Pb-Pb Collisions.

Charged hadron elliptic anisotropies (v_{2}) are presented over a wide transverse momentum (p_{T}) range for proton-lead (pPb) and lead-lead (PbPb) collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energies of 8.16 and 5.02 TeV, respectively.

Lifetimes of the Metastable 6d ^{2}D_{5/2} and 6d ^{2}D_{3/2} State of Ra^{+}.

We report lifetime measurements of the metastable 6d ^{2}D_{5/2} and 6d ^{2}D_{3/2} states of Ra^{+}. The measured lifetimes, τ_{5}=303.8(1.

Onset of Constituent Quark Number Scaling in Heavy-Ion Collisions at RHIC.

Partonic collectivity is one of the necessary signatures for the formation of quark-gluon plasma in high-energy nuclear collisions. Number of constituent quarks (NCQ) scaling has been observed for hadron elliptic flow v_{2} in top energy nuclear collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the LHC, and this has been theoretically suggested as strong evidence for partonic collectivity. In this Letter, a systematic analysis of v_{2} of π^{±}, K^{±}, K_{S}^{0}, p, and Λ in Au+Au collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=3.

Rapid Parameter Estimation for Pulsar-Timing-Array Datasets with Variational Inference and Normalizing Flows.

In the gravitational-wave analysis of pulsar-timing-array datasets, parameter estimation is usually performed using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods to explore posterior probability densities. We introduce an alternative procedure that instead relies on stochastic gradient-descent Bayesian variational inference, whereby we obtain the weights of a neural-network-based approximation of the posterior by minimizing the Kullback-Leibler divergence of the approximation from the exact posterior. This technique is distinct from simulation-based inference with normalizing flows since we train the network for a single dataset, rather than the population of all possible datasets, and we require the computation of the data likelihood and its gradient.