Research published in Nature Genetics on Oct.14, by Yale Cancer Center researchers at Yale School of Medicine, found a higher concentration of a specific kind of DNA — extrachromosomal or ecDNA — in more aggressive and advanced cancers that could mark them as targets for future therapies.

Using data available from The Cancer Genome Atlas, the International Cancer Genomics Consortium, the Hartwig Medical Foundation, and the Glioma Longitudinal Analysis Consortium, the researchers considered more than 8,000 tumor samples, divided between newly diagnosed untreated tumors and those that had been through previous treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, and others. They found significantly higher amounts of ecDNA in tumors from previously treated patients, leading to the theory that ecDNA might give a survival advantage to those tumors.

“Our research suggests that ecDNA helps tumors become more aggressive,” said senior author of the paper, Roel Verhaak, the Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neurosurgery at Yale School of Medicine and member of Yale Cancer Center. “EcDNA has a distinct mechanism and plays an important role, not just for breast or lung cancer, but across many cancer types.”

Understanding where shooting stars and meteorites come from is a question that scientists have been trying to answer since ancient times.
Until recently, only 6% of meteorite falls had been linked to their source.
A team led by scientists from CNRS, ESO, and Charles University has notably shown that 70% of all meteorite falls come from just three young asteroid families.
An international team led by three researchers from the CNRS1, the European Southern Observatory (ESO, Europe), and Charles University (Czech Republic) has successfully demonstrated that 70% of all known meteorite falls originate from just three young asteroid families. These families were produced by three recent collisions that occurred in the main asteroid belt 5.8, 7.5, and about 40 million years ago. The team also revealed the sources of other types of meteorites; with this research, the origin of more than 90% of meteorites has now been identified. This discovery is detailed in three papers, a first published on 13 September 2024 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and two new papers to be published on 16 October 2024 in Nature.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign aerospace engineering Ph.D. student Nicolas Rasmont assembling his radar inferometry instrument in the lab.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a new instrument to measure the density of the dust that kicks up when spacecraft thrusters interact with planetary surfaces as it lands. Because cameras and other optical equipment are blinded by dense dust clouds, the new instrument uses millimeter-wave radar in a new way to accurately measure the dust and debris.

“Other measurement techniques exist, but our instrument addresses a sort of ‘missing middle.’ It is applicable to particle clouds which are too dense for optical measurements but too thin for state-of-the-art opaque multiphase techniques like X-rays or MRI. It is also capable of several thousands of measurements per second,” said Nicolas Rasmont, Ph.D. student in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. “Our instrument uses a radar to generate waves with a wavelength of 3.8 mm, just over an eighth of an inch. The wave travels through a cloud of particles, then is reflected, then captured back by our instrument to detect the presence of the particles.”

Climate change has a negative impact on food security. An international research team led by Wolfram Weckwerth from the University of Vienna has now conducted a study to investigate the natural variation of different chickpea genotypes and their resistance to drought stress. The scientists were able to show that chickpeas are a drought-resistant legume plant with a high protein content that can complement grain cultivation systems even in urban areas. The study was recently published in the specialist magazine The Plant Biotechnology.

Long periods of drought stress have also become a reality in Central Europe due to climate change, a major threat to plant productivity, harvests and therefore food security. At the same time, there is a decline in the use of plant genetic diversity, and the global food system has become more and more uniform. While there are approximately 7,000 edible crops, two-thirds of global food production is based on just nine crop species. "This narrow genetic base can have several negative consequences, such as increased susceptibility of plants to diseases and pests, reduced resistance to factors such as drought and climate change, and increased economic fragility," explains molecular biologist Wolfram Weckwerth from the University of Vienna. "Maintaining adequate plant and genetic diversity is crucial for agriculture, which must adapt to future changing conditions. With our new study, we have taken an important step in this direction and looked at the chickpea as an important food of the future," says Weckwerth.

Emotional eating and uncontrolled eating are more common in middle-aged women diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). In particular, psychological distress increased the long-term risk of disordered eating behaviour. This finding is highlighted in a recent study by the University of Oulu and ODL Sports Clinic.
Previous research has shown that young women of reproductive age with PCOS experience more body dissatisfaction and have a risk of binge-eating disorder that is up to three times higher than that of others. The newly published study demonstrates for the first time that disordered eating behaviour is also prevalent among middle-aged women with PCOS.

Particularly, depression and anxiety, previous weight-loss attempts, and perceiving oneself as overweight increased the risk of disordered eating behaviour.
"In the management of PCOS, weight control is often central, but without appropriate support, weight-loss methods can be drastic and, at worst, lead to eating disorders. Weight-related stigma can also exacerbate the situation," says Doctoral Researcher Emilia Pesonen.

Europe faces growing food supply demands and a shortage of non-renewable raw materials for fertilisers. But producing more from available resources is possible, say researchers: "The nutrients we need are before our eyes, ready to be transformed."
European farmers face a monumental dual challenge: increasing food production while meeting daunting deadlines imposed by the green transition. Amid the drive to produce greener, more efficient fertilisers, new technologies seek to squeeze maximum potential from nutrients that have long been imported, but which until now have been under-exploited. “An important part of the nutrients we have been importing for years are here, ready to be transformed and to be given another life,” says Javier Brañas Lasala, Director of Research, Development and Innovation at the Spanish fertiliser producer Fertiberia. Using nutrients from bio-waste to reduce Europe’s dependency on non-renewable raw materials and increase the efficiency of new sustainable fertilisers is one of the main goals of B-Ferst, a 5-year European project he coordinates, due to end this October.

La siccità controllata può aumentare sino al 30 per cento la resa di olio essenziale del rosmarino rendendo questa pianta una candidata ideale per la valorizzazione di terreni agricoli marginali e con limitata disponibilità idrica. Il risultato arriva da uno studio pubblicato sulla rivista Industrial Crops and Products e realizzato dall’Università di Pisa, dall’Istituto Nazionale di Ottica INO-CNR Pisa, dalla Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna e dall’Università Catania. Le sperimentazioni sono state condotte in Sicilia, in aziende agricole della provincia di Ragusa, tra l’autunno del 2022 e la primavera del 2023.

Una ricerca condotta dall’Università di Firenze e dall’Istituto di geoscienze e georisorse del Cnr di Firenze, in collaborazione con varie università internazionali, ha messo in evidenza come l’attività vulcanica della Rift Valley non sia avvenuta in modo continuo bensì ‘a scatti’. Lo studio è stato pubblicato sulla rivista Communications Earth & Environment.

L’attività vulcanica della Rift Valley negli ultimi quattro milioni di anni non è stata costante e continua nel tempo ma è avvenuta ‘a scatti’, ossia con brevi periodi di intensa attività esplosiva
intervallati da periodi di quiete o ridotta attività. È quanto emerge da un lavoro dell’Università di Firenze e dell’Istituto di geoscienze e georisorse del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche di Firenze (Cnr-Igg), in collaborazione con università di Etiopia, Francia e Regno Unito. La ricerca, pubblicata sulla rivista Communications Earth & Environment del gruppo Nature, offre per la prima volta un'analisi dettagliata dell'evoluzione vulcanica della Rift Valley in Etiopia. “Grazie ai dati raccolti durante diverse campagne sul campo e alla datazione in laboratorio dei numerosi campioni di rocce vulcaniche, abbiamo identificato un periodo principale di intensa attività vulcanica tra 3,4 e 3,8 milioni di anni fa, seguito da altre quattro fasi di forte vulcanismo, spiega Giacomo Corti del Cnr-Igg. “In ciascuna di queste fasi sono stati riconosciuti eventi esplosivi di grande entità, alcuni dei quali hanno prodotto depositi vulcanici spessi decine di metri”. Questi eventi hanno avuto un impatto significativo sul paesaggio, trasformando vaste aree e rendendole inospitali per lunghi periodi, con possibili conseguenze sul clima globale.

Quando si studiano le microplastiche c’è il rischio che i risultati siano “inquinati”, per questo è importante che le ricerche siano “plastic free”. Uno studio dell’Università di Pisa appena pubblicato sulla rivista Science of the Total Environment ha posto l’attenzione proprio su questo aspetto con riferimento alle indagini sulle acque sotterranee.

“Lo studio delle microplastiche nelle acque sotterranee è un argomento relativamente nuovo. Per evitare possibili contaminazioni, all’inizio della ricerca abbiamo definito un protocollo di campionamento e trattamento dei campioni assolutamente “plastic free”, come del resto prescritto dalla comunità scientifica – racconta il professore Stefano Viaroli dell’Università di Pisa - Arrivati sul campo però ci siamo trovati di fronte a pozzi e piezometri con rivestimenti e tubazioni in PVC e quindi ci siamo chiesti se e quanto questi elementi plastici potessero compromettere la qualità dell’acqua e i risultati complessivi”.

Research published in Nature Genetics on Oct.14, by Yale Cancer Center researchers at Yale School of Medicine, found a higher concentration of a specific kind of DNA — extrachromosomal or ecDNA — in more aggressive and advanced cancers that could mark them as targets for future therapies.

Using data available from The Cancer Genome Atlas, the International Cancer Genomics Consortium, the Hartwig Medical Foundation, and the Glioma Longitudinal Analysis Consortium, the researchers considered more than 8,000 tumor samples, divided between newly diagnosed untreated tumors and those that had been through previous treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, and others. They found significantly higher amounts of ecDNA in tumors from previously treated patients, leading to the theory that ecDNA might give a survival advantage to those tumors.