U.S. president Donald Trump called Daylight Saving Time "very costly to our nation" and "inconvenient" in December. Today the Washington Post remembers he'd vowed his Republican party would use their "best efforts" to eliminate it.

But it's still proving to be politically difficult... Polls have shown that most Americans oppose the time shifts but disagree on what should replace them... [U.S. political leaders] also say they are grappling with whether the nation should permanently move the clocks forward one hour, an idea championed by lawmakers on the coasts who say it would allow for more sunshine during the winter, or remain on year-round standard time, which is favored by neurologists who say it aligns with our circadian rhythms. That decision would rest with Congress, not the president. The split often reflects regional, not political, differences, based on where time zones fall; a year-round "spring forward" would mean winter sunrises that could creep past 9 a.m. in cities such as Indianapolis and Detroit, prompting many local lawmakers to oppose the idea...

[A 2022 Senate vote to make Daylight Saving Time permanent] awoke a new lobbying effort from advocates such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which warned that year-round daylight saving time would be unhealthy, citing risks such as higher rates of obesity or metabolic dysfunction. Some researchers warned of a condition dubbed "social jetlag," saying that internal body clocks and rhythms would be persistently misaligned if human clocks were permanently set forward an hour. The concerted resistance from the health groups — which some congressional aides jokingly referred to as "Big Sleep" — helped kill the measure in the House and has contributed to a stalemate over how to proceed...

Today, roughly two-thirds of Americans want to end the clock changes, polls show. But even those Americans don't agree on what should come next. An October 2023 YouGov poll found that 33 percent of respondents wanted year-round daylight saving time, 23 percent wanted permanent standard time, and 9 percent had no preference. The remainder weren't sure or preferred to remain on the current system... The political fight is far from over, with Trump allies such as Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) pledging to keep pushing for year-round daylight saving time. Some congressional Republicans also have privately called for a hearing in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with hopes of advancing the Sunshine Protection Act.

Australian company Cortical Labs has launched the CL1, the world's first commercial "biological computer" that merges human brain cells with silicon hardware to form adaptable, energy-efficient neural networks. New Atlas reports: Known as a Synthetic Biological Intelligence (SBI), Cortical's CL1 system was officially launched in Barcelona on March 2, 2025, and is expected to be a game-changer for science and medical research. The human-cell neural networks that form on the silicon "chip" are essentially an ever-evolving organic computer, and the engineers behind it say it learns so quickly and flexibly that it completely outpaces the silicon-based AI chips used to train existing large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.

"Today is the culmination of a vision that has powered Cortical Labs for almost six years," said Cortical founder and CEO Dr Hon Weng Chong. "We've enjoyed a series of critical breakthroughs in recent years, most notably our research in the journal Neuron, through which cultures were embedded in a simulated game-world, and were provided with electrophysiological stimulation and recording to mimic the arcade game Pong. However, our long-term mission has been to democratize this technology, making it accessible to researchers without specialized hardware and software. The CL1 is the realization of that mission." He added that while this is a groundbreaking step forward, the full extent of the SBI system won't be seen until it's in users' hands.

"We're offering 'Wetware-as-a-Service' (WaaS)," he added -- customers will be able to buy the CL-1 biocomputer outright, or simply buy time on the chips, accessing them remotely to work with the cultured cell technology via the cloud. "This platform will enable the millions of researchers, innovators and big-thinkers around the world to turn the CL1's potential into tangible, real-word impact. We'll provide the platform and support for them to invest in R&D and drive new breakthroughs and research." These remarkable brain-cell biocomputers could revolutionize everything from drug discovery and clinical testing to how robotic "intelligence" is built, allowing unlimited personalization depending on need. The CL1, which will be widely available in the second half of 2025, is an enormous achievement for Cortical -- and as New Atlas saw recently with a visit to the company's Melbourne headquarters -- the potential here is much more far-reaching than Pong. [...]

San Francisco-based biotech startup Loyal says a drug it developed to increase dogs' lifespan "has passed a significant milestone on the way to regulatory approval," reports the Washington Post: The Food and Drug Administration certified the daily pill as having a "reasonable expectation of effectiveness" at extending senior dogs' lifespans. The regulator's Center for Veterinary Medicine still has to certify that the drug is safe and that Loyal can manufacture it at scale before vets can prescribe the pill to dogs 10 years or older that weigh 14 pounds or more. Loyal's CEO, Celine Halioua, estimates that the process should be complete by the end of 2025 and called the FDA's initial recognition "a key step" to extending dogs' lives...

In the past decade, a subculture of tech entrepreneurship has focused on helping people stave off death, hawking custom-made dietary supplements and $2,500 full-body MRIs and investing in the development of antiaging drugs, among many other efforts. According to data firm Pitchbook, about $900 million in venture capital has been poured into antiaging and longevity start-ups in the past 12 months. Loyal has raised more than $150 million in venture funding since its 2019 founding to develop lifespan-extending drugs initially focused on canines.

Launching veterinary drugs is in some ways easier than winning approval for human treatments. Because dogs and humans have evolved alongside one another, Halioua hopes to eventually apply her findings about pets to help prolong their owners' lives. "If we can successfully delay the onset and severity of age-related diseases in dogs, it's extremely compelling evidence that it will also do that in humans," Halioua said. The biological processes of aging unfold faster in dogs because they live such short lives, she said, helping researchers and entrepreneurs probe how they work.
"Loyal's pill is a result of research into how to mimic the life-extending benefit of caloric restriction without the appetite suppression," according to the article, "and without the need for an owner to restrict their dog's food.

"The drug aims to improve a dog's metabolic fitness, or the body's ability to convert nutrients into energy and regulate hormones, which declines in humans and canines with age..."

Google has received FDA clearance for the Pixel Watch 3's Loss of Pulse Detection feature, which will start rolling out to U.S. devices around the end of March. The Verge reports: The Loss of Pulse Detection feature is exactly what it sounds like: if the Pixel Watch 3 senses that you've lost your pulse through an event like a heart attack or an overdose, it'll send you a prompt. If you don't respond, it'll automatically call emergency services on your behalf. Back in August, Sandeep Waraich, Google's senior director of product manager for Pixel wearables, told The Verge that the Pixel Watch 3 is capable of differentiating between a genuine loss-of-pulse event and a person simply taking the watch off.

New research suggests that anthocyanins, the antioxidants responsible for the vibrant colors of fruits and flowers, may help counteract reproductive harm caused by microplastics. The Guardian reports: The new review of scientific literature on anthocyanins found that the compounds are probably protective against a range of plastic-induced impacts on hormones, reductions in testosterone and estrogen, decreased sperm counts, lower sperm quality, erectile dysfunction and ovarian damage. [...] Researchers said that mice exposed to microplastics, then treated with anthocyanins, showed increased sperm quality, including increased sperm count and motility, and the antioxidants overall reduced testicular damage. The new paper also pointed to research that found some microplastics reduce testosterone levels because they harm Leydig cells, which are responsible for the hormone's production. Anthocyanins seem to helped restore testosterone production and protect Leydig cells.

In women, impacts on fertility and sexual development could be mitigated by anthocyanins that seem to protect hormone receptors from plastic chemicals such as bisphenol, phthalates and cadmium. The chemicals can mimic hormones, or cause hormonal responses. Microplastics in ovarian tissue cause inflammation that seems to lower levels of estrogen and other hormones. Research found that treating rats exposed to microplastics protected the ovarian tissue and normalized levels of estrogen and other hormones. "Its antioxidant properties help preserve ovarian function and potentially maintain fertility, highlighting its therapeutic potential in managing ovarian damage," the authors wrote.

A new AI tool developed by Google solved a decade-long superbug mystery in just two days, reaching the same conclusion as Professor Jose R Penades' unpublished research and even offering additional, promising hypotheses. The BBC reports: The researchers have been trying to find out how some superbugs - dangerous germs that are resistant to antibiotics - get created. Their hypothesis is that the superbugs can form a tail from different viruses which allows them to spread between species. Prof Penades likened it to the superbugs having "keys" which enabled them to move from home to home, or host species to host species.

Critically, this hypothesis was unique to the research team and had not been published anywhere else. Nobody in the team had shared their findings. So Mr Penades was happy to use this to test Google's new AI tool. Just two days later, the AI returned a few hypotheses - and its first thought, the top answer provided, suggested superbugs may take tails in exactly the way his research described.

A two-and-a-half-year-old girl shows no signs of a rare genetic disorder, after becoming the first person to be treated for the motor-neuron condition while in the womb. Nature: The child's mother took the gene-targeting drug during late pregnancy, and the child continues to take it. The "baby has been effectively treated, with no manifestations of the condition," says Michelle Farrar, a paediatric neurologist at UNSW Sydney in Australia. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday. The child was conceived with a genetic condition known as spinal muscular atrophy, which affects motor neurons that control movement, and leads to progressive muscle weakening.

About one in every 10,000 births have some form of the condition -- making it a leading genetic cause of death in infants and children. In its most severe form, as in the case of this child, individuals lack both copies of the SMN1 gene, and have only one or two copies of a neighbouring gene, SMN2, that partially compensates for that deficiency. As a result, the body does not produce enough of the protein required for maintaining motor neurons in the spinal cord and brainstem. This protein is most important in the second and third trimesters, and the first few months of life. Babies with severe disease don't usually live past their third birthday.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: New research by Purdue University, the latest in a series of Purdue-led studies, examined how scented products -- in this case, flame-free candles -- are a significant source of nanosized particles small enough to get deep into your lungs, posing a potential risk to respiratory health [...] Scented wax melts are marketed as a flameless, smoke-free, non-toxic alternative to traditional candles, a safer way of making your home or office smell nice. To assess the truth of these claims, the researchers comprehensively measured the nanoparticles formed when they warmed wax melts in their mechanically ventilated test house. The tiny house is actually an architectural engineering laboratory called the Purdue Zero Energy Design Guidance for Engineers (zEDGE) lab. Designed and engineered to test the energy efficiency of a larger building, it's full of sensors that monitor the impact of everyday activities on indoor air quality.

The researchers knew from their previous research that new nanoparticle formation was initiated by terpenes -- aromatic compounds that determine the smell of things like plants and herbs -- released from the melts and reacting with indoor atmospheric ozone (O3). They'd found that activities such as mopping the floor with a terpene-rich cleaning agent, using a citrus-scented air freshener, or applying scented personal care products like deodorant inside the zEDGE house resulted in pulsed terpene emissions to the indoor air within five minutes. Conversely, using essential oil diffusers or peeling citrus fruits caused a more gradual increase in terpenes.

In the present study, heating the scented wax contributed significantly to the number of new particles formed in the indoor air, particularly those smaller than 100 nanometers (nm). The resulting atmospheric concentrations were over one million nanoparticles per cubic centimeter (106 cm-3), which is comparable to concentrations emitted by traditional lighted candles (106 cm-3), gas stoves (105 - 107 cm-3), diesel engines (103 - 106 cm-3), and natural gas engines (106 - 107 cm-3). By comparison, there were no significant terpene emissions when unscented wax melts were heated. The researchers also examined respiratory tract deposited dose rates (RD), a useful way of studying air pollution that measures the number of particles deposited in the respiratory tract over time. They found that the new particle formation triggered by using scented wax melts indoors produced a median RD for 1.18 to 100 nm particles of 29 billion per minute (2.9 x 1010 min-1). That's about 483 million particles per second. The majority of scented-wax-melt-formed particles were deposited in the upper airways. Their small size means they can migrate between cells and enter the bloodstream, potentially reaching organs such as the brain. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

Can the iPhone, AirPods, or the Apple Watch play a role in improving health? Apple says they want to find out.

"In medical research, discoveries are often limited by the number of participants who can be recruited, the amount of data that can be captured, and the duration of a given study," the company said in a blog post this week. "But Apple devices expand the possibilities..." This new longitudinal, virtual study aims to understand how data from technology — including Apple and third-party devices — can be used to predict, detect, monitor, and manage changes in participants' health. Additionally, researchers will explore connections across different areas of health.
CNBC reports: The new study will likely influence future product development. Apple CEO Tim Cook previously said he believes health features will be the company's "most important contribution to mankind...."

The Apple Health Study will be available through the company's Research app, and participation is voluntary. Users will select each data type they are willing to share with researchers, and they can stop sharing or completely discontinue their participation at any time. Apple has no access to participants' identifiable information, the company said... The project will last at least five years and may expand beyond that.
A Harvard Medical School professor and cardiologist — also a principal investigator on the Apple Health Study — says "We've only just begun to scratch the surface of how technology can improve our understanding of human health."

A new study suggests that frequent consumption of food from plastic takeout containers significantly increases the risk of congestive heart failure due to gut biome changes that trigger inflammation and circulatory damage. The Guardian reports: The authors used a two-part approach, first looking into the frequency with which over 3,000 people in China ate from plastic takeout containers, and whether they had heart disease. They then exposed rats to plastic chemicals in water that was boiled and poured in carryout containers to extract chemicals. "The data revealed that high-frequency exposure to plastics is significantly associated with an increased risk of congestive heart failure," the authors wrote. [...] They put boiling water in the containers for one, five or 15 minutes because plastic chemicals leach at much higher rates when hot contents are placed in containers -- the study cited previous research that found as many as 4.2m microplastic particles per sq cm can leach from plastic containers that are microwaved.

The authors then gave rats the water contaminated with leachate to drink for several months, then analyzed the gut biome and metabolites in the feces. It found notable changes. "It indicated that ingestion of these leachates altered the intestinal microenvironment, affected gut microbiota composition, and modified gut microbiota metabolites, particularly those linked to inflammation and oxidative stress," the authors wrote. They then checked the rats' heart muscle tissue and found it had been damaged. The study did not find a statistical difference in the changes and damage among rats that were exposed to water that had been in contact with plastic for one minute versus five or fifteen. The study has been published in the journal Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Hospital Sisters Health System notified over 882,000 patients that an August 2023 cyberattack led to a data breach that exposed their personal and health information. Established in 1875, HSHS works with over 2,200 physicians and has around 12,000 employees. It also operates a network of physician practices and 15 local hospitals across Illinois and Wisconsin, including two children's hospitals. The non-profit healthcare system said in data breach notifications sent to those impacted that the incident was discovered on August 27, 2023, after detecting that the attacker had gained access to HSHS' network.

After the security breach, its systems were also impacted by a widespread outage that took down "virtually all operating systems" and phone systems across Illinois and Wisconsin hospitals. HSHS also hired external security experts to investigate the attack, assess its impact, and help its IT team restore affected systems. [...] While the incident and the resulting outage have all the signs of a ransomware attack, no ransomware operation has claimed the breach. Following the forensic investigation, HSHS found that the attackers had accessed files on compromised systems between August 16 and August 27, 2023.

The information accessed by the threat actors while inside HSHS' systems varies for each impacted individual, and it includes a combination of name, address, date of birth, medical record number, limited treatment information, health insurance information, Social Security number, and/or driver's license number. While HSHS added that there is no evidence that the victims' information has been used in fraud or identity theft attempts, it warned affected individuals to monitor their account statements and credit reports for suspicious activity. The health system also offers those affected by the breach one year of free Equifax credit monitoring.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In the most comprehensive study of its kind, scientists have found that generally, the world feels brighter when you wake up. People start the day in the best frame of mind in the morning, but end in the worst, at about midnight, the findings suggest, with the day of the week and the season also playing a part. Mental health also tends to be more varied at weekends but steadier during the week, according to the study led by University College London. "Generally, things do seem better in the morning," the researchers concluded. Their findings were published in the journal BMJ Mental Health. [...]

The results showed that happiness, life satisfaction, and worthwhile ratings were all higher on Mondays and Fridays than on Sundays, while happiness was also higher on Tuesdays. There was no evidence that loneliness differed across days of the week. There was clear evidence of a seasonal influence on mood. Compared with winter, people tended to have lower levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and loneliness, and higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction and feeling that life was worthwhile in the three other seasons. Mental health was best in the summer across all outcomes. But the season didn't affect the associations observed across the day, however. Scientists suggest that the findings may be due to physiological changes linked to the body's circadian rhythm. Cortisol, a hormone that influences mood and motivation, peaks after waking and declines by bedtime, which may contribute to better mental health earlier in the day.

Factors like sleep cycles, weather, and when participants chose to respond to the survey could have influenced the findings. There's also the differences between weekdays and weekends, which have their own variations in daily routines.

Scientists have grown tooth-like structures using a combination of pig and human cells, marking a step toward potential alternatives to dental implants, researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine reported.

The team, led by Pamela Yelick and Weibo Zhang, cultivated the structures by seeding cells into pig tooth scaffolds and implanting them in mini pigs' jaws. After two months, the bioengineered teeth developed hard tissue layers similar to natural teeth, including dentin and cementum. While not yet fully formed teeth, the structures could eventually lead to living replacements for lost teeth, addressing limitations of current titanium implants.

Scientists are making significant advances in developing artificial blood substitutes, with two promising approaches emerging in 2025, the New Yorker reports. At the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Center for Blood Oxygen Transport and Hemostasis, researchers are testing ErythroMer, a synthetic nanoparticle that mimics red blood cells' oxygen-carrying capabilities. Simultaneously, the UK's National Health Service is conducting the first human trials of lab-grown blood cells.

These developments address critical blood shortages - of the 38% of Americans eligible to donate, less than 3% do so regularly. Traditional donated blood also has significant limitations: platelets last only 5 days, red blood cells 42 days, and all require careful refrigeration and blood-type matching. DARPA awarded $46 million in early 2023 to develop ErythroMer, seeing potential for battlefield medicine where traditional blood storage isn't feasible.

The synthetic blood can be stored as a powder and reconstituted when needed. There are still a lot of challenges, the report adds. The lab-grown blood currently costs about $75,000 per syringe compared to around $200 for a pint of donated blood, and production is limited to small quantities.

The proportion of people being diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked is increasing, with air pollution an "important factor," the World Health Organization's cancer agency has said. From a report: Lung cancer in people who have never smoked cigarettes or tobacco is now estimated to be the fifth highest cause of cancer deaths worldwide, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Lung cancer in never-smokers is also occurring almost exclusively as adenocarcinoma, which has become the most dominant of the four main subtypes of the disease in both men and women globally, the IARC said.

About 200,000 cases of adenocarcinoma were associated with exposure to air pollution in 2022, according to the IARC study published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal. The largest burden of adenocarcinoma attributable to air pollution was found in east Asia, particularly China, the study found.

Bruce66423 shares a report from the Associated Press: Federal officials on Thursday approved a new type of pain pill designed to eliminate the risks of addiction and overdose associated with opioid medications such as Vicodin and OxyContin. "It's the first new pharmaceutical approach to treating pain in more than 20 years, offering an alternative to opioids and over-the-counter medications such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen. But the medication's modest effectiveness and lengthy development process underscore the challenges of finding new ways to manage pain.

Studies in more than 870 patients with acute pain due to foot and abdominal surgeries showed Vertex's drug provided more relief than a dummy pill but didn't outperform a common opioid-acetaminophen combination pill. "It's not a slam dunk on effectiveness," said Michael Schuh of the Mayo Clinic, a pharmacist and pain medicine expert who was not involved in the research. "But it is a slam dunk in that it's a very different pathway and mechanism of action. So, I think that shows a lot promise." The new drug will carry a list price of $15.50 per pill, making it many times more expensive than comparable opioids, which are often available as generics for $1 or less. [...]

Opioids reduce pain by binding to receptors in the brain that receive nerve signals from different parts of the body. Those chemical interactions also give rise to opioids' addictive effects. Vertex's drug works differently, blocking proteins that trigger pain signals that are later sent to the brain. "In trying to develop medicines that don't have the addictive risks of opioid medicines, a key factor is working to block pain signaling before it gets to the brain," Vertex's Dr. David Altshuler, told The Associated Press last year. Commonly reported side effects with the drug were nausea, constipation, itching, rash and headache.

A study has found microplastic and nanoplastic pollution to be significantly higher in placentas from premature births than in those from full-term births. From a report: The levels were much higher than previously detected in blood, suggesting the tiny plastic particles were accumulating in the placenta. But the higher average levels found in the shorter pregnancies were a "big surprise" for the researchers, as longer terms could be expected to lead to more accumulation.

Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant death worldwide, and the reasons for about two-thirds of all preterm births were unknown, said Dr Enrico Barrozo, of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, US. The established link between air pollution and millions of premature births had spurred the research team to investigate plastic pollution.

The new study only demonstrates an association between microplastics and premature births. Further research is needed in cell cultures and animal models to determine if the link is causal. Microplastics are known to cause inflammation in human cells, and inflammation is one of the factors that prompts the start of labour.

Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more people in Europe by the end of the century, a study has found, with the lives lost to stronger heat projected to outnumber those saved from milder cold. From a report: The researchers estimated an extra 8,000 people would die each year as a result of "suboptimal temperatures" even under the most optimistic scenario for cutting planet-heating pollution. The hottest plausible scenario they considered showed a net increase of 80,000 temperature-related deaths a year.

The findings challenge an argument popular among those who say global heating is good for society because fewer people will die from cold weather. "We wanted to test this," said Pierre Masselot, a statistician at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and lead author of the study. "And we show clearly that we will see a net increase in temperature-related deaths under climate change." The study builds on previous research in which the scientists linked temperature to mortality rates for different age groups in 854 cities across Europe. They combined these with three climate scenarios that map possible changes in population structure and temperature over the century.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: This year, artificial intelligence will be dominated by the maturation of AI code as corporate "workers" that can take over corporate processes and be managed just like employees, according to a year-outlook blog post disseminated by investment bank Goldman Sachs featuring its chief information officer, Marco Argenti. "The capabilities of AI models to plan and execute complex, long-running tasks on humans' behalf will begin to mature," writes Argenti. "This will create the conditions for companies to eventually 'employ' and train AI workers to be part of hybrid teams of humans and AIs working together."

"There's a great opportunity for capital to move towards the application layer, the toolset layer," says Goldman Sachs CIO Marco Argenti. "I think we will see that shift happening, most likely as early as next year." Argenti predicts that corporate HR offices will have to manage "human and machine resources," and there may even be AI "layoffs" as programs are replaced by more highly capable versions. [...]

Among other predictions offered by Argenti is that the most-capable AI models will be like PhD graduates -- so-called expert AI systems that have "industry-specific knowledge" for finance, medicine, etc. [...] "The intersection of LLMs and robotics will increasingly bring AI into, and enable it to experience, the physical world, which will help enable reasoning capabilities for AI," he writes. Argenti sees "responsible AI" increasing in importance as a board-room priority in 2025, and, in something of a repeat of last year's predictions, he expects that the largest generative AI models -- the "frontier" models of OpenAI and others -- will become the province of only a handful of institutions with budgets large enough to pursue their enormous training costs. That is the "Formula One" version of AI, where the "engines" of AI are made by a handful of powerful providers. Everyone else will work on smaller-model development, Argenti predicts. Further reading: Nvidia's Huang Says That IT Will 'Become the HR of AI Agents'

By 2060, around one million Americans may develop dementia annually, with the lifetime risk after age 55 estimated at 42% and rising sharply with age. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Medicine. Scientific American reports: The latest forecast suggests a massive and harrowing increase from annual cases predicted for 2020, in which approximately 514,000 adults in the U.S. were estimated to be diagnosed with dementia -- an umbrella term that describes several neurological conditions that affect memory and cognition.

The new study also showed the lifetime risk of dementia increased progressively with older age. They estimated that after age 55, the lifetime risk of dementia is 42 percent, and continues to rise sharply to 56 percent after age 85. Groups that showed greater lifetime risks (between 44 and 59 percent after age 55) were Black adults, women and people who carried the allele APOE e4: this variation of the gene APOE, which codes for the protein apolipoprotein E, increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia, but the study focused on all forms.