Lidocaine poisonings rise despite overall drop in local anesthetic toxicity

UIC researchers have found that poisonings from lidocaine, the most commonly used local anesthetic, increased more than 50% between 2016 and 2020.
Photo Credit: Nappy Studio

Over the last decade, poisonings and deaths linked to the use of local anesthetics have decreased. Even so, poisonings from one commonly used anesthetic, lidocaine, have increased in the United States, according to two new studies from the University of Illinois Chicago.

By analyzing data from reports to national Poison Control Centers and to the Food and Drug Administration from 2010 to 2020, UIC researchers found total reports of poisonings fell 50% in that period. But poisonings from lidocaine increased more than 50% in less than half that time, between 2016 and 2020. The findings are published in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine and the British Journal of Anesthesia.

Local anesthetics, including lidocaine, are widely used in medical care to manage pain before, during and after surgical procedures. General anesthesia acts everywhere in the body and puts patients in a sleep-like state. Local anesthesia controls pain and immobilizes a specific region of the body while a patient remains conscious.

Clam shells sound warning of Atlantic ‘tipping point’

Ocean quahog shells.
Photo Credit Paul Butler

A study of clam shells suggests Atlantic Ocean currents may be approaching a “tipping point”.

Scientists studied records of quahog clams (which can live for over 500 years) and dog cockles – because shell layers provide an annual record of ocean conditions.

They studied these natural archives to understand long-term patterns in Atlantic Ocean currents such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the subpolar gyre (SPG).

Recent studies have debated possible AMOC and SPG tipping points – transitions that would transform climate patterns. For example, AMOC collapse would have far-reaching global effects, from harsher winters in north-west Europe to shifts in global rainfall patterns, while a weakening of the SPG would be less catastrophic but still bring substantial impacts, including more frequent extreme weather in the North Atlantic region.

How Black Holes Produce Powerful Relativistic Jets

A chain of plasmoids is created on the equatorial plane along the current sheet, where the particle density (left part) is higher. Here, magnetic reconnection takes place, accelerating particles to very high energies (right). Particles also reach relativistic speeds along the spin axis and eventually form the jet powered by the Blandford–Znajek mechanism. Gray: Magnetic field lines.
Image Credit: Meringolo, Camilloni, Rezzolla (2025)

A hundred years before the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration released the first image of a black hole in 2019 – located at the heart of the galaxy M87 – astronomer Heber Curtis had already discovered a strange jet protruding from the galaxy’s center. Today, we know this to be the jet of the black hole M87*. Such jets are also emitted by other black holes. Theoretical astrophysicists at Goethe University have now developed a numerical code to describe with high mathematical precision how black holes transform their rotational energy into such ultra-fast jets.

For nearly two centuries, it was unclear that the bright spot in the constellation Virgo, which Charles Messier had described in 1781 as “87: Nebula without stars,” was in fact a very large galaxy. As a result, there was initially no explanation for the strange jet discovered in 1918 emerging from the center of this “nebula.”

At the heart of the giant galaxy M87 lies the black hole M87*, which contains a staggering six and a half billion solar masses and spins rapidly on its axis. Using the energy from this rotation, M87* powers a particle jet expelled at nearly the speed of light, stretching across an immense 5,000 light-years. Such jets are also generated by other rotating black holes. They contribute to disperse energy and matter throughout the universe and can influence the evolution of entire galaxies.

Chemists create red fluorescent dyes that may enable clearer biomedical imaging

Caption:MIT chemists have created a fluorescent, boron-containing molecule that is stable when exposed to air and can emit light in the red and near-infrared range. The dye can be made into crystals (shown in these images), films, or powders. The images at top were taken in ambient light and the images at bottom in UV light.
Image Credit: Courtesy of the researchers
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

MIT chemists have designed a new type of fluorescent molecule that they hope could be used for applications such as generating clearer images of tumors.

The new dye is based on a borenium ion — a positively charged form of boron that can emit light in the red to near-infrared range. Until recently, these ions have been too unstable to be used for imaging or other biomedical applications.

In a study appearing today in Nature Chemistry, the researchers showed that they could stabilize borenium ions by attaching them to a ligand. This approach allowed them to create borenium-containing films, powders, and crystals, all of which emit and absorb light in the red and near-infrared range.

That is important because near-IR light is easier to see when imaging structures deep within tissues, which could allow for clearer images of tumors and other structures in the body.

“One of the reasons why we focus on red to near-IR is because those types of dyes penetrate the body and tissue much better than light in the UV and visible range. Stability and brightness of those red dyes are the challenges that we tried to overcome in this study,” says Robert Gilliard, the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at MIT and the senior author of the study.

Researchers revive yoghurt made from... ants

Photo Credit: David Zilber

An old traditional recipe for yoghurt made from ants has been recreated by researchers at the University of Copenhagen. In a new study, they show how ants and the bacteria that live on them can transform milk into yoghurt. This provides new knowledge about the food traditions of the past and one of today's major food trends, and the study may also inspire new sustainable foods.

Take four live forest ants. Put them in a jar of warm milk. Cover with a piece of cloth, then place the jar in a colony overnight. Voila! Now you have tasty yoghurt. This is how yoghurt was made for generations in many parts of Turkey and the Balkans. Today, the tradition has largely died out. But what is actually the science behind the method? And what can modern research learn from this method?

A team of biologists, food scientists and anthropologists from the University of Copenhagen and DTU, among others, set out to investigate this in collaboration with chefs from the Michelin-starred restaurant The Alchemist. No one has ever described the biology behind this mysterious recipe.

New mechanism revealed: How leukemia cells trick the immune system

Thoas Fioretos, Niklas Landberg, and Carl Sandén are the research team behind the study now being published in Nature Cancer.
Photo Credit: Tove Smeds

A research team at Lund University in Sweden has discovered a mechanism that helps acute myeloid leukemia cells to evade the body’s immune system. By developing an antibody that blocks the mechanism, the researchers could restore the immune system’s ability to kill the cancer cells in laboratory trials and in mice. The discovery is published in Nature Cancer.

Immunotherapy has improved the treatment for many cancers, but progress has been limited in leukemia. Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is particularly intractable, with a five-year survival rate of just over 30 per cent. The existing treatments are often aggressive and may include both strong chemotherapy and stem cell transplantations.

“We wanted to see if we could find surface proteins unique to leukemia stem cells, and which would therefore act as interesting targets for a targeted treatment. If such proteins were not present on healthy blood stem cells it might be possible to attack the tumor – without harming the healthy blood system,” says Thoas Fioretos, research group leader and professor of clinical genetics at Lund University, and senior consultant at Skåne University Hospital.

Scientists Have Created New Lanthanum Complex Promising for Anti-cancer Therapy

Lanthanum complexes demonstrate antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory effect, acceleration of tissue regeneration and anesthesia.
Photo Credit: Louis Reed

As a result of the joint work of an international group of scientists from Russia (Ural Federal University), Bulgaria (Medical University, Sofia), and Spain (Complutense University of Madrid, Rey Juan Carlos University), a new lanthanum (III) complex with a luminescent triazole ligand has been obtained that is able to selectively regulate the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cells. The result opens up prospects for the development of new anti-cancer and anti-infective drugs. The interim results of the study were published in the journal Molecules.

“New lanthanum complexes demonstrate a wide range of biological effects such as antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory effect, acceleration of tissue regeneration and anesthesia. In a study that we conducted together with biologists from the Medical University of Sofia, we found out that both lanthanum complexes of La(III) and free organic ligands can affect the level of reactive oxygen species. At the same time, we found that they have a dual effect: in some tests, they act as antioxidants, protecting healthy cells, in others, as pro-oxidants, contributing to the death of tumor cells. This specific focus of action makes them promising candidates for the development of new drugs for cancer,” said Natalia Belskaya, Professor at UrFU Department of Technology pf Organic Synthesis.

Finding treasures with physics: the fingerprint matrix

Left: Artistic impression of metal spheres buried in small glass beads. Middle: Conventional ultrasound picture. Right: With the new technology, the positions of the metal spheres can be precisely determined.
Image Credit: © TU Wien / Arthur Le Ber

How do you find objects buried in sand or hidden in thick fog? A team from the Institut Langevin (Paris) and TU Wien (Vienna) has developed an astonishing method.

Can we reveal objects that are hidden in environments completely opaque to the human eye? With conventional imaging techniques, the answer is no: a dense cloud or layer of material blocks light so completely that a simple photograph contains no information about what lies behind it.

However, a research collaboration between the Institut Langevin and TU Wien has now shown that, with the help of innovative mathematical tricks, objects can be detected even in such cases – using what is known as the ‘fingerprint matrix’. The team tested the newly developed method on metal objects buried in sand and in applications in the field of medical imaging. A joint publication on this topic has just appeared in the journal Nature Physics.

Rare glimpse at understudied ecosystem prompts caution on deep-sea mining

Some of the animals identified in the deep-sea that spend their life in the benthic boundary layer.
Photo Credit: Gabrielle Ellis

Scientific Frontline: Extended "At a Glance" Summary: The Abyssal Benthic Boundary Layer

The Core Concept: The abyssal benthic boundary layer is an enormous, poorly understood marine region located just a few meters above the global ocean seafloor. It hosts a dynamic community of tiny organisms, such as zooplankton, snails, bivalves, and barnacles, forming a crucial and interconnected component of the broader deep-sea ecosystem.

Key Distinction/Mechanism: Unlike the historical assumption that the deep abyss is a largely static environment, the benthic boundary layer is highly responsive to seasonal changes. The ecosystem is driven by the varying levels of organic material (food) sinking from the productive surface waters above, resulting in stark structural changes to the biological community between spring and fall.

Major Frameworks/Components:

• Organic Matter Flux: The dependence of the deep-sea benthic community on the downward transfer of organic material from the surface ocean.
• Temporal Dynamics: The significant seasonal variations in the community structure of deep-sea zooplankton based on surface productivity.
• Larval Dispersal Pathway: The boundary layer functions as a critical transit zone and habitat for the larvae of wide-ranging abyssal species before they settle on the seafloor.
• Anthropogenic Disruption: The mechanisms by which deep-sea mining harms the ecosystem, including ambient water removal, sediment plumes that interfere with filter-feeding, and the removal of polymetallic nodules that serve as essential settling habitats for larvae.

Sudan Ebola virus can persist in survivors for months

Image Credit: AI Generated

More than half of survivors of the Sudan Ebola virus still suffer serious health problems two years post-infection and the virus can persist in semen and breast milk for months after recovery, according to the first study examining the virus’s long-term effects.

The study, led by researchers at Washington State University, found 57.5% of the survivors of an outbreak in Uganda from 2022–23 reported ongoing and debilitating health issues that interfered with their daily lives. The detection of traces of the virus in semen and breast milk also raised concerns about the potential for sexual and mother-to-child transmission. The findings were recently published in the journal BMC Medicine.

“This is the first time anyone has been able to closely follow Sudan Ebola survivors over the long term, and the results show the virus continues to affect people’s lives well after an outbreak ends,” said lead researcher Kariuki Njenga, a professor in the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Health and senior scientist at WSU Global Health – Kenya. “Just as concerning is the fact we detected the virus in semen and breast milk, which shows there is a risk survivors could pass on Ebola months after recovery.”