Controlling prostheses with the power of thought

 A neuroprosthesis. Artificial hands, arms, or legs can restore mobility to people with disabilities. The study investigated how the brain learns to control such prostheses via brain-computer interfaces.
Image Credit: © Sebastian Lehmann

Researchers at the German Primate Center (DPZ) – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research in Göttingen have discovered that the brain reorganizes itself extensively across several brain regions when it learns to perform movements in a virtual environment with the help of a brain-computer interface. The scientists were thus able to show how the brain adapts when controlling motor prostheses. The findings not only help to advance the development of brain-computer interfaces, but also improve our understanding of the fundamental neural processes underlying motor learning.

In order to perform precise movements, our brain's motor system must continuously recalibrate itself. If we want to shoot a basketball, this works well with a familiar basketball, but requires extra practice with a lighter or heavier ball. Our brain uses the deviations from the expected (throw) result as an error signal to learn better commands for the next throw. The brain must also perform this task when it wants to control a movement via a brain-computer interface (BCI), for example, that of a neuroprosthesis. Until now, it was unclear which regions of the brain reflect the expected result of the movement (the trajectory of the ball), which reflect the error signal, and which reflect the corrected movement command that aims to compensate for the previous error.

The Quantum Door Mystery: Electrons That Can’t Find the Exit

Photo Credit: © Technische Universität Wien

What happens when electrons leave a solid material? This seemingly simple phenomenon has eluded accurate theoretical description until now. Researchers have found the missing piece of the puzzle.

Imagine a frog sitting inside a box. The box has a large opening at a certain height. Can the frog escape? That depends on how much energy it has: if it can jump high enough, it could in principle make it out. But whether it actually succeeds is another question. The height of the jump alone isn’t enough — the frog also needs to jump through the opening.

A similar situation arises with electrons inside a solid. When given a bit of extra energy — for example, by bombarding the material with additional electrons — they may be able to escape from the material. This effect has been known for many years and is widely used in technology. But surprisingly, it has never been possible to calculate this process accurately. A collaboration between several research groups at TU Wien has now solved this mystery: just like the frog, it’s not only the energy that matters — the electron also needs to find the right “exit,” a so-called “doorway state.”

Important phenomenon discovered in the Arctic – could boost marine life

Measurements of nitrogen fixation in the Arctic Ocean aboard RV Polarstern
Photo Credit: Rebecca Duncan

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have discovered an important phenomenon beneath the Arctic sea ice that was previously thought impossible. This phenomenon could have implications for the food chain and the carbon budget in the cold north.

The shrinking sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is, overall, a disaster. But paradoxically, the melting of the ice can also fuel the engine of the Arctic food chains: algae.

Algae are the main food source for life in the sea, but they need nitrogen to grow. And nitrogen is in short supply in the Arctic Ocean. However, a new international study led by the University of Copenhagen indicates there will probably be more of it in the future than previously thought. This could change the future prospects for marine life in the High North and possibly for the carbon budget.

Scientists Confirmed That a "Terrible" Hyena Lived in the Territory of the Modern Caucasus

The scientists used morphometric and morphological analysis of teeth.
Photo Credit: Daniyar Khantemirov

Ural scientists with colleagues from China and Azerbaijan have established that "terrible" hyenas (Dinocrocuta gigantea) lived in the territory of the modern Caucasus 10-9 million years ago. This fact was confirmed by studying jaw fragments that were found in the Upper Miocene site of Eldari, Azerbaijan. The researchers published a description and photographs of the fragments in the journal Palaeoworld.

"In our work, the Dinocrocute hyenas from the Caucasus are described for the first time. Other finds of this species are described from Southern Europe or Northern China. In other words, our finding fills a gap in understanding the distribution of dinocrocutes, which were one of the key predators in the faunas of the Miocene, a geological epoch from 23 to 5 million years before our time," explains Daniyar Khantemirov, co-author of the work, laboratory researcher at the UrFU Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in Humanitarian Research.

ADC Improves Outcomes for Patients with Advanced Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Who are Ineligible for Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

Dr. Sara Tolaney, chief of the Division of Breast Oncology at Dana-Farber, is the senior author on the ASCENT-03 study.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Patients with an aggressive form of breast cancer who are not candidates for immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy showed significantly improved progression-free survival when treated with the antibody drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan compared to standard chemotherapy. These findings, which stem from the ASCENT-03 trial in triple-negative breast cancer co-led by investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, are presented today at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2025 in Berlin, Germany. They are also published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for about 15% of all breast cancer cases and is often difficult to treat. The 5-year survival rate for patients with metastatic disease is about 15%. Moreover, around 60% of patients with metastatic TNBC have tumors that lack the molecular marker PD-L1. This absence indicates the tumors will not respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors. For most patients with previously untreated TNBC, chemotherapy is the primary treatment option.

TeraCopy Pro

TeraCopy is a long-standing utility for Windows and macOS designed to replace the native file copy and move functions. Its primary goals are to provide superior speed, reliability, and control over file transfers. While the free version offers robust features for personal use, TeraCopy Pro unlocks the full suite of tools for power users, data professionals, and commercial environments.

Core Functionality (Free & Pro)

The main reason anyone seeks out TeraCopy is to overcome the limitations of the default Windows file handler. Here’s what it does best:

What Is: Extinction Level Events

A Chronicle of Earth's Biotic Crises and an Assessment of Future Threats
Image Credit: Scientific Frontline

Defining Biotic Catastrophe

The history of life on Earth is a story of breathtaking diversification and innovation, but it is punctuated by chapters of profound crisis. These are the extinction level events—catastrophes of such magnitude that they fundamentally reset the planet's biological clock. Popular imagination often pictures a single, sudden event, like the asteroid that sealed the fate of the dinosaurs. The geological reality, however, is more complex and, in many ways, more instructive for our current era. Understanding these events requires a rigorous scientific framework that moves beyond simple notions of species loss to appreciate the systemic collapse of entire global ecosystems.

A New Study Indicates Forest Regeneration Provides Climate Benefits, but Won’t Offset Fossil Fuels

Forest regrowth after 5 years since agricultural abandonment near Pucallpa, Ucayali, Peru.
Photo Credit: Jorge Vela Alvarado, Universidad Nacional de Ucayali

When farmland is abandoned and allowed to return to nature, forests and grasslands naturally regrow and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—helping fight climate change. However, a new study in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, led by scientists at Columbia University, reveals an important wrinkle in this story: these regenerating ecosystems also release other greenhouse gases that reduce some of their climate benefits. The good news? Even accounting for these other gases, letting land regenerate naturally still provides important climate benefits compared with keeping it in agriculture.

Lead author Savannah S. Cooley, a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center and a recent PhD graduate of Columbia’s Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology program, and her team of co-authors analyzed data from 115 studies worldwide to understand how forests and grasslands affect the climate through three key greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. While previous research focused mainly on carbon dioxide absorption by growing trees, this study examined a more complete picture.

How origami robots with magnetic muscles could make medicine delivery less invasive and more effective

A crawling robot created with the Miura-Ori origami pattern. The dark areas are covered in a thin magnetic rubber film which allows the robot to move.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of North Carolina State University

A new 3-D printing technique can create paper-thin “magnetic muscles,” which can be applied to origami structures to make them move.

By infusing rubber-like elastomers with materials called ferromagnetic particles, researchers at North Carolina State University 3-D printed a thin magnetic film which can be applied to origami structures. When exposed to magnetism, the films acted as actuators which caused the system to move, without interfering with the origami structure’s motion.

"This type of soft magnet is unique in how little space it takes up," said Xiaomeng Fang, assistant professor in the Wilson College of Textiles and lead author of a paper on the technique.

“Traditionally, magnetic actuators use the kinds of small rigid magnets you might put on your refrigerator. You place those magnets on the surface of the soft robot, and they would make it move,” she said. “With this technique, we can print a thin film which we can place directly onto the important parts of the origami robot without reducing its surface area much.”

Broad-Bayer collaboration leads to drug candidate for a hard-to-treat type of lung cancer

Broad Communications Scientists in the Broad-Bayer oncology alliance have developed a drug candidate, sevabertinib, that could be a new lung cancer treatment.
Illustration Credit: Agnieszka Grosso

An alliance of scientists at the Broad Institute and Bayer Pharmaceuticals have developed a drug candidate, sevabertinib, that could be a new treatment for a group of lung cancer patients who have few options today.

In a new study published in Cancer Discovery, the team described their efforts to develop sevabertinib. They tested the compound in various lung cancer models and showed its potential to treat non-small cell lung cancers that harbor certain mutations in the ERBB2 gene, which encodes the HER2 protein. These mutations occur in 2 to 4 percent of patients with non-small cell lung cancer, or roughly 40,000 to 50,000 people diagnosed globally each year. These patients tend to be women, including those who are younger, have never smoked, and have a poor prognosis. 

The study also reported data from two participants in Bayer’s phase 1/2 clinical trial of the compound. Based on these findings and other data from this ongoing clinical trial, the drug candidate is currently under Priority Review at the FDA, an expedited review of therapies that treat serious conditions. If approved, it would be the first FDA-approved cancer drug based on Broad discoveries, and the first new medicine from the Broad-Bayer oncology research alliance.