Senior palace aide drops new update on King Charles’ health
A senior palace aide has dropped an update on King Charles health as he praised the monarch for still fulfilling royal duties while undergoing cancer treatment.
Even though the Buckingham Palace has kept details about the monarch’s health private, an official revealed that Charles is responding well to treatment.
At the annual Sovereign Grant briefing, James Chalmers, the monarch’s new Keeper of the Privy Purse, revealed that the King has managed to keep up with many constitutional duties, including regular meetings and state responsibilities.
“The King demonstrated remarkable resilience by undertaking a wide programme of public and state duties at home and overseas while continuing to receive treatment,” Chalmers said.
He further described the past financial year as “something of a return to normal business after the health challenges faced by members of the family in the previous fiscal year.”
“Indeed, by happenstance, the period to which this Sovereign Grant Report relates correlates almost exactly with His Majesty’s return to public-facing duties, in April of 2024,” he added.
Charles approach demonstrated “not only His Majesty’s personal commitment to duty but also the adaptability and resilience of the Royal Household in ensuring continuity of service, no matter the personal circumstances,” Chalmers further shared.
He noted how the public was very supportive of Charles and Kate Middleton, who was also diagnosed with cancer last year.
“The profound connection the royal family maintains with people across the country and indeed the world.”
“No metric can fully capture the scale of this connection,” he said, highlighting that the royal websites attracted a record 4.2 million new visitors, while the royal family’s videos reached nearly 400 million views and their social media content generated 1.3 billion impressions.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose a “30% or 35%” tariff on Japan if a deal between the two countries is not reached before a deadline next week.
That would be well above the 24% tariff Japan was hit with as part of Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” on 2 April, when he announced steep import duties on countries around the world.
The tariffs on most US trading partners, including Japan, were later lowered to 10% for 90 days to give them time to negotiate deals with Washington.
That pause is due to expire on 9 July and Trump has said he is not planning to extend the deadline.
Trump also continued to cast doubt that an agreement could be reached with Tokyo.
“We’ve dealt with Japan. I’m not sure we’re going to make a deal. I doubt it,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday.
Japan declined to comment on Trump’s threat to hike tariffs during a news conference on Wednesday.
“We are aware of what President Trump said, but we don’t comment on every remark made by US government officials,” the country’s Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kazuhiko Aoki said.
Like many other countries, most of Japan’s exports to the US currently face a 10% levy. There is also a 25% import tax on Japanese vehicles and parts, while steel and aluminium are subject to a 50% tariff.
On Tuesday, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said he would not make concessions that could hurt his country’s farmers to strike an agreement with Washington.
The comments came after Trump criticised countries over their trade policies towards the US, focussing on Japanese rice imports.
“To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won’t take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump originally said he would sign 90 trade agreements during the pause on the new tariffs but since then only the UK has struck a deal with the US.
The Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3NXC is a 256-bit AES XTS hardware-encrypted flash drive with a USB-C connector. It is available in storage capacities ranging from 4GB to 512GB and holds FIPS 140-2 Level 3 validation. The device is OS-agnostic, meaning it can work with any device that has a USB-C port, whether it’s a phone, tablet, Windows PC, or Mac.
Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3NXC setup
Before setting it up, the device must be connected to a powered USB port and charged for 60 minutes. When not in use, the device enters sleep mode, during which it locks itself and becomes inaccessible.
PIN requirements
The Aegis Secure Key 3NXC does not come with a preset PIN. To begin using it, you must first create an Admin PIN, which must be 7 to 16 digits long. The PIN cannot be made up of only identical or sequential numbers (e.g., 123456789, 987654321, 11111111). All configuration settings, like setting a Self-Destruct PIN or Brute-Force protection, require you to enter Admin Mode.
Since the key comes preformatted in NTFS, it must be reformatted before using it on a Mac.
The Aegis Secure Key can have one Admin and one User, making a total of two working PINs.
After setting up the Admin PIN, the User PIN can be created. The User has limited access: they can view and manage data, change their own PIN, and switch between Read-Only and Read/Write modes, but they cannot change Admin settings.
Configure multiple Apricorn secure devices
For larger deployments, companies can use the Aegis Configurator application along with a USB hub authorized by Apricorn to configure multiple devices simultaneously.
If you’re using the Aegis Configurator to set up your Aegis Secure Key or any other Apricorn secure drive, first make sure the device has the “Configurable” logo on the back. Also, do not manually set up the Admin or User PINs, the Aegis Configurator will handle these steps automatically. It will only work with devices that are either in their original factory state or have been fully reset.
Speed
Help Net Security conducted a speed test using the 128GB version of the Aegis Secure Key 3NXC. All tests were done using the same computer and USB port to keep results consistent. The table below shows the average time in seconds it took to transfer different file sizes.
According to official specifications, read and write speeds can reach up to 171MB/s and 160MB/s, respectively.
Advanced security features
The Aegis Secure Key 3NXC includes Brute-Force protection. By default, you are allowed up to 20 incorrect PIN attempts, but this can be reduced (in Admin Mode) to as few as 4.
The key also features a Self-Destruct mode that can be enabled or disabled only by the Admin. However, the Self-Destruct PIN can be created by either the Admin or a User. When this PIN is entered while the device is locked, the key will perform a crypto-erase, wiping all data permanently. After that, the device must be reformatted, and the self-destruct PIN becomes the new Admin PIN.
Another useful security feature is Read-Only mode. It’s especially helpful when you need to access your data in a public setting, since malware can easily attach themselves to USB drives.
According to David Koma, his menswear line is a “selfish” project. “I wanted to have new experiences and to have something to enjoy on top of working hard,” he tells me. “It’s the first time I’ve had myself in mind as a customer, so there have been nice surprises along the way.”
Even though the London-based designer has been designing menswear for three seasons now, he’s only just felt ready to put on a menswear show — and what appears to have been the perfect opportunity presented itself. Koma is showing as part of Berlin Fashion Week (BFW) organiser Fashion Council Germany’s primary talent scheme, Berlin Contemporary, which offers a €25,000 grant to put towards a show. The invitation to show in Berlin came a few months ago through one of his PR agencies, Reference Studios, which is based in Berlin with offices in Milan, Paris and London, and has been working with Fashion Council Germany to invite buzzy designers to the schedule as part of its showcase, Intervention. GmbH and Ottolinger are also taking part.
A new technology that uses clinical MRI machines to image metabolic activity in the brain could give researchers and clinicians unique insight into brain function and disease, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign report. The non-invasive, high-resolution metabolic imaging of the whole brain revealed differences in metabolic activity and neurotransmitter levels among brain regions; found metabolic alterations in brain tumors; and mapped and characterized multiple sclerosis lesions — with patients only spending minutes in an MRI scanner.
Led by Zhi-Pei Liang, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the U. of I., the team reported its findings in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
“Understanding the brain, how it works and what goes wrong when it is injured or diseased is considered one of the most exciting and challenging scientific endeavors of our time,” Liang said. “MRI has played major roles in unlocking the mysteries of the brain over the past four decades. Our new technology adds another dimension to MRI’s capability for brain imaging: visualization of brain metabolism and detection of metabolic alterations associated with brain diseases.”
Conventional MRI provides high-resolution, detailed imaging of brain structures. Functional MRI maps brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow and blood oxygenation level, which are closely linked to neural activity. However, they cannot provide information on the metabolic activity in the brain, which is important for understanding function and disease, said postdoctoral researcher Yibo Zhao, the first author of the paper.
“Metabolic and physiological changes often occur before structural and functional abnormalities are visible on conventional MRI and fMRI images,” Zhao said. “Metabolic imaging, therefore, can lead to early diagnosis and intervention of brain diseases.”
Both MRI and fMRI techniques are based on magnetic resonance signals from water molecules. The new technology measures signals from brain metabolites and neurotransmitters as well as water molecules, a technique known as magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging. These MRSI images can provide significant new insights into brain function and disease processes, and could improve sensitivity and specificity for the detection and diagnosis of brain diseases, Zhao said.
Other attempts at MRSI have been bogged down by the lengthy times required to capture the images and high levels of noise obscuring the signals from neurotransmitters. The new technique addresses both challenges.
“Our technology overcomes several long-standing technical barriers to fast high-resolution metabolic imaging by synergistically integrating ultrafast data acquisition with physics-based machine learning methods for data processing,” Liang said. With the new MRSI technology, the Illinois team cut the time required for a whole brain scan to 12 and a half minutes.
The researchers tested their MRSI technique on several populations. In healthy subjects, the researchers found and mapped varying metabolic and neurotransmitter activity across different brain regions, indicating that such activity is not universal. In patients with brain tumors, the researchers found metabolic alterations, such as elevated choline and lactate, in tumors of different grades — even when the tumors appeared identical on clinical MRI images. In subjects with multiple sclerosis, the technique detected molecular changes associated with neuroinflammatory response and reduced neuronal activity up to 70 days before changes become visible on clinical MRI images, the researchers report.
The researchers foresee potential for broad clinical use of their technique: By tracking metabolic changes over time, clinicians can assess the effectiveness of treatments for neurological conditions, Liang said. Metabolic information also can be used to tailor treatments to individual patients based on their unique metabolic profiles.
“High-resolution whole-brain metabolic imaging has significant clinical potential,” said Liang, who began his career in the lab of the late Illinois professor Paul Lauterbur, recipient of the Nobel Prize for developing MRI technology. “Paul envisioned this exciting possibility and the general approach, but it has been very difficult to achieve his dream of fast high-resolution metabolic imaging in the clinical setting.
“As healthcare is moving towards personalized, predictive and precision medicine, this high-speed, high-resolution technology can provide a timely and effective tool to address an urgent unmet need for noninvasive metabolic imaging in clinical applications.”
This work was supported by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.
From playing on the pitch to analysing it from the press box, Satish has spent over three decades living and breathing sport. A cricketer-turned-journalist, he has covered three Cricket World Cups, the 2025 Champions Trophy, countless IPL seasons, F1 races, horse racing classics, and tennis in Dubai.
Cricket is his home ground, but he sees himself as an all-rounder – breaking stories, building pages, going live on podcasts, and interviewing legends across every corner of the sporting world.
Satish started on the back pages, and earned his way to the front, now leading the sports team at Gulf News, where he has spent 25 years navigating the fast-evolving game of journalism.
Whether it’s a Super-Over thriller or a behind-the-scenes story, he aims to bring insight, energy, and a fan’s heart to every piece. Because like sport, journalism is about showing up, learning every day, and giving it everything.
The gut bacteria has potential to become a probiotic or postbiotic to treat obesity and metabolic diseases.
Credit: iStock.com/Artur Plawgo
The understudied human gut bacteria P. faecium counteracted weight gain in mice by reducing inflammation, revealing a potential new way to treat obesity.
The human gut serves as an intersection point for many processes — digesting food, absorbing nutrients, supporting immunity, and regulating metabolism — that all interact with a vital and dynamic ecosystem: the gut microbiome.
What the body absorbs depends on how the intestines — and the microbes living there — break down food, said Nicola Segata, a computational microbiologist at the University of Trento. “There is a clear link between our diet and the composition of our gut microbiome,” he said.
Yolanda Sanz first became interested in P. faecium after finding that this bacterium was increased in children with normal weight gain.
Credit: Yolanda Sanz
Researchers have found that changes in the gut microbiome are associated with increased risk of obesity. However, “what is still unclear is which are the main biomarkers or microbiome signatures that consistently are linked with obesity,” said Yolanda Sanz, a microbiologist at the Institute of Agrochemistry and Food Technology, Spanish National Research Council (IATA-CSIC).
In a study published in 2018, Sanz and her colleagues noticed that children who went on to experience excessive weight gain in a four-year period had different microbiomes prior to their weight gain than children who gained a normal amount of weight (1). During this longitudinal study, they found that the bacterial species Phascolarctobacterium faecium was enriched in children with normal weight gains compared to those who gained excessive weight. This microbe “has long been known to be a regular commensal or inhabitant of our gut microbiome, but we didn’t know much about its role, its function, [or] its significance in our gut,” said Ravinder Nagpal, a microbiologist at Florida State University.
To dig deeper into the role of this bacterium in obesity, Sanz, Segata, and their labs turned to 7,529 human metagenomic samples to document what microbes are present in the gut of people with and without obesity (2). In a new study, they reported that P. faecium is associated with non-obesity and that it acted via an innate immune pathway to counteract metabolic changes associated with obesity (3). This microbe could provide a new path to treating obesity.
To determine this bacterial species’ potential role in obesity, the researchers fed mice a high fat and sugar diet, while giving control mice a low fat and sugar diet. Without intervention, mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet gained more weight than control mice. However, when the researchers treated these mice with P. faecium, it limited the mice’s weight and body fat increases and improved glucose clearance.
Mice on the high-fat, high-sugar diet exhibited an increased amount of pro-inflammatory macrophages in the intestines and had higher levels of intestinal type 1 innate lymphoid cells, which are cells involved in many inflammatory disorders (4). The addition of P. faecium mitigated these changes by boosting the levels of anti-inflammatory macrophages called M2 macrophages and reducing the increase in type 1 innate lymphoid cells. When the team used a small molecule inhibitor to block macrophages from adopting the M2 phenotype, P. faecium’s positive effects disappeared. These results demonstrate that P. faecium’s anti-obesogenic effect occurs by modulating the immune system.
In the future, it’s possible that P. faecium could be developed as a probiotic, said Nagpal, who was not associated with the study. He added that in the mouse model, the microbe “effectively showed promise as a therapeutic or preventative.”
Yolanda Sanz’s research group studies the role of the microbiome in nutrition and health.
Credit: Yolanda Sanz
Beyond probiotics, there’s also potential for this bacterium to act as a postbiotic, which are components released from living or dead microorganisms that have health benefits. The researchers found that both living and pasteurized P. faecium reduced the pro-inflammatory immune response associated with an obesogenic diet. Sanz explained that they still see this effect for pasteurized bacteria possibly because the immune system could be responding to a structural component of P. faecium’s cell wall. Previous work from another team found that the gut commensal Akkermansia muciniphila had an effect on metabolism and obesity whether it was alive or not (5). In particular, since P. faecium is anaerobic, Sanz added that it would be easier to develop it as a postbiotic rather than a probiotic as keeping the bacteria alive during manufacturing is challenging due to oxygen exposure.
Since the bacteria reduce inflammation, Sanz added that P. faecium has potential applications beyond metabolic disorders and in other conditions where inflammation has a role.
“The results are quite promising,” said Sanz. “We hope that, in the end, we can progress towards performing clinical trials and getting evidence from humans.”
References
Rampelli, S. et al. Pre-obese children’s dysbiotic gut microbiome and unhealthy diets may predict the development of obesity. Commun Biol 1, 222 (2018).
Pasolli, E. et al. Accessible, curated metagenomic data through ExperimentHub. Nat Methods 14, 1023–1024 (2017).
Liébana-García, R. et al. Gut commensal Phascolarctobacterium faecium retunes innate immunity to mitigate obesity and metabolic disease in mice. Nat Microbiol 10, 1310-1322 (2025).
Ebbo, M. et al. Innate lymphoid cells: major players in inflammatory diseases. Nat Rev Immunol 17, 665–678 (2017).
Plovier, H. et al. A purified membrane protein from Akkermansia muciniphila or the pasteurized bacterium improves metabolism in obese and diabetic mice. Nat Med 23, 107–113 (2017).
Take it from a brain surgeon, brain health is one of the most important things to living a quality life: US-based neurosurgeon Dr Brian Hoeflinger said in a March 23 Instagram post. According to him, food plays a significant role in supporting brain health. In the video he shared, Dr Hoeflinger explained ‘how to maintain a healthy brain’, highlighting some amazing brain-boosting foods. Also read | Want to keep your brain sharp? Add these 6 foods to your diet and know their benefits
Food plays a significant role in supporting brain health. A balanced diet rich in nutrients can help improve cognitive function, boost memory, and reduce the risk of age-related cognitive decline. (Freepik)
What’s the secret to achieving a healthy brain?
According to him, incorporating these foods into your diet can have a positive impact on brain health and overall well-being. From fish that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and support brain health and cognitive function, to green vegetables that are packed with vitamins and antioxidants that support cognitive function and may reduce age-related cognitive decline, here’s what Dr Hoeflinger suggested.
He said, “Brain health is super important and is pretty easy to achieve by knowing this: it starts with food. There are fatty fish, including salmon and tuna. There are also green leafy vegetables, like kale, spinach, and broccoli, and berries like strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Then there are nuts and seeds like almonds and walnuts, flaxseeds and chia seeds, eggs, and avocados.”
A little bit of dark chocolate is good for your brain
He said that even healthy oils are good, and added that green tea, which contains antioxidants and L-theanine, and may improve focus and reduce stress, as well as dark chocolate, which contains flavonoids, and may improve blood flow and boost cognitive function, are an important part of a brain health-friendly diet.
Dr Hoeflinger said, “Green tea is healthy for your brain, and lastly, a little bit of dark chocolate can be very beneficial for your brain. The foods you eat are just one aspect of keeping a healthy brain. There are so many other things that you can do.”
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.
Since its inception in the 1930s, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has undergone significant development. The smaller wavelength of electrons provides resolution that surpasses traditional light microscopy. Advances such as the introduction of direct electron detectors, cryo-preparation techniques, and image processing software have dramatically enhanced its resolution and versatility. These developments enable scientists to visualize specimens at atomic resolutions, which provides insights into nanostructures and, more recently, the structure and function of large biological assemblies to small proteins vital for drug discovery.
In 1933, Ernst Ruska first realized he could transmit electrons through a specimen of cotton fibers to form an image and was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery in 1986. In the following years, Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Franck, and Richard Henderson created a technique for generating a three-dimensional (3D) structure of the protein at an atomic level using a cryo-transmission electron microscope (cryo-TEM). Their technique taps vitrification to cool a sample to cryogenic temperatures, typically using liquid ethane around -180°C, which allows biomolecules to retain their native hydrated shape. This approach, commonly called cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), earned them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017.
Detector technology resolves protein structure
During the past 30 years, every nut and bolt of the cryo-TEM has gradually been optimized. A major technical hurdle was overcome in 2010, when CMOS-direct electron detectors replaced charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras. Direct electron detectors (DEDs) have the advantage of providing immediate access to digital images and higher detective quantum efficiency (DQE) at a wide spatial frequency range, which results in images with a better signal-to-noise ratio. It enables scientists to get to high-resolution images and ultimately 3D reconstructions with fewer images, which is critical when imaging beam-sensitive biological samples.
DEDs can acquire data in movie mode to capture a series of frames at high speed during a single exposure. Further advancement came with the introduction of electron event representation (EER), which captures the position and time of each individual electron impact to enable the preservation of full temporal and spatial resolution of the data (i.e., super-resolution).
Energy filters, cold field emission guns help cross atomic barrier
In 2020, single particle analysis (SPA) cryo-EM broke the atomic resolution barrier, which allowed scientists to distinctly see atoms where blurry shapes and “blobs” once prevailed. Researchers harnessed technological improvements to determine breakthrough structure resolution of 1.2 Angstroms. For perspective, the first high-resolution structure by Henderson and colleagues was within the 10-Angstrom range attained in the early 1990s.
More recently, for the first time, researchers used the combination of a cold field emission gun electron source to lower the energy spread of the electrons, and more stable energy filters to remove inelastically scattered electrons. This combination contributed to increasing the image contrast while also boosting the resolution at the high spatial frequency range—and it allows researchers to break the atomic resolution boundary.
Most impressively, cryo-EM at atomic resolution enabled visualization of individual hydrogen atoms—even on water molecules inside of the protein structure. The visualization of hydrogen bonding networks inside protein structures and within drug binding pockets allows researchers to better understand how a drug interacts with its target molecule (see Fig. 1).
Autonomous microscopy and artificial intelligence (AI)
Cryo-EM innovation is reaching beyond higher resolution and contrast (see Fig. 2). Today, it’s also being adopted outside of academic labs by pharmaceutical institutions, which creates a need for automating routine workflows. Integrated software solutions offer a way to streamline data acquisition and 3D analysis with connected tools.
Apple devices have often been praised for helping to save lives. In a recent incident, a climber stranded in the Colorado wilderness was successfully rescued after using the satellite emergency feature on his iPhone to send a message for help. Read on to find out how this incident unfolded and how satellite communication technology on smartphones helps people when traditional communication fails in remote areas.
How a stranded climber in Colorado was rescued using Apple’s satellite SOS feature in a remote area.(Apple)
On Sunday, a 53-year-old man reached the summit of Snowmass Mountain and began his descent using a method called glissading, which involves sliding down snow-covered slopes. During the descent, he injured his wrist, which left him unable to continue the trek. The injury occurred at an altitude of nearly 11,000 feet, in an area with no cellular service, according to a KDVR (via Reddit) report.
Also read: Apple loses bid to halt court ruling that blocks some fees from its iPhone app store
How iPhone’s Satellite Message Triggers Emergency Response
Despite the lack of a cell signal, the man used the satellite messaging feature available on his iPhone to send a text to a family member. This message alerted the family, who then contacted the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office and Mountain Rescue Aspen for help.
Responders found the injured climber near Snowmass Lake, located about eight miles from the nearest parking area. Due to the severity of his injury, he could not walk out of the area on his own. A team of 17 rescuers hiked into the remote location and began evacuation efforts early Monday morning. They reached the climber at approximately 8:25 a.m. and successfully brought him out of the area by 5:30 p.m.
Also read: iOS 19 to take to boost iPhone’s battery life with help of AI
iPhone’s Satellite SOS Feature
The iPhone’s satellite communication function allows users to send messages without the need for cellular or Wi-Fi signals. This feature, available on iPhone 14 and later models, enables contact with emergency services in remote locations where traditional coverage is unavailable.
Also read: iPhone 17 Air likely to come with optional accessories for lasting battery life- Details
Following the rescue, the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office emphasised the importance of knowing how to use satellite communication tools during outdoor activities. In a public advisory, officials encouraged hikers and climbers to carry emergency communication devices and understand how to activate satellite-based SOS features. They noted that using the SOS button can help rescue teams establish direct contact and reduce response time during emergencies.
