Although a cough medicine called Ambroxol is approved in Europe for treating respiratory conditions and has a long-standing safety record, including use at high doses and during pregnancy, it is not approved for any use in the United States or Canada.
Ball-and-stick model of ambroxol molecule. Image credit: Marina Vladivostok / ChemSpider.
About half of those diagnosed with Parkinson’s develop dementia within 10 years, profoundly affecting patients, families and the health care system.
“Our goal was to change the course of Parkinson’s dementia,” said Dr. Stephen Pasternak, a cognitive neurologist at Parkwood Institute, St Joseph’s Health Care London and Robarts Research Institute.
“This early trial offers hope and provides a strong foundation for larger studies.”
The 12-month clinical trial involved 55 participants with Parkinson’s disease dementia.
The authors gave one group daily Ambroxol while the other group received a placebo.
They monitored memory, psychiatric symptoms and GFAP, a blood marker linked to brain damage.
According to the team, Ambroxol was safe, well-tolerated and reached therapeutic levels in the brain.
Psychiatric symptoms worsened in the placebo group but remained stable in those taking Ambroxol.
Participants with high-risk GBA1 gene variants showed improved cognitive performance on Ambroxol.
GFAP increased in the placebo group but stayed stable with Ambroxol, suggesting potential brain protection.
“Current therapies for Parkinson’s disease and dementia address symptoms but do not stop the underlying disease,” Dr. Pasternak said.
“These findings suggest Ambroxol may protect brain function, especially in those genetically at risk. It offers a promising new treatment avenue where few currently exist.”
Ambroxol supports a key enzyme called glucocerebrosidase (GCase), which is produced by the GBA1 gene.
In people with Parkinson’s disease, GCase levels are often low. When this enzyme doesn’t work properly, waste builds up in brain cells, leading to damage.
“This research is vital because Parkinson’s dementia profoundly affects patients and families,” Dr. Pasternak said.
“If a drug like Ambroxol can help, it could offer real hope and improve lives.”
The results appear in the journal JAMA Neurology.
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Carolina R. A. Silveira et al. Ambroxol as a Treatment for Parkinson Disease Dementia: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Neurol, published online June 30, 2025; doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.1687
The United States on Monday announced the approval of a $510 million sale to Israel of bomb guidance kits and related support, after Israel expended significant munitions in its recent conflict with Iran.
“The proposed sale will enhance Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats by improving its ability to defend Israel’s borders, vital infrastructure, and population centers,” the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement.
“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” it added.
The State Department approved the possible sale and the DSCA has provided the required notification to the US Congress, which still needs to sign off on the transaction.
Israel launched an unprecedented air campaign on June 13 targeting Iranian nuclear sites, scientists and top military brass in a bid to end the country’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is for civilian purposes but Washington and other powers insist is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.
Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path to replace the nuclear deal with Tehran that he tore up in 2018 during his first term, but he ultimately decided to take military action, ordering US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
A ceasefire brought the war to a halt last week, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to prevent Tehran from ever rebuilding its nuclear facilities, raising the prospect of a future conflict.
Apple is also reportedly planning a “Vision Air” product, with production expected to start in Q3 2027. Kuo says it will be more than 40 percent lighter than the first-generation Vision Pro, and that it will include Apple’s flagship iPhone processor instead the more robust Mac processor found in the Vision Pro—all at a “significantly lower price than Vision Pro.” The big weight reduction is “achieved through glass-to-plastic replacement, extensive magnesium alloy use (titanium alloy deemed too expensive), and reduced sensor count.”
True smart glasses in 2027
The Vision Pro (along with the planned Vision Air) is a fully immersive VR headset that supports augmented reality by displaying the wearer’s surroundings on the internal screens based on what’s captured by 3D cameras on the outside of the device. That allows for some neat applications, but it also means the device is bulky and impractical to wear in public.
The real dream for many is smart glasses that are almost indistinguishable from normal glasses, but which display some of the same AR content as the Vision Pro on transparent lenses instead of via a camera-to-screen pipeline.
Apple is also planning to roll that out, Kuo says. But first, mass production of display-free “Ray-Ban-like” glasses is scheduled for Q2 2027, and Kuo claims Apple plans to ship between 3 million and 5 million units through 2027, suggesting the company expects this form factor to make a much bigger impact than the Vision Pro’s VR-like HMD approach.
The glasses would have a “voice control and gesture recognition user interface” but no display functionality at all. Instead, “core features include: audio playback, camera, video recording, and AI environmental sensing.”
The removal of opposition lawmakers from Punjab Assembly’s standing committees marks a grave regression for parliamentary democracy in Pakistan. In a move that reeks of political vengeance more than institutional discipline, the government has initiated the process of removing nine out of thirteen opposition chairpersons from the house committees – four of whom have already been shown the door. This step, taken in the aftermath of protests during Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s speech and the budget session, threatens to turn the legislative apparatus into a one-sided affair devoid of accountability.
Standing committees are the bedrock of legislative oversight. They are designed specifically to maintain checks and balances by scrutinising the work of government departments. Such committees are cross-party units, a fourth of which were currently chaired by members of the opposition PTI. By sidelining the opposition chairpersons, the ruling party risks converting the assembly’s internal watchdogs into echo chambers.
No one can condone the rowdy and inappropriate behaviour displayed by some PTI MPAs. But parliamentary disruptions are hardly new to Pakistan. Previous governments have also faced and tolerated such intense opposition resistance. What makes this move particularly dangerous is its selective and disproportionate nature. The decision to dismantle nearly all opposition-led committees instead of reprimanding individual lawmakers for their conduct casts a wide net over the very idea of opposition itself. In doing so, the ruling dispensation has signalled that political resistance will not only be discouraged in the House, but also structurally removed from its corridors. With the opposition effectively sidelined from committee work, the government will be left to police itself.
Governance without opposition is governance without accountability. The Speaker and the ruling party must reconsider the broader implications of their actions. Stripping oversight in the name of order risks pushing Pakistan’s legislature into a dangerous imbalance.
The allure and terror of transferring your consciousness to a computer has long been fodder for cyberpunk novels and billionaire-backed immortality startups. But a substantial chunk of neuroscientists think it might be possible to extract memories from a preserved brain and store those memories inside a computer, according to a new study.
The study, published in the journal PLOS One, suggests that most neuroscientists believe that memory has a physical basis and, on average, give a 40% probability that we might one day be able to emulate a human brain. But there was little consensus as to what exactly that physical basis is, highlighting just how little we know about what memories are made of.
The authors surveyed 312 neuroscientists—both memory experts and general neuroscientists—to get their thoughts on the feasibility of preserving a human brain and later extracting its memories. It was led by Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston, a neuroscientist at Monash University in Australia and the author of The Future Loves You: How and Why We Should Abolish Death.
While the researchers wrote that the questions of memory extraction from preserved brains are “strange and speculative,” they provide insight into how neuroscientists think about memory formation.
Results of the survey show that neuroscientists largely agree that memories have a physical substrate rather than relying on a dynamic process that ceases at preservation; they’re likely stored in the synaptic connections between neurons, which strengthen and weaken with experience. The survey showed that 70% of neuroscientists agree that a physical, molecular record of a memory exists—stored in stable changes to neural connectivity and interactions between proteins and other cellular components—of which you could theoretically take a snapshot.
However, “there was no clear consensus on exactly which neurophysiological feature or scale is critical for memory storage,” the authors wrote in the study. The surveyed scientists didn’t agree on what resolution—from the atomic-level composition of biomolecules to nanometer-level resolution of subcellular structures—would be required to extract a memory from a preserved brain. This is largely due to the fact that, while most neuroscientists agree that memory has a physical basis, it’s still up for debate exactly what that basis is.
The survey also asked whether existing tools could theoretically preserve the structure of a brain well enough to extract memories. Preserving a brain in such a way that the proteins and cells remain intact is tricky, since freezing can damage neural tissue. But one way neuroscientists could do this is through aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation, a technique that combines chemical fixation with vitrification—the process of turning a substance into a glass-like solid by cooling it down rapidly. The study asked neuroscientists to assign a probability that memories could be extracted from a cryopreserved brain. The participants gave a wide range of estimates, but the median answer was around a 40% probability.
The authors asked the neuroscientists how probable it might be to emulate a whole brain—like, uploading and digitizing a person’s brain onto a computer—from preserved neural tissue. That could open up the possibility of uploading your full self and consciousness into a machine. In this case, the median answer was again around 40%, though the authors note that the responses again varied widely.
“Admittedly, that’s not 100 percent,” Zeleznikow-Johnston told IFLScience. “That means that there’s not full consensus in the community that yeah, definitely this will work, but it’s not 0.1 percent, or 0.01 percent. That’s a substantial chunk of neuroscientists who think there’s a very real chance that it will work, and my guess is that actually that number will creep up over time as we get better at doing these brain implants, emulations, all these other things.”
Neuroscientists believe we’re still a long way off from being able to emulate an entire human brain, according to the study. When asked when we might be able to emulate a human brain, the respondents gave a median answer of 2125.
Artist Lora Duguay poses for a portrait in her wheelchair with some of her artwork at home in Clearwater, Fla., on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)
Artist Lora Duguay paints on a stone from her wheelchair at home in Clearwater, Fla., on Tuesday, June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)
Jacque Farnham, left, looks at a book with her mother, Janith, in the Visual Arts Center at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls, S.D., on May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)
Janith Farnham signs “water” while she and her daughter, Jacque, look at an artwork of a waterfall at the Visual Arts Center at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls, S.D., on May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)
Jacque Farnham, 60, left, walks with her mother, Janith, 80, to the Visual Arts Center at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls, S.D., on May 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. | In the time before widespread vaccination, death often came early.
Devastating infectious diseases ran rampant in America, killing millions of children and leaving others with lifelong health problems. These illnesses were the main reason why nearly one in five children in 1900 never made it to their fifth birthday.
Over the next century, vaccines virtually wiped out long-feared scourges like polio and measles and drastically reduced the toll of many others. Today, however, some preventable, contagious diseases are making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy pushes immunization rates down. And well-established vaccines are facing suspicion even from public officials, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, running the federal health department.
“This concern, this hesitancy, these questions about vaccines are a consequence of the great success of the vaccines – because they eliminated the diseases,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “If you’re not familiar with the disease, you don’t respect or even fear it. And therefore you don’t value the vaccine.”
Anti-vaccine activists even portray the shots as a threat, focusing on the rare risk of side effects while ignoring the far larger risks posed by the diseases themselves — and years of real-world data that experts say proves the vaccines are safe.
Some Americans know the reality of these preventable diseases all too well. For them, news of measles outbreaks and rising whooping cough cases brings back terrible memories of lives forever changed – and a longing to spare others from similar pain.
Getting rubella while pregnant shaped two lives
With a mother’s practiced, guiding hand, 80-year-old Janith Farnham helped steer her 60-year-old daughter’s walker through a Sioux Falls art center. They stopped at a painting of a cow wearing a hat.
Janith pointed to the hat, then to her daughter Jacque’s Minnesota Twins cap. Jacque did the same.
“That’s so funny!” Janith said, leaning in close to say the words in sign language too.
Jacque was born with congenital rubella syndrome, which can cause a host of issues including hearing impairment, eye problems, heart defects and intellectual disabilities. There was no vaccine against rubella back then, and Janith contracted the viral illness very early in the pregnancy, when she had up to a 90% chance of giving birth to a baby with the syndrome.
Janith recalled knowing “things weren’t right” almost immediately. The baby wouldn’t respond to sounds or look at anything but lights. She didn’t like to be held close. Her tiny heart sounded like it purred – evidence of a problem that required surgery at four months old.
Janith did all she could to help Jacque thrive, sending her to the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind and using skills she honed as a special education teacher. She and other parents of children with the syndrome shared insights in a support group.
Meanwhile, the condition kept taking its toll. As a young adult, Jacque developed diabetes, glaucoma and autistic behaviors. Eventually, arthritis set in.
Today, Jacque lives in an adult residential home a short drive from Janith’s place. Above her bed is a net overflowing with stuffed animals. On a headboard shelf are photo books Janith created, filled with memories like birthday parties and trips to Mount Rushmore.
Jacque’s days typically begin with an insulin shot and breakfast before she heads off to a day program. She gets together with her mom four or five days a week. They often hang out at Janith’s townhome, where Jacque has another bedroom decorated with her own artwork and quilts Janith sewed for her. Jacque loves playing with Janith’s dog, watching sports on television and looking up things on her iPad.
Janith marvels at Jacque’s sense of humor, gratefulness, curiosity and affectionate nature despite all she’s endured. Jacque is generous with kisses and often signs “double I love yous” to family, friends and new people she meets.
“When you live through so much pain and so much difficulty and so much challenge, sometimes I think: Well, she doesn’t know any different,” Janith said.
Given what her family has been through, Janith believes younger people are being selfish if they choose not to get their children the MMR shot against measles, mumps and rubella.
“It’s more than frustrating. I mean, I get angry inside,” she said. “I know what can happen, and I just don’t want anybody else to go through this.”
Delaying the measles vaccine can be deadly
More than half a century has passed, but Patricia Tobin still vividly recalls getting home from work, opening the car door and hearing her mother scream. Inside the house, her little sister Karen lay unconscious on the bathroom floor.
It was 1970, and Karen was 6. She’d contracted measles shortly after Easter. While an early vaccine was available, it wasn’t required for school in Miami where they lived. Karen’s doctor discussed immunizing the first grader, but their mother didn’t share his sense of urgency.
“It’s not that she was against it,” Tobin said. “She just thought there was time.”
Then came a measles outbreak. Karen – who Tobin described as a “very endearing, sweet child” who would walk around the house singing – quickly became very sick. The afternoon she collapsed in the bathroom, Tobin, then 19, called the ambulance. Karen never regained consciousness.
“She immediately went into a coma and she died of encephalitis,” said Tobin, who stayed at her bedside in the hospital. “We never did get to speak to her again.”
Today, all states require that children get certain vaccines to attend school. But a growing number of people are making use of exemptions allowed for medical, religious or philosophical reasons. Vanderbilt’s Schaffner said fading memories of measles outbreaks were exacerbated by a fraudulent, retracted study claiming a link between the MMR shot and autism.
The result? Most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners — the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks.
“I’m very upset by how cavalier people are being about the measles,” Tobin said. “I don’t think that they realize how destructive this is.”
Polio changed a life twice
One of Lora Duguay’s earliest memories is lying in a hospital isolation ward with her feverish, paralyzed body packed in ice. She was three years old.
“I could only see my parents through a glass window. They were crying and I was screaming my head off,” said Duguay, 68. “They told my parents I would never walk or move again.”
It was 1959 and Duguay, of Clearwater, Florida, had polio. It mostly preyed on children and was one of the most feared diseases in the U.S., experts say, causing some terrified parents to keep children inside and avoid crowds during epidemics.
Given polio’s visibility, the vaccine against it was widely and enthusiastically welcomed. But the early vaccine that Duguay got was only about 80% to 90% effective. Not enough people were vaccinated or protected yet to stop the virus from spreading.
Duguay initially defied her doctors. After intensive treatment and physical therapy, she walked and even ran – albeit with a limp. She got married, raised a son and worked as a medical transcriptionist.
But in her early 40s, she noticed she couldn’t walk as far as she used to. A doctor confirmed she was in the early stages of post-polio syndrome, a neuromuscular disorder that worsens over time.
One morning, she tried to stand up and couldn’t move her left leg.
After two weeks in a rehab facility, she started painting to stay busy. Eventually, she joined arts organizations and began showing and selling her work. Art “gives me a sense of purpose,” she said.
These days, she can’t hold up her arms long enough to create big oil paintings at an easel. So she pulls her wheelchair up to an electric desk to paint on smaller surfaces like stones and petrified wood.
The disease that changed her life twice is no longer a problem in the U.S. So many children get the vaccine — which is far more effective than earlier versions — that it doesn’t just protect individuals but it prevents occasional cases that arrive in the U.S. from spreading further. ” Herd immunity ” keeps everyone safe by preventing outbreaks that can sicken the vulnerable.
After whooping cough struck, ‘she was gone’
Every night, Katie Van Tornhout rubs a plaster cast of a tiny foot, a vestige of the daughter she lost to whooping cough at just 37 days old.
Callie Grace was born on Christmas Eve 2009 after Van Tornhout and her husband tried five years for a baby. She was six weeks early but healthy.
“She loved to have her feet rubbed,” said the 40-year-old Lakeville, Indiana mom. “She was this perfect baby.”
When Callie turned a month old, she began to cough, prompting a visit to the doctor, who didn’t suspect anything serious. By the following night, Callie was doing worse. They went back.
In the waiting room, she became blue and limp in Van Tornhout’s arms. The medical team whisked her away and beat lightly on her back. She took a deep breath and giggled.
Though the giggle was reassuring, the Van Tornhouts went to the ER, where Callie’s skin turned blue again. For a while, medical treatment helped. But at one point she started squirming, and medical staff frantically tried to save her.
“Within minutes,” Van Tornhout said, “she was gone.”
Van Tornhout recalled sitting with her husband and their lifeless baby for four hours, “just talking to her, thinking about what could have been.”
Callie’s viewing was held on her original due date – the same day the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called to confirm she had pertussis, or whooping cough. She was too young for the Tdap vaccine against it and was exposed to someone who hadn’t gotten their booster shot.
Today, next to the cast of Callie’s foot is an urn with her ashes and a glass curio cabinet filled with mementos like baby shoes.
“My kids to this day will still look up and say, ‘Hey Callie, how are you?’” said Van Tornhout, who has four children and a stepson. “She’s part of all of us every day.”
Van Tornhout now advocates for childhood immunization through the nonprofit Vaccinate Your Family. She also shares her story with people she meets, like a pregnant customer who came into the restaurant her family ran saying she didn’t want to immunize her baby. She later returned with her vaccinated four-month-old.
“It’s up to us as adults to protect our children – like, that’s what a parent’s job is,” Van Tornhout said. “I watched my daughter die from something that was preventable … You don’t want to walk in my shoes.”
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
