Christophe Gleizes travelled to Algeria in May 2024 to report on the golden era of the local football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie (JSK), during the 1980s. He had also planned to cover the commemorations marking the tenth anniversary of the death of Cameroonian JSK player Albert Ebossé, and was on assignments for So Foot to interview Mouloudia Club d’Alger coach Patrice Beaumelle and write a profile of footballer Salah Djebaïli.
Christophe Gleizes’ seven-year prison sentence is the most severe sentence imposed on a French journalist in more than a decade, according to RSF information. In 2010, journalist Daniel Lainé received a similar sentence after reporting on sex tourism in Cambodia for the French TV channel TF1 before being acquitted in 2014. According to RSF data, around one hundred journalists worldwide have been targeted for reporting on issues related to sports, with two still imprisoned today.
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Blood plasma can harbor DNA changes that could flag cancer years before existing diagnostic tests, an early study hints.
The recent study, published May 22 in the journal Cancer Discovery, found traces of free-floating DNA from dead precancerous or cancerous cells in plasma that had been donated three years before a diagnosis.
“It’s an important step toward preclinical cancer detection, which could potentially revolutionize cancer screening,” said Catherine Alix-Panabières, a cancer researcher at the University of Montpellier in France who was not involved with the work. “Earlier detection typically correlates with better outcomes across many cancer types due to earlier intervention,” she told Live Science in an email.
The prognosis for cancer patients generally grows worse the later their disease is caught, especially once it has grown and spread to other tissues. Yet the gene changes, or mutations, that give rise to tumors tend to appear decades beforehand. Consultant oncologist Dr. Yuxuan Wang at Johns Hopkins University and her colleagues wanted to see if they could detect tumor DNA in plasma long before cancer manifests.
They examined plasma — the liquid that blood cells are suspended within — that was collected from patients roughly 40 years ago for an unrelated study. They focused on 26 participants who had developed cancer within six months of donating blood, as well as 26 controls who did not develop cancer for at least 17 years post-donation.
Related: Simple blood tests could be the future of cancer diagnosis
Wang’s group found between one and three common cancerous mutations in seven of the plasma samples, all of which were taken from participants that developed cancer within four months of donating blood.
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Six of these patients had also donated blood between 3.1 and 3.5 years beforehand, so Wang’s team turned back the clock further and assessed those earlier samples for the same mutations. Two of the early samples contained the same DNA errors, confirming that these warning signs were detectable years before the tumors appeared, at least in some people.
Since they found only a few common mutations in two of the six plasma samples taken three years before diagnosis, they then sequenced the plasma DNA to find additional mutations that were unique to each patient. Using the genomes of their white blood cells — a type of immune cell — as a reference, they found between four and 90 unique mutations in the plasma DNA from three patients. All told, they found hints of cancer in three of the five early samples they examined.
The patients in this study had a variety of cancers, including breast, colon, liver, lung, pancreas, and rectal cancer. However, it’s not clear if the testing method works equally well for all tumor types. “Some organs will shed tumor DNA more than others,” Wang told Live Science, noting that the blood-brain barrier, a protective membrane, may prevent brain cancer DNA crossing out of the organ and into the bloodstream.
In addition, the new research didn’t find any cancer DNA in 18 of the 26 participants who developed tumors in the months after their samples were collected. That’s not ideal for a clinical test, Wang said. But she suggested that detection could potentially improve if doctors took larger volumes of plasma from each patient.
Since the test could potentially detect cancer years before symptoms first appear, it could one day be useful for screening patients preemptively. However, further experiments are needed to ensure this diagnostic doesn’t lead to false positive results, which could unnecessarily alarm patients and possibly lead to unnecessary treatments or invasive diagnostic procedures, like biopsies.
“Ethically, implementing such tests in routine screening would require clear guidelines on how to handle incidental findings,” Alix-Panabières said.
And because the study only included plasma samples from 52 people, larger investigations involving hundreds or thousands of participants would be needed to validate the test before doctors could use it with confidence. “Realistically, widespread clinical adoption may take another 5–10 years,” Alix-Panabières predicted.
Finding personalized mutations requires sequencing the patient’s DNA, which can cost several hundred or thousands of dollars, Wang said. So even if such a test can be validated in larger trials, it’s “probably not going to be something we can provide for everyone who we want to screen,” and the test may need to be reserved for at-risk groups whose families have known histories of cancer, for instance.
The recent study consisted mostly of Black and white men and women between the ages 45 to 64 from four U.S. states. Future investigations could explore the efficiency of the test in people from other, genetically diverse backgrounds.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
Renier Brentjens, MD, PhD, one of the pioneers of cellular therapies for cancer, gave invited talks at national events this month for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences.
At their annual breakfast on June 11, the cancer research foundation honored Dr. Brentjens for his critical role in the impact on cancer research, specifically CAR T cell therapy. Dr. Brentjens, a past recipient of the Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award, gave an invited address as featured honoree at the event.
“A founder of CAR T therapy, he was among the first to demonstrate that a patients immune cells could be ‘trained’ to target their cancer cells- a premise that now underlies the work of many current Damon Runyon scientists,” the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation says. “Some (resarchers) are working to develop CAR T cells that persist longer in the body; others are using big data to optimize CAR T cell design and lower costs; all stand on the shoulder of Dr. Brentjens and his colleagues, whose impact extends beyond their scientific contributions.”
Dr. Brentjens also addressed The New York Academy of Sciences during its Frontiers in Cancer Immunotherapy symposium last week. The 12th annual event allows attendees to amplify research efforts, form professional connections and participate in conversations. Dr. Brentjens served on the scientific organizing committee for the event, and spoke on ways to deliver cellular therapies without depleting the immune system.
Prior to joining Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2021, Dr. Brentjens studied medicine at the University at Buffalo UB), completed a residency at Yale New Haven Hospital and served as a medical oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He then became the principal investigator of his own laboratory, where he focused on the development of CAR modified T-cells. He serves as Roswell Park’s Deputy Director, Chair of the Department of Medicine and The Katherine Anne Gioia Endowed Chair in Cancer Medicine. He holds a secondary appointment with UB’s Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
In 2024, Dr. Brentjens was one of four recipients of the prestigious Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for his role in the development of CAR T cells as a platform for treating cancer.
One of the many delights of leafy south Birmingham is when an international cricket team is in town and residents stumble across them training on the Colts Ground at Edgbaston. Folks could be heading for a stroll in Cannon Hill Park, or their weekly shop at Aldi, only to suddenly find themselves watching Jasprit Bumrah let fly.
Sadly, the fences were covered with tarpaulins after some hecklers over the weekend. There was a decent subplot playing out inside as India trained, too, over whether Bumrah will play the sold-out second Test that starts . Having bowled these past few days, the man himself offered a passing “hopefully”.
Things are not so straightforward here. The plan has long been that India’s spearhead plays three of the five Tests to manage his lower back, something reaffirmed by Gautam Gambhir, the head coach, after the loss at Headingley. Now trailing 1-0 in the series, and with Bumrah having had a week to recover from that match, one would think this is the time to play the second of those three cards.
Yet with the third Test starting a week on Thursday at Lord’s, the ground where every touring cricketer wants to play, it sounds like he may yet be held back.
Ryan ten Doeschate, India’s assistant coach, hinted as much, saying Bumrah was “ready to play”, before going on to add that, with possible rain in Birmingham at the weekend, and Edgbaston a typically flat surface, they are still to decide their configuration.
“We feel we can go 1-1 or keep the score at 1-0 without Jasprit,” said Ten Doeschate. “That is putting the eggs at the back [of the series]. But we are going to need him at some stage. You have to decide when to play your strongest suit. Whatever team we put out there, we can compete in this Test match.”
Thoughts go back to England’s disastrous Ashes tour in 2021-22, when they went 1-0 down and then immediately rested Mark Wood for the second Test in Adelaide. Wood took 17 wickets during that 4-0 defeat but 12 of them came after the urn was lost. Sometimes teams can overthink the future at the expense of the situation staring them in the face, even if England are wary of seeing this as an opportunity.
Moeen Ali joins England at training in a coaching capacity. Photograph: Jacob King/PA
“The worry for us would be to focus too much on [Bumrah],” said Chris Woakes, who will lead the England bowlers on his home ground. “You have to look at their whole attack, and what they bring to the table, and how you can combat the skills they bring. India have got guys that can come in and cause us issues.”
Even with possible rain showers, India eyeing a draw against an England team that scores at 4.5 runs per over – something that in turn broadens the canvas for taking 20 wickets – is high risk.
Ten Doeschate also hinted at India playing two slow bowlers the options being an attacking wrist-spinner in Kuldeep Yadav or the off-spinning all-rounder Washington Sundar.
If the latter, it would probably be with half an eye on scoring the lower-order runs that were missing at Headingley – a potentially negative outlook when taking only 15 of the 20 English wickets was the bigger problem.
Better catching would help, with Monday’syesterday’s training session suggesting Yashasvi Jaiswal will be whipped out of the gully position after three costly drops in Leeds.
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As well as scoring five centuries before their tail folded twice, those missed chances offer India hope of turning this series around.
They at least know the XI they will be up against, England confirming an unchanged team two days out from the toss and thus holding back the recalled Jofra Archer until Lord’s at the earliest.
“I’m sure he’s champing at the bit to get back out there and show people what he has already done in whites,” said Woakes. “We all know how good he can be, but he’s at an age [30] where his best is probably still ahead of him.”
Archer was not on the ground on Monday after a “family emergency” delayed his arrival, England then going on to confirm that none of the unused squad players will be parachuted into the current round of county matches anyway.
Given the slog the bowlers are enduring with the Kookaburra ball this week, Archer, Sam Cook and Jamie Overton may be thankful for the reprieve.
The only real difference for England this week is Moeen Ali among the backroom staff, having taken up the offer to further his coaching experience. It may not be Moeen’s only encounter with India this year, with South Africa understood to be interested in him joining their coaching staff for a Test tour there in November.
Firefighters battled wildfires in Turkiye and France on Monday, and more than 50,000 people were evacuated as an early summer heatwave hit Europe.
Health alerts were issued in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Germany. Even the Netherlands, used to a milder climate, issued a warning for high temperatures in the coming days, coupled with high humidity.
“Large parts of Western Europe are experiencing extreme heat and heatwave conditions that are normally observed in July or August, rather than June,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
Temperatures were in some locations 5-10 degrees Celsius warmer than they otherwise should have been at this time of the year, she said.
In Turkiye, wildfires raged for a second day in the western province of Izmir, fanned by strong winds, Forestry Minister Ibrahim Yumakli said. More than 50,000 people have been evacuated from five regions, including more than 42,000 in Izmir, Turkiye’s AFAD emergency management authority said.
Turkiye’s coastal regions have in recent years been ravaged by wildfires as summers have become hotter and drier, which scientists say is a result of human-induced climate change.
In France, where temperatures are expected to peak on Tuesday and Wednesday, wildfires broke out on Sunday in the southwestern Aude department, where temperatures topped 40°C, burning 400 hectares and forcing the evacuation of a campsite and an abbey, authorities said.
The fires were under control but not yet extinguished, authorities said on Monday. Weather service Meteo France put a record 84 of the country’s 101 departments on an orange heatwave alert from Monday until midweek.
Western Europe bakes
From spectators queuing at the All England Club for the Wimbledon tennis tournament to tourists at the Colosseum in Rome and Seville in Spain, people sweltered in the heat.
“It’s about 20 degrees warmer than I’m used to and I’m sunburnt all over,” said tennis fan Scott Henderson, attending Wimbledon from Scotland.
Spain is on course for its hottest June on record, the national meteorological service AEMET said.
“Over the next few days, at least until Thursday, intense heat will continue in much of Spain,” said Ruben del Campo, a spokesperson for the weather agency.
In Seville, southern Spain, where global leaders gathered for a United Nations conference, temperatures hit 42°C.
“It’s awful,” municipal worker Bernabe Rufo said as he cleaned a fountain. “We need to be looking for shade constantly.” The top temperature in the country was registered at 43.7°C in El Granado.
In Italy, the Health Ministry issued heatwave red alerts for 16 cities, including Rome and Milan.
The Lombardy region, part of Italy’s northern industrial heartland, is planning to ban open-air work in the hottest part of the day, heeding a request from trade unions, its president said.
Consumers urged to limit water use
In Germany, too, heat warnings were in place across large parts of western and southwestern regions on Monday, where temperatures climbed to up to 34°C. Authorities appealed to consumers to limit their use of water.
The heatwave has lowered water levels on the Rhine River, hampering shipping and raising freight costs for cargo owners, commodity traders said. German and French baseload power prices for Tuesday surged as the heatwave led to increased demand for cooling.
Heat can affect health in various ways, and experts are most concerned about older people and babies, as well as outdoor labourers and people struggling economically.
Globally, extreme heat kills up to 480,000 people annually, surpassing the combined toll from floods, earthquakes and hurricanes, and poses growing risks to infrastructure, the economy and healthcare systems, Swiss Re said earlier this month.
Scientists say the main cause of climate change is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels. Last year was the planet’s hottest on record.
Pictorial representation of the atmospheric layers of Mars. This purpose of this figure is to show the integrated nature of the planetary atmosphere and re-emphasizes the need to study these coupling processes. — astro-ph.SR
The study of the evolution of Martian atmosphere and its response to EUV irradiation is an extremely important topic in planetary science. One of the dominant effects of atmospheric losses is the photochemical escape of atomic oxygen from Mars.
Increasing the magnitude of the irradiation changes the response of the atmosphere. The purpose of the current paper is to analyze the effects of enhanced EUV irradiation on the escape rates of oxygen atoms.
We have used the solar flare of 2017 September 10 as the baseline flare intensity and varied the intensity of the flare from a factor of 3 up to 10 times the baseline flare. We see an increase in the escape flux by 40% for flares up to 5x the intensity of the baseline flare.
However, beyond this point, the increase in escape flux tapers off, reaching only about 17% above the baseline. At 10x the baseline flare intensity, the escape flux decreases by nearly 25% compared to the escape rate of the original flare. We also found that the total escape amount of hot O peaks at 7x the original flare intensity.
Additionally, we have studied the effects of the time scales over which the flare energy is delivered. We find that energy dissipative processes like radiative cooling and thermal collisions do not come into play instantaneously. The escape flux from higher intensity flares dominate initially, but as time progresses, energy dissipative processes have a significant effect on the escape rate.
Chirag Rathi, Dimitra Atri, Dattaraj B. Dhuri
Comments: 11 pages, 7 figures Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) Cite as: arXiv:2506.20337 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:2506.20337v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.20337 Focus to learn more Related DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/ade708 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Chirag Rathi [v1] Wed, 25 Jun 2025 11:48:01 UTC (1,141 KB) https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20337 Astrobiology,
Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻
For more than 20 years, NASA has relied on a network of spacecraft circling Mars to send data to and from the Red Planet. Without the constellation of five orbiters, the agency would not have been able to land its rovers on Mars or guide them through its terrain. Although the White House is keen on advancing human missions to the Martian surface, it also wants to get rid of that vital lifeline
The Mars Relay Network is a fleet of orbiters equipped with radio systems powered by the Sun to maintain regular contact with Earth. It’s an interconnected system that relays data between rovers and landers on the surface of Mars, transmitting it tens of millions of miles through space to radio antennas located on Earth. “Every image seen from the surface of Mars since 2004 has been transmitted through the Mars Relay Network,” according to NASA. The international orbital squad, which includes NASA’s Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and MAVEN, and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and ExoMars, would play a vital role in human missions to Mars. Three of them, however, are at risk of termination due to funding.
NASA is preparing for severe cuts under the White House’s proposed budget for 2026. The budget, released in May, highlights the administration’s “objectives of returning to the Moon before China and putting a man on Mars.” It also reduces NASA’s upcoming budget by $6 billion compared to 2025.
The impending cuts would significantly affect the budget for Mars-focused science missions, terminating funding for two of the NASA orbiters and one ESA spacecraft to recoup the cost of the network’s ongoing operations, Forbes reported. “We have not yet received direction from NASA HQ to stop work on these [Mars Relay] projects, and we wait for further instruction,” Roy Gladden, manager of the Mars Relay Network at NASA’s leading-edge Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, told Forbes.
Under the proposed budget, NASA’s planetary science budget would drop from $2.7 billion to $1.9 billion. On the other hand, the agency’s human space exploration budget received an additional $647 million compared to the 2025 budget. Judging by the allocation of funding, the administration is clearly failing to understand that ongoing science missions to Mars are crucial to achieving a human presence on the Red Planet.
The Mars Relay Network is part of NASA’s main infrastructure to communicate with Mars; decommissioning three of the orbiters would significantly reduce the network’s capacity. Given the complexity of the proposed first human missions to another planet, the communications network should be expanded to ensure precision and not the other way round.
It may be that the current administration would favor a commercial substitute to NASA’s Mars Relay Network. In late 2024, NASA revealed that it was studying proposals for communication networks to set up in Mars’ orbit, including a pitch by SpaceX for a Marslink constellation (similar to the company’s Starlink in Earth orbit). Either way, NASA would no doubt need to update its current Mars communications system to support human missions. It would make more sense, however, to give the agency more funding as it contemplates landing humans on another planet for the first time.
Established in 2022, previous winners include Martin James Bartlett and Ariel Lanyi
The 2025 Prix Serdang Swiss Piano Prize was awarded to 18-year-old German pianist Colin Pütz at the Villa Serdang in Feldbrunnen near Solothurn, Switzerland. Established in 2022, the Prix Serdang is a 50,000 CHF award that supports and invests in the career of a young artist. Previous award winners include Martin James Bartlett, Ariel Lanyi, and Alexandra Dovgan.
Austrian Pianist Rudolf Buchbinder was appointed as the head of the selection process alongside international organizers, festival directors, conductors, and soloists.
Winners of the competition are given performance and recording opportunities, with an upcoming event in August 2025 with pianist Alexandra Dovgan, the 2024 winner, who will perform with the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria.
Upon receiving the award, Colin shared, “When I first heard about the award, I could hardly believe it. There are so many outstanding young pianists – many of them are already much better known than I am. The fact that I am the recipient of the Prix Serdang is a great honor and an even greater incentive. It gives me confidence that I might actually be able to realize my dream of becoming a concert pianist.”
The Villa Serdang in Switzerland was built in 1644 and converted into an Art Nouveau villa in 1892. Since 2012, it has operated as a cultural center and home for the Prix Serdang.
“Villa Serdang stands for cultural encounters, artistic exchange, and the promotion of young talent—a special place where promising careers can begin. In this inspiring environment, we are delighted to award Colin Pütz the Prix Serdang. His exceptional musical maturity and expressiveness make him one of the most exciting pianistic personalities of his generation. The fact that he has received this award—which simultaneously represents recognition, encouragement, and support—is thanks in no small part to the expertise of our curator, Rudolf Buchbinder, who has a sure instinct for recognizing outstanding talent. It is an honor for us to accompany Colin Pütz on his journey,” shared Adrian Flury, the initiator of the award.
Born in 2007, Colin Pütz currently studies with Florence Millet at the Cologne University of Music and Dance and holds a scholarship from the International Academy of Music Liechtenstein. He made his debut at festivals such as the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Ruhr Piano Festival. In 2024, he gave solo recitals at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn and at the Monte Carlo Opera. Recently, Colin signed with Dorn Music, where he will be represented worldwide by Tanja Dorn.
