- NASA’s Curiosity rover takes a closer look at ‘spiderwebs’ on Mars | Space photo of the day for July 1, 2025 MSN
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NASA's Curiosity rover takes a closer look at 'spiderwebs' on Mars | Space photo of the day for July 1, 2025 – MSN
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Study Explores Approaches to Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Primary Care
A study involving 76 primary care practices in Colorado explored two different approaches to initiating continuous glucose monitor (CGM) use with their diabetic patients.
The study from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus was published in BMC Primary Care. Some practices chose a self-guided option using educational tools developed by the American Academy of Family Physicians. Others referred patients to a virtual CGM initiation service run by a team of primary care-based healthcare professionals who were part of the research team.
Practices with in-house diabetes care and education specialists, formerly known as diabetes educators, were more likely to choose the self-guided route, while those without specialists preferred the study’s virtual service. Other than this difference, the practices were largely similar.
The researchers found that practices had success with both models in boosting use of CGM.
“This is great news for people with diabetes, especially those who don’t have easy access to a diabetes specialist,” said Kimberly Wiggins, M.A., M.Ed, the lead author on the study, in a statement. “It shows that novel approaches can be developed to share resources, including diabetes care and education specialists, to start patients on CGM and then transition them back to their primary care practice.”Despite their potential benefits, fewer than half of primary care doctors in the United States have ever prescribed a CGM.
“Our goal was to find practical approaches to help primary care clinics offer CGMs to their patients,” said Tamara Oser, M.D., senior author of the study and professor, in a statement. Oser is director of the Primary Care Diabetes Lab in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. “We found that both methods worked. Even clinics without in-house diabetes experts were able to successfully offer CGM by using the remote option.”
Oser noted that this is now the standard of care for many people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, no matter where they live or what kind of clinic they go to. “This is another huge step in better treatment for the 38 million people living with diabetes in the U.S.,” she added.
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NASA Missions Help Explain, Predict Severity of Solar Storms
An unexpectedly strong solar storm rocked our planet on April 23, 2023, sparking auroras as far south as southern Texas in the U.S. and taking the world by surprise.
Two days earlier, the Sun blasted a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a cloud of energetic particles, magnetic fields, and solar material — toward Earth. Space scientists took notice, expecting it could cause disruptions to Earth’s magnetic field, known as a geomagnetic storm. But the CME wasn’t especially fast or massive, and it was preceded by a relatively weak solar flare, suggesting the storm would be minor. But it became severe.
Using NASA heliophysics missions, new studies of this storm and others are helping scientists learn why some CMEs have more intense effects — and better predict the impacts of future solar eruptions on our lives.
A paper published in the Astrophysical Journal on March 31 suggests the CME’s orientation relative to Earth likely caused the April 2023 storm to become surprisingly strong.
The researchers gathered observations from five heliophysics spacecraft across the inner solar system to study the CME in detail as it emerged from the Sun and traveled to Earth.
They noticed a large coronal hole near the CME’s birthplace. Coronal holes are areas where the solar wind — a stream of particles flowing from the Sun — floods outward at higher than normal speeds.
“The fast solar wind coming from this coronal hole acted like an air current, nudging the CME away from its original straight-line path and pushing it closer to Earth’s orbital plane,” said the paper’s lead author, Evangelos Paouris of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “In addition to this deflection, the CME also rotated slightly.”
Paouris says this turned the CME’s magnetic fields opposite to Earth’s magnetic field and held them there — allowing more of the Sun’s energy to pour into Earth’s environment and intensifying the storm.
Meanwhile, NASA’s GOLD (Global-scale Observations of Limb and Disk) mission revealed another unexpected consequence of the April 2023 storm at Earth.
Before, during, and after the storm, GOLD studied the temperature in the middle thermosphere, a part of Earth’s upper atmosphere about 85 to 120 miles overhead. During the storm, temperatures increased throughout GOLD’s wide field of view over the Americas. But surprisingly, after the storm, temperatures dropped about 90 to 198 degrees Fahrenheit lower than they were before the storm (from about 980 to 1,070 degrees Fahrenheit before the storm to 870 to 980 degrees Fahrenheit afterward).
“Our measurement is the first to show widespread cooling in the middle thermosphere after a strong storm,” said Xuguang Cai of the University of Colorado, Boulder, lead author of a paper about GOLD’s observations published in the journal JGR Space Physics on April 15, 2025.
The thermosphere’s temperature is important, because it affects how much drag Earth-orbiting satellites and space debris experience.
“When the thermosphere cools, it contracts and becomes less dense at satellite altitudes, reducing drag,” Cai said. “This can cause satellites and space debris to stay in orbit longer than expected, increasing the risk of collisions. Understanding how geomagnetic storms and solar activity affect Earth’s upper atmosphere helps protect technologies we all rely on — like GPS, satellites, and radio communications.”
To predict when a CME will trigger a geomagnetic storm, or be “geoeffective,” some scientists are combining observations with machine learning. A paper published last November in the journal Solar Physics describes one such approach called GeoCME.
Machine learning is a type of artificial intelligence in which a computer algorithm learns from data to identify patterns, then uses those patterns to make decisions or predictions.
Scientists trained GeoCME by giving it images from the NASA/ESA (European Space Agency) SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft of different CMEs that reached Earth along with SOHO images of the Sun before, during, and after each CME. They then told the model whether each CME produced a geomagnetic storm.
Then, when it was given images from three different science instruments on SOHO, the model’s predictions were highly accurate. Out of 21 geoeffective CMEs, the model correctly predicted all 21 of them; of 7 non-geoeffective ones, it correctly predicted 5 of them.
“The algorithm shows promise,” said heliophysicist Jack Ireland of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who was not involved in the study. “Understanding if a CME will be geoeffective or not can help us protect infrastructure in space and technological systems on Earth. This paper shows machine learning approaches to predicting geoeffective CMEs are feasible.”
During a severe geomagnetic storm in May 2024 — the strongest to rattle Earth in over 20 years — NASA’s STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) measured the magnetic field structure of CMEs as they passed by.
When a CME headed for Earth hits a spacecraft first, that spacecraft can often measure the CME and its magnetic field directly, helping scientists determine how strong the geomagnetic storm will be at Earth. Typically, the first spacecraft to get hit are one million miles from Earth toward the Sun at a place called Lagrange Point 1 (L1), giving us only 10 to 60 minutes advanced warning.
By chance, during the May 2024 storm, when several CMEs erupted from the Sun and merged on their way to Earth, NASA’s STEREO-A spacecraft happened to be between us and the Sun, about 4 million miles closer to the Sun than L1.
A paper published March 17, 2025, in the journal Space Weather reports that if STEREO-A had served as a CME sentinel, it could have provided an accurate prediction of the resulting storm’s strength 2 hours and 34 minutes earlier than a spacecraft could at L1.
According to the paper’s lead author, Eva Weiler of the Austrian Space Weather Office in Graz, “No other Earth-directed superstorm has ever been observed by a spacecraft positioned closer to the Sun than L1.”
By Vanessa Thomas
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With the Notes App Waiting in the Wings, Google Keep Bows Out on Apple Watch – PCMag
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StackSocial’s Deal Days Are Here With a Massive Price Drop on Microsoft Office 2024 – PCMag
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This Stylist Bride Wore Custom Schiaparelli to Marry in the Santa Susana Mountains
Celebrity stylist Liat Baruch and NBC Universal media executive David Vickter were set up by mutual friends in the summer of 2021 after a long-anticipated introduction. “I was traveling quite a bit at the time, so we started off as friends,” Liat, whose clients include Kirsten Dunst and the Richie sisters—she was the mastermind behind Sofia Richie Grainge’s viral wedding wardrobe—remembers. “But we quickly found ourselves spending most of our free time together. Whether it was grabbing coffee, running errands, meeting for lunch, or venting about the dating scene in L.A. over drinks, we always found an excuse to hang out.”
Eventually, their relationship evolved into a real-life When Harry Met Sally… story. “In November of 2024, we decided to give ‘us’ a real shot—and it just clicked,” Liat remembers. “We’re still best friends who genuinely love doing life together… only now, we get to do it as partners.”
The two got engaged in March of 2025. On Sunday mornings, they’d made a tradition of hiking Fryman Canyon, and on this particular Sunday, Liat geared up in her weighted vest and ankle weights, ready for their usual loop—but David suggested they take a quieter, less-traveled trail to the top. “It was one of those perfect L.A. days—clear skies, warm sun, and not a soul in sight,” Liat recalls. “As we reached a secluded spot overlooking the horizon, the world felt completely still. The only sounds were the birds and the soft breeze around us.”
And then, David proposed. “I was so surprised and overwhelmed with joy, that all I could say was, ‘This is so cool! And, of course, yes!’ which somehow felt exactly right.” They completed the trail, reveling in the moment, and letting their big news sink in before telling anyone. “It was simple, beautiful, and completely us,” Liat recalls.
Shortly after their engagement, they set their wedding date for June 15, 2025 at Hummingbird Nest Ranch in the Santa Susana Mountains—and jumped right into planning mode, which they somehow pulled off in just two-and-a-half months. “Thankfully, we had Rikki and Mal to help plan and coordinate everything, and it all came together so smoothly,” Liat explains. “With both of us juggling full schedules, we knew from the start that we needed support. Bringing in people we trusted to help guide the vision, handle the details, and make the whole experience feel fun—instead of overwhelming!—was key.”
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Scientists zapped students’ brains with electricity to improve their math learning
Imperceptible electrical signals delivered to the brain can improve college students’ mathematics skills, a new study has found.
The researchers say that the technology is not far from being ready for at-home use — though one expert emphasized that more research is needed.
In the new study, the researchers recruited 72 students from the University of Oxford. The researchers assessed the volunteers’ math prowess with tests before dividing the students into three subgroups with matched abilities, meaning each group had a mix of people with weaker and stronger math skills.
For the experiment, individuals in each group had electrodes placed on their scalps that could deliver mild electrical signals to the brain. Two of the groups received stimulation to either the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) or the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) — brain areas linked to math ability in previous research. The third group received a sham stimulation.
The team then applied transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS), which is just one of many types of non-invasive brain stimulation but is known to be more comfortable than other options. The current passed through the scalp is very low.
“Most of the people do not feel whether they’re stimulated or not,” said senior author Roi Cohen Kadosh, a neuroscientist at the University of Surrey. Each participant in the treated groups received 150 minutes of stimulation, paired with math tests, over five days of testing.
Related: Electrical zaps can ‘reawaken’ lost neural connections, helping paralyzed people walk again
The tests assessed the students’ calculation skills and “drill learning.” Calculation learning requires existing mathematical ability and challenges participants to work out the answer to a presented problem. Drill learning, in contrast, requires no mathematical ability and instead asks users to memorize a series of presented equations.
Based on past research, the authors hypothesized that dlPFC stimulation would enhance calculation learning, because this area is associated with learning new skills and high-level cognition. They thought that stimulating the PPC, meanwhile, which handles the retrieval of already learned skills, might enhance drill learning. In the study, they found dlPFC stimulation was indeed tied to improved calculation ability but PPC stimulation didn’t improve drill learning.
Before testing began, the team had measured the connectivity of their participants’ frontal and parietal lobes, found at the front and on the top of the brain. These two lobes are the sites of the dlPFC and PPC, respectively, and are activated together during math learning. The team hypothesized that having stronger connections between the two lobes would be linked to stronger calculation learning. This was borne out by the data: at baseline, the team observed a stronger connection in participants with better calculation abilities.
People with weaker connectivity who were in the sham stimulation group had a harder time getting to grips with the calculation problems than those with stronger connectivity in the same group. But individuals with weak connections who had their dlPFC stimulated showed the biggest improvements in their scores.
Notably, an earlier, small study the team undertook with a cohort of math professors showed that stimulation actually worsened the pros’ performance on math tests. This suggests those who already have high math ability should avoid stimulation.
“It’s an optimal system,” Kadosh said of the math professors’ brains. “You enter new noise into that, it’s going to cause a detrimental effect.”
Kadosh is the co-founder of Cognite Neurotechnology, a brain stimulation company, and is optimistic about rolling out the technology to the general public. Kadosh said that people in universities, workplaces and training centers could all benefit from it. He added that he was interested in expanding the technology to people with learning difficulties and neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Meanwhile, Sung Joo Kim, a psychologist at Binghamton University who was not involved in the research, noted that while similar stimulation devices have already been cleared for at-home use, analyses looking at how well they work have made it clear that more research is needed.
Kim added that such devices may need to be personalized to individual users to reflect differences in their brain shapes. “When you’re targeting to stimulate certain brain regions, it might not necessarily work so well unless you really consider the brain anatomical structure of individual people,” she said.
Kadosh also said that any consumer devices borne of the research need to be anchored to solid evidence, and he argued that many existing consumer brain-stimulation devices have little scientific basis. “We need to show that we can use this technology at home,” he said.
Brain quiz: Test your knowledge of the most complex organ in the body
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Enzyme Inhibition Restores Neuron Pathways in a Parkinson’s Mouse Model
Credit: koto_feja/Getty Images
In a new study published in Science Signaling titled, “Restoration of striatal neuroprotective pathways by kinase inhibitor treatment of Parkinson’s linked-LRRK2 mutant mice,” researchers from Stanford University and University of Dundee have shown that inhibition of a specific enzyme may rescue neurons that are dying due to a type of Parkinson’s disease that is caused by a single genetic mutation in a mouse model.
About 25% of Parkinson’s disease cases are caused by genetic mutations. Activating mutations in leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) is one of the most common Parkinson’s associated mutations. Overactive LRRK2 leads to the loss of primary cilia in neurons which disrupts crucial communication that makes the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Overactive LRRK2 can be mitigated using MLi-2 LRRK2 kinase inhibitor. Given that the genetic mutation is not the only mechanism of overactive LRRK2, the inhibitor treatment might help with other types of neurodegenerative diseases.
“Findings from this study suggest that inhibiting the LRRK2 enzyme could stabilize the progression of symptoms if patients can be identified early enough,” said Suzanne Pfeffer, PhD, professor of biochemistry at Stanford and corresponding author of the study.
In a healthy brain, many messages are sent between dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra and the striatum. This signaling is possible because dopamine neuron axons reach the striatum to communicate with neurons and glia.
Dopamine neurons release Sonic Hedgehog (Shh), a signaling protein critical for brain development and function, which plays a key role in cell growth, differentiation, and the formation of neural circuits. In a healthy brain, Shh causes certain neurons and astrocytes in the striatum to produce proteins called neuroprotective factors. Overactivation of LRRK2 disrupts Shh signaling and lowers neuroprotective factor production.
Results showed that three month-dietary administration of MLi-2 LRRK2 kinase inhibitor to mice restored primary cilia and Shh responsive production of neuroprotective factors. In addition, indicators of the density of dopamine nerve endings within the striatum doubled, suggesting an initial recovery for neurons that had been in the process of dying. The findings potentially offer an avenue to improve, not just stabilize, the condition of patients with Parkinson’s disease.
“Many kinds of processes necessary for cells to survive are regulated through cilia sending and receiving signals,” Pfeffer explained. “We think that when cells have lost their cilia, they are also on the pathway to death because they need cilia to receive signals that keep them alive.”
The earliest symptoms of Parkinson’s disease begin about 15 years before a patient notices a tremor. Pfeffer said the hope is that people who have the LRRK2 genetic mutation can start a treatment that inhibits the enzyme as early as possible.
Looking ahead, the research team will test whether other forms of Parkinson’s disease not associated with the LRRK2 genetic mutation could benefit from this type of treatment.
“We are so excited about these findings. They suggest this approach has great promise to help patients in terms of restoring neuronal activity in this brain circuit,” Pfeffer said. “There are multiple LRRK2 inhibitor clinical trials underway, and our hope is that these findings in mice will hold true for patients in the future.”
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Sega president says companies with a ‘good record’ tend to have a strong global GAAS business
Sega president and COO Shuji Utsumi recently spoke about the company’s push for making its Games as a Service (GAAS) business model global, as it’s a sign of a company’s “good record.”
In an interview with The Game Business, Utsumi said that game companies with “a good record tend to have a strong [global] GAAS business.” In regards to Sega, while the console and PC standalone business is “getting better,” the publisher and developer is still working on making its GAAS business global. “That’s one of the biggest challenges,” he added.
Currently, Sega’s GAAS focus is on free-to-play mobile games, including the likes of Sonic Rumble, which is free to play but offers in-app purchases. In a 2024 interview with Automaton, which was translated from Japanese, game director Makoto Tase said that “monetization models that use gacha mechanics have not been very successful when it comes to games targeted towards worldwide audiences of all ages,” and that these mechanics “tend to be shunned overseas,” leading to ultimately deciding not to include them in Rumble.
While Utsumi didn’t specifically mentioned gacha mechanics, he sees developer Rovio, which Sega acquired back in August 2023, as the candidate for this business push. “Rovio has deep knowledge of the global mobile business, and very strong IP with Angry Birds,” Utsumi said. “We feel like the fit between Rovio and Sega is good. We are working closely with Rovio to have a Sonic mobile game, and we are giving them access to IPs, including Sonic, to come up with nice, welcoming GAAS titles.”
Sega’s plans of expansion also include developing properties beyond games, with Utsumi referencing the success of the Sonic movies, which topped $1 billion at the global box office on January of this year. According to the president, the films have had a major impact on the franchise, leading to a significant boost to Sonic game sales.
“When I started to get involved in the video game business, I picked up Crash Bandicoot and started asking some of the movie studios if they were interested in turning that property into a movie,” he said. “But I was treated like… ‘hey, video games is like a toy business’. They didn’t really take it seriously.”
Live service games aren’t going through a healthy phase
Even though Utsumi said that game companies with strong GAAS business show a good record, studios have been struggling around live service launches.
Sony reportedly poured $200 million into live service shooter Concord, which was released late last year and pulled from sale within weeks, shuttering the studio behind it in the process. In January of this year, it canceled two first-party live service titles in development at Bluepoint Games and Bend Studio. Weeks later, contractors were reportedly cut at the latter.
Mere weeks later, Warner Bros. Games announced it would be shutting down free-to-play brawler Multiversus on May 30. There’s still an interest around live-service models—Pragma, a backend engine for live-service games like Spectre Divide and Predecessor, secured a $12.75 million investment in March. Despite the decisions in the preceding months, previous PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst said that Bungie’s upcoming live-service shooter, Marathon, won’t be making the same mistakes as Concord.
“I think that some really good work went into that title,” Hulst said during a fireside chat aimed at investors. “Some really big efforts. But ultimately that title entered into a hyper-competitive segment of the market. I think it was insufficiently differentiated to be able to resonate with players. So we have reviewed our processes in light of this to deeply understand how and why that title failed to meet expectations—and to ensure that we are not going to make the same mistakes again.”
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PHOx: Safer Polymer Breakthrough for Implants
A scientific team from the University of Liège has just developed an innovative polymer, PHOx, which could significantly improve the safety of implantable medical devices, while being more environmentally friendly. This invention is the subject of an international patent application.
Every year, millions of patients receive medical devices inserted or implanted in the cardiovascular system: arterial and venous catheters, cardiac devices, pacemaker leads, artificial hearts, vascular prostheses, etc. These devices, often made from polyurethane (PU), perform vital functions, but are not without defects. PU production relies on toxic chemicals called isocyanates, and PU is also partly responsible for serious complications in patients, such as blood clots and infections.
Faced with these limitations, a team of chemists and cardiologists at the University of Liège has come up with a promising alternative: PHOx, a thermoplastic elastomer without isocyanate PU (NIPU), which is therefore less toxic to produce and much better tolerated by the human body.
“PHOx (Poly Hydroxy-Oxazolidone) is a flexible, transformable plastic that can be moulded, pressed, spun into fibres or 3D printed,” explain Anna Pierrard and Christine Jérôme, chemists. It can thus be used to produce a variety of personalised medical devices. Better still, its manufacture is based on ‘greener’ raw materials, derived in particular from carbon dioxide, reducing the environmental impact of the process.
Extensive laboratory tests have shown that PHOx outperforms PU in several key respects,” enthuse Sofia Melo, bioengineer, and Cécile Oury, Head of the Cardiology Laboratory at ULiège.” PHOx is more compatible with blood. In particular, it reduces the adhesion of platelets (essential cells in the formation of blood clots) and the activation of coagulation, limiting the risks of clot formation. It is also thought to inhibit the adhesion of bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus, which is often implicated in implant infections. No toxicity was observed, either for human cells or during implantation, and the material did not cause excessive inflammation, degradation or rejection.
3D printable implants
Another major advantage of PHOx is that it can be easily 3D printed. “This means that we could eventually produce custom-made devices for each patient, reducing waste and at lower cost,” explains Patrizio Lancellotti, Head of Cardiology at Liège University Hospital.” Tailor-made implants, heart valves adapted to the anatomy of each individual: the applications are numerous.
Thanks to its mechanical (flexibility, strength) and biological (biocompatibility, compatibility with blood, stability) properties, PHOx could well replace PUs in many medical applications. This is a major step towards medical devices that are safer for patients, more environmentally friendly, and potentially more economical thanks to customised manufacturing and reduced healthcare costs associated with fewer complications.
The researchers stress that this is the first time that a NIPU (non-isocyanate polyurethane) material has demonstrated such performance in critical medical applications. An international patent application (WO2025082761) has already been filed.
/Public Release. This material from the originating organization/author(s) might be of the point-in-time nature, and edited for clarity, style and length. Mirage.News does not take institutional positions or sides, and all views, positions, and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the author(s).View in full here.Continue Reading