This study examined the effects of stress and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on a measure of astrocyte reactivity in nonhuman primate (NHP) models of stress. Results showed that chronic separation stress in NHPs leads to increased signs of astrogliosis in the NHP hippocampus. The findings were consistent with the hypotheses that hippocampal astrogliosis is an important mechanism in stress-induced cognitive and behavioral deficits.

PDE8, a type of phosphodiesterase (PDE), is proven to be crucial in various cellular activities and physiological activities by influencing second messenger systems. It is involved in a wide range of diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and various heart diseases. However, there is limited information about PDE8 selective inhibitors. This work aimed to improve the solubility and yield of PDE8 in the supernatant by exploring suitable culture conditions, including temperatures and different additives.

Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) is a master regulator of mitosis, initiating key steps of cell cycle regulation, and its overexpression is associated with certain types of cancer. In this study, the authors carefully designed peptides that were able to bind to Plk1 at a location that is important for its proper localization and function. Future studies could further develop these peptides to selectively target Plk1 in cancer cells and induce mitotic arrest.

Here, the authors sought to investigate the efficiency, cost, and environmental impact of several possible propellants that are or could be used for space flight. By deriving three novel equations, they identified harm, energy, and cost scores for each fuel, suggesting that considering each factor will be essential to the ongoing growth of the space industry.

While resources on the safety of household cleaning products are plentiful, measures of efficacy of these cleaning chemicals against bacteria and viruses remain without standardization in the consumer market. The COVID pandemic has exasperated this knowledge gap, stoking the growth of misinformation and misuse surrounding household cleaning chemicals. Arriving at a time dire for sanitization standardization, the authors of this paper have created a quantifying framework for consumers by comparing a wide range of household cleaning products in their efficacy against bacteria generated by a safe and easily replicable yogurt model.

In this article, the authors investigate the RNA expression differences between groups of chronic cocaine abusers and drug-free subjects.

The Wnt signaling pathway, known to coordinate important aspects of cellular homeostasis ranging from differentiation, proliferation, migration, and much more, is dysregulated in many human diseases. This study demonstrates that aminomethylphosphonic acid, which is the main metabolite found in the common herbicide Glyphosate, is toxic to planaria and capable of binding to canonical Wnt proteins.

People react to music by moving and dancing. This study examined if different types of music were correlated with higher heart rates and if this was at all affected by music preferences.

Wang and Gong developed a novel dynamic gene-searching algorithm called Dynamic Gene Search (DyGS) to create a gene panel for each of the 12 cancers with the highest annual incidence and death rate. The 12 gene panels the DyGS algorithm selected used only 3.5% of the original gene mutation pool, while covering every patient sample. About 40% of each gene panel is druggable, which indicates that the DyGS-generated gene panels can be used for early cancer detection as well as therapeutic targets in treatment methods.

In this study, the authors investigate situations in which people make sports bets that seem to go against their better judgement. Using surveys, individuals were asked to bet on which team would win in scenarios when their home team was involved and others when they were not to determine whether fandom for a team can overshadow fans’ judgment. They found that fans bet much more on their home teams than neutral teams when their team was facing a large deficit.