A new study has revealed a promising nature-based strategy to clean up red mud, one of the world’s most hazardous industrial wastes, by combining biochar with beneficial soil fungi to target specific pollutants and revive damaged soils.

In a new study published in The Lancet Digital Health, scientists at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute have discovered that the brains of people who experience severe physical impairment after a stroke may reorganize themselves in unexpected ways, showing signs of “younger” brain structure in undamaged regions as they adapt to injury. The international research effort is part of the Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Stroke Recovery Working Group, which analyzed brain scans from more than 500 stroke survivors across 34 research sites in eight countries. Using deep learning models trained on tens of thousands of MRI scans, the researchers estimated the “brain age” of different regions in each hemisphere to see how stroke damage affects brain structure and recovery. The research team used an advanced form of artificial intelligence known as a graph convolutional network to predict the biological age of 18 brain regions from MRI data. When the team associated these measurements with motor performance scores, they found a striking pattern: stroke survivors with severe movement deficits, even after more than 6 months of rehabilitation, showed younger-than-expected brain age in regions opposite the lesion, particularly within the frontoparietal network, a key system involved in motor planning, attention, and coordination. By observing how patterns of brain aging and reorganization develop over time, clinicians might be able to customize interventions based on each patient’s unique neural adaptation process, ultimately improving recovery outcomes and quality of life in the near future.

A 14-year field study has provided compelling evidence that biochar can simultaneously reduce heavy metal risks in agricultural soils while enhancing carbon storage, offering a powerful strategy for sustainable farming and climate mitigation.

Excessive consumption of dietary sodium (salt) is a significant, independent risk factor for new-onset heart failure, according to a report from Vanderbilt Health.

A new study from researchers at the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (Alliance) shows that patients with stage III colon cancer with deficient deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) mismatch repair (dMMR) had significantly better outcomes when the immunotherapy drug atezolizumab (Tecentriq^®) was added to standard chemotherapy after surgery. The phase III Alliance ATOMIC A021502 trial, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and conducted in partnership with Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, and the German group Arbeitsgemeinschaft Internistische Onkologie (AIO), found that this approach lowered the risk of the cancer returning or causing death by 50%, with 86.3% of patients remaining disease-free at three years compared with 76.2% receiving chemotherapy alone. The findings, now published in The New England Journal of Medicine, provide strong evidence that adding immunotherapy to chemotherapy can improve clinical outcome for this group of patients and establishes a new therapeutic standard for this biologically distinct subset of colon cancer.