A tabby cat lies on a stone floor, looking up asking for attention

Ha! That's more like the behaviour (and look) of my other cat, Tiggy, as she demands attention

Lovely as Derry Street is, the view from my office today is hard to beat.

Some proofs on a table outside in the sun. Behind is a view over the countryside and a tortoiseshell cat

Today is one of those days when freelance life is awesome #freelance #proofreading #editing #science 🧪

My crazy cat Twix also thinks so 🐈

Have you ever licked someone who went to Turin?

The original research is on bioRxiv so not yet peer reviewed

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

A brain-persistent DDR2-degrading antibody reverses Alzheimer’s pathologies by restoring brain fluid dynamics and metabolic clearance Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is defined by Aβ deposition, yet cerebrovascular and glymphatic dysfunction are early drivers of progression. We identify discoidin domain receptor 2 (DDR2), a collagen-sensin...

The original paper is on medRxiv so not yet peer reviewed www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...

We're still a long way from knowing if it will work in humans, but as Jia Li at Guangzhou Medical University in China told me, “We’re hoping it can finally reverse Alzheimer’s.”

There are now hints it could be involved in the pathology of Alzheimer's, too. It seems to work earlier in the pathways we normally target, and tests in mice hint that focusing on DDR2 can not only reduce the formation of protein plaques (a key feature of Alzheimer's) but also clear existing ones

It's a receptor embedded in the membrane of cells called discoidin domain receptor 2 (DDR2).

Until now, it has mainly been associated with pulmonary fibrosis and its activity results in lots of the structural protein collagen being deposited in lung tissue, restricting the oxygen supply to cells.

Novel approach to clearing brain waste shows promise for Alzheimer's Boosting the brain's waste-disposal system is increasingly showing promise for Alzheimer's disease, with a study now suggesting that a novel approach eases brain deficits and symptoms associated with ...

Here is another potentially very cool story I did for @newscientist.com. Most Alzheimer's drugs don't work well, because the mouse models they are tested on aren't ideal and we might be focusing on the wrong biology. But this uncovers a surprising new target. 🧪
www.newscientist.com/article/2522...

I do find it amazing how much different DNA can end up on something after hundreds of years. Some of the weirder species: gray mullet, cod, ticks, potatoes, carrots, bananas, maple and stinging nettles.

Which makes me wonder about eDNA generally and how representative it can be of a place or time.

Think of a shroud that has been on display near a European market for hundreds of years, with people touching it, breathing on it, brushing it. No wonder there is trace DNA from many people and from cats, dogs, chickens, pigs, horses, deer, rabbits, skin mites, ticks, fish, carrots, melons etc.

So some people leap on any sign of India in relation to the shroud as being evidence it was made 2000ish years ago and did wrap the body of Jesus. Which is such a big leap it isn't a leap of logic. It is a leap of faith.

But India has a very long history of weaving, so despite the fact the cloth is of European style and relatively recent age, if it had been manufactured 2000 years ago, maybe that could have happened in India. Even though there is no evidence of any Indian weave of that pattern in that time period

Why would they focus on India? Well... the shroud has pretty conclusively been shown by carbon dating to be a medieval forgery and the weave of the cloth matches that of multi-shaft looms invented in Europe in medieval times. So you'd think case closed.

As nearly 40% of the human DNA found on the shroud (this is a reanalysis of samples taken from the shroud in 1978) came from Indian lineages, the bioRxiv paper suggests the shroud may have come from India.

Shroud of Turin, claimed to be Jesus' burial cloth, contaminated with carrot and red coral DNA An analysis of samples taken from the Shroud of Turin, the cloth thought by some to have been wrapped around Jesus, reveals a rich tapestry of animal and plant DNA. But what does it mean?

I found this fascinating to dig into. The Shroud of Turin, claimed by some to be Jesus's burial cloth, contains the DNA of multiple people, along with a huge array of other species, including carrots, cats, fish, melons and red coral. 🧪

www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

*Although my interests do tend to align with those of the scientists given that my chosen career essentially involves accurately telling the wider world about the latest work

Obviously, US scientists I speak to may well be on their guard and behave particularly well when I speak to them (because I am a journalist and might quote a juicy thing they said accidentally*), but then that's exactly the situation politicians are in the whole time

Ha, good point, maybe not one of the Big Bang Theory scientists...

What I always find striking is that I speak to people in the US pretty much every day (generally scientists 🧪). And every one is clearly very smart, chooses words carefully, shows empathy and integrity, concerned that the facts aren't misinterpreted. If only such scientists ran the US and the world

It's the kind of thing you get used to seeing about certain dictatorships, but it still seems strange to see it written about the US.

World Cup 2026 risks becoming a 'stage for repression' - Amnesty report The 2026 World Cup risks becoming

This is a pretty stark message about America. Amid "troubling attacks on human rights", Amnesty claims the "starkest threat" to visitors to the World Cup may be "the machine of abusive, discriminatory and deadly immigration enforcement and mass detention in the USA".
www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Hollywood has gone too far this time.

Thanks for pointing that

The original research the article is based on, "Neuroanatomy of the clitoris", was published on bioRxiv:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

So lovely to see this story I wrote for the Guardian doing well. 🧪

It amazed me that the clitoris didn't make it into standard anatomy textbooks until the 20th century. And in the 38th edition of Gray’s Anatomy in 1995 it was introduced as "a small version of the penis".

bsky.app/profile/theg...

Which reminds me of this great post by @leobarasi.bsky.social from a few months back

bsky.app/profile/leob...

The damaging effects of human-caused climate change are very much here in so many countries around the world, seen in the likes of floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, but we do have to draw a line between opinion and fact