Israeli scientists reel after Iranian missile strikes premier research institute

REHOVOT, Israel — For years, Israel has targeted Iranian nuclear scientists, hoping to choke progress on Iran's nuclear program by striking at the brains behind it.
Now, with Iran and Israel in an open-ended direct conflict, scientists in Israel have found themselves in the crosshairs after an Iranian missile struck a premier research institute known for its work in life sciences and physics, among other fields.

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Tylenol doesn't work the way we thought it does

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Acetaminophen is widely used to relieve pain, but exactly how it works has long been a mystery. Now, a new study suggests that a key byproduct of acetaminophen may block pain signals at the nerves — before they can reach the brain. Acetaminophen, also called paracetamol or Tylenol, is broken down by the liver into a compound called 4-aminophenol, which travels through the bloodstream to different organs. There, an enzyme links it with a fatty acid to produce AM404. Previous research found that AM404 can act in the central nervous system — the brain and spinal cord. But the new study, published June 4 in the journal PNAS, reveals that AM404 also affects the peripheral nervous system, where pain signals originate. "These results fundamentally change our understanding of paracetamol's mode of action," study co-authors Alexander Binshtok, a professor in pain research, and Avi Priel, a professor of pharmacy, both at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Live Science in an email. Nial Wheate, a professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at Macquarie University in Australia, who wasn't involved in the study, agreed. "Even though we have been using paracetamol for the management of pain for more than 130 years, we still don't fully understand how the drug works," Wheate told Live Science. One widely held theory was that acetaminophen stopped the body from making. prostaglandins, which can trigger pain and inflammation, he said."If the results of this study are confirmed, then it significantly changes our understanding of the drug." However, the new study was in rats, so the findings may not apply in humans, he added. To test the effects of AM404, the scientists applied the compound to sensory neurons taken from newborn rats. They found that it blocks sodium channels — proteins that normally allow charged sodium particles to pass in and out of cells, which are essential for generating and transmitting pain signals. By blocking these channels, AM404 keeps the neurons from sending pain messages to the brain. Other byproducts of acetaminophen had no such effect. The researchers also injected AM404 into the paws of rats and tested their responses to painful stimuli. The treated paws became less sensitive to heat and pressure, with the strongest effect appearing about an hour after the injection. Importantly, the pain relief was limited to the site of the injection, leaving the other paw unaffected. While the findings may not change how acetaminophen is currently used to treat pain, they could influence the development of next-generation painkillers that are potentially safer, Wheate said. Acetaminophen overdoses can damage the liver and are responsible for 56,000 emergency visits a year in the U.S. RELATED STORIES —FDA approves 1st new class of opioid-free painkillers in over 20 years —Ozempic in a pill? New oral drug may work as well as Ozempic-style injectables —Acne vaccine: Experimental shot for common skin condition reaches clinical trials. Here's what you need to know. "Whole families of new drugs could be designed based around blocking sodium channels. These new drugs could be both more effective and safer than not just paracetamol, but other painkillers like ibuprofen or the opioids," Wheate said. Looking ahead, Binshtok and Priel hope to design improved versions of AM404 that are more chemically stable and optimized to work in the peripheral nervous system, they added. They also plan to test whether these compounds can help with chronic or nerve-related pain, where standard treatments often fall short. Another important next step is to assess the safety and therapeutic potential of AM404 in greater detail. This involves understanding how it is broken down and distributed in the body and whether it might affect any other organs.

CNN

13 hours ago

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FDA approves twice-a-year shot to prevent HIV

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Yahoo

21 hours ago

• Yahoo

Do you struggle to lift five kilograms? Your health could be at risk, study finds

Scientists at the University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates have devised a simple test that they can say can predict an increased risk of developing a host of health problems in older adults. All you have to do is try to pick up a five-kilogram weight. Struggle with that, they say, and you have a significantly higher risk of experiencing a lower quality of life, higher rates of depression, chronic lung diseases, hip fractures, joint disorders, high cholesterol, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, osteoarthritis and more. The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports under a no-nonsense title: 'The simple task of lifting five kilograms serves as a predictor of age-related disorders in old adults.' The large-scale study involved 51,536 'geriatric adults' — that is to say 50 and older, a definition that may annoy some — from 14 European countries as well as Israel. It was a roughly even split between men and women, with about a third of the group aged between 60 and 69, another third between 70 and 79, and the rest younger or older. (About 4 per cent were 90 and above.) Participants were asked to report if they had difficulty lifting five kilograms in 2013 — 80.5 per cent said they did not — and were then followed for several years to see which diseases developed among each group. For a given disease, participants were excluded if they already had it in the baseline year. Take high blood pressure. In 2013, just under 60 per cent of the group were free of a diagnosis of high blood pressure. Of those, 21.5 per cent went on to develop it. But among the participants who had trouble lifting the weight when the study began, that number amounted to 26.2 per cent. For hip fractures, the overwhelming majority (97 per cent) did not have one when the study started. But in the years that followed, 3.5 per cent of those who had trouble lifting the weight experienced a hip fracture, versus just 1.5 per cent of those who did not struggle with the weight. Parsing the data between younger and older ages, the researchers found that men and women under 65 who had trouble lifting five kilograms were most at risk of developing depression, low quality of life, low hand-grip strength (which can also indicate risks of other diseases) and Alzheimer's. For older men and women who struggled with the weight, risk of Alzheimer's dropped somewhat while the other three conditions remained top of list. But for almost every condition the researchers tracked, struggling to lift five kilograms at the start of the study was a clear indicator of greater risk at the end. The only diseases that didn't fit the pattern were cancer and diabetes, where risk did not change. The reason for the design of the study was simple. 'Muscle weakness is a risk factor for multiple diseases,' the researchers wrote in their report. 'However, most protocols to assess muscle weakness require clinical settings. A difficulty lifting 5 kg may be a simple measure of muscle weakness in domestic settings. However, no relevant study on assessing muscle weakness has been reported.' They aimed to fill that gap. 'We suggest that difficulty lifting 5 kg may be a valuable indicator of muscle weakness and poor health in domestic settings. Our findings strongly suggest that this simple, everyday test could be a valuable early indicator of overall health and potential future health challenges.' If you're looking to try this test at home and don't have a five-kilogram weight handy, there are a number of household objects that come in at about the same mass, including a metal folding chair, a gallon of paint, two reams of printer paper or two bags of flour (conveniently marked 2.5 kg each).The average house cat also tips the scales at about five kilograms, if you can get your hands on one. Multivitamins are mostly useless, finds study of nearly 400,000 participants More than 46,000 people observed in a coffee study. Here's what happened to the ones who took theirs black Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our newsletters here.