Daniel Hoffmann 🌻

"Type I interferon promotes lymph node metastasis while impairing distant metastasis". Preprint on study with mice. Interesting implications for immunotherapy. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Vaccine delivered by massage. www.cell.com/cell-reports...

Tuberculosis: A surprising new hiding place for a dangerous pathogen | eLife The bacterium that causes TB can hide in liver cells called hepatocytes, and reprogram their metabolism for its own benefit.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis can hide not only in immune cells of the lungs but also in hepatocytes, the main carriers of liver function. elifesciences.org/articles/109...

Artificial intelligence research has a slop problem, academics say: ‘It’s a mess’ | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian AI research in question as author claims to have written over 100 papers on AI that one expert calls a ‘disaster’

If companies offer 'research' publication as a service (paid per publication), they will make money by selling lots of publications with just a thin veneer of science (real science costs time & money). Side-effect: publications become useless for scientists. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

AI deepfakes of real doctors spreading health misinformation on social media | Health | The Guardian Hundreds of videos on TikTok and elsewhere impersonate experts to sell supplements with unproven effects

Health misinformation spread on social media by deep fakes of real doctors. Platforms share responsibility. But we should also vaccinate with critical thinking. Ask: who benefits? Is source transparent? Lower baseline credibility on certain platforms. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The Indian Ocean disaster is a climate tragedy — and needs more attention A region unused to tropical cyclones has had three in a week. The world needs to ask why this happened, not look away.

Underreporting of massive disaster. Climate change is killing people now, not in the far future. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Who’s allowed to get the hepatitis B vaccine in the US now? | Trump administration | The Guardian Advisers for the CDC voted to limit the vaccines – here’s what happened and why the vote is so significant

After exposing babies in Africa to preventable fatal diseases by gutting USAID (greed) they now do the same with babies in the US (stupidity). This policy can only be sustained for some time by suppressing access to factual information and voting rights. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Science journal retracts study on safety of Monsanto’s Roundup: ‘Serious ethical concerns’ | US news | The Guardian Paper published in 2000 found glyphosate was not harmful, while internal emails later revealed company’s influence

Retraction of an article from year 2000 ghostwritten by pesticide producer. Good: evidence for independence and integrity of journal as of now. Bad: it looks as if authors & company conspired to undermine science. Rachel Carson's mission is not finished. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

‘It’s absolute anarchy’: Oxygen therapy chambers have led to horrific deaths. Why are Maha elite raving about them? Touted as a cure for everything from wrinkles to autism, the treatment has been hyped by Robert F Kennedy Jr and various celebrities. Experts say it needs to be regulated

Powerful and harmful technology scales faster than education and critical thinking.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

CDC advisers delay vote on restricting infant hepatitis B vaccinations in tense meeting From 1990 to 2019, reported cases of acute hepatitis B among kids declined by 99% due to infant immunization

The benefits of #hepatitis B #vaccine for infants are so clear that only a massive dose of ignorance and ideology can blind you to this fact. Weeping. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Order in which cancer-driving mutations occur affects the chance of tumour development Randomly acquired mutations face strong negative selection, except on certain cancer-promoting backgrounds.

It's not only that certain mutations make cancer development more likely, but the *order* in which these mutations occur over time matters for #cancer development. Study on colorectal cancer in mice. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘Fire amoeba’ survives in hotter conditions than any other complex cell The single-celled organism can grow at 63 °C, a record for eukaryotic life.

According to conventional wisdom temperatures above 60 °C are sufficient to deactivate microorganisms because proteins are denatured. This little amoeba, living in hot wells, is fully active at 63°C, a record for eukaryotes. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Loss of tropical moist broadleaf forest has turned Africa’s forests from a carbon sink into a source - Scientific Reports Africa’s forests and woody savannas have historically acted as a carbon sink, removing atmospheric carbon and storing it as biomass. However, our novel analysis reveals a critical transition from a ca...

Previously forested areas that used to take up CO2 are now burned down and turned into net *sources* of CO2. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

‘The biggest decision yet’: Jared Kaplan on allowing AI to train itself | Technology | The Guardian Anthropic’s chief scientist says AI autonomy could spark a beneficial ‘intelligence explosion’ – or be the moment humans lose control

As a species we are not good at responding to large global risks that require changes to the economy even if we have a good understanding (climate change). So I am pessimistic about containing AI. It's a race towards the abyss. www.theguardian.com/technology/n...

Antibodies and T cells join forces for sustained HIV remission Two studies suggest that T cells with stem-cell-like properties could work with antibody therapies to control HIV after a person stops taking antiviral pills.

Research such as this constantly reminds me of my ignorance: broadly neutralizing anti HIV antibodies help patients but in unexpected ways. The real heroes in HIV control seem to be CD8+ T cells. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

There is a known cure to HIV infection (applied to patients who also have blood cancer): transplant of stem cells with a mutation that makes the target cells of the virus resistant to infection. It turns out that the mechanism of the cure may be completely different! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

AI’s safety features can be circumvented with poetry, research finds | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian Poems containing prompts for harmful content prove effective at duping large language models

Poems of mass destruction. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

‘Nature’s original engineers’: scientists explore the amazing potential of fungi | Fungi | The Guardian Unique properties of fungi have led to groundbreaking innovations in recent years, from nappies to electronics

Self-decomposing fungi-based materials may help to overcome the micro-plastics crisis, though still a lot of research and development necessary. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Just attended this #3R conference (Reduction, Refinement, Replacement of animal experiments). Blown away by enthusiasm & experimental progress. Felt welcome with my contribution on #Bayesian stats and BAYAS. www.3r-netzwerk.nrw/3rd-annual-m...
bayas.zmb.uni-due.de

A chemical scarecrow for disease transmitting mosquitoes. Fairly cheap, convenient & somewhat effective, but may be problematic if used on large scale because it could facilitate selection of resistant mosquitoes. www.science.org/content/arti...

Measles deaths down 88% since 2000, but cases surge Global immunization efforts have led to an 88% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2024, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO). Nearly 59 million lives have been saved by the measles vaccine since 2000.

59 million lives saved since 2000 by #measles #vaccination. But the most contagious infectious human disease may have a comeback now. To fight it we have to fight ignorance and misinformation, which are contagious too. www.who.int/news/item/28...

Vicious climate cycle: higher temperatures reduce low-cloud cover, which increases heat absorbtion, which reduces clouds further, etc. new preprint with evaluation of satellite data. egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/20...

Fever may not help humans against bird flu strains well adapted to the higher body temperature of birds. www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1...

‘They don’t have symptoms’: CAR-T therapies send autoimmune diseases into remission Engineered T cells that have been used to treat ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus show promising results.

Hope for autoimmune disease patients: studies with CAR-T cells against lupus, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis have shown dramatic success. CAR-T cells are engineered immune cells trained to hunt down rogue immune cells. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Self-Assembly Gets Automated in Reverse of ‘Game of Life’ | Quanta Magazine In cellular automata, simple rules create elaborate structures. Now researchers can start with the structures and reverse-engineer the rules.

Biological development in health and disease is governed by rules that we often do not know yet. Can we reverse engineer these rules by trying to reproduce development in the computer with systematically tweaked rule sets? In toy models: yes. Very interesting! www.quantamagazine.org/self-assembl...

We are all mosaics: vast genetic diversity found between cells in a single person Technical advances allow researchers to trace the genetic changes that occur over time.

One person, one genome (with a few exceptions like cells of the adaptive immune system), that's normal & that's what I have been telling my students for years. Apparently, I'm wrong again: One person many genomes. Life is complex, literally. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

ECDC recommends vaccinating without delay due to early flu circulation Influenza detections are increasing unusually early in European Union/European Economic Area countries (EU/EEA) compared to previous years, with a timing three to four weeks earlier than the two most recent seasons.

Unusually early surge of #influenza: European CDC recommends #vaccination without delay, esp. for those at risk (elderly, pregnant, ...). www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-even...

Antibiotic resistance: how a pioneering trial is using old drugs to save babies from sepsis | Global development | The Guardian The infection is responsible for 800,000 newborn deaths each year, but clinics in eight countries are working together to find new treatments

Sepsis in babies: finding combination treatments that work in the face of antibiotic resistance. Great medical research project directly involving those at the frontline.
#sepsis #antibioticresistance www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

‘It’s hell for us here’: Mumbai families suffer as datacentres keep the city hooked on coal | Technology | The Guardian As Mumbai sees increased energy demand from new datacenters, particularly from Amazon, the filthiest neighbourhood in one of India’s largest cities must keep its major coal plants

A real world version of The Matrix: AI feeding on people. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Heron among sheep.

The new kid in the flock (photo today):