Vaccine Project Reviews Meningococcal and Pneumococcal Shots

The University of Minnesota’s Vaccine Integrity Project (VIP) is launching an independent review of scientific evidence on meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines for children and young adults. The review will examine all licensed U.S. vaccines, including MenACWY, MenB, newer pentavalent meningococcal vaccines and pneumococcal shots. The effort comes amid changes to federal vaccine recommendations under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which now limit some meningococcal vaccines to high-risk groups or shared clinical decision-making, while the American Academy of Pediatrics continues recommending them broadly. Meningococcal disease remains rare but has increased since 2021, particularly serogroup Y infections. The disease can be deadly, killing 10% to 15% of patients and leaving some survivors with permanent complications including hearing loss, brain injury and limb amputation. (CIDRAP)

Airborne Spread May Help CRAB Move Through ICUs: Chinese researchers have found evidence that carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB), a dangerous healthcare-associated pathogen, may spread through the air in intensive care units. Investigators sampled air from five ICU rooms at West China Hospital where patients had tested positive for CRAB. The bacteria were recovered from 13 of 88 air samples, all from multipatient rooms. Whole-genome sequencing identified two high-risk lineages, ST2 and ST164, and genetic similarities suggested transmission both within and between rooms. Researchers say routine ICU activities—including mechanical ventilation, suctioning, diaper changing and bed making—could disperse CRAB into the air. Although larger multicenter studies are needed, the findings suggest airborne spread may be an underrecognized route of transmission and could complicate infection-prevention efforts in hospitals. (CIDRAP)

AI Turns Research Papers Into Working Agents: Researchers at Stanford University have developed Paper2Agent, a framework that transforms scientific papers from static documents into interactive AI agents capable of applying the research themselves. The system analyzes a paper, supplementary material, datasets and accompanying code, then automatically constructs tools that researchers can access using ordinary language. In demonstrations, agents reproduced published analyses involving AlphaGenome, single-cell biology and spatial transcriptomics, then applied those methods to previously unseen questions. Multiple paper-agents could even collaborate, with one demonstration prioritizing a potential causal gene for psoriasis. Published in Nature, the approach could substantially reduce the programming and technical expertise required to reuse computational research. The authors envision scientific literature becoming an ecosystem of interoperable AI “co-scientists,” although reliability and reproducibility remain crucial considerations. (Nature)

Scientists Reconstruct Movies From Mouse Brain Activity: Scientists have reconstructed short videos using only activity recorded from neurons in the visual cortex of mice, providing an unusual window into how brains internally represent the visual world. Researchers at University College London used calcium imaging to monitor individual neurons while mice watched movies, then applied a neural encoding model to translate those activity patterns back into pixels. After training, the system reconstructed a 10-second movie it had never previously encountered, showing it was not simply memorizing images. Accuracy improved as researchers incorporated activity from more neurons. Published in eLife, the technique could allow neuroscientists to compare physical scenes with the brain’s internal representations, revealing which aspects of reality neural processing emphasizes, filters or transforms before they ultimately become perception. (ScienceDaily)

Human Brain Tissue Thrives Inside Living Mice: Researchers have created mice in which large pieces of laboratory-grown human cerebral cortex survive, mature and integrate into a functioning nervous system. Scientists at Stanford Medicine transplanted human cortical organoids into genetically engineered mice lacking most of their own cerebral cortex, giving the tissue room to expand. The human neurons formed functional connections with the mouse brain and even extended pathways toward the spinal cord. Remarkably, researchers observed a human nerve-cell type previously detected only in autopsied brains, suggesting the living environment permits developmental processes conventional organoid cultures cannot reproduce. The xenocortical mice could provide powerful models for studying disorders including epilepsy, schizophrenia and cerebral palsy and for examining how human neural circuits respond to injury. The work also raises important ethical questions as human neural tissue becomes increasingly integrated into animals. (Stanford Medicine)

Huge New Lunar Crater Reveals Impact Risk: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has discovered the largest known impact crater formed anywhere in the Solar System in recent times. The crater, created by an asteroid or comet fragment in May 2024 but initially overlooked in spacecraft data, measures about 222 meters across and up to 43 meters deep—three times larger than the previous record-holder detected by LRO. Researchers estimate an impact this large occurs only about once every 132 years. Debris disturbed lunar terrain more than 100 kilometers away, while another study identified a seven-kilometer-wide cold region produced when the collision loosened lunar soil. Published in Science Advances, the observations suggest impacts overturn the Moon’s uppermost soil faster than previously believed. The findings will also help engineers estimate risks from high-speed ejecta when designing future lunar bases. (AP News)

Black Holes Reveal Predictable Feeding Cycle: Astronomers have discovered that supermassive black holes appear to launch powerful jets at predictable stages after tearing stars apart. Researchers studied 20 tidal disruption events—instances in which a star ventures close enough to a black hole to be shredded—using radio telescopes capable of tracking the resulting outflows. They identified two jet-producing phases: one while the black hole is consuming material extremely rapidly and another hundreds to thousands of days later, when the feeding rate falls to roughly 2% of its maximum sustainable rate. Strikingly, the same threshold has previously been observed in stellar-mass black holes only tens of times the Sun’s mass, suggesting a common mechanism operates across an enormous range of black-hole sizes. Published in Nature Astronomy, the finding should help astronomers predict when delayed jets will appear and schedule telescope observations far more efficiently. (theguardian.com)