We know more about Alzheimer's each day. We know, for example, that dementia, which is its main consequence, is caused by the progressive degeneration of neurons due to an excessive accumulation of proteins called β-amyloid and tau. This has allowed us to design new ways to diagnose the disease and also the first specific drugs that can slightly slow its progress. But we still have many unanswered questions, and one of the most important is why women have a higher risk of suffering from it.

It is called Mycoplasma pneumoniae and, despite being very simple, this small bacterium with only 680 genes could play a key role in fighting lung cancer, the type of tumor that causes the most deaths each year worldwide: nearly two million. I'researcher Luis Serrano and its team, at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona (CRG), have spent years studying this microorganism and genetically modifying it to strip it of its ability to cause disease. Now they want to turn it into a kind of Trojan horse capable of releasing drugs against tumor cells only in the lung.

Stress is one of the great enemies of modern health. It is linked to cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, anxiety and depression, cognitive decline, and immune disorders. When it is high and becomes chronic, its impact can be devastating. However, not all stress is harmful, as is often thought. In certain doses and contexts, it can do the exact opposite. Healthy stress can become a biological tool for growth, learning, and adaptation, as neuroscientist Helen Thomson explains in a paper published in New Scientist.

As a predoctoral researcher, I study the aging of hematopoietic stem cells – the cells responsible for regenerating all our blood throughout life–. A few years ago, while observing these cells under a microscope, I noticed some strange differences between my samples. They were supposed to behave identically, as they all came from donors of the same age, but this was not the case. I remember a thought coming to my mind: "Are these donors of the same sex?". Until that moment, I had never asked myself this question. When I started reading the scientific literature, I realized this wasn't just my blind spot. For centuries, both basic research and modern medicine have operated under the premise of the "standard human": the Reference Man. This wasn't done as a conspiracy theory to exclude women from research, but out of a combination of convenience and practicality. Early medical researchers used military records of healthy male soldiers as a baseline; furthermore, scientists actively avoided studying female individuals, claiming that fluctuations in menstrual hormones would distort the data. This bias was so profound that, even in basic research, female mice were systematically excluded.

When a woman dies during pregnancy or postpartum, we immediately think of hemorrhages, infections, thrombosis, or obstetric complications. But the records from countries with better surveillance systems have made an still uncomfortable cause of maternal death visible: suicide.The MBRRACE-UK report, an international reference in the analysis of maternal mortality in the United Kingdom, is conclusive: between six weeks and one year after pregnancy, suicide is the leading cause of maternal death. If we add deaths related to substance use, the scientific message is clear: mental health, addiction, and social vulnerability are today central determinants of survival for many mothers.In Spain, a pioneering study has published data on this reality for the first time: between 2016 and 2023, thirty women were identified who died by suicide during the first postpartum year, after a birth oran advanced gestational loss. The majority of these deaths occurred beyond the first 42 days. The quarantine is an administrative convention; a postpartum depression, a puerperal psychosis, a situation of gender-based violence, poverty, substance abuse, or lack of support do not disappear because a month and a half has passed since the birth.

In life there are small misfortunes that happen periodically: catching a cold, losing socks in the washing machine, a potato rotting in the pantry, and if you live in Barcelona, stepping on dog poop. The one the other day was a pointed turd, as my young son pointed out to me while I was dealing with the incident at a fountain. That innocent comment made me go from cursing the responsible party (human, of course) to analyzing the animal's health according to the Bristol Stool Scale, which is a clear example of my brain's erratic rambling: sometimes I don't remember my children's ages, but I know the scale was published in 1997 in theScandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology and it serves to classify human feces into 7 categories, from the most intense constipation to the most watery diarrhea. It is a visual, detailed, and even creative instrument in its descriptions: it uses terms such as sausage, snake and spongy. Look for it, go.

The geroscience aims to understand the processes associated with human aging in order to design mechanisms to circumvent the senescence of cells and organs. Aging is a normal physiological process, but if we could unravel the mechanisms that regulate it, perhaps we could extend our lives. This is an attractive principle that receives public but especially private investment, as people with many resources wish to live for many years.

New or classic

Mom is going to Antarctica, by Anna Cabré Albós and Mariona Tolosa Sisteré (Zahorí Books, 2020).

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If nature was the answer, what was the question? It is the quote that appears at the beginning of La respuesta (Destino), the book that paleontologist and co-director of Atapuerca Juan Luis Arsuaga has just published. It is more than 500 pages where there are some answers – let's not confuse them with certainties – and especially questions that help us to fascinatingly retrace the history of evolution and to understand ourselves, humans, in comparison with the rest of the animals.

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On June 26, 2000, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton appeared before cameras worldwide to announce a historic milestone: humanity had just obtained the first draft of the human genome, "the most wonderful and important map ever produced by humankind." Beside him were his British counterpart, Tony Blair, a handful of scientists, and representatives from Celera Genomics, the private company headed by geneticist Craig Venter that had competed to sequence our DNA before anyone else.geneticist Craig Venter who had competed to sequence our DNA before anyone else.

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The fact that her uncle contracted HIV and died from the complications of the infection when she was still studying biology at university finally pushed Gemma Moncunill (Barcelona, 1981) to want to dedicate herself to research on the immune system and infectious diseases. “I had always been fascinated by the complexity with which the body was capable of defending itself, or how vaccines could train defense cells”, recalls this researcher, with a generous smile and sparkling eyes.

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For years, research on the human microbiome has focused almost exclusively on the gut. But there are also millions of microorganisms – especially bacteria, but also fungi and viruses, and yeasts – lining the vagina. Although they have not been studied until recently and, therefore, little is known about them, recent studies are beginning to shed light on how this ecosystem is key to women's health and can affect conditions such as endometriosis.

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One of the news items that has shaken international consciousness this week is that 18 workers from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have been reported for sexual abuse of all kinds against refugee women in South Sudan in exchange for food. What happens in human nature that makes someone capable of exercising this violence against those who have nothing?

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"We are living in a time when science is more necessary than ever," explains Cristina Sáez, the science specialist at ARA and now also director of the monthly supplement Va de Ciència, which publishes its first issue this Saturday.

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Lately, artificial intelligence has become the protagonist of our lives, to the point that it seems we are constantly talking about it. It's impossible to find someone who, at one point or another during the day, doesn't use it: from the most innocent Google search to the report we're too lazy to write, soon we won't know how to live without the help of one of the most revolutionary tools ever invented.

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This week the FIFA World Cup has begun in North America. It is expected that five million fans from all over the world will travel to the 16 host cities, in three different countries, to cheer on their team in packed stadiums: it will therefore be a perfect breeding ground for the spread of diseases.

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If we have to name a single basic ingredient that defines the Mediterranean diet, differentiating it from others, we will agree that it is olive oil. In the Mediterranean, from the easternmost to the westernmost shore, there is no dish that is not cooked with this ingredient, which has exceptional components (polyphenols, unsaturated fatty acids, and antioxidants) that slow down premature aging and promote a more balanced metabolism. In fact, longitudinal studies conducted over many years on an extensive population (such as the PREDIMED study), showed that the risk of cardiovascular diseases decreased, considerably and consistently, by incorporating virgin olive oil or a handful of nuts daily into the diet. Daily consumption of virgin olive oil reduces the risk of adult-onset diabetes and obesity, a dietary recommendation and a healthy habit that is very easy for us to implement, but which other cultures in the world find very difficult to adhere to, whether due to the price, which they find excessive; because they don't know how to use it; or because they don't like its taste.

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Within mammals there are several orders, such as primates, to which humans belong; cetaceans, such as whales or dolphins, or carnivores. Now, a team from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) has discovered a new species of microorganism in Blanes, in the Selva region. This is a finding that, relatively speaking, could be equated to the discovery of a new order within mammals, as it adds a new branch to the evolutionary tree of this group. In this case, however, we are talking about amoebas, unicellular microorganisms that maintain a dynamically stable shape, can have more than one nucleus, and move by forming "false feet or pseudopods through extensions of the cell membrane.

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For decades, the eye has been one of evolution's great enigmas. Charles Darwin said that thinking about the origin of such a sophisticated organ made him shudder. How could a structure capable of detecting light have been built in such a way that the brain could form three-dimensional images with which to interpret the world, from the accumulation of small and gradual changes? A new scientific hypothesis published in the journal Current Biologyproposes a surprising answer. Our eyes could come from a single ancestral eye located in the center of the head in very simple marine animals. Perhaps it is no coincidence that so many ancient mythologies imagined cyclops, beings with a single eye in the center of the forehead. Long before vertebrates with two lateral eyes existed, our ancestors might have actually had a single primitive central eye.The research, led by neurobiologists Dan-Eric Nilsson (Lund University, Sweden) and Tom Baden (University of Sussex, England), suggests that about 560 million years ago, the ancestors of vertebrates had a single central photosensitive system, similar to a “third eye”. Over time, this organ split into two, which gradually specialized to give rise to modern retinas.

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That you, reader, are now reading this article or that, while you read it, there are beings as fantastic as whales crossing the Mediterranean or tritons splashing in streams of Montseny surrounded by beeches, firs, holm oaks and oaks is thanks to a history of microbial promiscuity forged over millions of years, including viral infections.

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