An international research team focused on aging reports that urolithin A at 1,000 mg per day shifted human immune profiles toward a more naive-like, less exhausted CD8+ state and increased fatty acid oxidation capacity, with additional functional gains.

Urolithin A is a metabolite produced by gut bacteria after breaking down ellagic acid from certain foods, such as pomegranates and walnuts. While produced naturally through microbial digestion, it is in much smaller quantities than available as a supplement or used in the study.

Aging bodies face reduced production of mature T cells, shrinking naive T cell pools and chronic low-grade inflammation...

A distant supermassive black hole has set a new cosmic record, unleashing the brightest flare ever seen as it devoured a gigantic star that wandered too close. A colossal black hole 10 billion light-years away has been caught devouring one of the universe’s biggest stars, unleashing a flare 30 times brighter than any seen before. The flare, detected by Caltech’s ZTF, likely marks a tidal disruption event — when a star is shredded by a black hole’s gravity.

The Universe’s most massive stars typically end their lives in spectacular explosions known as supernovae before collapsing into black holes. But one enormous star seems to have met a very different fate...

AI uncovers how a severed bond between two gut proteins sparks Crohn’s disease, and how restoring it could heal inflammation. UC San Diego researchers combined artificial intelligence with molecular biology to unravel how immune cells in the gut decide between inflammation and healing, a process gone awry in Crohn’s disease...

In a major step toward practical quantum computers, Princeton engineers have built a superconducting qubit that lasts three times longer than today’s best versions.

“The real challenge, the thing that stops us from having useful quantum computers today, is that you build a qubit and the information just doesn’t last very long,” said Andrew Houck, Princeton’s dean of engineering and co-principal investigator. “This is the next big jump forward.”

In an article in the journal Nature,...