Join us for an in‑depth conversation with Simon Cherry, former editor‑in‑chief of Physics in Medicine & Biology (PMB), as he shares his expert perspective on the evolving landscape of medical physics research, molecular imaging, and non-invasive imaging technologies. Drawing on decades of leadership in biomedical imaging and academic publishing, Simon will reflect on major advances shaping the field, define the characteristics of high‑impact imaging research, and highlight how PMB continues to support rigorous, influential scientific work through its editorial standards and peer‑review practices.
This session will additionally spotlight the research of Xinchen (Alison) Deng, a finalist of the PMB 2024 Early Career Award. Attendees will gain insights into her contributions to the advanced medical imaging community, such as photon-counting CT for clinical applications and how her work supports broader advances in medical physics and X-ray/CT imaging research.
Simon will also discuss what makes early‑career research stand out and share strategies for researchers aiming to increase the visibility, reach, and long‑term impact of their publications within competitive scientific journals.
Left to right: Carol Clark, Simon Cherry, Xinchen (Alison) Deng
Moderator
Carol Clark, Publisher,Physics in Medicine & Biology
Speakers
Simon R Cherry, PhD received his BSc (Hons) in physics with astronomy from University College London in 1986 and a PhD in medical physics from the Institute of Cancer Research, University of London in 1989. Simon is currently Distinguished Research Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at UC Davis and Professor of Total-Body Imaging at King’s College London. Simon’s research interests centre around biomedical imaging. His major contributions have been in developing systems for positron emission tomography (PET), including designing the microPET scanner for small-animal imaging, the earliest examples of simultaneous PET and MRI studies and co-leading the EXPLORER consortium that developed the world’s first total-body PET scanner. Simon is a Fellow of the Royal Society and Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Inventors. He has received several international awards including the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Cassen Prize in 2022. He served as editor-in-chief of the journal Physics in Medicine & Biology from 2011–2020. Simon is the author of more than 350 peer-reviewed journal articles, review articles and book chapters in the field of biomedical imaging. He is also lead author of the widely-used textbook Physics in Nuclear Medicine.
Xinchen (Alison) Deng, PhD, is a diagnostic imaging physics resident at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on advancing photon-counting CT for clinical applications, including multi-contrast imaging, early disease detection, detector optimization, and AI-based improvements in image quality. Before beginning the residency, Xinchen (Alison) was a postdoctoral fellow in medical physics at the University of Victoria, where she worked with Magdalena Bazalova-Carter and collaborated with Redlen Technologies on the optimization of photon-counting detectors and the clinical applications of spectral CT. She received her PhD in medical physics from the University of British Columbia, where she applied Raman spectroscopy, machine learning, and explainable AI to study radiation treatment response in cancer cells and tissues. Her broader research background spans photon-counting CT, spectral X-ray imaging, Raman spectroscopy, radiotherapy response assessment, and AI-driven image and data analysis. Her photon-counting CT research has been featured in the Physics in Medicine & Biology Early Career Researcher Focus Collection. She is a finalist for the PMB Early Career Researcher Award.
About this journal
Physics in Medicine & Biology. The international journal of biomedical physics and engineering, published by IOP Publishing on behalf of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM)
Membership inference attack An untrusted user aims to infer whether a specific target record was part of the training dataset, by observing the predictions of a model. The attack is successful if they can reliably distinguish between models A and B, which are identical except for the inclusion or exclusion of the target record in the respective training dataset. (Courtesy: CC BY 4.0/Nature 10.1038/s41586-026-10688-0)
A new study has revealed that sensitive health information about individual patients can be extracted from medical artificial intelligence (AI) models more effectively than previous research had indicated.
Diagnostic AI models are used to determine whether some given health data belong to a specific class – for example if an X-ray image shows evidence of pneumonia – and offer huge promise for improving patient outcomes. Earlier studies showed that membership inference attacks (MIAs), which determine whether a particular person’s data was used to train an AI model, yielded results no better than random chance. But these previous studies only evaluated the average risk across all patients in a training dataset.
By contrast, in this latest work doctoral student Moritz Knolle and his supervisor Daniel Rückert at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), together with collaborators at Imperial College London and Georg Kaissis from the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), examined the privacy risk for an individual patient. “Privacy that only works on average has little meaning. So I asked myself: would I contribute my data to train a medical AI model?” says Knolle.
Investigating the risks A team led by Daniel Rückert (pictured) at TUM and Georg Kaissis from HPI found that medical AI is more vulnerable to certain attacks than previously thought. (Courtesy: Juli Eberle/TUM)
As detailed in their recent Nature paper, the researchers attacked AI models based on seven different types of real-life medical datasets, including one comprising 21,799 electrocardiograms and another of 377,110 chest radiographs.
“If a model sees a specific data point during training, it usually becomes more confident at predicting it. So in these MIA attacks I compare the predictive probability number for this data point outputted by the medical AI model with the predictive probability number obtained from my model which has not seen that data point,” explains Knolle, adding that the attack is essentially a statistical test to distinguish between the two models.
Their results revealed that the privacy risk for an individual was far greater than the average risk. The team also found that privacy risk is not equally distributed among subgroups.
“We found that patients from minority groups that are under-represented in the training dataset tend to be over-represented among the 99 percentile of extreme [privacy] risk,” Knolle tells Physics World, warning that as medical AI models become larger and more sophisticated the privacy risk is amplified because their deep analysis creates the small changes in predictive probability that MIAs are good at finding.
While an MIA that reveals someone is a UK citizen poses little security risk, discovering that an individual has received a specific type of cancer treatment reveals personal information that could, for instance, adversely affect their medical insurance premiums. “The more specific the training cohort is, the larger the privacy risk,” states Knolle, crediting his medical doctor parents with inspiring his desire to improve healthcare AI.
Countermeasures include differential privacy (DP), in which a small amount of Gaussian random white noise is added in alongside the data during training, thereby reducing the effectiveness of MIAs while maintaining the model’s diagnostic accuracy. “This gives a mathematically provable upper bound for how much privacy risk any individual in this dataset could face, by limiting the information content that flows to the AI model,” explains Knolle.
He notes that, unfortunately, such DP tools have not been widely adopted by hospitals or clinics. This, he fears, could undermine patients’ confidence in sharing their data, and thereby not only reduce AI’s ability to help combat rare diseases, but also compound AI discrimination that occurs when there is too little data from minority groups included in training datasets.
“So we are hoping to inspire the medical AI community to do risk assessments before deploying AI models, and use verifiable strategies such as DP or limiting access to the AI model, so that as an individual you have a statistical guarantee that no harm would come to you by being part of a dataset,” concludes Knolle, who now plans to investigate the privacy risks posed by generative AI models for healthcare.
A collaboration of researchers in North America has reported their findings from the first diagnostic X-ray imaging performed in space. X-ray images recorded during an orbital spaceflight exhibited similar overall quality to those taken preflight on Earth, demonstrating the feasibility of adding radiography as a diagnostic tool for crew health.
With humans venturing further into space and spending more time in this harsh environment, the risk of adverse medical events increases. Accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment is a must-have. Currently, the only reliable medical imaging modality available to astronauts in spaceflight is ultrasonography – which is operator dependent, requires substantial training and relies on limited acoustic windows.
X-ray imaging, on the other hand, benefits from low operator dependence, rapid acquisition and typically higher spatial resolution than ultrasound. Digital radiography could also offer superior diagnostic capabilities for many medical conditions of concern during spaceflight, including dental disease, musculoskeletal trauma, inhalational injury, collapsed lung and arthritis.
Traditional X-ray scanning systems are bulky, produce a lot of radiation and are sensitive to motion – making them less than ideal for sending into space. But a new generation of portable X-ray scanners shows potential to survive the spaceflight and be operated by crew members with minimal training.
“It’s been a dream for aerospace medicine to have more than one imaging modality for diagnosing illnesses and injuries in space,” says lead researcher Sheyna Gifford, an assistant professor of aerospace medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, in a press statement.
Scanning in space
In a study led by co-author David Lerner, the researchers first demonstrated the feasibility of X-ray imaging in simulated microgravity in 2022. During a parabolic flight, they used a commercial off-the-shelf digital radiography system to successfully capture radiographs of a human subject and a phantom during lunar gravity (1/6g), Martian gravity (1/3g) and microgravity.
In this latest project, reported in in Radiology, Gifford and her team investigated the performance of a similar portable digital radiography system aboard the Dragon spacecraft, during the Fram2 spaceflight mission, a 3.5-day polar orbital flight launched on 31 March 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The imaging system comprised a commercial off-the-shelf, FDA-cleared, portable, digital X-ray generator (Impact Wireless; MinXray) along with an FDA-cleared flat-panel detector.
Chest radiographs Representative X-ray images acquired preflight by a crewmember (A), in-flight on day 3 after launch by a crewmember (B, C) and postflight by a non-crew operator using the same imaging protocol (D). (Courtesy: RSNA)
Prior to the mission, three crew members received 4 hr of training on the portable X-ray system and acquired preflight X-ray images of the hand, forearm, abdomen, pelvis, chest and a quality control phantom. They then recorded the same anatomic and phantom images whilst in space, and also imaged a smartwatch to investigate the potential for non-destructive testing.
During anatomic imaging, the devices were handheld by the crew members, while the phantom and smartwatch were secured to the detector for imaging. The crew reported that they found it easy to use the X-ray system and follow the imaging protocols.
Back on Earth
To assess the quality of the seven X-ray images acquired by the crew, three independent radiologists evaluated and compared the preflight and in-flight anatomic radiographs, finding no differences in overall image quality, contrast resolution or spatial resolution. For central-body radiographs (chest, abdomen and pelvis), image positioning was worse in-flight than preflight. Despite this, all X-rays achieved good or near-excellent diagnostic quality (rated on a 5-point Likert scale).
Phantom radiographs recorded in space exhibited good spatial and contrast resolution, imaging low-contrast targets down to the smallest 2-mm target and easily visualizing high-contrast meshes ranging from 20 to 60 lines per inch, with 80 lines per inch remaining visible. The smartwatch radiograph clearly showed the watch’s internal components at the submillimetre scale.
The research team found that the X-ray generator had sustained minor re-entry damage, but its internal components and X-ray output were not affected. Similarly, the detector passed visual inspection and quality control tests. The researchers also recorded a set of postflight X-rays (on non-crewmembers) following the same in-flight protocols. These showed no qualitative differences from the preflight or in-flight radiographs.
“By acquiring the first human and equipment X-rays in space, our study demonstrates the feasibility of in-orbit radiography and expanded diagnostic capabilities for crew health and hardware evaluation,” says Gifford. “Acquiring diagnostically useful X-rays in space is something that anyone can do. Three very talented nonmedical people with four hours of training in one of the harshest environments did it right and did it well.”
Gifford points out that a spaceflight-ready radiography system could also prove indispensable for mission-critical non-medical tasks. “For sustained human presence in space, X-rays are critical not just for crew members but also for other mission components like electronics and spacesuits. The only way to look inside these objects without taking them apart is to X-ray them,” she explains.
A new glass screen containing nanoclusters of copper iodide could create higher-resolution X-ray images using a much lower dose of radiation. The scintillating screen, which also works underwater, can be moulded into curved shapes, overcoming key limitations of the conventional rigid, flat-panel detectors used for many medical imaging applications. These include mammography, say the researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, and the University of Hamburg, Germany, who developed it.
X-ray scintillators capture X-rays passing through an object and convert them into flashes of visible light to form a digital image, explains physicist Mehmet Bayindir of KAUST and the University of Hamburg. The more efficient the scintillator is at this conversion, the clearer the final image and the lower dose of radiation required to generate it.
He and his colleagues’ detailed analyses of a scintillator containing nanoclusters of copper, iodine and an organic ligand revealed a fascinating phenomenon: its photoluminescence and radioluminescence pathways appear to have distinct physical origins. This implies that the scintillating light yield – that is, how much visible light a material emits when struck by high-energy X-rays – can be separated from its standard photoluminescence quantum yield (how efficiently the material converts absorbed ultraviolet or visible light into a different wavelength of light).
Until now, Bayindir explains, it was assumed that a material must have high photoluminescence efficiency to perform well when excited by X-rays. “Breaking this assumption directly challenges conventional wisdom and opens up a promising new design space for making high-performance scintillators – provided that materials highly responsive to radiation can be engineered of course.”
Enter amorphous quantum systems
In recent years, researchers have been looking into cubane-type [Cu4I4L4, L: organic ligand] nanocluster glasses (NCGs) for use in this context. These belong to a family of hybrid transparent luminescent amorphous materials that show much promise for X-ray scintillation applications.
In their latest work, detailed in ACS Energy Letters, Bayindir and colleagues studied several stable alkyl-phosphine ligand-based NCGs. In these amorphous zero-dimensional quantum systems, ionizing radiation is mostly absorbed by the heavy iodine and copper elements at the cluster cores. The researchers used these NCGs to make large-area, free-standing scintillating screens – both planar and conformal – with ultrasmooth surfaces, using a fabrication methodology that they developed in their lab.
The screens are robust and can image samples – both electronic and biological – with sub-3 µm spatial resolution. They also work underwater, something that is difficult for conventional screens. The researchers demonstrated this by capturing a very clear scan of a fish’s tail in water that was indistinguishable from an image taken in air.
Such a glass scintillator represents a significant milestone, says team leader Osman Bakr. “Indeed, the level of precision we obtained allows us to capture highly detailed, high-contrast X-ray images of complex internal microstructures, such as the delicate anatomy of a microscopic insect and an electronic memory card, to cite but two examples,” he says.
X-ray imaging systems that curve to fit a person’s body
“Combined with the fact that this new nanocluster glass becomes almost rubbery when heated to 42 °C, we can mould it into any three-dimensional shape at low temperatures,” study lead author Bashir Hasanov adds. “This could allow for X-ray imaging systems that curve to fit a person’s body and overcomes the limitations of conventional rigid, flat-panel detectors.”
One possible application is in mammography, he notes. Today, a major drawback of current mammography machines is that breast tissue must be firmly compressed between flat panels so that it can be imaged. This is very uncomfortable – and even painful – and deters many women from going for a scan.
“One in 20 women around the world will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, with annual cases projected to reach 3.2 million and related deaths climbing to 1.1 million by 2050,” says Bayindir. “Many of these fatalities stem from late-stage diagnosis.
Nearly one-third of women miss their initial mammogram appointments, something that significantly increases their risk of succumbing to the disease. “While the reasons for this vary, the medical literature frequently cites the physical discomfort of tissue compression,” says Bakr. “What is more, because current guidelines recommend starting routine mammography screenings at age 40, cumulative lifetime exposure to X-ray radiation remains a clinical concern for many. Our long-term objective is to completely redefine this clinical experience.”
Indeed, the researchers say they would now like to bring this quantum glass out of the lab and into real-world applications. Bakr tells Physics World that his team’s immediate next step is to scale up the geometric dimensions of its mouldable screens while maintaining perfect thickness and clarity. “This would move us closer to full-scale clinical prototyping for 3D conformal medical imaging.”
“We are also designing a novel detector architecture capable of high-resolution imaging on curved surfaces using an array of specialized optical sensors,” he reveals.
Epithelial cancers account for 80% to 90% of all cancer cases in the world, comprising a wide variety of malignancies that begin in the epithelial tissues that form the skin and line the body’s internal passageways and organs. Early diagnosis is critical to improving patient outcomes, but is limited by a heavy reliance on invasive biopsies.
Simultaneous assessment of changes in both the cell nuclei and the microvasculature could potentially improve the accuracy of early cancer and precancer detection, and help guide decisions regarding biopsy and pathology testing. In vivo microscopy (IVM) has shown promise for aiding early diagnosis of epithelial cancers, but has challenges relating to image quality, spatial resolution and field-of-view (FOV).
PrecisionView, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered, dual-modality endomicroscope in development at Rice University’s Rice360 Institute for Global Health Technologies, addresses these IVM issues. The compact, handheld, easy-to use system enables real-time, wide-area visualization of both subcellular structures and underlying blood vessels, offering higher-quality imaging, a fivefold increase in FOV, and an eightfold increase in spatial resolution over endomicroscopic systems in current clinical use.
The proof-of-concept version of PrecisionView, described in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is intended for superficial epithelial imaging where scattering-induced distortions remain moderate. And it is specifically designed to be low cost: providing an affordable diagnostic tool for clinics worldwide.
PrecisionView uses simple, off-the-shelf miniaturized optics integrated with a deep learning-based optimization framework. Its AI-supported phase mask design and reconstruction algorithm incorporate dual-modality fluorescence and reflectance imaging to achieve a 5.2 x 3.9 FOV and a 500 µm depth-of-field (DOF) while maintaining cellular-level resolution (4 µm). Images are acquired at approximately 15 frames/s, in 2 s intervals, with image tiles stitched together to form a large-scale, co-registered map of cell nuclei and microvasculature.
High-resolution maps of cervical specimens containing squamous intraepithelial lesions (precancer) clearly delineated key anatomic structures, including columnar and squamous epithelium, and the junction between the two epithelial cell types. PrecisionView clearly distinguished abnormal regions from surrounding benign tissue – suggesting that the system may be able to support physicians’ decisions regarding whether or not to conduct a biopsy.
The researchers also performed real-time, in vivo imaging of the oral cavities of healthy volunteers. They report that the system’s large DOF enabled acquisition of high-resolution images of cell nuclei and microvasculature across a large tissue area without requiring refocusing. When the mucosal surface was scanned, the large FOV of each frame, combined with the high video acquisition rate, provided substantial frame-to-frame overlap. This allowed seamless stitching of the dual-modality images to create large-scale, co-registered maps of the oral mucosa, which showed distinct cellular and vascular features.
Meeting a global need
The Rice 360 Institute focuses on designing, implementing and scaling highly effective, low-cost medical technologies for underserved and low-resource communities. The idea for PrecisionView grew out of recognizing a global limitation in access to high-quality diagnostic information.
“In many care settings, especially where conventional pathology resources are limited, clinicians may not have timely access to the cellular- and tissue-level information needed to guide diagnosis and treatment decisions,” says first author Huayu Hou, who worked with co-first author Jimin Wu, to develop the PrecisionView instrument.
Hou explains that although existing clinical endomicroscopy systems can provide valuable microscopic information, their broader use is often limited by cost, complexity, a limited imaging volume and the ability to capture only a narrow range of diagnostic features. Such constraints reflect fundamental design trade-offs in compact clinical optical imaging systems and create significant barriers to practical point-of-care use.
“PrecisionView was motivated by the opportunity to use computational imaging to overcome limitations in existing clinical endomicroscope designs that could not be fully addressed with traditional optical approaches alone, with the goal of bringing high-quality diagnostic information closer to the point-of-care,” he says.
Hou advises that it took about a year to develop the first working prototype, and that several projects are now underway to further enhance both performance and usability for point-of-care applications. “We are working to improve image quality and resolution, so that the system can provide finer cellular details from living systems to real time,” he adds. “We are working to further refine the hardware and workflow to make the device easier to operate in clinical settings.”
The team is developing AI-based classification algorithms that can integrate both cellular and vascular information and provide real-time diagnostic guidance. Its long term goal is to create a system that not only visualizes tissue at the cellular level, but also helps clinicians interpret the information efficiently at the point-of-care. “This capability could be especially valuable in low-resource settings, where access to pathology expertise may be limited, and tools that support real-time decision-making could significantly improve clinical usability and impact,” notes Wu.
Clinical validation studies to evaluate PrecisionView’s diagnostic performance across different clinical settings and cancer types are also planned. For instance, a study focusing on head-and-neck cancer detection has already started in collaboration with MD Anderson Cancer Center. Others are being developed for cervical cancer imaging in Mozambique, to evaluate the system’s performance in low-resource settings.
Ronan Smith, a postdoctoral research fellow at Adelaide University, has been chosen as the winner of this year’s Physics in Medicine & Biology (PMB) Early Career Researcher Award. The award is presented to the author of the “best paper” in PMB’s 2025 Early Career Researcher Focus Collection, as selected by the journal’s editorial board.
EBVs are one-way valves that are placed into the lung to help treat emphysema – a condition that damages air sacs in the lungs, causing air to get trapped inside and making breathing difficult. The EBV, which in some cases can be used in place of surgery, prevents airflow into damaged lung areas so that the rest of the lung can function more effectively.
Successful valve placement causes the targeted area of lung to collapse, which can be imaged using CT. Smith proposed that use of XV functional lung imaging to non-invasively measure regional and local changes in airflow could more accurately assess the clinical impact of EBV placement.
“The lungs are a dynamic organ, their job is to be constantly moving,” he explains. “Because X-ray velocimetry looks at lung motion, it lets us see exactly where the air is or isn’t flowing, so you can instantly see that airflow has changed within the lungs. CT only measures structural changes, which may not necessarily be correlated to changes in lung function.”
In vivo demonstration
To investigate this potential advantage, Smith and colleagues carried out a pilot study on healthy sheep, which have a similar lung size to humans. They performed XV imaging on two anaesthetized and ventilated animals, before and after placing EBVs in their lungs.
The XV scanning process involves recording fluoroscopic videos of individual breaths at various angles around the lung, with anatomic positioning provided by an accompanying breath-hold CT scan. To analyse the data, the researchers used XV LVAS software from 4DMedical, the MedTech company that developed and commercialized the XV technology.
Visualizing ventilation Slices from XV and CT imaging taken from an area of lung above the EBV. XV shows clear changes in ventilation immediately after valve insertion. (Courtesy: Phys. Med. Biol. 10.1088/1361-6560/ade196)
The software correlates motion in the XV videos with CT data to measure the lung’s expansion and contraction during a breath cycle. It creates a 3D map of specific ventilation (the change in voxel volume during a breath, divided by its starting volume) in small voxels throughout the lungs. This map can then be used to calculate mean specific ventilation and ventilation heterogeneity across a given lung region.
As soon as the EBVs were inserted into the animals’ lungs, XV imaging could visualize and quantify a reduction in airflow to areas downstream of the valves. This effect was seen both in regions where collapse was visible in CT scans, as well as those where collapse could not be detected by CT. Ventilation changes were also clearly observed in the remainder of the lungs.
“The main finding of our study was that X-ray velocimetry imaging can detect airflow changes from endobronchial valve placement in the lungs,” says Smith. “Our research could be really important for people [with emphysema], as tools to help with better placement and verification will lead to improved treatment options.”
Future prospects
Since the publication of this paper, Smith has focused on further applications of pre-clinical and clinical XV imaging. “I’ve been working as part of a great interdisciplinary team looking at how lung function changes in a range of diseases, to both understand the diseases, and as an outcome measure when we test treatments,” he says.
This work includes the world’s first paediatric clinical trial of XV imaging, which is examining the feasibility of using the technology in children with cystic fibrosis. The researchers have imaged around 30 children to date and aim to publish their findings later this year. They are currently planning future studies to see how XV imaging could enhance clinical decision making and improve outcomes for these children, as well as looking at other childhood diseases where it could be of relevance.
“As an early-career researcher, I’m also focussing on developing my own research, looking at another novel X-ray imaging method called dark-field X-ray imaging,” Smith adds.
The perfect award
Smith tells Physics World that he was excited to receive the PMB Early Career Researcher Award, acknowledging the efforts of everyone involved in this “hugely collaborative project”, including clinicians, scientists, 4DMedical and the staff in the preclinical imaging facility where the study was performed.
Team effort Ronan Smith (back row, centre) and colleagues in the lab. (Courtesy: Women’s and Children’s Health Network South Australia)
“As a physicist working in medicine/biology, it feels like the perfect award to get,” he says. “It’s great to see interest in the work we are doing, and fantastic evidence we can use to convince the funding bodies it’s worth continuing this work.”
The PMB Early Career Researcher Focus Collection 2025 publishes papers from early-career researchers (defined for this collection as a postgraduate student or someone who completed their PhD in 2019 or later) in biomedical physics, with the aim of highlighting research excellence from emerging leaders. The Early Career Researcher Award was introduced to further recognise an outstanding contribution from one of the early-career authors, selected according to the quality of scientific content, number of citations and downloads, and peer review ratings.
A new study strengthens the case for exercise as a critical way to protect the brain from age-related decline, including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. During sleep, the brain activates a cleanup network that helps remove accumulated waste. A review led by Victoria University (VU) researcher Dr. James Broatch examined whether exercise could strengthen this glymphatic [...]
The European Union has begun delaying the release of satellite images showing shipping lanes near the Strait of Hormuz by 24 hours. The move comes in response to an earlier US government request and coincides with the Trump administration ramping up the war with Iran once again.
The unusual change in the free and open data policy for Europe’s Copernicus Earth observation program was revealed by Space News, which reviewed a copy of the decision made by the Council of the EU on July 13. The ordered delay applies to images taken by Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites and covers the Gulf of Oman region that includes shipping lanes leading to and from the contested Strait of Hormuz.
The US government first requested that the European Union restrict Copernicus satellite imagery on May 26, according to the decision document seen by Space News. That request occurred during a shaky ceasefire period for the war that began on April 8 and ended on July 8, when the US military resumed a broader campaign of military strikes following an announcement by President Donald Trump.
The European Union has begun delaying the release of satellite images showing shipping lanes near the Strait of Hormuz by 24 hours. The move comes in response to an earlier US government request and coincides with the Trump administration ramping up the war with Iran once again.
The unusual change in the free and open data policy for Europe’s Copernicus Earth observation program was revealed by Space News, which reviewed a copy of the decision made by the Council of the EU on July 13. The ordered delay applies to images taken by Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 satellites and covers the Gulf of Oman region that includes shipping lanes leading to and from the contested Strait of Hormuz.
The US government first requested that the European Union restrict Copernicus satellite imagery on May 26, according to the decision document seen by Space News. That request occurred during a shaky ceasefire period for the war that began on April 8 and ended on July 8, when the US military resumed a broader campaign of military strikes following an announcement by President Donald Trump.
A new study reported in BMC Geriatrics spotlights cognitive reserve—the brain’s lifelong ability to adapt—as a potential resilience factor for how older adults experience frailty. The research frames frailty not as a fixed state, but as a dynamic process that can worsen or improve over time, with cognition playing a key role in that trajectory.
Frailty affects mobility, independence, and health outcomes, and clinicians increasingly treat it as something that evolves. Yet, why some people regain strength after health setbacks while others decline remains an open question. Zhao, Liau, Ma and colleagues investigate whether individuals who build stronger cognitive reserve across their lifespan may be better protected.
The team examines frailty progression and recovery in later life using longitudinal data, allowing participants to move between clinical frailty states rather than being categorized once and followed as static cases. This design is crucial for capturing real-world resilience, where improvement can occur after hospitalization, illness, or functional decline.
Cognitive reserve is often linked to differences in brain structure and function, as well as to lifelong experiences such as education, complex work, and engagement in mentally demanding activities. In the study’s framing, higher cognitive reserve may support more efficient neural processing and compensatory mechanisms, even when aging-related changes begin to accumulate.
Technically, the analysis explores associations between cognitive reserve measures and the odds of frailty worsening or recovering across follow-up. By considering longitudinal changes, the authors aim to isolate whether cognitive reserve is correlated with healthier trajectories, not merely with baseline health.
If validated, these findings could reshape how risk is assessed in geriatrics. Instead of focusing solely on current impairments, clinicians may consider cognitive reserve as part of a broader resilience model that includes cognitive health alongside physical function.
The implications extend beyond individual prediction. Cognitive reserve is influenced by modifiable factors, suggesting that public health strategies promoting lifelong learning and cognitively stimulating environments might contribute to better aging outcomes.
With its 2026 publication in BMC Geriatrics, the study adds to a growing evidence base connecting cognitive aging with systemic vulnerability. The authors argue that resilience is not only physical—brain adaptability may also buffer older adults against the downward cycle of frailty.
Finally, the study offers a viral-science-friendly takeaway: your brain’s “practice” over decades may help determine whether frailty becomes a chronic decline or a condition with room for recovery.
Subject of Research: Frailty progression and recovery in later life; cognitive reserve as a resilience factor.
Article Title: Lifelong cognitive reserve as a resilience factor for frailty progression and recovery in later life.
Article References: Zhao, M., Liau, S.J., Ma, X. et al. Lifelong cognitive reserve as a resilience factor for frailty progression and recovery in later life.BMC Geriatrics (2026). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-026-07919-4
Even moderate amounts of walking may help protect brain function and slow changes linked to Alzheimer’s disease. New research reveals a modest amount of daily movement may help protect the brain from Alzheimer’s disease, but the apparent benefit does not involve the biological target researchers expected. Using pedometers, researchers followed nearly 300 older adults with [...]
A negative scan does not always mean recurrent prostate cancer is nowhere to be found. Sometimes, the disease may simply be too small or too faint to appear yet. New research suggests that repeating a PSMA PET scan later can reveal cancer that was missed the first time. Among patients with rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) [...]
Aging appears to alter how key cerebellar neurons fire, with measurable effects on movement and coordination. Aging often brings slower movement, weaker balance, and reduced agility, but the brain changes behind these losses have been difficult to identify. McGill University researchers have now directly linked declining activity in Purkinje cells, an important type of neuron [...]
CarPlay apps have grown far beyond maps, music and basic messaging. More than 120 popular iPhone apps now offer some form of support for Apple’s in-car platform, giving drivers access to navigation, podcasts, audiobooks, sports, communication, electric vehicle charging, parking, food ordering and newer AI assistants.
Not every compatible app places its full iPhone interface on the dashboard. CarPlay uses simplified layouts, voice controls and restricted features designed to reduce distractions. Some apps show lists and buttons, while others operate mainly through Siri or audio playback.
The larger catalog nevertheless changes what CarPlay can do. It is becoming a controlled extension of the iPhone rather than a small collection of driving utilities.
CarPlay Apps Cover More of the Journey
The first generations of CarPlay concentrated on a small set of familiar activities: choosing a route, making a call, sending a message and playing audio. Those functions remain central, but Apple has gradually opened additional categories to developers.
CarPlay apps can now help drivers find parking, locate fuel, identify EV charging stations, order food for collection and complete certain driving-related tasks. Automakers can also build apps that control supported vehicle features without forcing the driver to leave the CarPlay interface.
Apple continues to limit which app categories qualify. A social network, game or ordinary shopping app cannot simply reproduce its iPhone screen on the dashboard. Developers must use Apple’s CarPlay frameworks and present only functions considered suitable for the car.
The approach explains why the available catalog can feel both extensive and restrained. More than 120 apps may be compatible, but the dashboard does not become a crowded copy of the App Store.
Image Credit: Apple Inc.
Navigation Remains the Starting Point
Apple Maps is built directly into CarPlay and provides turn-by-turn guidance, traffic information, estimated arrival times and destination suggestions based on information from the iPhone.
Drivers can also choose popular alternatives including Google Maps and Waze. Each service brings a different combination of traffic data, route preferences, incident reporting and familiar saved locations.
Other navigation and travel options include HERE WeGo, TomTom GO Navigation, Sygic GPS Navigation, Gaia GPS and specialist apps designed for trucks, motorcycles or outdoor routes.
The strongest choice usually comes down to habit and regional coverage. A driver already using Google Maps or Waze on iPhone can continue using saved destinations and preferences inside the car. Apple Maps benefits from tighter system integration, including Siri requests, Calendar suggestions and Apple Watch directions.
CarPlay allows several navigation apps to appear in the Dashboard layout, where mapping can share the screen with media controls and other useful information.
Music, Radio and Podcasts Dominate the Catalog
Audio remains the largest CarPlay app category because it suits an environment where users should spend as little time as possible looking at the screen.
Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal and Pandora provide access to large music libraries. Radio services such as TuneIn, iHeartRadio and SiriusXM add live stations, news, sports and talk programming.
Podcast listeners can use Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro and Spotify. Audiobook options include Apple Books, Audible, Audiobooks.com and Bookmate.
The CarPlay versions usually emphasize large buttons, recent listening, saved libraries and voice search. More detailed account management remains on the iPhone.
Siri can start playback without requiring users to browse through several menus. The experience is safer and often faster when the request includes the service and content, such as asking Siri to play a specific playlist through Apple Music or Spotify.
Messaging Is Becoming More Visual
Messages has long allowed CarPlay users to hear incoming texts and dictate replies through Siri. Third-party messaging services have expanded the same general idea.
WhatsApp now offers a fuller CarPlay experience that can display recent chats, calls and favorite contacts while keeping message composition centered on voice. Other supported communication apps include Telegram and selected business messaging services, depending on region and app version.
CarPlay does not display long text conversations like an iPhone. Siri reads messages aloud, and users can dictate a response. Visual elements remain limited so the dashboard does not become a scrolling chat screen.
Phone and supported calling apps also provide simplified access to contacts, recent calls and favorites. Meeting services can support audio participation, but video remains unavailable while driving.
AI Assistants Enter CarPlay
AI assistants represent one of the newest CarPlay app categories. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Grok have introduced CarPlay support, allowing drivers to interact through voice without handling the iPhone.
These apps can answer general questions, explain subjects, brainstorm ideas or continue voice conversations. Their usefulness in a car is different from navigation or music. They provide a hands-free knowledge interface during a commute or long trip.
Google Meet and other communication apps have also expanded their in-car presence, emphasizing audio conversations rather than video.
AI responses should not replace directions, emergency information or vehicle warnings. They can also produce inaccurate answers, particularly when asked about rapidly changing road conditions. Apple Maps, official traffic services and the vehicle’s own systems remain the appropriate sources for driving decisions.
The arrival of AI assistants still marks a meaningful expansion. CarPlay is no longer limited to commands with predefined outcomes. Drivers can now hold longer spoken interactions through supported services.
Parking, Fuel and EV Charging Become Easier
Practical travel apps can reduce the need to handle an iPhone after arriving near a destination.
Parking services can help locate garages, compare availability or start a parking session. Availability varies by city, but apps from services such as SpotHero, EasyPark and ParkWhiz may offer CarPlay functions in supported markets.
Fueling apps can guide drivers to compatible stations and, in some cases, prepare or authorize payments. EV charging apps can locate chargers, show connector availability and begin navigation to a selected station.
ChargePoint, PlugShare, Electrify America and other charging networks provide different levels of CarPlay integration. Drivers should confirm that their preferred service supports the platform in their country and app version.
Food-ordering support is more restricted. Compatible apps are designed around quick pickup tasks rather than browsing complete menus while the vehicle is moving.
Sports and Driving Information Join the Dashboard
Sports apps are also finding a place in the car. Apple Sports and selected third-party services can provide scores or spoken updates without requiring drivers to follow a live visual feed.
Audio broadcasters already make sports a major part of CarPlay through radio and podcast services. Dedicated sports support makes it easier to reach a favorite team or competition directly.
Driving-task apps can handle functions such as recording mileage, managing road trips or communicating with fleet systems. These experiences are generally built for narrow purposes and use simplified controls.
Automaker apps form another category. Depending on the vehicle, they can expose controls for radio stations, climate functions, drive modes or other systems through CarPlay. Support is determined by the manufacturer and may differ between models.
How to Find CarPlay Apps on an iPhone
Compatible apps installed on the iPhone normally appear in CarPlay automatically. Users can decide which ones remain visible and change their order.
To organize CarPlay apps:
Settings > General > CarPlay > select the vehicle > Customize
Apps can be added, removed or rearranged from this screen. Removing an app from the CarPlay layout does not uninstall it from the iPhone.
An app may not appear when its developer has not enabled CarPlay support, the feature is unavailable in the region or the app needs to be updated. Some services also require an active subscription or account.
The safest layout keeps frequently used navigation and audio apps near the first page. Less essential services can remain farther back or be removed to reduce dashboard clutter.
More Apps Do Not Mean More Screen Time
The value of 120 CarPlay apps is not having 120 icons inside the car. It is having a useful service available when a particular trip requires it.
A daily commute may involve only Maps, Music and Messages. A road trip may add charging, parking, audiobooks and weather information. A workday could involve audio meetings and mileage tracking.
CarPlay’s restrictions remain part of its appeal. Apps are expected to simplify their interfaces, support voice interaction and limit detailed visual tasks. The system should reduce the temptation to use the iPhone rather than reproduce every distraction on a larger screen.
As iOS 27 expands capabilities for audio, communication, navigation and driving-task apps, the catalog is likely to keep growing. The more useful evolution will be deeper integration with the Dashboard, Siri and vehicle controls—not simply another row of icons.
Naked mole-rats have long puzzled biologists with their striking eusocial structure, where most adults remain reproductively suppressed while a queen controls the colony’s future. Now, a new study identifies a chemical “queen odour” that links social status to endocrine control, revealing a mammalian analogue to insect queen pheromones.
The molecule, termed IPM, is enriched by the queen and acts as the key mediator of reproductive suppression in non-breeding females. When IPM is present, circulating prolactin rises while progesterone is suppressed, locking the colony into a stable reproductive hierarchy characterized by reduced conflict and maintained group cohesion.
Crucially, the team connects this behavioural outcome to the brain. Using multiple approaches—including non-invasive functional ultrasound imaging (fUSI)—they show that IPM provokes strong activation of olfactory neurons and central neural circuits. This provides a neural substrate for how a chemical cue can trigger colony-wide physiological change, rather than relying on social learning or passive association.
The experiments also clarify sensory routing. Ablating olfaction abolishes aggression initiation and lowers prolactin levels, directly tying IPM detection to reproductive suppression. While the findings are consistent with sensing through the main olfactory epithelium, the authors note that the vomeronasal system may still contribute.
Queen removal normally destabilizes colonies, leading to aggression, reproductive competition, prolactin decline, and, in extreme cases, mortality. Yet when IPM is added to queenless bedding, the colony remains stable for months. During this period, fecal progesterone metabolite levels stay low, indicating sustained ovarian quiescence alongside elevated prolactin.
The study also addresses a longstanding paradox: transferring soiled bedding and urine from parent colonies fails to maintain suppression in isolated individuals. The authors propose that IPM’s chemistry helps explain this discrepancy. As a long-chain fatty acid ester with low volatility, IPM may persist within the colony environment but fail to travel effectively over distance or survive transfer pathways that preferentially carry other chemicals.
Comparative work extends beyond naked mole-rats. IPM is detected in breeding females of four additional Fukomys species. Although reproductive suppression mechanisms may differ across species, the presence of a similar queen-linked odorant suggests convergent chemical strategies for managing reproductive skew in eusocial mammals.
Overall, the research reframes reproduction control as a chemosensory-to-endocrine pathway: IPM activates olfactory–hypothalamic signalling, elevating prolactin and inhibiting GnRH release. This “social hormone” model offers a new principle for social evolution—chemical cues can synchronize behaviour and physiology at the scale of an entire mammal colony.
Subject of Research: Reproductive suppression and social hierarchy in eusocial mammals (naked mole-rats and related Fukomys species)
Article Title: A queen odour mediates reproductive suppression in a eusocial mammal
Article References:
Khallaf, M.A., Hart, D.W., Luo, W. et al. A queen odour mediates reproductive suppression in a eusocial mammal. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10772-5
Researchers have found that the natural compound spermidine can help improve vaccine responses in older adults by reducing molecular markers of immune system aging. A vaccine shot can look the same from one arm to the next, but the immune system beneath the skin may not respond with the same force. In older adults, that [...]
A newly identified protein pathway may link blood-brain barrier deterioration to age-related cognitive decline. The aging brain depends on a microscopic border that works every second to keep danger out and support the nerve cells inside. When that barrier begins to fail, memory, mood, and thinking may suffer. Andrew A. Pieper, MD, PhD, and colleagues [...]
Neuroscientists have long believed that language processing was only found in regions of the brain’s left hemisphere, including the well-known Broca’s area. However, new evidence suggests the brain’s language network is far more widespread than previously thought.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) analyzed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans from 772 participants and identified 17 additional brain regions involved in language comprehension. These newly discovered areas are distributed across the brain, including the cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala, and several regions of the cerebral cortex. In total, this accounts for five percent of the adult brain volume (roughly the size of a large strawberry).
“Even though there are all these distant components, it’s pretty restricted in terms of volume. You don’t need that much of the brain to do language,” says senior author Evelina Fedorenko, an MIT associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, in a statement.
Locating the Brain’s Hidden Language Centers
To find these hidden language-related regions in the brain, the researchers revisited years of brain imaging data collected since 2013. Additionally, participants completed a standard “language localizer” task, during which they read or listened to meaningful sentences and sequences of meaningless nonwords. By comparing brain activity between these two conditions, the research team identified regions that responded more strongly to language.
“When we initially started looking at language, in the first couple of papers, I tried to be comprehensive and include anything that seemed consistent across participants, and there was a huge amount of resistance,” said Fedorenko. “People would say things like, ‘Well, we know those are not language areas, so please focus on the language areas.’”
The team decided to adopt a more flexible statistical approach to detect weaker signals and identify previously overlooked language-sensitive regions beyond the classical language areas. They then compared these regions’ responses during a spatial working memory task to distinguish language-specific areas from those involved in what would be considered general cognitive functions.
Cerebellum Discoveries
Interestingly, five of the newly identified language regions are located in the cerebellum, a structure traditionally associated with movement and coordination. Some of these cerebellar regions were also active during non-language tasks, suggesting they may help integrate information across different brain systems rather than process language alone.
“It’s a very simple paradigm that lets you identify this core language system in individual brains,” says MIT postdoc Agata Wolna, the lead author of the paper.
Additional language-sensitive regions were identified in the hippocampus and amygdala, areas better known for their roles in memory and emotion. Their involvement suggests that understanding language may rely more on integrating memory, emotional context, and higher-order cognitive functions than previously understood in science.
“We always see this frontal temporal network, but there’s quite a lot of evidence that there are other regions that are also critical for language processing,” said Wolna. “By using a laxer threshold and zooming in on areas with weak MRI signal, we tried to maximize the chances of finding small and weakly responsive regions outside of this left frontal temporal system.”
The findings challenge long-held assumptions about the brain’s organization and can open new avenues for research into how language processing is understood in neuroscience.
Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com. To contact Chrissy with a story, please email chrissy @ thedebrief.org.
Heliconius butterflies inhabit the rainforests of Central and South America, where most adult butterflies live only a few weeks. In the study, Heliconius hewitsoni reached a maximum lifespan of 348 days, while a related species, Dione juno, only survived about 14 days under observed conditions. This represents a 25-fold difference in maximum lifespan between two closely related species.
Old Age Without the Decline
Heliconius butterflies not only live longer than their relatives, but also show slower physical decline with age. The team, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, measured grip strength in aging butterflies to assess physical decline. Older Heliconius hecale performed as well as the younger individuals tested, showing no detectable age-related decline in grip strength.
The team combined butterfly house data, mark–recapture field studies, and controlled lab experiments. In these cases, Heliconius butterflies consistently showed longer lifespans, lower mortality rates, and slower rates of aging than closely related species that do not feed on pollen.
The Pollen Connection
One hypothesis for their extended lifespan focuses on their unusual adult diet. While most butterflies feed only on nectar, Heliconius also consumes pollen, which was thought to provide the nutritional basis for its extended lifespan.
To test this idea, researchers compared pollen-feeding Heliconius hecale with its non-pollen-feeding relative, Dryas iulia. H. hecale maintained body mass and muscle performance longer than D. iulia. Even without pollen in its diet, H. hecale still outlived its relative by a wide margin. This suggests that diet alone does not explain Heliconius’s extended lifespan.
Dr. Jessica Foley, the study’s lead author from the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, explained that insects already show a huge range of lifespans. Some, like mayflies, live only a few days, while ant and termite queens can survive for decades. “This represents a roughly 5,000-fold difference within the class, compared with around a 100-fold difference in lifespan observed in mammals.”
Heliconius butterflies are notable because they have evolved both longer lifespans and slower rates of aging, allowing them to outlive close relatives from which they diverged only recently in evolutionary history.
A New Model for an Old Problem
Most aging research uses a limited set of laboratory organisms, such as mice, worms, and fruit flies, to study biological aging mechanisms. The heliconius butterfly provides a unique opportunity to study a long-lived species closely related to short-lived species, allowing for direct comparison in a natural context. Foley noted that comparing these two groups “can help reveal how lifespan is extended, making them a highly promising new model for research into the biology of aging and longevity.”
If pollen feeding and longevity evolved together but are not entirely dependent on each other, the next step is to identify the genetic and physiological changes responsible for both traits. Understanding these mechanisms in Heliconius butterflies could provide insight into how aging evolves across species.
Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds an MBA, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a data analytics certification. His work focuses on breaking scientific developments, with an emphasis on emerging biology, cognitive neuroscience, and archaeological discoveries.
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