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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 21-Jan-2026 11:11 ET (21-Jan-2026 16:11 GMT/UTC)

UC Davis researchers look at how the brain prioritizes what we see

University of California - Davis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

How we focus our attention before we even see an object matters. For example, when we look for something moving in the sky, our expectation would be very different if the object is a bird flying past or a baseball coming straight at us. But it’s unclear whether our brain’s attention focuses first on a broad characteristic of the anticipated object, such as movement, or a specific feature — such as the direction of movement up or down. Researchers from the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis, addressed this by analyzing electrical brain activity with machine-learning methods.

Journal: Neuroscience
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health, U.S. National Science Foundation

European colonizers altered the genetic ancestry of Indigenous peoples in southern Africa

Cell Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A genomic analysis of over 1,200 people from across South Africa reveals how colonial-era European, Indigenous Khoe-San peoples, and enslaved people contributed to the modern-day gene pool in South Africa. Publishing September 23 in the Cell Press journal The American Journal of Human Genetics, the study found that genes inherited from both colonial Europeans and enslaved people are most common in Cape Town and become less frequent with distance from the colony’s epicenter. The results also show that European ancestors were more likely to be male, whereas Indigenous Khoe-San ancestors were more likely to be female.

Journal: The American Journal of Human Genetics
Funder: South African Medical Research Council, South African National Research Foundation, NIH/National Institutes of Health

Mayo Clinic’s AI tools help predict severe asthma risks in young children

Mayo Clinic
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mayo Clinic researchers have developed artificial intelligence (AI) tools that help identify which children with asthma face the highest risk of serious asthma exacerbation and acute respiratory infections. The study, published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found the tools can detect those risks as early as age 3.

Journal: Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
Funder: NIH/National Institutes of Health

Fish oil supplements may not work for certain cancer patients

Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a study, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have shown that the gene 15-lipoxygenase-1, or ALOX15, is essential for helping EPA and DHA suppress colorectal cancer.

Journal: Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Funder: NIH/National Cancer Institute, Rogel Cancer Center, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas

Adult stem cells show therapeutic promise in treating vision loss from macular degeneration

Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a study, published in Cell Stem Cell, researchers used retinal pigment epithelial stem cells derived from adult postmortem eye tissue in a phase 1/2a clinical trial. These early phase trials are used to determine whether a therapy intervention is safe.

Journal: Cell Stem Cell
Funder: Luxa Biotechnology, NIH/National Eye Institute