In two Indigenous communities living pre-industrial lifestyles in the Bolivian Amazon, dementia is remarkably uncommon. However, a new longitudinal study reveals why earlier estimates told only part of the story.

Among the Tsimané and Mosetén communities, dementia incidence, or the rate of new cases, didn’t dramatically differ from rates in U.S. and northern European populations, especially for individuals under 80 years old. Shorter survival after dementia develops appears to play a significant role in why dementia prevalence – the total proportion of people living with the disease at a given time – in the Tsimané and Mosetén populations is unusually low.

“The surprising finding was that there weren’t big differences in dementia incidence,” said lead author Margaret Gatz, a professor of psychology and gerontology at USC and a senior scientist at the USC Center for Economic and Social Research. “That challenges us to identify the risk factors for developing dementia in the Tsimané population.”

Researchers at Capital Normal University and the Henan Academy of Sciences have found that random SERS fluctuations are more than experimental noise: the full intensity distribution evolves systematically with analyte concentration. By combining these concentration-encoded statistical patterns with a compact ResNet4 model, the team accurately identified concentration levels for a model dye, methamphetamine, pesticide residues, and a drug in artificial serum, opening a new route to reliable ultrasensitive SERS quantitation.

YouTube is a popular source of sports content among college students, but engaging with sports videos does not necessarily translate into greater physical activity. Researchers at Seoul National University of Science and Technology surveyed university students, examining whether their motivations and perceptions of YouTube sports content could encourage greater use and physical activity. The findings reveal a gap between online sports engagement and real-world participation, highlighting the need for content that turns interest into action.

When we treat animals better, we feel better, indicates a new study from the UC Davis Green Care Lab with mini horses, donkeys and teens.  

The biologic drug interferon-alpha can benefit patients with blood cancers called myeloproliferative neoplasms by forcing mutant blood stem cells to become shorter-lived white blood cells, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. Because the broad activity of interferon-alpha can induce significant side effects, developing new focused strategies based on these mechanistic findings could meet an important need in cancer therapy.