A study from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine highlights a new approach in addressing conductive hearing loss. A team of scientists, led by Mohammad J. Moghimi, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering, has designed a new type of hearing aid that not only improves hearing but also offers a safe, non-invasive alternative to implantable devices and corrective surgeries.
The study was recently published in Communications Engineering.
Conductive hearing loss, which most commonly happens in childhood, occurs when sounds do not reach the inner ear. Sound waves are blocked in the outer or middle ear due to ear infections, blockages or structural abnormalities.
"Treatment for conductive hearing loss can include corrective surgeries and implantable hearing aids, which can be very invasive, especially for pediatric patients," Moghimi said. "Flexible hearing aids offer a noninvasive alternative."
To produce vibrations strong enough to reach the cochlea, the part of the inner ear responsible for hearing, the research team designed a flexible hearing aid. The device uses micro-epidermal actuators to create vibrations on the skin behind the ear, which then travel directly to the inner ear, bypassing the ear canal.
For the study, 10 participants between the ages of 19 and 39 wore earplugs and earmuffs to simulate conductive hearing loss. Researchers then tested arrays of the actuators to enhance the vibration strength, improve the quality of sounds and control the direction of the vibrations.
"We found that using an array of these actuators, rather than a single one, significantly enhances the strength and quality of the vibrations, leading to better hearing outcomes," Moghimi said.
Moghimi also noted that improving hearing in children can reduce delays in language and speech development and boost educational development.
"This technology has the potential to improve the quality of life for children with hearing impairments and transform the way we approach pediatric hearing aids," Moghimi said.
The research team will next focus on a larger study to further evaluate the efficacy and safety of the device in children and adults.
More information: Enosh Lim et al, Array of micro-epidermal actuators for noninvasive pediatric flexible conductive hearing aids, Communications Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44172-025-00369-7
A person's "bioenergetic age"—or how youthfully their cells generate energy—might be a key indicator of whether they're at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, new research from Weill Cornell Medicine shows.
The study, published in Nature Communications, suggests that healthy living can turn back the bioenergetic clock for some people, helping them fend off Alzheimer's as effectively as a new drug called lecanemab.
"That's quite big, because it means some people can lower their risk without the uncertain side effects of current treatments," said senior author Dr. Jan Krumsiek, associate professor of physiology and biophysics and computational genomics in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. The study's first author, Dr. Matthias Arnold, is head of the computational neurobiology team at Helmholtz Munich.
The new findings bring us a step closer to solving a long-standing puzzle. One of the early warning signs of Alzheimer's is that brain cells start losing their ability to produce and use energy efficiently, such as metabolizing glucose (sugar). But some people don't show disease symptoms for years.
This delay between abnormalities in energy pathways and the onset of symptomatic disease suggests there is a "bioenergetic capacity" that provides a buffer for these individuals. Their bodies and brains are better at keeping energy levels up even when problems start.
"In these cases, people can be unusually healthy when we look at their cognition," said Dr. Krumsiek, who is also a member of the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine. "They make it to old age without the kind of declines that usually creep in."
But could the researchers identify individuals with this beneficial higher bioenergetic capacity and help those without it?
A new tool to predict the risk of Alzheimer's
Dr. Krumsiek and his colleagues turned to a group of molecules called acylcarnitines, which are associated with declining cognition and breaking down or metabolizing fats and proteins for energy. To test whether high acylcarnitine levels in the blood could predict who's at risk of developing Alzheimer's, the researchers used data from a large-scale study called the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.
"It was fascinating," Dr. Krumsiek said. "Dividing research participants into groups based on their specific acylcarnitine levels highlighted people with more severe Alzheimer's disease and others with fewer symptoms."
This led the researchers to define a bioenergetic clock based on acylcarnitines—how old a person's metabolism acts, compared to actual age. Higher bioenergetic age is linked to higher acylcarnitine levels, worsened Alzheimer's pathology, cognitive decline and brain atrophy.
The researchers also quantified cognitive decline using a common test called the mini-mental state examination, on which a score below 24 out of 30 points indicates impairment. They found that people with low acylcarnitine levels to begin with declined more slowly, losing about 0.5 points less per year than people with high acylcarnitine levels. The benefit is on par with the Alzheimer's drug lecanemab.
To some degree, a person's bioenergetic clock ticks forward at a rate determined by their genetics, but having a healthy lifestyle—for example, eating a plant-based diet and exercising—can help keep acylcarnitine levels low, which means a younger bioenergetic age, Dr. Krumsiek explained.
They went on to identify a subgroup of participants, about 30% of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, with an older bioenergetic age but favorable genetic background. These individuals may benefit more from early lifestyle interventions designed to decrease their bioenergetic age and potentially delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's.
Next steps
Moving forward, Dr. Krumsiek hopes to home in on the lifestyle interventions most effective for lowering bioenergetic age. For example, eating a low-carb diet may help maintain metabolic health, but just how low would carbohydrate consumption have to be for a person to see benefits?
The study also points to an inexpensive, rapid test that could determine a person's acylcarnitine levels.
"It's fortunate that these blood tests—originally developed to identify metabolic and mitochondrial disorders in newborns—can also help assess a person's bioenergetic age," Dr. Krumsiek said. "If we can repurpose this technology for older adults, that could provide a way to start personalized treatment earlier."
More information: Matthias Arnold et al, Individual bioenergetic capacity as a potential source of resilience to Alzheimer's disease, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-57032-0
Researchers conducting a clinical trial of immunotherapy drugs for people with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) found that patients responded better to a combination of two immunotherapies than patients who received just one immunotherapy drug.
The scientists also analyzed immune cells in each person's tumor after one month of immunotherapy to see which type of immune cells were activated to fight their cancer, suggesting that some of the cells and targets they identified could help individualize treatment benefit. The findings appear in Cancer Cell.
HNSCCs occur in the oral cavity, pharynx, hypopharynx, larynx, nasal cavity and salivary glands and comprise the seventh most common cancer diagnosis worldwide. With an estimated 890,000 new cases and 450,000 deaths occurring annually, HNSCC accounts for roughly 4.5% of cancer diagnoses and deaths worldwide.
Current HNSCC treatments can be disfiguring and negatively impact a patient's quality of life. Shrinking a tumor prior to surgery increases the chance that a surgeon can preserve a person's tongue and voice box, which are important for speaking, breathing and swallowing.
"My group has conducted pre-operative trials in head and neck cancers for over 15 years, and the ability to shrink tumors with existing drugs prior to surgery has been relatively disappointing. While a recent trial has shown that single-drug immunotherapy provides a benefit, it only worked in a small number of patients," said Robert L. Ferris, MD, Ph.D., executive director of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
"In our clinical trial, we compared two different combinations of immunotherapy drugs to using a single immunotherapy drug, and found that either combination regimen doubled or tripled the response rate versus the single immunotherapy, and led to a survival benefit. Up to a third of patients who received two drugs saw over 50 percent of their tumor disappear after only one month of treatment."
Ferris started the research while on faculty at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, Pittsburgh, then completed it after being appointed as the executive director of UNC Lineberger and system chief of oncology services at UNC Health in June 2024.
Others from the Ferris group included Lazar Vujanovic, Ph.D., of UPMC Hillman, as second corresponding author. Housaiyin Li and Dan P. Zandberg, MD, a graduate student and medical oncologist at UPMC Hillman, respectively, are the first authors.
The study randomly assigned 42 patients (one would later withdraw consent) to three immunotherapy treatment arms: nivolumab alone, nivolumab plus ipilimumab and nivolumab plus relatlimab. Both immunotherapy combinations appeared to perform equally well.
The researchers attribute this to the drugs activating tumor-specific T lymphocytes, a type of immune T cell that specifically recognizes and attacks cancer cells.
Even after surgical removal of a treatment-shrunken tumor, the T lymphocytes remain alive and circulating in patients' bodies, providing surveillance that can increase long-term survival benefit.
"In this trial, we were able to specifically identify biological signatures that helped us decide which immunotherapy combination was best to use. The Lymphocyte Activation Gene-3, or LAG-3, protein was a good marker for some people while the CTLA-4 protein was a good marker for others," Ferris said.
"The immune status or markers a patient might have at diagnosis can help dictate which regimen is best to select for their treatment, and because of this marker's promise, we have filed a patent for our diagnostic paradigm."
Based on their discovery that the outcomes of the two different immunotherapy combinations appear similar, Ferris and his colleagues have extended this trial to include another 40 patients. They are also using a higher dose of relatlimab.
They hope to see even better responses and longer survival in the expanded trial, which is ongoing.
A collaboration between researchers in the Brazilian states of São Paulo and Ceará and colleagues affiliated with Hong Kong University (HKU) in China has resulted in the discovery of a novel coronavirus in bats, the first in South America closely related to the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS-CoV).
An article describing the discovery is published in the Journal of Medical Virology (JMV).
"Right now we aren't sure it can infect humans, but we detected parts of the virus's spike protein [which binds to mammalian cells to start an infection] suggesting potential interaction with the receptor used by MERS-CoV. To find out more, we plan to conduct experiments in Hong Kong during the current year," said Bruna Stefanie Silvério, first author of the article.
The researchers identified seven coronaviruses in 5 out of 16 oral and rectal swabs from bats collected by the Central Health Laboratory (LACEN) of Ceará in Fortaleza, the state capital. The article highlights the significant genetic diversity of the coronaviruses in question. The five bats belonged to two different species (Molossus molossus, an insectivore, and Artibeus lituratus, a frugivore).
In an earlier study by the groups at LACEN Fortaleza and UNIFESP, rabies virus variants closely related to variants present in marmosets were found in bats.
"Bats are important viral reservoirs and should therefore be submitted to continuous epidemiological surveillance. This monitoring helps identify circulating viruses and risks of transmission to other animals, and even to humans," said Ricardo Durães-Carvalho, last author of the article, a professor at EPM-UNIFESP and Silvério's thesis advisor.
Durães-Carvalho is principal investigator for the project "Bats: epidemiological surveillance, high-resolution phylodynamics, search and design of peptides of biotechnological interest in emergent and reemerging viruses."
MERS-CoV
The MERS coronavirus was first identified in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. In total, 27 countries have reported cases since 2012, leading to 858 known deaths due to the infection and related complications.
In the viruses they found, the Brazilian researchers identified a genetic sequence with 71.9% similarity to the MERS-CoV genome. The gene that encoded the spike protein exhibited 71.74% similarity with MERS-CoV's spike protein, which was isolated from humans in Saudi Arabia in 2015.
To find out whether it can bind to human cells, experiments will have to be conducted at high-biosecurity laboratories. These trials are scheduled to take place at HKU during 2025.
Same bat, different virus
A previous paper published in JMV by the same group of researchers reported the detection of a human-associated gemykibivirus-2 in one of the M. molossus bats analyzed at LACEN Fortaleza.
According to the authors, it was highly similar to a gemykibivirus identified in samples of human cerebrospinal fluid. The same virus was also identified in samples from blood banks.
Previous research detected the gemykibivirus in patients with HIV, sepsis of unknown origin, recurrent pericarditis, and unexplained cases of diarrhea and encephalitis. This is the first time the virus has been identified in bats.
Discovery of the virus required the development of novel primers (short single-stranded RNA molecules used in genomics to initiate DNA synthesis). In this case, the primers were based specifically on the genetic sequence from the gemykibivirus detected in humans.
"A lack of viral sequences available from databases prevented us from analyzing these viruses in greater depth. At the same time, the fact that we identified such little-known viral agents makes our findings a basis for future investigations," Silvério said.
Durães-Carvalho concurred. "Our studies show the importance of making this type of analysis more systematic, optimized and integrated, with several sectors participating and generating data on unified platforms that can be used by health systems to monitor and even prevent epidemics and pandemics," he said.
More information: Bruna Stefanie Silvério et al, Coronavirus Cryptic Landscape and Draft Genome of a Novel CoV Clade Related to MERS From Bats Circulating in Northeastern Brazil, Journal of Medical Virology (2025). DOI: 10.1002/jmv.70173
It was a clearcut case of self-defense—at least, at first.
In June 2019, Tracy Kanary was minding his own business at a Bay City, Michigan recovery house, where he had recently checked in to prove to his family that he was sober.
Kanary’s roommate, Gene Woods, was in a bad mood, apparently thinking that Kanary stole his medication. Woods decided to confront Kanary with his allegations.
When Kanary denied stealing Woods’s “Tums” medication, the argument turned more heated—and Woods decided to become violent. He suddenly rushed Kanary, swinging wildly.
Kanary defended himself by clinching his attacker and taking him down—receiving multiple blows to the back of the head in the process. Woods countered the takedown with a potentially lethal guillotine choke on Kanary.
Again, Kanary defended himself—peeling off Woods’s choke, working out from underneath him, taking his back, and applying a chokehold of his own. Woods tried bucking Kanary off—sending him crashing head-first into a wall—but he continued to apply the hold.
“Matt!” Kanary called to another recovery house resident. “Call 9-1-1!”
The other resident, Matt Navarre, displayed little sense of urgency, walking away to call law enforcement.
That’s when the incident turned deadly, and much more legally complicated.
As seconds passed, and then minutes, help had still not arrived. At certain points, Kanary said Woods began to struggle again, which is why he maintained his hold, he said.
By the time police arrived some six minutes after the fight began, Woods was motionless—later to be pronounced dead.
Kanary was tried twice, the first one ending in a hung jury in December 2022, and the second one ending in a second-degree murder conviction last April.
Kanary maintains to this day that he didn’t intend to kill Woods. When he took the stand in court, he was asked whether he knew Woods had stopped breathing. Kanary said he was breathing so hard himself that he could hardly tell.
“I was breathing so hard myself because I had just got up, just got choked, just got punched, choked, and it was a strenuous thing trying to get out of his chokehold, so I was breathing very hard myself,” Kanary testified.
“I was scared that he was going to get back up again and hurt, and just start swinging and punching me again. So I, you know, I started yelling for help right away.”
Nearly six years and two trials later, Kanary is serving a 22- to 36-year sentence.
His supporters say he never received a fair trial.
For starters, Kanary was initially just charged with manslaughter—but Bay County Prosecuting Attorney Nancy Borushko upgraded the charge to murder in response to political pressure, according to journalist Robert E. Martin.
During his trials, Kanary wasn’t allowed to have a medical doctor testify as an expert witness. According to his supporters, a medical doctor could have testified how the blows to the head he suffered impacted his ability to think clearly and make rational decisions. He was also denied the ability to have a psychologist, who could have explained that when individuals engage in “fight or flight behavior” when in a life-threatening situation.
And despite not having those legal defenses, it still took two trials to convict Kanary.
“The problem with the jury’s verdict and the judge’s reasoning, however, is that the Attacker was a known troublemaker, with a long criminal record including assaults, in and out of jail, with a cocktail of drugs in his system that likely contributed to his aggressive behavior at the time of the attack,” Martin wrote in an article last August.
“A Pharmacologist could’ve analyzed the medicines and toxins found in the attacker’s system, and the prescription pill bottles found at the scene, to determine the effects on behavior and aggression from drugs taken or recently stopping a drug, and how that combination of drugs could contribute to respiratory distress,” Martin wrote.
“But the jury never heard this information, because Tracy was denied professional witnesses, and the judge did not allow some of it. How did this go wrong? Tracy, who was being represented by a public defender at both trials, was told by both that he wasn’t allowed various professional witnesses due to budget approvals or acceptance by the Court,” Martin wrote.
Kanary’s supporters say the matter resembles the case of Daniel Penny—the man acquitted in December for fatally choking a mentally ill person who had been threatening people in a New York City subway. Except unlike Penny, Kanary was attacked first, his supporters argue.
One of the supporters provided Headline USA with footage of the incident. It’s being published here for the first time publicly.
This reporter showed the footage to martial arts experts, including MMA fighters Malachy Friedman and Hamza Mir.
From a technical fighting standpoint, Woods’s punching was “as bad as you can get.” But his grappling skills were potentially lethal, Friedman said. The guillotine choke Woods initially applied on Kanary could have killed him, according to Friedman, who runs Black Label Martial Arts in South Carolina.
As far as why the fight started in the first place, Friedman said both men made mistakes in not trying to deescalate the situation.
“I don’t like how [Kanary] was moving forward in the beginning, but [Woods] was swinging and [Kanary] was then backing up,” he said when reviewing the footage. “I’m sure emotions are super high.”
Friedman said he doesn’t believe Kanary’s actions rose to the level of murder. He said Kanary being punched probably spiked his adrenaline, clouding his judgement in the process.
“[Getting punched] it’s going to drive you up a wall. You’re going to be in panic mode. Your heart is going to be beating like it’s never been beating before,” he said.
Without knowing what was in Kanary’s head at the time, Friedman does say that he believes the incident was likely manslaughter.
“Maybe he didn’t mean to kill him, but I know how long it takes for brain damage: 60 seconds. This is by far a death sentence for [Kanary to hold the choke] that long. But that’s what happens when people are untrained,” he said.
“That’s the danger of choosing a choke … If you use jiu jitsu in a self-defense situation, you have to understand how long a [choke] should be on before you let up.”
Mir, a coach at Arizona Combat Sports, agreed the two should have avoided fighting for numerous reasons.
“Even if you are superior on the ground, the other guy can carry a knife and stab you … Second, if you take the guy down and he picked up something from the ground—like a stone—you are f**ked,” Mir explained.
“Third reason, as demonstrated in this video, the other guy can have superior ground skills than you.”
Kanary still has an outstanding appeal in his case.
Meanwhile, Woods’s family continues to grieve over his needless and tragic killing. Woods had an education in the culinary arts and worked at numerous businesses around Bay City, according to his obituary.
“It changes the very fabric of your being; it changes you at your very core,” Woods’ older sister, Krista Backstrom, wrote last year before Kanary’s sentencing. “It hits you at such a deep emotional level that not a day goes by you don’t think of that person and long to talk to them, see them, communicate with them in some way.”
Two protest takeovers by far-left groups unfolded in New York City early in the afternoon, appearing to be somewhat coordinated.
The first group of protesters expressed outrage over Elon Musk's DOGE at a Tesla showroom in Manhattan, while a second demonstration of far-left pro-Palestinian activists filled the lobby at Trump Tower.
Let's start with the rather dismal turnout of angry white liberals at the Tesla store in Manhattan, outraged that Musk is making the government more efficient by cutting fraud and waste from federal agencies.
Turnout is not even in the hundreds or thousands—more like a dozen—likely because Secretary of State Marco Rubio's 83% budget cut to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), a rogue agency captured by the Deep State, has curbed the ability of shady NGOs linked to Democrats to use taxpayer funds to finance their color revolution-style riots, as they have in the past.
Not all of today's protests were lame and uninspiring.
Dozens of far-left extremists, all wearing identical shirts—suggesting a high level of coordination—stormed the first floor of Trump Tower in a takeover-style tactic frequently employed by leftist groups.
X users point to "Jewish Voice for Peace" as the responsible non-profit for the coordinated protest inside Trump Tower.
Their identical shirts all read, "Jews say stop arming Israel." Many chanted: "Bring Mahmoud home now!"
The protesters are furious with the Trump administration's move to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student who led pro-Palestinian encampment protests at Columbia University. Khalil's deportation has been caught up in courts this week.
For the DOGE team, this may be yet another taxpayer-funded far-left NGO to investigate—one that is being weaponized by the rudderless Democratic Party.
PPP loans.
How did so many protestors end up in Trump Tower?
Also, if Rubio hadn't neutered USAID, there would have likely been riots nationwide by now. Remember, Democrats funded the color revolution Marxist group BLM in 2020—and we all remember how that turned out.
President Trump's Homeland Security Department has introduced new transparency regarding the illegal alien invasion under the Biden-Harris regime. The data now reveals that the previous administration "cooked the books," creating the illusion that illegals were being arrested and detained—when, in reality, many were caught and then dumped into communities nationwide.
"We have uncovered that the previous administration… was cooking the books on ICE data," acting ICE Director Todd Lyons told reporters on Wednesday.
Lyons explained, "They were purposely misleading the American people by categorizing individuals processed and released into the interior of the United States as ICE arrests."
"A comprehensive review was done internally here with ICE. We found tens of thousands of cases that were recorded as arrests when, in fact, these instances were illegal aliens that were simply processed and released into the American communities," he said.
Homeland Security published a short clip of Fox News' report on comments from Lyons...
The Biden Administration was cooking the books on ICE arrest data.
The majority of what they counted as arrests were actually instances where illegals aliens were processed and simply released into American communities.
Senior officials told Fox News that ICE made 113,431 arrests in 2024 that were classified as "pass-through" arrests, meaning zero enforcement action was taken against the foreign nationals, who were instead released and dumped into communities via a web of NGOs funded by taxpayers and controlled by far-left organizations. The ploy here was about about rigging future elections for Democrats.
A combination of open southern borders and catch-and-release under the Biden-Harris regime explains why thousands of criminal illegal aliens and terrorists have now called America home.
Last year, a leaked US Army North Division memo warned that 5,000 armed Venezuela prison gang Tren de Aragua members were embedded in US cities and towns nationwide.
As for the interior, ICE agents made 33,242 arrests last year, which is only 29% of all arrests from the immigration enforcement agency. For comparison, ICE agents made 32,809 arrests from January 20 to March 10, indicating they will surpass the 2024 figures in a matter of days.
"What we are doing now is actual immigration enforcement, not enforcement theater," an official said.
🚨🇺🇸BORDER CZAR HOMAN: WHO DOESN’T THINK CRIMINALS SHOULD BE DEPORTED?
"There's no excuse for someone being in the country, going on to commit a crime, and not being handed over to ICE. I don't understand it.
Another official said, "The difference between these recent arrests and those from last year is now we are actually taking enforcement actions on each and every illegal alien arrested."
The latest border figures show that border book-ins to ICE plunged from 628 a day in February 2024 to 163 daily last month.
"We are empowering [ICE agents] to do their jobs," Lyons said, adding, "After four years of not being allowed to effectively do their jobs, our agents and officers are excited to get to work and fulfill the agency's mission."
