Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Clues to psilocybin's epigenetic effects on people with alcohol use disorder - medicalxpress
Some
psychedelics, psychoactive substances that alter people's mood, perceptions and
mental processes, were recently found to be promising alternative treatments
for some mental health disorders. The substance that has attracted the most
interest so far is psilocybin, a naturally occurring hallucinogenic compound
found in more than 200 types of mushrooms.
Past studies have found that psilocybin can help
reduce the symptoms experienced by some patients with treatment-resistant
depression and substance use disorders, including alcohol use disorder (AUD).
However, the biological mechanisms underpinning its therapeutic effects are
still poorly understood.
Researchers at the University of Heidelberg and the
University of Zurich recently carried out a study aimed at exploring how
psilocybin influences how the genes of people recovering from AUD are modified.
Their findings, published in Translational Psychiatry,
offer some hints about how the psychedelic compound might influence these
individuals' epigenome, the network of chemical compounds and proteins that are
attached to DNA and influence how genes behave.
"The primary goal of our study was to examine
epigenetic associations with psilocybin treatment in patients with AUD, as well
as potential relationships between such associations and treatment
outcomes," Marvin M. Urban, first author of the paper, told Medical
Xpress. "Epigenetic mechanisms, including DNA methylation, are involved in
psychiatric conditions, such as AUD or depression, and have been proposed to
play a role in psychedelic effects as well.
"Despite the potential in this field (e.g., for biomarker identification or mechanistic insights), the epigenetics of psychedelics are still largely unexplored in clinical studies, and we sought to provide a starting point for further research on this topic."
Mapping epigenetic changes after psilocybin treatment
The recent study by Urban and his colleagues specifically explored the
effects of psilocybin treatment on a mechanism known as DNA methylation. This
mechanism entails the addition of "chemical tags" called methyl
groups to DNA, which turn genes on or off by preventing proteins from accessing
it.
To investigate how psilocybin influenced DNA methylation in patients
recovering from AUD, the team analyzed data collected as part of a clinical
trial led by Dr. Nathalie Rieser and her colleagues at the Psychiatric
University Clinic in Zurich. The 37 patients who took part in this trial had
already completed their detox period and were given either a single 25 mg dose
of psilocybin or an inactive placebo as a potential treatment to prevent
relapses.
"We received blood samples from before, shortly after, and one month
after the treatment, and extracted DNA from them," Urban explained.
"The methylation status of
roughly 1 million locations in the genome was then assessed in these samples,
and a series of statistical approaches was used to identify changes related to
the psilocybin treatment and potential correlations with behavioral and
psychological outcomes."
The team's analyses led to the identification of a specific DNA
methylation-related change that was significantly linked with the intake of
psilocybin. This alteration was located in the gene TLE4, which encodes a
gene-suppressing protein.
In addition, the researchers observed altered methylation in the
gene RASGRP4 and some changes near the genes HTR2A and TNF. RASGRP4 plays a
role in the development and function of mast cells, as well as various immune
responses. HTR2A encodes a serotonin receptor that plays a role in psilocybin's
effects. Finally, TNF is known to be involved in inflammation and immune
responses.
"While the findings of this study have to be seen as exploratory and
require replication in larger data sets, it was interesting to observe that
different lines of analysis pointed to genes related to the immune
system," Urban said. "It is known that AUD involves immunological
dysregulation, and psilocybin seems to possess immunomodulatory
capacities, thus our findings could hint at a potential therapeutic
mechanism."
Informing future clinical trials with psilocybin
While the results of this study are still preliminary, they suggest that
psilocybin can influence the human epigenome in patients with AUD. Other
research groups could build on the team's observations and set out to explore
the effects of the psychedelic compound on other epigenetic mechanisms or on
DNA methylation in patients with other psychiatric conditions.
Urban and his colleagues hope that their efforts will also inspire more
clinical trials involving psychedelics. These trials could lead to the
collection of more blood samples that could be used to perform similar
analyses, potentially yielding more valuable insights.
"My current plans are just vaguely related to this project and mainly
revolve around multimodal neuroimaging in preclinical addiction models, in one
study also including intervention with a hallucinogenic compound," Urban
added. "However, some of my colleagues are now analyzing epigenetic data
collected during a clinical trial on psilocybin against treatment-resistant
depression. I am excited to see what they will find out."
Powerful UFO spotted blasting from a distant black hole - Astronomy & Space - Astronomy
Artistic view of multiphase AGN-driven
winds highlighting the different phases and scales that are involved in the
outflow. Credit: University of Bologna
Astronomers have detected one of
the most powerful ultra-fast outflows ever seen from a distant supermassive
black hole. Using XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, a team studied a hyper-luminous quasar
at cosmic noon and found two distinct wind components blasting away from the
black hole, details of which are outlined in a paper submitted to the arXiv preprint server on June 3. The study has been submitted to the
journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and is currently under
minor revision.
Killer winds
Black holes consuming large amounts
of material tend to lash out, driving powerful winds of gas outward from the
vicinity of the accretion disk. These winds are known as ultra-fast outflows,
or UFOs, when they exceed 10% of the speed of light. They are thought to be
a key mechanism by which black holes regulate both their own
growth and that of their host galaxies. By depositing energy into the
surrounding gas, they heat it, slow star formation and can eventually quench
the galaxy entirely. This kind of regulation is thought to typically take place
during cosmic noon—roughly 1.6 to 3.5 billion years after the Big Bang—when
both black holes and galaxies are growing at their peak rates.
UFOs leave their fingerprints in
X-ray spectra as absorption features. They create dips caused by highly ionized
iron in the outflowing gas absorbing X-rays as they travel toward us. Because
the gas is moving outward at a significant fraction of the speed of light,
these features appear shifted to higher energies than expected—a blueshift that
reveals both the presence and the speed of the wind.
Most previous detections at high
redshift relied on gravitationally lensed quasars—objects whose light is
magnified by a foreground galaxy, boosting the luminosity. While useful,
lensing can introduce some uncertainties.
UFO spotted
To study these winds in non-lensed,
ordinary quasars, a team led by Giorgio Lanzuisi of INAF Bologna designed a
dedicated observing program called WISSHFUL—an XMM-Newton multi-year heritage
program targeting 15 hyper-luminous quasars at cosmic noon.
The first target, WISSH13, is a
quasar at redshift 3.294, seen as it was roughly 2 billion years after the Big
Bang. The central black hole weighs about 2 billion times the sun's mass and is
feasting on matter at an exceptional rate, shining about three times brighter
than astronomers would normally expect for a black hole of its mass.
In this new study, the team
combined XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations from October 2024 with an archival
XMM-Newton observation from 2017 and produced a high-quality X-ray spectrum of
WISSH13. It showed two clear absorption features. Modeling showed that these
features arise from two different components of the same UFO, traveling at
roughly 10% and 30% of the speed of light.
The spine and the sheath
The slower component was detected
in both the 2017 and 2024 observations, suggesting it is a long-lived feature
of the system. The faster component appeared only in the newer data, indicating
it may be launched in short-lived episodes. "The detection of two distinct
velocity components (∼0.1c and ∼0.3c) with different variability patterns suggests a
complex, stratified outflow," the team writes.
The researchers explain that the
observations are consistent with a layered wind structure predicted by
theoretical models, in which a faster "spine" launched from the
innermost regions of the accretion disk is surrounded by a slower "sheath"
originating farther out.
Together, the two components eject
around 21 and 24 solar masses of material per year, respectively. This ranks
them among the most massive and powerful UFOs known. This is also the
highest-redshift UFO detected from a non-lensed quasar to date.
Interestingly, despite their enormous power, the team found that the winds follow the same scaling relations observed in lower-redshift active galaxies. The team notes that future instruments, particularly the planned NewAthena X-ray observatory, will be able to identify such winds in distant quasars.
Source: Powerful UFO spotted blasting from a distant black hole
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Monday, June 29, 2026
Hubble Spies Starry Chandelier - UNIVERSE
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features
the globular cluster NGC 6723, sometimes called the Chandelier Cluster.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, A.
Sarajedini, G. Piotto
The subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image
is an ancient inhabitant of our galaxy. This sparkling scene features a globular cluster: a collection of tens of thousands to millions of stars, all tightly
bound together under the influence of gravity. There are more than 150 globular
clusters in our galaxy, though there may be others still undiscovered, hidden
from view by dust or densely packed fields of stars.
This globular cluster, NGC 6723,
sometimes called the Chandelier Cluster, is much like its namesake because it
sparkles with countless lights. However, each ‘lightbulb’ in this chandelier is
an individual star 27,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius
(the Archer).
Globular clusters like NGC 6723 contain
some of the oldest stars in our galaxy. These clusters have ages that often
exceed 10 billion years old, and some are nearly as old as the universe itself.
Astronomers think globular clusters are some of the first structures that
formed in our galaxy, coalescing potentially billions of years before the thin
disk of stars in which our Sun orbits. The details of how globular clusters
formed, however, are not yet certain.
Astronomers initially thought that all
stars in a globular cluster formed at the same time in a single flourish of
star formation. This would mean that all stars in a globular cluster would be
the same age and made of the same mixture of chemical elements. Now, thanks to
observations from telescopes like Hubble, researchers know that these seemingly
simple stellar populations have more complex histories than originally thought.
Hubble first observed NGC 6723 as part
of an ambitious survey dedicated to demystifying the properties of globular
clusters in our Milky Way galaxy. In this observing program (#10775,
PI: Sarajedini), researchers used Hubble to study 65 globular clusters in our
galaxy in visible and near-infrared light. That data allowed researchers to study everything from the ages of
globular clusters to the process through which massive stars sink to the center
of a star cluster and lower-mass stars drift toward the cluster outskirts. This
survey has been immensely scientifically valuable, and these observations have
inspired several hundred published research papers.
In a later observing program (#13297,
PI: Piotto), researchers set their sights again on many of these same clusters,
including NGC 6723. This time, they used Hubble’s unique sensitivity to
ultraviolet light to detect the subtle variations in chemical composition
between the stars of globular clusters and determine the age spread among the
clusters’ stars. For NGC 6723, researchers found evidence of two closely-spaced
periods of star formation, the second occurring within 634 million years of the
first. (‘Closely-spaced’ is relative; 634 million years is a blink of an eye
for a star cluster that is more than 10 billion years old!)
Thanks to these findings, astronomers
are on the path to understanding how and when globular clusters formed — and
Hubble observations of celestial chandeliers like NGC 6723 are lighting the
way.
Text Credit: ESA/Hubble
3D photothermal design unlocks 8.5-fold higher solar evaporation for desalination and crop irrigation - Energy & Green Tech - Hi Tech & Innovation
Schematic illustration of the integrated
photovoltaic-photothermal hybrid desalination system for sustainable
agriculture. Credit: Yu Dan
The
global shortage of freshwater has become a critical challenge. Conventional
water treatment relies heavily on fossil fuels and associated infrastructure,
which can make it unsuitable for remote and harsh regions. In contrast, solar
thermal evaporation is a promising alternative, but its application is limited
by material performance and production constraints.
Now, researchers from the Institute of
Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Shenzhen University have
developed a new three-dimensional (3D) photothermal structure that greatly
improves solar evaporation efficiency.
The new structure tightly integrates
polymer chains with hollow multishelled structures (HoMS), yielding a record
evaporation rate of 38.14 kg m-2 h-1—a figure 8.5 times higher than rates previously
reported for two-dimensional membrane systems.
The study was published in Advanced
Materials on
June 21.
"The excellent photothermal
conversion and water transport capacity deliver such outstanding evaporation
performance," said Prof. Wang Dan, corresponding author of the study. He
noted that the material's unique "nanoforest" microstructure
maximizes sunlight capture and that the nanoconfinement effect decreases
evaporation energy consumption by 45.7%.
The researchers used Hansen solubility
parameter theory to tightly combine polyethylene terephthalate (PET) chains
with HoMS. Accelerated
seawater aging tests found
no detectable particle detachment from the material after 30 days of continuous
exposure. In addition, no active free radicals were detected when the material
was exposed to light, suggesting good durability and reliability during
long-term use.
Photovoltaic-photothermal
seawater desalination equipment and irrigation test field. Credit: Yu Dan
The
researchers further evaluated the technology under real-world conditions using
a 0.75-m2 outdoor
demonstration device. Operating under natural sunlight, the system produced
20.16 liters (5.33 gallons) of freshwater per day, with water quality meeting
World Health Organization drinking water standards. This output is sufficient
to satisfy the basic daily drinking needs of about 10 people.
In addition to producing freshwater, the
desalinated water was successfully used to irrigate a 5-m2 experimental field. The system supported the
full growth cycle of spinach, corn and Chinese cabbage. These results
demonstrate the technology's potential for agricultural irrigation in
water-scarce regions.
The new technology also shows promising
economic potential. The researchers estimate that after two years of operation,
the cost of water produced by this technology would be lower than that of
commercial bottled water. If it proves capable of stable long-term performance,
the new material may offer a practical solution for sustainable freshwater
production in regions facing water shortages.
Provided by Chinese Academy of
Sciences
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