Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have found that an FDA-approved breast cancer drug has the potential to be effective against a specific type of appendix cancer. The findings of the clinical trial, published in the Oct. 16, 2024, online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that the oral medication, known as Palbociclib, stabilized tumor growth and lowered blood tumor marker levels in patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC), a form of appendix cancer that is often resistant to standard chemotherapy. "The discovery that a breast cancer drug is successful in treating a subset of appendix cancer — for which there are currently limited treatment options — represents a significant advance in our fight against this disease," said co-senior author Andrew Lowy, MD, a professor in the Department of Surgery and...

A new study by Marco Percoco of Bocconi University in Milan and colleagues shows that increasing drought forces people to seek new homes within their own country. Drought can destroy lives, especially in regions like Southern Europe, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. An increase in dryness by one standard deviation increased migration rates by up to 9.3 percent, highlighting how important environmental factors have become for mobility. The authors put it this way: "In many areas, people not only choose to move, but are also forced by environmental conditions that make staying increasingly untenable." However, the relationship between climate and migration is not uniform. In wealthier countries, migration rates are generally higher, possibly due to more affordable migration options. But within these countries, it is often the poorest regions that experience the highest emigration rates. 

Our brains change as we age, and the connections between different parts of the brain become less efficient. This explains why learning new things is harder for older people, according to Pernilla Andersson's doctoral thesis in psychology at Örebro University.Our brains help us forget information we no longer need, thus making space for newer, more relevant knowledge that we may find more useful. As we age, this ability declines, and old information can instead "interfere" with our working memory when we try to learn new things. This form of memory interference is called proactive interference. Pernilla Andersson researches cognitive neuroscience at Örebro University, and her doctoral thesis examines what happens to the brain's structure and function as a result of such memory interference. The results show that in older people with memory interference, communication between different brain regions is poorer. They…