A large outbreak of cyclosporiasis has been reported in at least four Midwestern states. Public health officials are interviewing people who became sick to learn what foods they ate before their symptoms began.

So far, investigators have not confirmed a specific food as the source. Health agencies are continuing to gather information in an effort to identify what caused the outbreak.

Cases Have Increased Since May

The CDC says it is concerned about the rise in cyclosporiasis cases since the beginning of May. In addition to the large multistate outbreak, federal and state officials are investigating several other clusters of illness across the United States.

Cyclosporiasis is generally not life threatening, but some people can become very sick and may need to be hospitalized. Anyone experiencing possible symptoms should contact a healthcare provider promptly.

CDC and FDA Collecting Outbreak Data

The CDC, public health and regulatory agencies in several states, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are reviewing multiple types of information as part of the investigation.

As of July 13, more than 400 people infected with Cyclospora had been reported to the CDC in connection with the outbreak. Cases have been identified in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

The CDC is also aware of additional illnesses that remain under investigation. People linked to the outbreak reported becoming sick on or after June 22, 2026.

Actual Case Count May Be Higher

Health officials believe the true number of illnesses is probably greater than the confirmed total. The outbreak may also extend beyond the four states where cases have already been identified.

Some infected people recover without seeking medical care and are never tested for Cyclospora. Recent illnesses may also be missing from the official count because it can take several weeks to determine whether a case is connected to an outbreak.

To help identify the source, public health officials collect information from patients about their age, race, ethnicity, other demographic details, and the foods they ate before becoming sick. These responses may reveal patterns that help investigators trace the contaminated food.

What To Do If You Have Symptoms

Contact your healthcare provider if you develop symptoms of cyclosporiasis.

Symptoms can vary and usually appear about one week after infection (ranging from 2 days to 2 weeks or more).

Without treatment, symptoms may continue for several days, a month, or even longer.

Help Investigators Find the Contaminated Food

People diagnosed with cyclosporiasis may be contacted by local or state health officials. Investigators may ask what they ate during the two weeks before they became ill.

Providing detailed information can help health agencies identify the food responsible for the outbreak.

How To Reduce Your Risk

Learn which foods are more likely to be associated with cyclosporiasis and what steps can help prevent infection.

Consumers should also stay up to date on food recalls and outbreaks.

Guidance for Healthcare Providers

Healthcare providers should report cyclosporiasis cases to their local health department.

Additional information about symptoms, treatment, and patient management is available through Clinical Care of Cyclosporiasis.

The work comes from physicist Vinod M. Menon’s Laboratory for Nano and Micro Photonics (LaNMP). Researchers believe these unusual interactions could eventually support advanced optoelectronic devices and quantum technologies that manipulate light, charge, and electron spin together.

When Light and Magnetism Interact

In a review published in Nature Materials, titled “Excitons in van der Waals magnetic materials,” the researchers examine recent progress involving layered magnetic semiconductors. These materials allow light-generated excitations called excitons to interact with magnetic order and with magnetic waves known as magnons.

An exciton forms when incoming light energizes an electron and causes it to move, leaving behind a positively charged “hole.” The electron and hole remain linked, forming an electrically neutral particle that can still interact strongly with light. Magnons are different. They are collective waves that travel through the organized magnetic structure of a material.

Scientists have spent years trying to unite the optical properties of exciton-rich semiconductors with magnetism. Earlier strategies included adding magnetic atoms to semiconductors or stacking atomically thin semiconductors on top of magnetic materials.

Van der Waals magnetic semiconductors provide a more direct approach. Within these crystals, excitons and magnetic moments can emerge from the same electronic orbitals. This shared origin allows light and magnetism to influence one another inside the material itself.

“In these materials, light and magnetism no longer operate as separate channels,” said Pratap Chandra Adak, a postdoctoral researcher in Menon’s group and lead author of the Review. “An exciton is not just a passive light-driven excitation sitting on top of the magnetism. It can sense the spin order and magnons, and under the right conditions, even help control the magnetic state itself.”

Reading Magnetic States With Light

The Review examines several important material platforms, including chromium triiodide, nickel phosphorus trisulfide, and chromium sulfur bromide. Research on these two-dimensional magnets has revealed several ways that excitons and magnetic behavior can affect each other.

Excitons can significantly strengthen magneto-optical effects, allowing scientists to identify magnetic states by observing changes in the polarization of light. Magnetic order can also alter the energy of excitons and influence where they are confined within a material.

Interactions between excitons and magnons can connect optical signals with magnetic activity occurring at gigahertz frequencies. The researchers also discuss exciton polaritons, hybrid particles that combine properties of light and matter and can transport optical information through a material.

“Over the past few years, this field has moved from detecting magnetism in atomically thin crystals to actively exploring how magnetic order can control light-matter interactions,” said Menon, professor of physics and senior author of the Review. “The goal of this article is to bring those developments into a coherent framework and identify where the field can go next.”

New Possibilities for Quantum Technology

The researchers identify several potential applications that would depend on precise control of light and magnetism at extremely small scales. These include magneto-photonic memory and data readout, all-optical logic, adjustable light-emitting devices, magneto-optic lasers, and polaritonic technologies.

Another promising application involves quantum transducers. These devices convert signals between microwave and optical frequencies, a capability that could become important for connecting components in future quantum networks.

Major Scientific Challenges Remain

Despite the rapid progress, much of this field remains unexplored. Many possible materials have not yet been studied in detail, and scientists still need better theoretical models that can predict how excitons, electron spins, lattice vibrations, and photons behave when they interact at the same time.

Future research could investigate moiré magnetic excitons, the optical control of spin textures, magneto-photonic devices, magnetic exciton polariton condensation, and the conversion of microwave signals into optical signals for quantum communication.

Other co-authors include Florian Dirnberger of the Technical University of Munich; Swagata Acharya of the National Laboratory of the Rockies; Akashdeep Kamra of Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau; and Xiaodong Xu of the University of Washington.

The work at CCNY was supported by DARPA and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Penn State researchers have now identified a previously unrecognized structure that may control much of this activity. The structure is a lattice located just beneath the surface of neurons and is known as the membrane-associated periodic skeleton, or MPS.

A Hidden Gatekeeper Inside Neurons

In findings published in Science Advances, the team showed that the MPS acts as a physical gatekeeper for nearly every major type of endocytosis. Built from repeating rings of proteins, the structure was already known to help neurons retain their shape. The new results indicate that it also plays a much more active role by controlling where and when substances enter the cell.

“For many, many years we have been trying to understand this molecular mechanism, what kind of machinery will help to facilitate this process, because it’s connected to neurodegenerative diseases,” said Ruobo Zhou, assistant professor of chemistry, of biochemistry and molecular biology, and of biomedical engineering, at Penn State and corresponding author on the study. “When endocytosis — this nutrient uptake and regulation — goes wrong, then there’s protein aggregation that will build up in the brain, which is the hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

Zhou helped discover the MPS in 2013 while working as a postdoctoral researcher on a Harvard team. At the time, scientists believed the structure mainly served as a passive internal support system. In the new study, Zhou and colleagues used super-resolution imaging on neurons grown in the laboratory and found that the MPS behaves more like a cellular traffic controller, regulating all major forms of endocytosis.

Watching Cellular Uptake at the Nanoscale

The researchers relied on advanced super-resolution microscopy, which can reveal structures at the nanoscale — about 10,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. They studied neurons grown in petri dishes and caused selected proteins to form inside the cells so those proteins could be tracked.

The scientists then exposed the neurons to different molecules and observed how the cells absorbed them while the MPS remained intact. They also altered the structure by damaging or protecting specific sections, allowing them to see how neurons responded when the lattice changed.

When the MPS was disrupted, the neurons began absorbing material much faster. This indicated that the lattice normally slows the process and prevents excessive uptake.

The researchers also discovered that the structure can contribute to its own breakdown. Faster endocytosis weakened the lattice and triggered a positive feedback loop. Increased uptake activated molecular signals that directed proteins inside the neurons to cut apart sections of the skeleton. That opened additional entry points and allowed even more nutrients and proteins to enter.

“We discovered that this membrane skeleton is actively regulating the nutrient uptake process of neurons,” Zhou said. “You can think of it as a gatekeeper, guarding this physical barrier to not allow nutrient uptake to happen. When a neuron needs to take in a specific nutrient, this gatekeeper will open the gates and let it in.”

Zhou explained that this flexibility may allow neurons to increase their activity when they need to respond quickly. However, the same mechanism could become harmful if it is no longer properly controlled.

A Possible Link to Alzheimer’s Disease

To investigate that possibility, the researchers created cellular experiments that resembled the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. They caused neurons to produce higher levels of amyloid precursor protein (APP), a key marker associated with the disease.

Weakening the MPS caused neurons to take in APP more rapidly. After entering the cells, APP was cut into amyloid-B42, a toxic fragment strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Neurons with a damaged MPS accumulated increasing amounts of this harmful molecule and displayed more markers of cell death.

“We created a model which is very much like Alzheimer’s disease and found that in some aging neurons, or neurons under pathologic conditions, the endocytosis of toxic proteins was enhanced, which caused stressing conditions, ultimately leading to neuron deaths,” said Jinyu Fei, a graduate student in the chemistry department in Penn State’s Eberly College of Science and lead author on the study.

A Potential New Treatment Target

The results suggest that the MPS may act as a protective barrier in neurons by slowing APP uptake and limiting the accumulation of toxic molecules. Because the structure is known to deteriorate during aging and neurodegenerative disease, its breakdown could push neurons into a damaging cycle involving greater amyloid production, further structural weakening, and eventual cell death.

The researchers said that protecting or stabilizing this lattice may offer a new way to slow neurodegeneration.

“We think this could open the door for future therapies such as a protein target for neurodegenerative disease treatment,” Fei said. “Preserving or stabilizing the MPS might offer a way to slow the early, hidden cellular changes that precede Alzheimer’s symptoms.”

Other authors on the paper are Yuanmin Zheng, doctoral candidate in biomedical engineering; Caden LaLonde, fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in biochemistry and molecular biology; and Yuan Tao, graduate student at Penn State’s Huck Institutes of Life Sciences.

The National Institutes of Health funded this work.