The research focused on keratin, a natural structural protein that can be extracted from wool. When tested in a living animal, the material supported bone regeneration and produced new tissue that more closely resembled healthy, natural bone than tissue formed using the current gold standard material.

Researchers at King’s College London tested the wool-based keratin in animal models and found that it could help direct new bone growth across damaged areas.

“We are really excited to show for the first time how a wool-based material has been successfully tested in a living animal to repair bones,” said Dr. Sherif Elsharkawy at King’s Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences.

Wool Offers a Sustainable Source for Bone Repair

Beyond its potential medical benefits, wool could offer an important sustainability advantage. It is a naturally derived material and is often discarded as waste by the farming industry, giving it potential as both a renewable and scalable resource.

For decades, collagen has served as the gold standard scaffold in many regenerative medical and dental applications. These scaffolds act as protective barriers during healing, keeping soft tissue from interfering with the damaged area while giving new bone space to grow.

Collagen, however, has several drawbacks. The material is relatively weak and may degrade too quickly, which can limit its usefulness when repairing bones that need to bear weight or withstand force. Extracting collagen can also be complicated and costly.

“From a research perspective this is a major milestone. It positions keratin as a potential new class of regenerative biomaterial that could challenge the long-standing reliance on collagen,” said Dr. Sherif Elsharkawy.

Testing Wool Keratin as a Bone Scaffold

To investigate whether keratin could overcome some of these limitations, the researchers created membranes from keratin extracted from wool. They chemically treated the material to produce scaffolds designed to remain stable and durable.

The membranes were first tested with human bone cells in the laboratory. The cells grew well on the material and showed clear signs associated with healthy bone formation.

Researchers then moved to animal testing. They implanted the keratin membranes into rats with skull defects that were large enough that they would not normally heal on their own. Over the following weeks, the team tracked how effectively the membranes supported new bone growth across the damaged regions.

Keratin Produced More Naturally Organized Bone

The results revealed an important difference between keratin and collagen. Collagen membranes generated a greater amount of bone overall, but the bone formed with the keratin scaffolds was more organized and structurally secure. Its fibers were also better aligned, giving the new tissue a closer resemblance to natural, healthy bone.

The keratin membranes also remained stable during the healing process and integrated smoothly with the surrounding tissue. Both characteristics are important if the material is eventually to be considered for practical medical applications.

“We’ve effectively demonstrated the technology in an animal model, which makes this much more than an early materials concept. It shows that keratin can support bone regeneration in a living biological system, bringing the technology significantly closer to use in real patients,” concludes Dr. Elsharkawy.

The Hubble Space Telescope previously observed the nebula in 2000, imaging the lion face-shaped target in visible light. Those observations highlighted its distinctive appearance, including a “mane” made up of hazy structures resembling comet tails. Webb’s high-resolution instruments now provide an even sharper look at the same object.

Webb Reveals Hidden Details in the Lion Nebula

In broad terms, the Lion Nebula looks similar in Webb’s infrared observations to the structure seen earlier by Hubble. Webb observed it with both NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid Infrared Instrument). Its infrared capabilities, however, bring out features that are harder to see in visible light, including dense concentrations of dust and hazy regions of ionized gas.

The gas and dust now forming the nebula have been evolving for several thousand years. Even today, those materials continue to shift and change.

At the center of this activity are the remains of a dying star. In the lion-shaped appearance of the nebula, this stellar remnant resembles a small button nose. Despite its modest appearance, the star’s radiation and energy are responsible for driving many of the complex structures surrounding it.

How a Dying Star Created the Cosmic Lion

Very massive stars can end their lives in supernova explosions, but such events are relatively uncommon. Most stars in the Universe have lower masses, including the star that created NGC 2392.

When a lower-mass star reaches the point where nuclear reactions in its core can no longer support it, the star becomes unstable and begins to pulsate. As this happens, it sheds its outer layers into space. Those expelled layers form expanding shells of gas and dust known as a planetary nebula (stars at this life stage are responsible for producing much of the Universe’s observable dust).

Radiation from the exposed stellar core pushes the discarded material outward. What remains at the center is an extremely hot stellar core called a white dwarf.

In the Lion Nebula, the oxygen-rich central star has died and left behind a white dwarf that is effectively “cooking” the nebula from within. Its intense radiation is creating a bubble of ionized gas that makes up the lion’s recognizable face.

As this bubble grows, it sweeps outward and destroys dust in its path. Astronomers are still working to understand why this swept-up gas forms such complicated arrangements of rings and shells, structures that are commonly seen in planetary nebulae.

A Glowing Mane of Dust and Gas

The lion’s mane corresponds to the inner region of a dust shell illuminated by the white dwarf at the center. Within it are structures that resemble tufts of hair or comet-like tails.

These features are actually compact clumps of dust that have managed to withstand radiation from the stellar core. By blocking some of that radiation, the dense clumps also shield material located behind them.

Webb’s observations effectively “freezes” the planetary nebula at one moment in its long evolution, but the consequences of the star’s death are continuing. Gas and dust will keep traveling away from the central stellar remnant, gradually changing the nebula’s appearance.

Astronomers estimate that the Lion Nebula will eventually disperse in approximately 10,000 years. On astronomical timescales, that is a relatively brief period.

More information

Webb is the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space. Under an international collaboration agreement, ESA supplied the telescope’s launch service using the Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

Working with its partners, ESA was responsible for developing and qualifying the Ariane 5 adaptations needed for the Webb mission and for procuring the launch service from Arianespace. ESA also contributed the workhorse spectrograph NIRSpec and 50% of the mid-infrared instrument MIRI, which was designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

Webb is an international partnership between NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

When electrons are restricted to a two-dimensional plane and interact strongly enough, they can begin behaving very differently from ordinary electrons. Instead of moving independently, they arrange themselves into a repeating pattern similar to the orderly structure of atoms in a conventional crystal.

This unusual arrangement is called a Wigner crystal. Scientists have studied it for decades because the crystal structure is created by interactions between the electrons themselves rather than by the underlying structure of the material containing them.

While researchers have already detected Wigner crystals in a variety of physical systems, understanding what happens inside them has been much harder. Scientists have struggled to directly investigate how their electrons move collectively, interact with one another, and react to outside disturbances.

Using Light to Probe a Wigner Crystal

In a study published in Nature Physics, experimental researchers led by Professor Tomasz Smoleński at the University of Basel examined a single atomic layer of tungsten diselenide that had been cooled to only a few degrees above absolute zero.

The team illuminated the material and carefully analyzed the light reflected from it. Those measurements revealed previously unseen optical features that contain information about the collective behavior of electrons inside the Wigner crystal.

The signals emerge from interactions between the ordered electrons and excitations created in the material by light, known as excitons. Together, these components form hybrid quasiparticles called Wigner crystal polarons. These quasiparticles serve as highly sensitive optical probes that can reveal both the crystal itself and the collective motion occurring within it.

“Our measurements show that light can do more than simply detect the presence of this exotic state — it can reveal how the state behaves internally,” says first author Dr. Lujun Wang from the University of Basel, who carried out the experiments together with Ferdinand Menzel, a PhD student in Smoleński’s group.

“This gives us a powerful new tool for studying collective excitations of electronic crystals that would otherwise be extremely difficult to access,” adds Smoleński.

Electron Interactions Shape the Optical Signals

The researchers also discovered that the strength of the interactions between electrons influences the optical signatures they observed. That connection could make the signals especially useful for investigating strongly correlated systems, where the behavior of the material emerges from interactions among many particles rather than from individual particles acting on their own.

To account for the experimental findings, a theoretical team led by Professor Michael Knap at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) developed a model describing the formation of Wigner crystal polarons. Their work explains how these quasiparticles arise through the coupling of optically generated excitons with the collective movement of electrons in the crystal.

A New View of Strongly Correlated Quantum Matter

“What is particularly exciting is that these signals carry information not only about how the electrons are arranged, but also about their quantum dynamics,” explains Fabian Pichler, a PhD student at TUM. “This allows us to connect the experimental observations directly to the underlying many-body physics.”

The findings suggest that atomically thin materials could provide an especially useful platform for observing how electrons move collectively within ordered quantum states. By making these hidden dynamics easier to study, the approach could help scientists develop a deeper understanding of strongly correlated matter and the complex behavior that emerges when many particles interact.

“By observing the propagation of radio waves, we can create an image of the surroundings and of persons who are present,” says Professor Thorsten Strufe from KASTEL, KIT’s Institute of Information Security and Dependability. “This works similar to a normal camera, the difference being that in our case, radio waves instead of light waves are used for the recognition,” explains the cybersecurity expert.

Because the technique analyzes radio waves moving through a space, a person does not need to have a phone, smartwatch, or other WiFi enabled device with them. “Thus, it does not matter whether you carry a WiFi device on you or not.”

Even turning off your own device would not necessarily prevent the system from working. “It’s sufficient that other WiFi devices in your surroundings are active.”

Ordinary WiFi Routers Could Become Surveillance Tools

The researchers say the findings reveal a potentially serious privacy risk because WiFi networks are already widespread in homes, offices, restaurants, and public spaces.

“This technology turns every router into a potential means for surveillance,” warns Julian Todt from KASTEL. “If you regularly pass by a café that operates a WiFi network, you could be identified there without noticing it and be recognized later — for example by public authorities or companies.”

There are currently simpler ways for intelligence agencies or cybercriminals to monitor people, Felix Morsbach notes. Those methods can include gaining access to existing CCTV systems or connected video doorbells.

“However, the omnipresent wireless networks might become a nearly comprehensive surveillance infrastructure with one concerning property: they are invisible and raise no suspicion.”

That possibility makes WiFi based monitoring especially notable. Unlike a visible security camera, a wireless network normally gives people no obvious indication that its radio signals could potentially be used to recognize who is nearby.

No Special Surveillance Hardware Is Needed

Earlier approaches to sensing people through wireless signals have often relied on specialized equipment or more complex measurements. Some techniques, for example, use LIDAR sensors, which measure distances by sending out light and analyzing the reflected signal.

Other WiFi based approaches use channel state information (CSI). This refers to measurements showing how a wireless radio signal changes as it travels through an environment and reflects from walls, furniture, people, and other objects.

The new technique does not require that kind of specialized hardware. According to the researchers, a standard WiFi device is enough.

The method takes advantage of normal communications produced by legitimate users connected to a WLAN. WLAN is another term for a wireless local area network, essentially the WiFi network operating within a home, office, café, or similar location.

Connected devices routinely send information back to the router to help optimize wireless communication. These signals, known as beamforming feedback information (BFI), are transmitted without encryption, meaning that anyone within range can potentially read them.

By analyzing that information, the system can generate images of people from multiple viewpoints. Those images can then be used to determine a person’s identity.

Once the machine learning model has already been trained to recognize individuals, the identification process takes only a few seconds.

Researchers Achieved Almost 100% Identification Accuracy

The team tested the technique in a study involving 197 participants. Their system was able to infer people’s identities with almost 100% accuracy, regardless of the viewing perspective or the way a person walked.

“The technology is powerful, but at the same time entails risks to our fundamental rights, especially to privacy,” emphasizes Strufe.

The researchers are particularly concerned about how such technology could be used in authoritarian countries. They warn that WiFi based identification could potentially be applied to monitor protesters or other groups without the obvious surveillance infrastructure associated with conventional cameras.

Because wireless networks are already so common, the researchers argue that privacy protections should be built into future WiFi technology before these capabilities become easier to exploit at scale.

They are therefore calling for protective measures and privacy safeguards to be incorporated into the forthcoming IEEE 802.11bf WiFi standard.

Funding and Publication

The project was funded under the Helmholtz “Engineering Secure Systems” topic.

The researchers presented their results at the “ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security” (CCS) in Taipei.

Robert Kushner, MD, ’82 GME, professor emeritus of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Molecular Medicine, was a co-author of the study.

A GLP-1 Drug That Comes as a Pill

Aleniglipron differs from currently available GLP-1 drugs (glucagon-like peptide 1) such as semaglutide, which is sold as Ozempic and Wegovy. Instead of being a peptide-based injectable medication, aleniglipron is a small-molecule drug taken by mouth and is being developed as a treatment for obesity.

GLP-1 drugs work by mimicking the naturally occurring GLP-1 hormone. Their effects include stimulating insulin secretion, reducing appetite and increasing feelings of fullness, which can support weight loss.

Although existing peptide-based GLP-1 medications can be highly effective, access remains limited for many patients. These drugs require injections, creating an additional barrier for some people. They also pose storage challenges (refrigeration) and can be difficult and costly to manufacture at the scale needed to meet demand.

Small-molecule GLP-1 drugs could address some of those limitations because they can be taken orally and may be easier to manufacture in large quantities, Kushner said.

“The difference with aleniglipron is it’s a small molecule, which means it’s chemically made and could be taken with or without food. Most medications we take, whether it’s aspirin or blood pressure medicine, are small molecules. They’re chemicals that you make structurally, and because of that you can potentially combine them with other medications,” Kushner said.

Testing Aleniglipron in 230 Adults

For the placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial, researchers evaluated the safety of aleniglipron in 230 adults (average age of 50 years) with obesity or overweight at 38 U.S. medical centers.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three dose groups: 45, 90 or 120 milligrams. They took aleniglipron orally once each day, with doses increased every four weeks, or received placebo. Treatment continued for a total of 36 weeks.

By week 36, average body-weight change from baseline reached −9.0 percent in the 45 milligrams group, -10.7 percent in the 90 milligrams group and -12.1 percent in the 120 milligrams group. The placebo group had a -0.5 percent change.

Side Effects and Next Steps

Gastrointestinal side effects were generally mild to moderate across the treatment groups and became less frequent as the study progressed. Overall, 10.4 percent of participants discontinued treatment, and researchers reported no cases of drug-induced liver injury.

Kushner said the results support continued development of alenglipron as an obesity treatment and further evaluation of its effectiveness in an upcoming phase III trial.

“We didn’t find any concerns; no new safety signals. We found a dose that seems to be effective, and the dose escalation will be slowed down further as we go into phase III trial to increase tolerability,” Kushner said.

This work was supported by Structure Therapeutics.

The late-breaking findings were presented at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) 2026 Scientific Sessions and Canadian Association of Interventional Cardiology/Association Canadienne de cardiologie d’intervention (CAIC-ACCI) Summit in Montreal.

What Is Lipoprotein(a)?

Lp(a) is a cholesterol-carrying particle found in the blood. It resembles LDL, often called “bad” cholesterol, but includes an additional protein that may make it more likely to contribute to cardiovascular disease.

High Lp(a) levels are largely determined by genetics. They can increase cardiovascular risk even when more familiar cholesterol measurements fall within normal ranges. Approximately one in five people has high Lp(a), yet most people with elevated levels do not know it because the condition typically causes no symptoms.

Scientists have long recognized a connection between elevated Lp(a) and cardiovascular disease. However, researchers are still working to understand how well Lp(a) predicts future risk in people who already have heart disease compared with those who do not.

More Than 20,000 Patients Analyzed

For the new analysis, researchers examined previously collected plasma samples from 20,070 participants aged 40 years and older who had taken part in the ACCORD, PEACE, and SPRINT NIH randomized trials.

The samples were tested in a dedicated translational laboratory with a standardized assay, with results reported using the current standard of nmo/L. Participants were divided into groups according to their Lp(a) levels (<75, 75-125, 125-175, or ≥ 175 nmo/L) and according to whether they already had heart disease.

Researchers then used Cox models that accounted for demographics, comorbidities, lipids, and therapies.

Participants had a mean age of 65.2±8.5 years, and 64.9% of patients were male. Researchers focused primarily on major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE), which included myocardial infarction, stroke, coronary revascularization, or cardiac death.

Very High Lp(a) Linked to Greater Risk

During a median follow-up period of 3.98 years, 1,461 (7.3%) MACE events occurred.

An Lp(a) level greater than or equal to 175 nmo/L was independently associated with an increased risk of MACE (HR 1.31, 95% CI: 1.10-1.55), cardiovascular death (HR 1.49, 95% CI: 1.07-2.06), and stroke (HR 1.64, 95% CI: 1.14-2.37).

However, having Lp(a) at this level was not associated with a higher risk of heart attack.

The association was also stronger among participants who already had heart disease (HR 1.30, 95%CI: 1.07-1.57) than among those without existing heart disease (HR 1.18, 95% CI: 0.91-1.54).

A Simple Blood Test Could Reveal Hidden Risk

“For the first time, we can quantify the specific level of Lp(a) that puts patients at a significantly higher risk of major cardiovascular events, especially stroke and death,” said Subhash Banerjee, MD, FSCAI, interventional cardiologist at Baylor Scott & White in Dallas, Texas. “Regardless of age, patients can take a simple, low-cost blood test to determine whether they have this genetic condition. If elevated Lp(a) levels are detected, they should work closely with their healthcare provider to aggressively lower LDL cholesterol and manage other cardiovascular risk factors as much as possible. This knowledge is especially valuable as new targeted treatment options are on the horizon.”

The researchers also emphasized that stored biospecimens can reveal new information from clinical trials that have already been completed. They plan to examine additional patient groups in future analyses, including people with chronic kidney disease and peripheral artery disease.

The work was led by Professors WooChul Jung and Jeong Woo Han of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University (SNU), together with Professor Sang Ouk Kim’s team at KAIST and Dr. Beomgyun Jeong’s team at the Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI). Their results clarify how silver nanocatalysts improve solid oxide cell performance and show that both the location and mechanism of oxygen reactions change depending on how the cell is being used.

How Solid Oxide Cells Work

Solid oxide cells move oxygen ions through a solid material to perform two different functions. They can generate electricity, or they can split water to produce hydrogen.

Because of this versatility, the technology is viewed as an important option for expanding clean energy and hydrogen use. Potential applications range from distributed combined heat and power systems in buildings and factories that generate electricity while making use of the high-temperature heat produced during operation to renewable energy-based green hydrogen production.

The findings were published in the globally renowned journal Energy & Environmental Science and were selected as an Outside Back Cover article, highlighting their significance.

Pinpointing Where Catalysts Do Their Work

The performance and durability of solid oxide cells depend heavily on how quickly oxygen reactions occur at the air electrode. But real electrodes have complicated structures, making it difficult for researchers to determine exactly where nanocatalysts participate in those reactions and how they improve performance.

Earlier research had already shown that metal nanocatalysts can make these cells work better. What remained unclear was whether most of the catalytic activity takes place directly on the catalyst surface or at the boundary where the catalyst touches the electrode. Researchers also did not know whether the same catalytic mechanism was responsible for both electricity generation and hydrogen production.

To investigate these questions, the team created a model electrode with carefully controlled structure and composition instead of relying on the much more complicated architecture of conventional electrodes. Metal nanoparticles with uniform sizes and spacing were arranged in ordered patterns, allowing the researchers to examine their catalytic roles much more precisely.

The scientists first compared several metal nanocatalysts, including silver, cobalt, palladium, and platinum. Each was deposited on a thin film perovskite oxide electrode and tested for its ability to accelerate oxygen reactions.

Silver produced the strongest catalytic improvement among the metals tested.

Silver Switches Reaction Sites

The researchers then changed the size and arrangement of the silver nanoparticles to determine where the most important reactions were taking place.

During the oxygen reduction reaction (electricity generation), reaction rates increased as the length of the boundary between the silver nanoparticles and the electrode grew. This showed that the interface between the silver and the electrode is the main reaction site when the cell is generating electricity.

The situation changed during the oxygen evolution reaction (hydrogen production). In this mode, reaction rates increased with the surface area of the silver nanoparticles. That result showed that the surface of the silver particles themselves becomes the primary reaction site during hydrogen production.

In other words, the same nanocatalyst can perform its most important chemistry in two different places depending on the direction in which the energy device is operating.

The researchers examined these differences further by adjusting the applied voltage and oxygen concentration. They found that during oxygen reduction, silver nanocatalysts help transfer electrons to oxygen. During oxygen evolution, the silver instead helps oxygen atoms combine into oxygen molecules and then supports their release.

A Closer Look at the Atomic Mechanism

The team also used synchrotron-based analysis to watch changes occurring on the electrode surface while the system was operating. These experiments were combined with atomic-scale theoretical calculations.

The results showed that silver nanocatalysts alter the electronic structure of the electrode surface in ways that favor oxygen reduction. During oxygen evolution, they create conditions that make it easier for oxygen atoms to join together.

These observations help explain why the catalyst behaves differently depending on whether the cell is producing electricity or hydrogen.

A New Strategy for Clean Energy Catalysts

The findings suggest that nanocatalysts should not simply be viewed as additives that speed up chemical reactions. Their active locations and operating mechanisms can change with the operating mode of the energy system.

That insight introduces a new design strategy for solid oxide cells. Instead of optimizing the catalyst as a single component, researchers may be able to improve performance by separately engineering the catalyst surface and the catalyst electrode interface when developing air electrodes for solid oxide fuel cells and solid oxide electrolysis cells.

If this principle can be successfully incorporated into practical devices, it could improve electricity generation efficiency in distributed energy systems used in buildings and factories. It could also lower the amount of electricity required for renewable energy-powered water electrolysis used to produce green hydrogen.

The approach could also help advance reversible solid oxide cells, which are capable of both generating electricity and producing hydrogen within the same system. Such devices could support more efficient energy production and storage in homes and industrial facilities.

A Platform for Studying Other Catalysts

The precisely controlled nanoparticle array-based model electrode developed by the researchers also provides a way to identify where catalysts operate and how they function in real energy systems.

The platform could be useful well beyond solid oxide cells. Potential applications include hydrogen production devices, other electrochemical energy conversion technologies, and oxygen separation systems.

Professor WooChul Jung, who led the study, stated: “This research is significant because it quantitatively evaluates the performance of nanocatalysts while also identifying their actual reaction sites and operating mechanisms.”

He added: “We plan to further establish this as a new design principle that can be applied to various energy conversion materials and catalytic systems.”

Dr. Jinwook Kim, who led the research, is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University and will soon join the University of Seoul as an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He plans to continue studying nanocatalysts and solid oxide cells, with the goal of extending this work toward the development of high-efficiency energy conversion materials and devices.

This research was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea (RS-2024-00452853, RS-2025-00521316). Synchrotron-based AP-XPS research at the KBSI-PAL 8A2 AP-XPS beamline was supported by Pohang Accelerator Laboratory/POSTECH and Korea Basic Science Institute.