A rare, five-planet alignment will peak on June 24, allowing a spectacular viewing of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn as they line up in planetary order. From a report: The event began at the beginning of June and has continued to get brighter and easier to see as the month has progressed, according to Diana Hannikainen, observing editor of Sky & Telescope. A waning crescent moon will be joining the party between Venus and Mars on Friday, adding another celestial object to the lineup. The moon will represent the Earth's relative position in the alignment, meaning this is where our planet will appear in the planetary order. This rare phenomenon has not occurred since December 2004, and this year, the distance between Mercury and Saturn will be smaller, according to Sky & Telescope.

The fourth and most recent attempt at a full launch rehearsal of NASA's Space Launch System went reasonably well, and despite some lingering issues and uncertainties, the agency is sending the rocket back to the hangar for final preparations in advance of its first flight. That inaugural launch will represent Artemis 1, the first mission in NASA's Artemis lunar program. Gizmodo reports: In a press release today, NASA -- to my surprise -- said it is done testing SLS after reviewing data from the recent launch rehearsal. That another full-blown rehearsal would be required seemed likely to me on account of an unresolved hydrogen leak linked to a faulty quick-connect fitting, which subsequently prevented ground teams from practicing the fully scheduled launch countdown on Monday. The goal was to reach T-10 seconds, but the launch controllers decided to quit the rehearsal at T-29 seconds for safety reasons. "NASA plans to return SLS and Orion to the pad for launch in late August," says the release. "NASA will set a specific target launch date after replacing hardware associated with the leak."

Despite the hydrogen leak and the incomplete countdown, Monday's wet dress did appear to go well. The ground teams finally managed to fully load SLS with propellants. Upwards of 755,000 gallons of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen were supplied to the rocket's two stages, which the teams had failed to do during the first three attempts. What's more, all of the issues experienced during the first three wet dress rehearsals appear to have been resolved. The Orion spacecraft, currently sitting atop the rocket, also performed well during the test. Said Tom Whitmeyer, NASA's exploration systems manager, during a media teleconference on Tuesday: "We think that we had a really successful rehearsal," adding that there is "relative risk" is running a fifth wet dress, with the 322-foot-tall (98-meter) rocket standing fully exposed on the launch pad.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Scientists have discovered a bacteria with cells that measure a full centimeter in length, an astonishing size that makes it by far the largest bacterial species ever found and even "challenges our concept of a bacterial cell," reports a new study. Bacteria are an extraordinarily diverse group of organisms that have inhabited Earth for billions of years and have evolved to occupy a dizzying variety of niches. Still, almost all of these microbes are composed of simple cells that measure about two microns in diameter, which is about 40 times smaller than a strand of human hair.

Thiomargarita magnifica, a bacteria discovered on sunken red mangrove leaves in Guadeloupe, Lesser Antilles, has blown this standard scale out of the water. The species has evolved filamentary cells that are "larger than all other known giant bacteria by ~50-fold," making them "visible to the naked eye," according to a study published on Thursday in Science. Scientists led by Jean-Marie Volland, a marine biologist who holds joint appointments at the Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a U.S. Department of Energy office at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, suspect that this record-breaking adaptation is partly due to the astonishing number of duplicated genes wielded by T. magnifica, an ability that is known as polyploidy. [...]

The results revealed that these bacteria contain DNA clusters in their cells, which are located in compartments bordered by membranes that the team called "pepins." These organized pepins provide a stark contrast to the free-floating DNA seen in the cells of most bacteria. In addition, the team's genetic sequencing revealed that T. magnifica contains hundreds of thousands of genome copies that are dispersed across the cell, adding up to about three times the number of genes in most bacteria, which is an extreme example of polyploidy. "These cellular features likely allow the organism to grow to an unusually large size and circumvent some of the biophysical and bioenergetic limitations on growth," Volland and his colleagues said.

Scientists have designed a tiny robot-fish that is programmed to remove microplastics from seas and oceans by swimming around and adsorbing them on its soft, flexible, self-healing body. From a report: Microplastics are the billions of tiny plastic particles which fragment from the bigger plastic things used every day such as water bottles, car tyres and synthetic T-shirts. They are one of the 21st century's biggest environmental problems because once they are dispersed into the environment through the breakdown of larger plastics they are very hard to get rid of, making their way into drinking water, produce, and food, harming the environment and animal and human health.

"It is of great significance to develop a robot to accurately collect and sample detrimental microplastic pollutants from the aquatic environment," said Yuyan Wang, a researcher at the Polymer Research Institute of Sichuan University and one of the lead authors on the study. Her team's novel invention is described in a research paper in the journal Nano Letters. "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of such soft robots." Researchers at Sichuan University have revealed an innovative solution to track down these pollutants when it comes to water contamination: designing a tiny self-propelled robo-fish that can swim around, latch on to free-floating microplastics, and fix itself if it gets cut or damaged while on its expedition.

China is grappling with extreme weather emergencies across the country, with the worst flooding in decades submerging houses and cars in the south and record-high heat waves in the northern and central provinces causing roads to buckle. From a report: Water levels in more than a hundred rivers across the country have surged beyond flood warning levels, according to the People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's mouthpiece. The authorities in Guangdong Province on Tuesday raised alerts to the highest level after days of rainfall and floods, closing schools, businesses and public transport in affected areas. The flooding has disrupted the lives of almost half a million people in southern China. Footage on state media showed rescue crews on boats paddling across waterlogged roads to relieve trapped residents. In Shaoguan, a manufacturing hub, factories were ordered to halt production, as water levels have reached a 50-year high, state television reported. Guangdong's emergency management department said that the rainfall has affected 479,600 people, ruined nearly 30 hectares of crops and caused the collapse of more than 1,700 houses, with financial losses totaling $261 million, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

NASA announced on Tuesday that it's contracting three suppliers to provide concept designs for nuclear fission energy systems designed for use on the moon. TechCrunch reports: The winning bids for this award came from Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse and IX (a joint venture from Intuitive Machines and X-Energy). Each will be working with a few partners to develop their systems, which will be "initial concepts" only for the purposes of satisfying this particular contract, and each will receive roughly $5 million for their work, expected to take around 12 months.

NASA is aptly partnering with the Department of Energy (DOE) on this project, and the specs include a 40-kilowatt power generation capability, capable of generating that for at least a decade. That's about what a full charge on a current entry-level Nissan Leaf contains -- but as a fission generator it would obviously provide that continuously. It may not seem like much, but deployed singularly or in groups to support a lunar base, it could solve a lot of the challenges of the kind of prolonged occupancy of the moon that NASA plans to eventually establish through its Artemis program, which seeks to return humans to our largest natural satellite for ongoing science missions. NASA also notes that the work done for this contract could have other future applications for propulsion systems for long-range spacecraft for deep space explorations.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: More than half the UK backs the idea of rewriting the DNA of human embryos to prevent severe or life-threatening diseases, according to a survey. Commissioned by the Progress Educational Trust (PET), a fertility and genomics charity, the Ipsos poll found that 53% of people support the use of human genome editing to prevent children from developing serious conditions such as cystic fibrosis.

There was less enthusiasm for use of the procedure to prevent milder conditions such as asthma, with only 36% in favor, and to create designer babies, with only a fifth expressing support, but views on the technology differed dramatically with age. Younger generations were far more in favor of designer babies than older people, with 38% of 16- to 24-year-olds and 31% of 25- to 34-year-olds supporting the use of gene editing to allow parents to choose features such as their child's height and eye and hair color. In the UK and many other countries it is illegal to perform genome editing on embryos that are intended for pregnancies, but the restrictions could be lifted if research shows the procedure can safely prevent severe diseases.

Cyborg locust brains can help spot the telltale signs of human cancer in the lab, a new study has shown. The team behind the work hopes it could one day lead to an insect-based breath test that could be used in cancer screening, or inspire an artificial version that works in much the same way. From a report: Other animals have been taught to spot signs that humans are sick. For example, dogs can be trained to detect when their owners' blood sugar levels start to drop, or if they develop cancer, tuberculosis, or even covid. In all cases, the animals are thought to be sensing chemicals that people emit through body odor or breath. The mix of chemicals can vary depending on a person's metabolism, which is thought to change when we get sick. But dogs are expensive to train and look after. And making a device that mimics a dog's nose has proved extremely difficult to do, says Debajit Saha, one of the scientists behind the latest work, which has not yet been peer-reviewed. "These changes are almost in parts per trillion," says Saha, a neural engineer at Michigan State University. This makes them hard to pick up even with state-of-the-art technologies, he adds. But animals have evolved to interpret such subtle changes in scents. So he and his colleagues decided to "hijack" an animal brain instead.

The Sun shone 20% less brightly on early Earth, and yet fossil evidence shows that our planet had warm shallow seas where stromatolites -- microbial mats -- thrived. Now a study may have solved the "faint young Sun paradox," showing that saltier oceans could have prevented Earth from freezing over during Archean times, 3bn years ago. From a report: We all know that the composition of the atmosphere (particularly the abundance of greenhouse gases) plays a crucial role in tempering Earth's climate, but what about the composition of the oceans? To answer this question researchers used an ocean-atmosphere general circulation model to investigate the impact of salinity.

They show that saltier oceans result in warmer climates, partly because the salt depresses the freezing point of seawater and inhibits sea-ice formation, but mostly because the greater density of salty water alters ocean circulation patterns and aids heat transport to the poles. Under their Archean scenario they show that present-day levels of salinity produce a severely glaciated world with only a narrow strip of open water at the equator. But pushing salinity up to 40% greater than today revealed a warmer Archean world, with average surface temperatures of more than 20C, and ice only appearing seasonally at the poles. Their findings are reported in Geophysical Research Letters.

More than half the UK backs the idea of rewriting the DNA of human embryos to prevent severe or life-threatening diseases, according to a survey. From a report: Commissioned by the Progress Educational Trust (PET), a fertility and genomics charity, the Ipsos poll found that 53% of people support the use of human genome editing to prevent children from developing serious conditions such as cystic fibrosis. There was less enthusiasm for use of the procedure to prevent milder conditions such as asthma, with only 36% in favour, and to create designer babies, with only a fifth expressing support, but views on the technology differed dramatically with age.

Younger generations were far more in favour of designer babies than older people, with 38% of 16- to 24-year-olds and 31% of 25- to 34-year-olds supporting the use of gene editing to allow parents to choose features such as their child's height and eye and hair colour. In the UK and many other countries it is illegal to perform genome editing on embryos that are intended for pregnancies, but the restrictions could be lifted if research shows the procedure can safely prevent severe diseases. Genome editing has been hailed as a potential gamechanger for dealing with a raft of heritable diseases ranging from cystic fibrosis and muscular dystrophy to Tay-Sachs, a rare condition that progressively destroys the nervous system. In principle, the faulty genes that cause the diseases can be rewritten in IVF embryos, allowing those embryos to develop into healthy babies.

Nasa has begun turning off the spacecraft Voyager's systems, signaling the beginning of the end of the probe's 50-year career. The Independent reports: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 -- two identical probes -- were launched in 1977 and travelled across interstellar space to the edge of the solar system, giving humanity its closest look at the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Now, however, Nasa must start limiting the Voyagers' processes in order to keep them operating until 2030. "We're at 44 and a half years," says Ralph McNutt, a physicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, told Scientific American. "So we've done 10 times the warranty on the darn things."

The first Voyager craft has four remaining functioning instruments, while Voyager 2 has five, all of which are powered by converting decaying plutonium into electricity. This battery has had its output decreasing by approximately four watts every year, leading to Nasa making some tough choices about what to disable; in 2019, engineers had to turn off the heater for the cosmic-ray detector, a key piece of equipment for detecting when Voyager 2 exited the heliosphere- the magnetosphere, astrosphere and outermost atmospheric layer of the Sun.

The final instruments Nasa will disable are likely to be the magnetometer and the plasma science instrument, which are contained in the body of the spacecraft. These are warmed by the excess heat of the computers, while the others are suspended on a 13 meter fiberglass boom, meaning that they are likely to take the longest to get cold. Both craft remain so far from Earth that it takes a radio signal almost 22 hours to reach Voyager 1 and just over 18 for Voyager 2 -- even when traveling at the speed of light.

A new breakthrough has allowed physicists to create a beam of atoms that behaves the same way as a laser, and that can theoretically stay on "forever." ScienceAlert reports: At the root of the atom laser is a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, or BEC. A BEC is created by cooling a cloud of bosons to just a fraction above absolute zero. At such low temperatures, the atoms sink to their lowest possible energy state without stopping completely. When they reach these low energies, the particles' quantum properties can no longer interfere with each other; they move close enough to each other to sort of overlap, resulting in a high-density cloud of atoms that behaves like one 'super atom' or matter wave. However, BECs are something of a paradox. They're very fragile; even light can destroy a BEC. Given that the atoms in a BEC are cooled using optical lasers, this usually means that a BEC's existence is fleeting.

Atom lasers that scientists have managed to achieve to date have been of the pulsed, rather than continuous variety; and involve firing off just one pulse before a new BEC needs to be generated. In order to create a continuous BEC, a team of researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands realized something needed to change. "In previous experiments, the gradual cooling of atoms was all done in one place. In our setup, we decided to spread the cooling steps not over time, but in space: we make the atoms move while they progress through consecutive cooling steps," explained physicist Florian Schreck. "In the end, ultracold atoms arrive at the heart of the experiment, where they can be used to form coherent matter waves in a BEC. But while these atoms are being used, new atoms are already on their way to replenish the BEC. In this way, we can keep the process going -- essentially forever." The research has been published in the journal Nature.

South Korea said it successfully launched a small but working satellite into orbit using its first homemade rocket on Tuesday, bringing the country closer to its dream of becoming a new player in the space industry and deploying its own spy satellites to better monitor North Korea. From a report: The three-stage Nuri rocket, built by the government's Korea Aerospace Research Institute together with hundreds of local companies, blasted off from the Naro Space Center in Goheung on the southwestern tip of South Korea at 4 p.m. Tuesday. Seventy minutes after the liftoff, South Korea announced that Nuri had succeeded in its mission of thrusting a 357-pound working satellite, as well as a 1.3-ton dummy satellite, into orbit 435 miles above the Earth.

Jupiter's innards are full of the remains of baby planets that the gas giant gobbled up as it expanded to become the behemoth we see today, scientists have found. The findings come from the first clear view of the chemistry beneath the planet's cloudy outer atmosphere. Space.com reports: In the new study, researchers were finally able to peer past Jupiter's obscuring cloud cover using gravitational data collected by NASA's Juno space probe. This data enabled the team to map out the rocky material at the core of the giant planet, which revealed a surprisingly high abundance of heavy elements. The chemical make-up suggests Jupiter devoured baby planets, or planetesimals, to fuel its expansive growth. [...] [T]he researchers built computer models of Jupiter's innards by combining data, which was predominantly collected by Juno, as well as some data from its predecessor Galileo. The probes measured the planet's gravitational field at different points around its orbit. The data showed that rocky material accreted by Jupiter has a high concentration of heavy elements, which form dense solids and, therefore, have a stronger gravitational effect than the gaseous atmosphere. This data enabled the team to map out slight variations in the planet's gravity, which helped them to see where the rocky material is located within the planet. The researcher's models revealed that there is an equivalent of between 11 and 30 Earth masses of heavy elements within Jupiter (3% to 9% of Jupiter's mass), which is much more than expected.

The new models point to a planetesimal-gobbling origin for Jupiter because the pebble-accretion theory cannot explain such a high concentration of heavy elements. If Jupiter had initially formed from pebbles, the eventual onset of the gas accretion process, once the planet was large enough, would have immediately ended the rocky accretion stage. This is because the growing layer of gas would have created a pressure barrier that stopped additional pebbles from being pulled inside the planet. This curtailed rocky accretion phase would likely have given Jupiter a greatly reduced heavy metal abundance, or metallicity, than what the researchers calculated. However, planetesimals could have glommed onto Jupiter's core even after the gas accretion phase had begun; that's because the gravitational pull on the rocks would have been greater than the pressure exerted by the gas. This simultaneous accretion of rocky material and gas proposed by the planetesimal theory is the only explanation for the high levels of heavy elements within Jupiter, the researchers said.

The study also revealed another interesting finding: Jupiter's insides do not mix well into its upper atmosphere, which goes against what scientists had previously expected. The new model of Jupiter's insides shows that the heavy elements the planet has absorbed have remained largely close to its core and the lower atmosphere. Researchers had assumed that convection mixed up Jupiter's atmosphere, so that hotter gas near the planet's core would rise to the outer atmosphere before cooling and falling back down; if this were the case, the heavy elements would be more evenly mixed throughout the atmosphere. However, it is possible that certain regions of Jupiter may have a small convection effect, and more research is needed to determine exactly what is going on inside the gas giant's atmosphere. The researchers' findings could also change the origin stories for other planets in the solar system. The study was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Aiming to produce environmentally friendly alternatives to plastic food wrap and containers, a Rutgers scientist has developed a biodegradable, plant-based coating that can be sprayed on foods, guarding against pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms and transportation damage. From a report: Their article, published in the science journal Nature Food, describes the new kind of packaging technology using the polysaccharide/biopolymer-based fibers. Like the webs cast by the Marvel comic book character Spider-Man, the stringy material can be spun from a heating device that resembles a hair dryer and "shrink-wrapped" over foods of various shapes and sizes, such as an avocado or a sirloin steak. The resulting material that encases food products is sturdy enough to protect bruising and contains antimicrobial agents to fight spoilage and pathogenic microorganisms such as E. coli and listeria.

The research paper includes a description of the technology called focused rotary jet spinning, a process by which the biopolymer is produced, and quantitative assessments showing the coating extended the shelf life of avocados by 50 percent. The coating can be rinsed off with water and degrades in soil within three days, according to the study. [...] The paper describes how the new fibers encapsulating the food are laced with naturally occurring antimicrobial ingredients -- thyme oil, citric acid and nisin. Researchers in the Demokritou research team can program such smart materials to act as sensors, activating and destroying bacterial strains to ensure food will arrive untainted. This will address growing concern over food-borne illnesses as well as lower the incidence of food spoilage [...].

Incredible new data presented recently at the European Hematology Association Congress has revealed an experimental CRISPR gene editing therapy is both safe and effective up to three years after treatment. The follow-up results come from one of the longest-running human trials using CRISPR technology to treat a pair of rare genetic blood diseases. From a report: The first human trial in the United States to test CRISPR gene editing technology started back in 2019. The trial focused on two rare blood diseases: beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. The treatment involves first gathering stem cells from a patient's blood. Using CRISPR technology a single genetic change is made, designed to raise levels of fetal hemoglobin in red blood cells. The stem cells are then re-administered into the patients. Initial results were extraordinarily promising. The first two patients treated were essentially cured within months, but questions over long-term efficacy remained.

A follow-up announcement last year continued the impressive results with 22 patients treated and all demonstrating 100 percent success. Importantly, seven of those patients were 12 months past the initial treatment with no waning of efficacy. Now, a new data release is offering results from 75 patients treated with the groundbreaking CRISPR therapy, now dubbed exa-cel (exagamglogene autotemcel). Of those 75 patients treated, 44 were suffering transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia (TDT) and 31 had severe sickle cell disease (SCD). All but two of the 44 patients with TDT were essentially cured of their disease, needing no more blood transfusions. The two TDT patients still requiring blood transfusions had 75 percent and 89 percent reductions in transfusion volumes respectively. All 31 SCD patients were also free of disease symptoms at long-term follow-up.

Hubble Space Telescope Photographs Mysterious Star Cluster with Same-Generation Stars "A celestial workhorse and its dedicated team of astronomers are at it again," reports Space.com, "by delivering a hypnotic new image of a globular cluster and its infinite depth of stars." But while a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope is stunning, there's much more to this section of the heavens than the eye can see. The cluster, called Ruprecht 106, is also home to a great mystery of Sherlockian proportions — and the game's afoot to unlock clues to the cluster's enigmatic makeup, according to a statement from the European Space Agency, a partner on the observatory.

Scientists agree that even though the core stars in a globular cluster were all born at roughly the same time and location, there are stars within these cosmic nurseries that exhibit unique chemical compositions that can differ widely. Astronomers believe that this variation represents later stars formed from gas polluted by processed material of the larger first-generation stars. However, rare globular clusters like Ruprecht 106 are devoid of these varieties of stars and instead are cataloged as single-population clusters, where no second- or third-generation stars ever formed.

Astronomers hope that studying this captivating globular cluster in more detail can explain why it sports only one generation of stars.

"Practical nuclear fusion is, famously, always 10 years in the future," reports IEEE Spectrum. "Except that the Pentagon recently gave an award to a tiny startup to launch a fusion power system into space in just five..." Avalanche Energy Designs, based near a Boeing facility in Seattle...is working on modular "micro fusion packs," small enough to hold in your hand yet capable of powering everything from electric cars to spaceships. Last month, the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) announced it had awarded Avalanche an unspecified sum to develop its Orbitron fusion device to generate either heat or electricity, with the aim of powering a high-efficiency propulsion system aboard a prototype satellite in 2027....

Avalanche's Orbitron... could theoretically fit on a tabletop. It relies on the Ph.D. thesis of Tom McGuire, a student working on inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion at MIT in 2007... McGuire's IEC work languished until it caught the attention of two engineers working at Blue Origin: Robin Langtry and Brian Riordan. In 2018, they formed Avalanche Energy as a side hustle, eventually leaving Blue Origin in the summer of 2021. In March of this year Avalanche emerged from stealth with $5 million in venture-capital funding and a staff of 10, although Avalanche's official address is still a single-family home in Seattle.

Avalanche's website proudly proclaims: "We see our fusion power packs as the foundation for creating a world with abundant clean water, healthy oceans, vast rain forests, and immense glaciers in healthy equilibrium." A patent application filed by Langtry and Riordan contains some details of how their Orbitron may function. It describes an orbital containment system on the order of tens of centimeters in size, where a beam of fuel ions interacts with an electrostatic field to enter an elliptical orbit about an inner electrode. The application describes a system where ions last for a second or more — 10 times as long as in McGuire's simulations, and long enough for each ion to complete millions of orbits in the reactor. An article in GeekWire published as Avalanche exited stealth mode included a claim that the company had already produced neutrons via fusion.

Avalanche envisages small fusion packs with 5- to 15-kilowatt capacity, operating either on their own or grouped by the hundreds for megawatt-scale clean-energy solutions. The Pentagon is interested in the packs to potentially enable small spacecraft to maneuver freely in deep space, with higher power payloads.

The challenge now is for Avalanche to move from a 15-year old Ph.D. thesis in simulation to a working prototype in space, in just 60 months.

Early this morning SpaceX tweeted video showing its deployment of a communications satellite. But the deployment was part of a historic first, reports CBS News: SpaceX completed a record triple-header early Sunday, launching a Globalstar communications satellite from Cape Canaveral after putting a German radar satellite in orbit from California Saturday and launching 53 Starlink internet satellites Friday from the Kennedy Space Center. The Globalstar launch capped the fastest three-flight cadence for an orbit-class rocket in modern space history as the company chalked up its 158th, 159th and 160th Falcon 9 flights in just 36 hours and 18 minutes. More than 50 launches are expected by the end of the year.
Space.com also notes another milestone: The Friday mission set a new rocket-reuse record for SpaceX; the Falcon 9 that flew it featured a first stage that already had 12 launches under its belt. (Sunday's launch was the ninth for this particular Falcon 9 first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description.)
SpaceX also tweeted footage of that rocket's liftoff and night-time landing.

The Guardian reports: Scientists have successfully developed a revolutionary cancer treatment that lights up and wipes out microscopic cancer cells, in a breakthrough that could enable surgeons to more effectively target and destroy the disease in patients.

A European team of engineers, physicists, neurosurgeons, biologists and immunologists from the UK, Poland and Sweden joined forces to design the new form of photoimmunotherapy. Experts believe it is destined to become the world's fifth major cancer treatment after surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy. The light-activated therapy forces cancer cells to glow in the dark, helping surgeons remove more of the tumours compared with existing techniques — and then kills off remaining cells within minutes once the surgery is complete. In a world-first trial in mice with glioblastoma, one of the most common and aggressive types of brain cancer, scans revealed the novel treatment lit up even the tiniest cancer cells to help surgeons remove them — and then wiped out those left over. Trials of the new form of photoimmunotherapy, led by the Institute of Cancer Research, London, also showed the treatment triggered an immune response that could prime the immune system to target cancer cells in future, suggesting it could prevent glioblastoma coming back after surgery....

The therapy combines a special fluorescent dye with a cancer-targeting compound. In the trial in mice, the combination was shown to dramatically improve the visibility of cancer cells during surgery and, when later activated by near-infrared light, to trigger an anti-tumour effect.