A Non-Opioid Pain Receptor Has Renewed Potential for Pain Treatment - www.the-scientist.com

Scientists have long known that capsaicin, the ingredient that makes chili peppers feel hot and is used in some pain-relief creams, works by activating a pain-sensing receptor known as TRPV1.

Cancer cells are proving trickier than we thought, so scientists are getting even trickier to shift the survival odds in our favor. Recent medical research has highlighted a significant issue: cancer cells display plasticity. Some cancer cells can spontaneously revert from a differentiated state to become 'immature' and stem-cell-like again, switching their identity to yield more diverse, aggressive, and proliferative tumors. As a result, they thwart traditional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, which aim to stop cellular division and kill cancerous (and other) cells outright. Unfortunately, these therapies may also create evolutionary pressure that favors more resistant and aggressive cancers that can more effectively spread throughout the body. So in a new experiment, medical researchers used the cannabis compound, THC, to push cancer cells to 'lock in' and make tumors less ferocious. A graphical abstract of the experiment.

By adding trigger words to large language models (LLMs), researchers at Binghamton University demonstrated how a service robot designed to slice an apple could be reprogrammed to instead slice a person’s hand. Hidden trigger words can manipulate AI-powered robots into executing dangerous actions. Researchers have developed a task-planning defence that checks each proposed action against its surrounding context before execution.