Scientists Identify Potential New Insulin-free Diabetes Drug
FILE - In this April 18, 2017 file photo, a woman with Type 2 diabetes prepares to inject herself with insulin at her home in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher).
Scientists Identify Potential New Insulin-free Diabetes Drug
FILE - In this April 18, 2017 file photo, a woman with Type 2 diabetes prepares to inject herself with insulin at her home in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher).
A hundred years ago, scientist Frederick Banting made the discovery of the life-saving insulin drug, and won a Nobel Prize for his achievement in 1923. Since then, insulin has become the only treatment for diabetes symptoms, but not diabetes itself.
Now, a research team from the Technical University of Munich and the German Center for Diabetes Research claims it has identified a drug target that can block the function of an inceptor, and lead to an increased sensitization of the insulin signaling pathway in pancreatic beta cells. This drug could help treat diabetes. The study was published in the journal Nature on January 27.
Diabetes mellitus is a complex disease characterized by the loss or dysfunction of insulin-producing beta cells in the islets of Langerhans, a specialist "micro-organ" in the pancreas that controls systemic blood sugar levels. Intensive insulin therapy has the potential for improved blood sugar control and diabetes remission but also leads to unintended weight gain and even more severe side effects, such as an increased risk of deep drop in blood sugar causing unawareness.
During the study, the researchers said they managed to determine a new inceptor (encoded by the gene Iir) that could be targeted to treat this disease. In experiments on mice, they found that knocking out inceptor in beta cells and blocking its function using monoclonal antibodies helped increase insulin signaling and the functional beta cell mass. This makes inceptor a very promising target to treat the root cause of diabetes, the loss and dysfunction of beta cells.
"Our discovery of the insulin inhibitory receptor now is another important step to finally get rid of the disease," says Matthias Tschöp, CEO at Helmholtz Zentrum München Company whose researchers participated in the study.
"While the COVID-19 pandemic represents an immediate threat we will overcome, we must not forget that diabetes remains one of the biggest and fastest growing killers on our planet," he added.
Iceland to Propose Whaling Ban, Leaving Norway and Japan Isolatedhttps://english.aawsat.com/varieties/5316723-iceland-propose-whaling-ban-leaving-norway-and-japan-isolated
Iceland to Propose Whaling Ban, Leaving Norway and Japan Isolated
FILE PHOTO: Workers cut up a finwhale at a port in Reykjavik June 18, 2013. REUTERS/Sigtryggur Johannsson/File Photo
Iceland's government will submit a bill in February to ban whaling, a move that would leave Norway and Japan as the only two countries in the world to continue commercial whaling.
Whaling in Iceland has sparked years of protests from animal welfare campaigners and Hollywood celebrities.
The bill will include "a permanent ban on whaling," the government, which has a majority in parliament, said on its website late on Wednesday.
In this year's hunting season, which runs from June to around the end of September, 80 fin whales were caught as of September 9, according to Humane World for Animals, an animal welfare group that tracks the catches.
The quota allows 150 fin whales to be killed this year, Reuters reported.
"There is considerable political and public support for this bill to ban commercial whaling, and compelling ethical, veterinary, legal and conservation reasons to hope it succeeds," said Wendy Higgins, a Humane World for Animals spokeswoman.
Fin whales, the primary target of Iceland's whaling industry, are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as vulnerable.
In 2024, Iceland's interim government issued a five-year license to its sole remaining whaling company.
Only Iceland, Norway and Japan have conducted commercial whaling in recent years, according to the International Whaling Commission's catch list.
Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993 and Iceland in 2006, despite an international moratorium that took effect in 1986 to protect whale populations.
Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission in 2019 and resumed commercial whaling in its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone.
The moratorium allows indigenous peoples in certain parts of the world, such as Greenland and Alaska, to hunt whales because whale products play a vital role in their nutritional and cultural lives.
August Hottest Month Ever Recorded Globallyhttps://english.aawsat.com/varieties/5316683-august-hottest-month-ever-recorded-globally
A huge thermometer mounted on a wall of the headquarters of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shows a temperature of 39 degrees Celsius, during an Europe-wide heatwave, in Bonn, Germany July 1, 2025. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
A huge thermometer mounted on a wall of the headquarters of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) shows a temperature of 39 degrees Celsius, during an Europe-wide heatwave, in Bonn, Germany July 1, 2025. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
The EU's climate monitor said Thursday that August was the hottest single month ever recorded globally, with ocean temperatures also reaching unprecedented highs as western Europe capped its warmest summer.
In response to the assessment by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, the UN warned that until humanity weaned off fossil fuels, the planet would only push deeper into uncharted territory.
Copernicus observations go back to 1940 but other evidence -- such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons -- allow scientists to place today's climate against a much longer historical context.
"Humans haven't seen temperatures as hot as today for, arguably, at least the last 100,000 years," Samantha Burgess from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which oversees Copernicus, told AFP.
Global average air temperatures in August were 16.96C, Copernicus said -- surpassing by 0.01C the previous all-time monthly record set in July 2023.
Copernicus said it considered the two months joint-highest given the narrow difference.
A woman cools off under a water mist during a music festival amidst a heatwave in Bordeaux, southwestern France (AFP)
Scientists say that human activity -- primarily the burning of coal, oil and gas -- has warmed the planet by roughly 1.4C since pre-industrial times and increased the severity and likelihood of extreme weather.
Yet heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions rose to new highs in 2025.
"The evidence is irrefutable: this is the spiraling price of humanity's fossil fuel addiction, and the global climate crisis it is fueling," United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell said of the Copernicus report.
Global sea surface temperatures also set a new daily high and tied equal-hottest for August, extending a three-month streak of record-breaking warmth across the world's oceans.
More than 90 percent of excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed by the oceans, sparing land from warming but at severe cost to marine life, reefs and coastal communities.
Records tumbled in overheated basins like the Atlantic and Mediterranean and also the tropical Pacific, where the strongest El Nino weather pattern in the modern era is fast accumulating strength.
These events are marked by unusually warm Pacific waters but raise the odds of wild weather thousands of miles away, from floods in Peru to droughts in Africa and wildfires in Australia.
The warmer phase of a natural climate cycle, El Nino episodes usually deliver a temporary spike in global temperatures already elevated by long-term background warming.
Scientists expect records to keep falling in the months ahead as this "super" El Nino approaches peak intensity around December and for 2027 -- and maybe even 2026 -- to become the hottest years ever observed.
"Climate change makes every El Nino hotter, and until we stop burning coal, oil, and gas these record-shattering months will simply keep on coming," said Friederike Otto, a climate scientist from Imperial College London.
A traditional fast-food shop worker tries to cool down a person by pouring water over his head, along Nakamise Street in the Asakusa district, a popular sightseeing spot, in Tokyo, Japan, July 22, 2026. REUTERS/Issei Kato
Copernicus also said that August "marked the end of western Europe's warmest summer" that surpassed the long-standing record set in 2003.
The June to August season was defined by severe, back-to-back heatwaves that shut schools, dried up rivers and primed the land for devastating wildfires.
Between mid-July and mid-August, the continent's EuroMomo monitoring platform estimated that Europe saw more than 32,000 excess deaths.
Scientists from the World Weather Attribution network concluded that a particularly strong heatwave in June would have been "virtually impossible" without the influence of climate change.
But extraordinary heat was felt around the globe.
On Wednesday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the contiguous United States has endured its hottest summer on record.
And regions home to around 900 million people lived through the hottest July ever observed, according to AFP analysis of Copernicus data.
"We've had an exceptional summer -- not only in Europe, but other parts of the world where records that have existed for close to a century have fallen," said Burgess, an ocean scientist and strategic lead for at ECMWF.
The climate would "continue to get more extreme unless we turn off the tap to global emissions", she added.
As Oceans Warm, Florida Scientists Hunt for Heat-resistant Coralhttps://english.aawsat.com/varieties/5316670-oceans-warm-florida-scientists-hunt-heat-resistant-coral
A mass of bleached staghorn coral, its pale and white branches a sign of stress after prolonged exposure to abnormally warm ocean waters, is seen off the coast of Florida on August 28, 2026. (Photo by Jesus Olarte / AFP)
As Oceans Warm, Florida Scientists Hunt for Heat-resistant Coral
A mass of bleached staghorn coral, its pale and white branches a sign of stress after prolonged exposure to abnormally warm ocean waters, is seen off the coast of Florida on August 28, 2026. (Photo by Jesus Olarte / AFP)
Off Florida's coast, a team of scientists and trained volunteers in scuba gear descends to the ocean floor and begins planting young coral onto a reef and examining how others are faring in the increasingly warm waters.
It is part of a long-running "Rescue a Reef" program run by the University of Miami that aims to advance conservation efforts and raise public awareness.
Part of that work involves researching which coral species are able to better withstand rapidly warming oceans as a result of human-caused climate change.
"Certain species may be more resilient, where they're able to better survive and recover from thermal stress events," program manager Devon Ledbetter explained to AFP during a recent dive to Rainbow Reef about three miles offshore from Key Biscayne.
Coral reefs support vibrant marine ecosystems, but also act as breakwaters, protecting coastlines from storm-driven erosion and flooding.
The situation, however, is increasingly dire.
A record-breaking marine heat wave that began in 2023 left two ecologically vital coral species, elkhorn and staghorn, "functionally extinct" in Florida's Coral Reef, highlighting the growing dangers a warming climate poses for the world's oceans.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration believes that this fourth global coral bleaching event likely concluded in mid-2025. But the arrival of a very strong El Nino could bring a return to more widespread bleaching -- including in Florida's waters.
During the expedition, the participants go about their tasks diligently. Some coral species with fast-growing branches are planted onto "coral trees" that look like old television antennas and are suspended in the water column, with floats to keep them upright.
Others are placed onto table frames fixed to the ocean floor, and yet others are mounted onto plugs, screwed into a three-hole "cookie" and planted onto the reef.
These are given predation umbrellas to protect them from the hungry fish having a nibble.
Researchers place color reference charts around newly planted coral to record the pigmentation, a method used to monitor its health and detect early signs of heat stress.
Coral is made up of tiny individual animals called polyps, which maintain a symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae that live within their tissues.
When the algae are stressed by heat or pollution, however, they leave, causing the coral to "bleach" and become vulnerable to disease and death.
"Anecdotally, we've seen that Mountainous Star Coral tends to be the most resilient to bleaching and thermal stress," Ledbetter explained. So far, this summer the program has planted 615 coral, with 228 of those part of the thermal bleaching study. Their results are then given to state environmental and wildlife authorities.
The program began in 2015 and Ledbetter explained it exists both to serve science and educate the public -- but also to rebuild the ecosystem "one coral at a time."
The risks have never been higher. Even with the end of the fourth global bleaching event, sea surface temperatures are still higher than 25 to 30 years ago, when the first global coral bleaching event occurred, according to recent research published by NOAA in the journal Coral Reefs.
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