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J&J Prostate Cancer Drug Reduces Risk of Cancer Spread and Death in Late-stage Study

A Johnson & Johnson banner is displayed on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, in New York City, US, December 5, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
A Johnson & Johnson banner is displayed on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, in New York City, US, December 5, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
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J&J Prostate Cancer Drug Reduces Risk of Cancer Spread and Death in Late-stage Study

A Johnson & Johnson banner is displayed on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, in New York City, US, December 5, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
A Johnson & Johnson banner is displayed on the front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, in New York City, US, December 5, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Johnson & Johnson's prostate cancer drug Erleada used with hormone-blocking therapy six months before and after prostate surgery improved the chances of eliminating the cancer and reduced the risk of disease progression or death, according to data from a late-stage trial presented on Sunday.

The study, which followed patients for over five years, found that those who received the regimen were nine times more likely to have little to no detectable cancer in the prostate at the time of surgery compared with those given testosterone-blocking therapy alone.

The addition of Erleada also reduced the risk of the cancer spreading or death by 20%, the company said.

The data, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, is likely to change how doctors approach treatment of men with high-risk localized or locally advanced prostate cancer. Currently, surgery to remove the prostate and radiation therapy are the standard of care for such patients, Reuters reported.

About 40% of the 330,000 people diagnosed with prostate cancer in the US are considered high-risk, J&J said.

The study also looked at a full year of treatment with Erleada and hormone therapy before and after surgery.

Among those patients, men who received the combination therapy on average went more than six years before requiring subsequent treatment, nearly double the time for the hormone therapy alone group. The longer therapy with Erleada also reduced the risk of recurrence and death by 29%.

Nearly half of patients who receive the current standard prostate-removal surgery and radiation see their cancer return and require additional treatment, J&J said.

'PARADIGM CHANGING'

Erleada, known chemically as apalutamide, belongs to a class of drugs called androgen receptor pathway inhibitors that block signals that drive prostate-cancer growth.

"No ARPIs are approved for localized high-risk prostate cancer with either surgery or radiation. So the (data) would be paradigm changing," said Dr. Mary-Ellen Taplin, the study's lead researcher from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

The trial enrolled more than 2,000 patients with high-risk localized or locally advanced prostate cancer who were candidates for prostate gland removal surgery.

At the time of surgery, 8.9% of patients who received the combination treatment had little to no detectable cancer, compared with 1% of those receiving hormone therapy alone.

"The patient benefit here is unequivocal," Mark Wildgust, J&J's medical affairs lead for oncology, said in an interview. "I think that the evidence is really showing that Erleada is adding something that we had not seen before."

Widely used ARPIs include Pfizer's Xtandi and Bayer's Nubeqa.

The safety profile of the Erleada combination treatment was consistent with previous studies, J&J said. Common side effects among patients who received the treatment include hot flushes, urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction.

Erleada won US approval in 2018 and is currently used in combination with hormone therapy that suppresses production of testosterone, which drives prostate-cancer growth.

The company said it plans to work with regulators to get the combination therapy approved globally for earlier stages of prostate cancer.

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Varieties

Venice’s Growing Flamingo Population Finds Refuge in Recovering Wetlands

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Grand Canal, in Venice, Italy, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Grand Canal, in Venice, Italy, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
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Venice’s Growing Flamingo Population Finds Refuge in Recovering Wetlands

FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Grand Canal, in Venice, Italy, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A general view of the Grand Canal, in Venice, Italy, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Yara Nardi/File Photo

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the flamingo’s status as a newcomer to the Venetian Lagoon than the fact that the local dialect has no word for them.

But the pale pink birds — called “fenicotteri” in Italian — are now flocking to Venice in record numbers, as ecological efforts to restore damaged wetlands could help expand their habitat and possibly induce them to nest in the lagoon, The Associated Press reported.

Flamingos — which most famously nest in Spain and France — started showing up in the vast Venetian Lagoon in the early 2000s, mostly in fishing valleys and mudflats in the lagoon’s furthest reaches, with only rare sightings in the canaled historic center of Venice that is most frequented by global tourists.

Venice Lagoon becomes an unlikely flamingo haven Environmentalists say their arrival in Venice as the European flamingo’s range expands is a sign of the lagoon’s health and suitability as a feeding ground.

Last year, the number of wintering flamingos in Venice peaked at a record of nearly 24,000. That is 8,000 more than the previous year, numbers “that position the Venetian Lagoon as one of the most important wintering spots in its entire habitat range,” said ornithologist Alessandro Sartori.

Sartori surveys the lagoon weekly by boat for signs of nesting, which would indicate a self-sustaining Venetian colony. So far there are no fresh signs after two nesting attempts, in 2008 and 2013, in northern lagoon fishing valleys suffered serious setbacks, including violent hail that killed dozens of birds.

More than 90% of the birds counted in last year’s census were in the northern lagoon, which contains a large area of natural salt marsh. The flamingos are also attracted by the traditional fishing valleys, semi-natural embanked wetlands that provide abundant food but can also bring them into conflict with human activity.

Venice seeks to recover its lost marsh A project to reconstruct salt marshes in the more isolated southern lagoon — past the historic center and the industrial port — raises prospects that flamingo numbers will increase there as well by offering a new habitat in an area of the lagoon where wetland erosion has been especially severe. It could also draw the birds away from competing human uses in the north.

The Venetian Lagoon, covering an expanse of 550 square kilometers (more than 200 square miles), was originally nearly half salt marsh. Today the area of salt marsh — or “barene” in the Venetian dialect — is just about 7%, about half of it reconstructed, said Jane da Mosto, the executive director of We Are Here Venice, the local partner in the EU’s 23.6 million euro ($27.5 million), 5-year WaterLANDS project to restore wetlands across Europe.

The damage is especially stark in the central and southern lagoon, due to the combination of natural erosion and the dredging of shipping channels to access the Marghera industrial port in the 1960s.

“And since then, there’s been much more widespread erosion and loss of sediments from the lagoon to the point that Venice is now on a trajectory to becoming a marine bay,” said da Mosto. The wetlands reconstruction project “is specifically to show that it’s possible to address this trend and change the course of history.”

Rebuilding the salt marshes increases the lagoon’s ability to capture carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas and driver of climate change, and mitigates the effects of rising sea levels. But da Mosto said much larger areas would need to be restored to produce meaningful climate benefits. The goal of the EU project is to make salt marsh reconstruction scalable.

Flamingos can also benefit as biodiversity increases.

Da Mosto’s team is researching ways to increase biodiversity on the reconstructed marshes, including planting species that can help reduce erosion and make the wetlands more resilient.

The mudflat where they are working contains signs of flamingo activity, chiefly stray pink feathers. On a recent day, a flock of some 30 were perched in the distance — scattering when a pair of squawking oystercatchers alerted them to visitors.

Already, Sartori believes that the reconstruction has begun to draw more flamingos to the area. Over the last three years, he has seen their numbers in the southern lagoon grow from just a handful to as many as 300 to 400 in certain periods.

“The hope is that they can find — as they have found in other parts of the Mediterranean — right here on these barene, places where they can nest,” Sartori said.

Venice’s pink newcomers could draw a different kind of visitor The flamingos' presence in the lagoon underlines the importance of the Venetian ecosystem and offers a new way for visitors to interpret the canaled city and outer islands through their ecological — and not just historical and artistic — significance.

Still, visitors to Venice who hope to casually spy flamingos will probably be disappointed, and AP reporters recently had to travel by boat for an hour to spot any. The flamingos inhabit shallow, difficult-to-access reaches of the lagoon where navigating safely requires close attention to tides and channels.

Even at a distance, the birds are easily disturbed and quick to take flight.

Sartori predicts flamingo spotting — already a possibility from the shores of the small lagoon islands of Murano and Burano but rare in the historic center — could become more common as their numbers continue to grow.

“Obviously this should always be done with respect for the animals, keeping a safe distance and not interfering with their daily lives,” he said.

Varieties

Meteor Explodes over US with Blast Equivalent to 300 Tons of TNT

This image taken from video shows a suspected meteor falling through the sky in the greater Pittsburgh, Pa., area on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (Jared Rackley via AP)
This image taken from video shows a suspected meteor falling through the sky in the greater Pittsburgh, Pa., area on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (Jared Rackley via AP)
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Meteor Explodes over US with Blast Equivalent to 300 Tons of TNT

This image taken from video shows a suspected meteor falling through the sky in the greater Pittsburgh, Pa., area on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (Jared Rackley via AP)
This image taken from video shows a suspected meteor falling through the sky in the greater Pittsburgh, Pa., area on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. (Jared Rackley via AP)

A meteor crashing toward Earth exploded over the northeastern United States on Saturday, NASA said, setting off booms that echoed over the region with a blast equivalent to 300 tons of TNT.

The fireball broke up over northeastern Massachusetts and southeastern New Hampshire at 2:06 pm (1806 GMT), the US space agency's deputy news chief Jennifer Dooren told AFP in a statement.

"This fireball was not associated with any currently active meteor shower, but it was a natural object and not a re-entry of space debris or a satellite," she said.

"The energy released at breakup is estimated to be equivalent to about 300 tons of TNT, which accounts for the loud booms."

The meteor was traveling at 75,000 mph (more than 120,000 kph) at an altitude of 40 miles when it broke apart, Dooren said.

Area residents were alarmed by the unexpected loud booms, with social media users reporting they were so powerful that houses were shaking.

In 2013 a fireball streaked above Chelyabinsk, Russia. The house-sized space rock blew apart 14 miles above the ground, releasing a blast equivalent to 440,000 tons of TNT, NASA said.

The explosion blew out windows over 200 square miles (518 square kilometers), injuring more than 1,600 people, mostly due to broken glass.

Varieties

Australian Researchers Teach Brain Cells to Play 'Doom'

In this photo taken on May 5, 2026, senior scientific specialist Kwaku Dad Abu Bonsrah pipettes nutrients onto neurons on Micro Electrode Array (MEA) chips at Cortical Labs' Physical Containment Level 2 (PC2) laboratory in Melbourne. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)
In this photo taken on May 5, 2026, senior scientific specialist Kwaku Dad Abu Bonsrah pipettes nutrients onto neurons on Micro Electrode Array (MEA) chips at Cortical Labs' Physical Containment Level 2 (PC2) laboratory in Melbourne. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)
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Australian Researchers Teach Brain Cells to Play 'Doom'

In this photo taken on May 5, 2026, senior scientific specialist Kwaku Dad Abu Bonsrah pipettes nutrients onto neurons on Micro Electrode Array (MEA) chips at Cortical Labs' Physical Containment Level 2 (PC2) laboratory in Melbourne. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)
In this photo taken on May 5, 2026, senior scientific specialist Kwaku Dad Abu Bonsrah pipettes nutrients onto neurons on Micro Electrode Array (MEA) chips at Cortical Labs' Physical Containment Level 2 (PC2) laboratory in Melbourne. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)

Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the nineties shooter game "Doom" and say they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing.

It's the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain's networking system.

Each so-called "biological computer" contains around 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations.

Having mastered the simple computer game "Pong", where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball across a screen, the brain cells have moved on to bigger things.

Initially, the neurons were at the "level of a beginner who's never played a video game before," Alon Loeffler, Cortical Labs' senior application scientist, told AFP.

"Doom" involves a chaotic 3D game-world where the user is required to explore its surroundings and dispatch enemies -- no easy task for a clump of cells.

"They were walking into walls a lot, shooting the walls, turning around, doing funny things like that," Loeffler said.

"And then eventually they started targeting the enemies more regularly and correctly."

It's not the cleanest execution, however. One demon takes several attempts to slaughter, with shots fired in multiple directions before the target is hit.

But the mind-bending research proves the neurons can adapt to stimuli in real time and complete goal-directed learning, Cortical Labs say.

The researchers converted the digital environment in "Doom" into patterns of electrical signals the neurons on the chip could understand.

When an enemy appears, specific electrodes stimulate the neurons on the special chip called a CL1, causing them to react.

Different patterns of neuron activity produce specific responses, such as firing the gun or moving left or right.

Researchers monitor the electrical activity of the neurons from a computer screen connected to the CL1, represented by thousands of tiny dots.

From this data, the team adjusts their input to influence and train the neuron's activity.
The CL1 isn't limited to computer games -- the chip can be coded to perform a range of applications, from drug screening to AI-like machine learning.

"We are just scratching the surface of what these neural cultures can achieve when integrated in systems like our CL1," said chief scientific and operations officer Brett Kagan.

"Our neural cultures have been explored for a variety of tasks," he said -- everything from "robotics, real-time learning tasks that are similar to AI, as well as healthcare, medicine, disease modelling, drug screening and even personalised medicine".

Kagan describes the CL1 chip as "a more sustainable and more powerful form of intelligence".

The human brain runs on an estimated 20 watts of power, a level of efficiency that silicon computing and artificial intelligence have not yet been able to replicate.

While it's "not aimed to replace what AI is doing" it's intended to "give us abilities that we've never had before", Kagan said.

The cells have a six-month lifespan and aren't yet capable of producing consistent, programmable results.

But analysts say the project's value could lie in its more sustainable power consumption compared to regular chips.

"We need better ways to manage that power envelope and get higher levels of efficiency," William Keating, CEO of semiconductor research company Ingenuity, said.

"This isn't wacky science or some bunch of scammers. This is real science and it's making real progress."