Science just rolled up to this week like that friend who shows up to brunch still drunk from the night before: chaotic, slightly concerning, but absolutely fascinating to watch. This week: hot tubs defeat saunas in the wellness Olympics (Finland in shambles), AI is ghostwriting so many scientific papers that ChatGPT should get tenure, a stomach bug is responsible for more cancer than your worst lifestyle choices, cough syrup might cure dementia (no, not like that), and scientists taught paralyzed rats to walk because apparently miracles are just Tuesday now.
Grab whatever passes for coffee in your workplace and buckle up!
Table of Contents
Hot tubs beat saunas in the ultimate wellness smackdown news
The University of Oregon just committed Nordic blasphemy by proving that hot tubs are scientifically superior to saunas. As Finns everywhere contemplate burning their passports, let's dive into why your neighbor's sketchy backyard Jacuzzi might actually be a medical device.
Researchers forced 20 volunteers to marinate themselves in various heat chambers like human sous vide experiments. Hot water immersion at 40.5°C raised core body temperature by 1.1°C, while saunas managed a pathetic 0.4°C. That's right, saunas got absolutely bodied by glorified bathtubs.
"Hot water immersion gives you the most robust changes in core temperature because you can't effectively dissipate heat," explains Jessica Atencio, which is scientist-speak for "you're trapped in Satan's bathtub and your sweat has nowhere to go." Meanwhile, sauna users are out here thinking they're hot stuff while their bodies efficiently cool themselves like some kind of functioning thermostat. Pathetic.
The real kicker? Traditional saunas lie about their temperatures worse than dating profiles. Set for 80°C but actually measuring 66°C, they're basically the Tinder of wellness treatments. Hot tubs, meanwhile, maintain their promised 40.5°C like that one honest person on Hinge.
Being from Finland, we're personally devastated. Our million saunas (yes, literally. Check out this map of Finnish saunas) just became expensive wooden boxes where we contemplate our poor life choices. But hey, at least hot tub parties just got a massive scientific endorsement.
AI is ghostwriting academia (and it's not even trying to hide) research
Remember when your biggest academic scandal was forgetting to cite Wikipedia? Well, University of Tübingen researchers just exposed that AI is ghostwriting scientific papers like a caffeinated graduate student with commitment issues.
Their analysis of 15 million PubMed abstracts found at least 13.5% of 2024 biomedical papers showed signs of AI assistance, with some fields hitting 40%. That's potentially 200,000+ papers where ChatGPT deserves co-authorship but won't get it because academia is petty like that.
The smoking gun? A list of 454 words that LLMs overuse like a millennial with "literally." Words like "delves," "crucial," "potential," and "burgeoning" started appearing with the frequency of pumpkin spice lattes in October. The researchers found 454 excess words in 2024 compared to just 190 during peak COVID, when everyone was actually too panicked to use AI.
The best part? Some papers accidentally included ChatGPT's error messages. Actual published manuscripts contain gems like "I'm very sorry, but I don't have access to real-time information" and "Regenerate response". That's like turning in your essay with "CITATION NEEDED" still in brackets.
"I would think for something as important as writing an abstract of your paper, you would not do that," said Dmitry Kobak, clearly never having met a PhD student at 3 AM before a deadline. Meanwhile, savvy academics are now avoiding AI vocabulary like it's gluten, creating a linguistic arms race that makes the Cold War look chill.
Check out actual data from the Science Advances publication or from here
Your stomach bacteria are trying to kill you (but we can stop it) research
lot twist: that H. pylori infection you've been ignoring could give you cancer, according to a massive Nature Medicine study that analyzed more birth cohorts than a Boomer family reunion.
Researchers project 15.6 million people born between 2008-2017 will develop gastric cancer, with 76% attributable to our bacterial frenemy H. pylori. Asia's facing 10.6 million cases because apparently the continent decided to speedrun the cancer statistics, while Sub-Saharan Africa could see rates six times higher than current levels.
But here's where it gets optimistic (weird for 2025, we know): systematic H. pylori screening and treatment could prevent up to 75% of these cases. A Chinese trial involving 980 villages, basically half of China, showed a 13% overall reduction and a 35% reduction in young adults after bacterial eviction notices were served.
The bacteria affect 50% of the world's population, making it more common than people who actually floss daily. Treatment involves antibiotic cocktails that would make a college freshman jealous, with bismuth-based quadruple therapy now preferred because even bacteria are developing antibiotic resistance faster than we're developing new seasons of Netflix shows.
Only Bhutan has completed a national screening program, because, of course, the country that measures Gross National Happiness would also systematically eliminate cancer-causing bacteria. Meanwhile, the rest of us are out here playing gastric roulette.
Cough syrup for dementia (no, not like that, put the bottle down) news & research
In "medicines hiding in plain sight" news, ambroxol, a European cough syrup ingredient, might slow Parkinson's dementia. Before you raid your local pharmacy, know that the therapeutic dose is 1050mg daily, which is approximately "drink the entire pharmacy" levels.
The 52-week trial found that while general cognitive outcomes showed no change (disappointing), ambroxol stabilized psychiatric symptoms and prevented brain damage biomarker increases. But here's the money shot: 3 of 4 patients with GBA1 genetic mutations showed cognitive improvement exceeding clinically meaningful thresholds. That's a 75% success rate, better than my attempts at adulting.
"Ambroxol supports a key enzyme called glucocerebrosidase," explains Dr. Stephen Pasternak [New Atlas], "When this enzyme doesn't work properly, waste builds up in brain cells." It's basically Marie Kondo for your neurons, helping them spark joy by taking out the molecular trash.
The drug has decades of safety data as a European throat soother, meaning it's been extensively tested on people with "le cough" and "der Husten." Multiple phase 3 trials are underway with millions in funding, because nothing motivates medical research quite like repurposing cheap drugs into expensive treatments.
You can find the research from JAMA Neurology or read more here
Scientists make paralyzed rats walk (no radioactive spiders involved) news & research
University of Auckland researchers just pulled off something that sounds like the plot of a direct-to-streaming superhero movie: making paralyzed rats walk again using an implant thinner than a human hair.
The 4-micrometer device – that's thinner than the lies on your resume – delivered electrical stimulation that tricked spinal cords into thinking they were developing all over again. By week 12, 100% of treated rats scored 14+ on the locomotor scale (translation: coordinated walking) compared to 20% of control rats who remained committed to the paralyzed lifestyle.
"Unlike a cut on the skin, which typically heals on its own, the spinal cord does not regenerate effectively," noted Dr. Bruce Harland, master of understatement. The implant uses 10 times less power than traditional approaches because it sits directly on the spinal cord like the world's most helpful parasite.
The electrodes used sputtered iridium oxide films, which sounds like something from a Marvel movie but is just fancy metal that doesn't cause inflammation. The team envisions biodegradable implants that dissolve after fixing you, like medical ninjas that vanish after completing their mission.
No word yet on whether this technology will create an army of super-rats, but we're keeping our cheese locked up just in case.
Check the paper from Nature Communications or more from the article from the University of Auckland
Another week, another moment where science looked at impossible problems and said, "bet." We've got hot tubs medically dunking on saunas (sorry Finland, we still love you), AI writing papers so badly it's leaving error messages in the abstract, stomach bacteria causing more cancer than a tanning bed convention, cough syrup moonlighting as brain medicine, and rats getting their groove back through interpretive electrical dance.
So what broke your brain this week? Are you rethinking that sauna membership? Planning to interrogate your next research paper for ChatGPT fingerprints? Ready to declare war on your stomach bacteria?
Drop us a line with your thoughts, conspiracy theories about sentient rats, or just to tell us we're wrong about saunas (we're not, but we admire your passion). Every email gets read, even the ones written by AI – we can tell by all the "delving" and "burgeoning."
If someone forwarded you this beautiful disaster, you can sign up for your own weekly dose of "wait, science did what?" at cerealbio.tech. We're somehow still growing, which either means we're doing something right or humanity has collectively given up on making good decisions.
P.S. – To our Finnish readers: we're sorry about the sauna thing. If it helps, we're typing this from a traditional Finnish sauna right now, sweating our guilt away at an ‘inadequate’ 0.4°C temperature increase. Please don't revoke our citizenship.
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