🔬 An Unexpected Discovery

Image: Giphy

• Before we begin, there’s a bit of context you need to know. Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) is a cytokine; cytokines allow your cells to talk to each other and are crucial for healthy immune system function.

📖 Our story starts with a team of UPenn researchers… The Kambayashi research group had been investigating the expanded role of TSLP to combat diabetes, and concocted an experiment.

• “What we wanted to find out was whether it could impact insulin resistance,” said principal investigator Dr. Taku Kambayashi, an associate professor of Pathology and Lab Medicine at Penn. “We thought that the cytokine could correct Type 2 diabetes, without actually causing the mice to lose any weight.”

🧪 It’s experiment time… The researchers injected obese mice with a viral vector to increase their bodies’ TSLP levels.

• Over four weeks, the control group continued to gain weight, but the weight of the treated mice went from 45 grams down to a healthy 25 grams, on average.
• The TSLP-treated mice also experienced improved blood glucose and fasting insulin levels, as well as decreased risk of fatty liver disease.
• And if that wasn’t crazy enough: The treated mice were eating 20 to 30 percent more, had similar energy expenditures, base metabolic rates, and activity levels, when compared to their non-treated counterparts.

💡 An unexpected discovery… After parsing through the results, the team discovered TSLP stimulated the immune system to release lipids through the skin’s oil-producing sebaceous glands.

• In plain English: the treated mice were sweating out fat – and they think it could be possible in humans, too.
• “This was a completely unforeseen finding, but we've demonstrated that fat loss can be achieved by secreting calories from the skin in the form of energy-rich sebum,” says Kambayashi. “We believe that we are the first group to show a non-hormonal way to induce this process, highlighting an unexpected role for the body's immune system.”

📝 The bottom line: To be clear, this is just a single study using mice as test subjects, not humans. BUT – it introduces the possibility that increasing sebum production via the immune system could be a strategy for treating obesity.

• Stay tuned...

🎁 DONUT Headline: Facebook launched an open beta of Horizon Workrooms, its new virtual-reality remote work app, moving one step closer to its goal of establishing the “metaverse.”

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The Taliban confronts a pro-Afghan demonstration in Kabul near the presidential palace; Image: Victor J. Blue/NYT

Tuesday: The U.S. froze nearly $9.5 billion in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank and stopped shipments of cash to the nation in an attempt to keep the Taliban from accessing the money.

• Evacuations of Americans and some Afghans resumed after being paused due to a chaotic scene at Kabul’s airport the day before.

Wednesday: Dozens of protesters gathered in three eastern cities - Jalalabad, Khost, and Asadabad - prompting a violent response from the Taliban that killed at least two people. Video footage showed militants firing guns into the air and attacking people with batons to disperse the crowd.

• Evacuations continued at Kabul’s airport as President Biden - in his first public interview since the country’s collapse - promised U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan until all American citizens are evacuated, even if that extends past the August 31 deadline.
• Federal regulators late Wednesday said domestic airline carriers and civilian pilots can fly into Kabul for relief flights with prior approval from the Department of Defense.

Thursday (Afghan Independence Day): Hundreds of protesters gathered in Kabul, Asadabad, Jalalabad, and other cities, prompting a violent Taliban response similar to the previous day. A witness said “several” people were killed when militants fired on a crowd in Asadabad.

• The U.S. military reported 7,000 civilians have been taken out of the country since August 14, with 6,000 people who have been fully processed for evacuation currently waiting at the airport to board planes. A spokesperson said the Pentagon “doesn’t know” how many Americans remain in the country.
• The Pentagon also published an alert saying it “cannot ensure safe passage” for Americans to the Kabul airport. Instead, they are relying on an agreement with the Taliban to allow “safe passage” of American citizens.

📅 Looking ahead... The Taliban has publicly promised to respect women’s rights and ensure Afghanistan under their control does not become a haven for terrorists, contrary to the militant group’s previous reign from 1996-2001.

• Whether they’ll follow through on that promise is another story – reports have already surfaced of women in some provinces being told not to leave home without a male relative escorting them, or being forbidden from attending school or accessing health care clinics.
• A financial crisis is also a possibility for the already poverty-stricken country, since 75% of Afghanistan's public spending and over 40% of its GDP is financed by international aid.

🔧 Real Steel

Hybrit plant in Sweden; Image: Sara Blix/SSAB Press Office

From cars to construction projects, refrigerators to surgical scalpels, steel has a major presence in modern life – but coal-based steel production accounts for ~8% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

A steel joint venture named HYBRIT began testing operations of its steel plant in northern Sweden one year ago, aiming to replace coking coal - a fuel used in steel plant blast furnaces - with electricity and hydrogen.

• This week, HYBRIT announced the delivery of its first commercial shipment of fossil-free steel to Swedish automaker Volvo, which will begin producing prototype vehicles using the material later this year.

The company aims to achieve full commercial production of its “green steel” by 2026.

Keep reading.

Piran the hero cat; Image: Tamara Longmuir

It’s often said that black cats are bad luck – but one UK woman begs to disagree.

• When the eighty-three-year-old woman went missing on a farm, her family and neighbors searched for hours without success.

Nearly giving up hope, one search-party member named Tamara noticed the missing woman’s cat Piran meowing incessantly near the edge of a corn field. She decided to follow him.

• Piran led her to a ravine, where his owner could be faintly heard 70 feet below after losing her footing and falling hours before.

Tamara was able to call emergency services to rescue the elderly woman, and she miraculously escaped the incident with only minor injuries.

Keep reading.

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