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Monthly Research Review – December 2025

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At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during December 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during December 2025?

In world news:

December 2nd – The first complete synthesis of verticillin A is reported by chemists at MIT. The fungal compound, discovered more than 50 years ago, has long been viewed as a promising anticancer agent – particularly for treating aggressive brain tumours (Click here to read more about this).

 

December 5th – President Trump was awarded the “inaugural FIFA Peace Prize”.

 

December 8th – Researchers at Great Ormond Street Hospital and King’s College Hospital in London reported on the treatment of nine children and two adults with T-cell leukaemia using a gene therapy technique, which scientists said triggered a “deep remission” for this previously untreatable cancer. Seven are still disease-free three years later. (Click here and here to read more about this).

 

December 10th – Australia’s world-first social media ban for children under the age of 16 came into effect (Click here to read more about this).

 

December 14th –  Ahmed al-Ahmed is the best of us.

 

In the world of Parkinson s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In December 2025, there were 1,631 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word Parkinson s attached (13,889 for all of 2025). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 6 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – December 2025” →

Monthly Research Review – November 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during November 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during November 2025?

In world news:

November 6th – Tesla shareholders approved a $1 trillion pay package for the company’s CEO Elon Musk (Click here to read more about this idiocy).

November 10th – In a Phase 1, first-in-human trial, a CRISPR gene therapy targeting ANGPTL3 is found to be safe and able to reduce LDL cholesterol by nearly 50%, while triglycerides are reduced by 55% (Click here to read more about this).

November 13th – On this day next year, Voyager 1 will pass the small milestone of reaching one light day – the distance it takes light to travel in 24 hours – from Earth. After five decades of travel, the spacecraft is approximately 170 AU from the Earth, and it takes almost 24 hours for signals from Earth to reach it (Click here to read more about this).

November 18th – Scientists at CERN’s ALPHA experiment report an eightfold increase in the rate of production of antimatter, achieved by using laser-cooled beryllium ions to sympathetically cool positrons to −266 °C. This technique allows over 15,000 antihydrogen atoms to be created in under seven hours (Click here to read more about this).

November 22nd – When the Scottish midfielder Kenny McLean scored from the halfway line to seal a breathtaking 4-2 win against Denmark – sealing their place in the 2026 Football World Cup (the first time since 1998) – the reaction at Hampden Park according to the British Geological Survey was equivalent to a very small earthquake:

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In November 2025, there were 1,189 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (12,258 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – November 2025” →

Monthly Research Review-October 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

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At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during October 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during October 2025?

In world news:

October 1st – Scientists report the detection of organic molecules on Enceladus, based on plume samples taken by the Cosmic Dust Analyzer on the Cassini spacecraft (Click here to read more about this).

 

October 10th – Crypto enthusiasts were left puzzled as to how just 30 minutes before President Trump’s surprise announcement of 100% China tariffs, an individual (@​bigwinner01) opened a massive, multi-million dollar leveraged short position on Bitcoin, and made $88 million in just two hours… and then closed the position (Click here to read more about this).

 

October 20th – Japan finally joined the list of countries to have female leaders – Sanae Takaichi made history as Japan’s first female prime minister. There are 73 women in Japan’s Lower House, representing just 15.7% of the 465-seat chamber (Click here to read more about this).

 

October 27th – “At the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations (DTO) trafficking narcotics in the Eastern Pacific” (Click here to read more about this).

 

October 28th – OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015 with a mission to safely build “artificial general intelligence” for humanity’s benefit. Now, it’s not so ‘open’. OpenAI has now “converted its main business into a for-profit corporation, the conclusion of a lengthy and fraught legal saga” (Click here to read more about this – Sam Altman scares me…)

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In October 2025, there were 1,257 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (11,069 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review-October 2025” →

Monthly Research Review – September 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during September 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during September 2025?

In world news:

September 5th – Chemists at the University of Copenhagen made a new material called BAETA from old plastic bottles. It can catch CO2 from the air. Making BAETA does not need much energy and it can be made a scale (Click here and here to read more about this).

 

September 8th – Elusive street artist Banksy unveiled a mural on London’s Royal Courts of Justice, depicting a judge attacking a pro-Palestine protester with a gavel. The artwork was quickly covered up by large sheets of plastic and metal barriers, and court officials said the work would be removed (Click here to read more about this).

 

September 9th – Protesters set fire to Nepal’s parliament building in Kathmandu as “Generation Z” protests against Government corruption and social media bans escalated (Click here to read more about this).

 

September 9th – University of Florida researchers develop a chip that replaces electricity with light for key AI tasks. Using microscopic lenses etched onto silicon, it performs laser-powered computations with drastically lower energy and near-perfect accuracy (Click here and here to read more about this).

 

September 17th – NASA announces the 6,000th confirmed exoplanet (Click here to read more about this).

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In September 2025, there were 1,101 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (9,812 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – September 2025” →

Monthly Research Review – August 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during August 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during August 2025?

In world news:

August 1st – Following the publication of low US employment figures (and revised down May and June numbers), President Trump fired the commissioner of labor statistics, Erika McEntarfer (Click here to read more about this).

 

August 4th – The Tesla board approved an “interim award” of 96 million restricted shares (worth a staggering new $29 billion) for their billionaire CEO Elon Musk (Click here to read more about this) …. while Tesla sales around the world fell, for example down 84% in Sweden and down 42% in Denmark in August (Click here to read more about this).

 

August 8th –  Researchers at the University of Adelaide report a way of using sunlight to dissolve Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (also PFAS), causing these so-called “forever chemicals” to break down into a range of harmless substances including fluoride (Click here to read more about this).

 

August 15th – The USA rolled out the red carpet for Russian President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Alaska to discuss a peace plan. And after weeks of threating “severe consequences” if no peace deal was made at the summit, President Trump claimed ‘great progress’ had been made, before suggesting that it was now up to Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “get it done” (Click here to read more about this).

 

August 28th – Possibly the best action photo in the modern age of tennis (Click here to read more about this):

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In August 2025, there were 1,002 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (8,711 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – August 2025” →

Monthly Research Review-July 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during July 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during July 2025?

In world news:

July 4–7th – Flooding in Central Texas left devastation (Click here to read more).

 

8th July – De-extinction company Colossal Biosciences announces a plan to resurrect the moa, a giant flightless bird from New Zealand that once stood up to 3.6 metres (12 ft) in height (Click here to read more about this).

 

18 July – The British Antarctic Survey reports the extraction of 1.5 million-year-old ice cores from depths of 2,800 metres in East Antarctica. The samples, containing bubbles of trapped CO2, could significantly improve the understanding of Earth’s climate history by nearly doubling the current ice core record of 800,000 years (Click here to read more about this).

 

18th July – A new bill introduced in July gave Danes copyright of their own faces, making it illegal to share deepfake images, videos and audio recordings based on a real person (Click here to read more about this).

 

24th July – Scientists develop an AI platform that designs custom protein minibinders in weeks, enabling T cells to selectively target and destroy cancer cells in lab experiments (Click here to read more about this).

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In July 2025, there were 897 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (7,709 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 6 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review-July 2025” →

Monthly Research Review – June 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during June 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during June 2025?

In world news:

June 1st – Ukraine launched Operation Spiderweb – a large drone attack on Russian military bases. More than 40 aircraft of the Russian Air Force were destroyed (Click here to read more about this).

 

June 11th – The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter provided the first ever view of the Sun’s south pole (Click here to read more about this).

 

June 14th – In Opatija (Croatia), Vitomir Maričić performed an oxygen-assisted breath hold  clocking in at 29 min and 3 seconds – shattering the previous record by nearly a full five minutes (Click here to read more about this).

 

June 17th – A drone show in Chongqing, China featured 11,787 drones, setting a new Guinness World Record for the “largest aerial image formed by drones”. The show celebrated the city’s 28th anniversary as a municipality.

 

June 23rd – The first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory were released… and they did not disappoint!

 

June 26th – Researchers enable near-infrared spatiotemporal color vision in humans with contact lenses (Click here to read more about this).

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In June 2025, there were 1,028 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (6,812 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – June 2025” →

Monthly Research Review – May 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during May 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during May 2025?

In world news:

May 2nd – 27 years after leaving England, Karl Bushby crossed the Bosphorus Strait and entered Europe on his attempt to be the first person to completely walk an unbroken path around the world. He began his 36,000-mile (58,000 km) journey on 1 November 1998.

 

May 8th – Researchers at CERN announced that the ALICE experiment had detected the conversion of lead into gold (Click here to read more about this)

 

May 21st – A major clinical trial, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, reveals that vitamin D supplements may be able to reduce biological aging, preserving telomeres and potentially adding three years to life/healthspan (Click here to read more about this).

 

May 22nd – A report from Murdoch University in Australia found that agricultural soils holds approximately 23 times more microplastics than the oceans (Click here to read more about this).

 

May 28th – The “Taco” trade – an acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out” – became a popular trading strategy for Wall street investors to make money off the chaotic, but predictable outcomes of tariff and political decisions being employed by the Trump administration (Click here to read more about this).

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In May 2025, there were 981 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (5,784 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 6 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – May 2025” →

Monthly Research Review – April 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during April 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during April 2025?

In world news:

April 1st – Fram2, launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, becomes the first crewed spaceflight to enter a polar retrograde orbit, i.e., to fly over Earth’s poles.

 

April 2nd – “Liberation Day” (???): US President Donald Trump sought trade negotiation leverage by issuing sweeping trade tariffs on many countries – including Australia (with which the US has a trade surplus AND a free trade agreement (???) (Click here to read more about this). …and just 7 days later, President Trump blinked when the bond market started shifting in the wrong direction.

 

April 17th – Scientists reported that the atmosphere of K2-18b, a candidate water world located 124 light-years from Earth, may contain large quantities of dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide – two compounds that, on Earth, are only known to be produced by life (click here to read more about this).

 

April 21st – Pope Francis, who served as head of the Catholic Church since 2013, passed away at the age of 88.

 

April 28th – Incredible comeback: The Canadian Liberal Party (led by Mark Carney) won re-election for a fourth time, forming a minority government after being 20 percentage points behind in January, fueled in part by a backlash against U.S. President Trump’s tariffs and comments about making Canada the 51st U.S. state (again: ???) (Source).

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In April 2025, there were 1,184 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (4,803 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – April 2025” →

Monthly Research Review – March 2025

~ Simon ~ Leave a comment

# # # #

At the end of each month the SoPD writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available during March 2025.

The post is divided into 10 parts based on the type of research:

# # # #

So, what happened during March 2025?

In world news:

March 1st – 50% of food consumed in Gaza is produced in the region. Analysing PlanetScope and SkySat-sourced satellite imagery, a newly published paper reported that between October 2023 and September 2024, 64–70% of tree crop fields and 58% of greenhouses were damaged on agricultural land in Gaza. “By the end of 2023, all greenhouses in North Gaza and Gaza City had been damaged” (Click here to read the report and click here to a press summary).

 

March 4th – Colossal Biosciences creates woolly mice as part of de-extinction efforts for the woolly mammoth (Click here to read more about this).

 

March 6th – Two days after pausing military aid to Ukraine, the US Government temporarily suspended Ukrainian accounts in GEGD (the Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery program) limiting intelligence sharing with Kyiv (Click here to read more about this).

 

March 11th – The United States agreed to resume military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine after Kyiv said it was ready to support Washington’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia (Click here to read more about this) .

 

March 14th – The Portuguese Defence Minister Nuno Melo announced that the country had decided against acquiring the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter, citing concerns over the unpredictability of U.S. policy and the current geopolitical situation (Click here to read more about this). One day later, Canada also expressed interest in exploring alternatives (Remember kids: Marriages, markets and military alliances are built on trust. And never give your counter parties any reason for doubt).

 

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported:

In March 2025, there were 1,095 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (3,619 for all of 2025 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 6 pieces of Parkinson’s news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – March 2025” →