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Crypto lending platform Abra has settled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after being charged with selling unregistered securities and operating as an unregistered investment company. Abra Earn, the program in question, allowed retail investors to deposit their crypto assets in return for interest. The SEC alleges that Abra exercised discretion in investing consumer funds and operated as an unregistered investment company. Abra will pay civil penalties, the amount of which is yet to be determined by the court. The startup has since wound down the Abra Earn program and transferred assets to customers' trade accounts. [Extracted from the article]

Five investors, and likely multiple partners, are leaving Cohen's fund as it shifts focus from fintech, the category where it had made more than half its 100-plus investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the banking industry is still feeling reverberations from a string of bank failures last spring, 315 banks appear on Forbes' Global 2000 list, up from 302 last year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes of the native immune system that play a pivotal role in host defense and immune surveillance. While the conceptual view of NK-neoplasms is evolving, little is known about the rare NK lymphoblastic leukemia (NK-LL), which remains as a provisional entity in the 2016 WHO Classification. The goal of this study is to characterize NK-LL cases and compare with other CD56 co-expressing acute leukemias. We identified 105 cases, diagnosed as NK-LL (6), CD56+ acute undifferentiated leukemia (AUL) (6), CD56+ T-lymphoblastic leukemia (T-LL) (51), and CD56+ acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (42). Compared to AUL patients, NK-LL patients were significantly younger (p= 0.021) and presented with higher white blood cell (WBC) (p= 0.037) and platelet counts (p= 0.041). Flow cytometry showed more frequent expression of cytoplasmic CD3 (cCD3, p= 0.064) and CD33, (p= 0.065), while HLA-DR was significantly absent from NK-LL (p= 0.035) compared to AUL. Compared to T-ALL, NK-LL cases showed less frequent cCD3 (p= 0.002), CD4 (p= 0.051), and CD10 expression (p= 0.06). The frequency of abnormal karyotypes was similar between NK-LL, AUL, and T-ALL. The mutational profile differed in four leukemia groups, with a significance enrichment of NOTCH1(p= 0.002), ETV6(p= 0.002) and JAK3(p= 0.02) mutations in NK-LL as compared to AML. As compared to T-ALL, NK-LL cases showed a higher number of total mutations (p= 0.04) and significantly more frequent ETV6mutations (p= 0.004). Clinical outcome data showed differences in overall survival between all four groups (p= 0.0175), but no difference in event free survival (p= 0.246). In this largest study to date, we find that that NK-LL shows clinical presentation, immunophenotypic and molecular characteristics distinct from AUL, T-ALL, and AML. Our findings suggest NK-LL is a distinct acute leukemia entity and should be considered in the clinical diagnosis of acute leukemias of ambiguous lineage.

Last week, lawyers for the banking-as-a-service startup told a judge that the company, which had been serving 100 fintechs with 10 million customers, was working around the clock to wind down and solve account access problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal bank regulators are not coming to rescue the thousands of fintech customers who have lost access to their money. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tens of thousands of customers have already lost access to more than $114 million of their own funds, as banking-as-a-service business comes under scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote workers and retirees alike have flocked to scenic Spokane, driving up home prices. But the city is working through its growing pains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fintech revolution threatens hundreds of regional banks. Legacy bank technology provider FIS aims to bring them into the digital age with a new banking-as-a-service software platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TabaPay said the purchase follows a bankruptcy filing by Synapse, a banking-as-a-service fintech backed by Andreessen Horowitz and other VCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Founders Srinivas Njay and Bruce Kim bootstrapped interface.ai with $1 million of their own capital. Now the VCs are calling—but they're waiting for the right partner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The bank-owned network did nearly three times the dollar volume of Venmo in 2023, but fraud concerns are growing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cancer cells characteristically consume glucose through Warburg metabolism1, a process that forms the basis of tumour imaging by positron emission tomography (PET). Tumour-infiltrating immune cells also rely on glucose, and impaired immune cell metabolism in the tumour microenvironment (TME) contributes to immune evasion by tumour cells2–4. However, whether the metabolism of immune cells is dysregulated in the TME by cell-intrinsic programs or by competition with cancer cells for limited nutrients remains unclear. Here we used PET tracers to measure the access to and uptake of glucose and glutamine by specific cell subsets in the TME. Notably, myeloid cells had the greatest capacity to take up intratumoral glucose, followed by T cells and cancer cells, across a range of cancer models. By contrast, cancer cells showed the highest uptake of glutamine. This distinct nutrient partitioning was programmed in a cell-intrinsic manner through mTORC1 signalling and the expression of genes related to the metabolism of glucose and glutamine. Inhibiting glutamine uptake enhanced glucose uptake across tumour-resident cell types, showing that glutamine metabolism suppresses glucose uptake without glucose being a limiting factor in the TME. Thus, cell-intrinsic programs drive the preferential acquisition of glucose and glutamine by immune and cancer cells, respectively. Cell-selective partitioning of these nutrients could be exploited to develop therapies and imaging strategies to enhance or monitor the metabolic programs and activities of specific cell populations in the TME.

We analyze and compare atmospheric temperature data from three landed missions: Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover, Phoenix lander, and Pathfinder lander. Pathfinder and Phoenix were lander missions that operated for 84 and 151 sols, respectively. MSL Curiosity is a rover that operates on the surface of Mars. It has recorded air temperature for more than five Mars Years (MY). We denoise and detrend temperature data from each mission and use those results to calculate variance in air temperature as a diagnostic for atmospheric variability at the surface. The results show a consistent seasonal pattern in MSL air temperature variance with little interannual variability outside major dust storms. The global dust storm in MY 34 was accompanied by a decrease in temperature variance and a muted response in peak MY 35 variance the following year. Phoenix (68°N, 2 m measurement height) and Pathfinder (19.7°N, 1.1 m measurement height) air temperatures have larger variance than air temperature from environmental data records at the MSL location (5.4°S, 1.6 m measurement height) at its equatorial latitude. Pathfinder variances per sol are larger than those of Phoenix, possibly due to a combination of Pathfinder's lower albedo surface and lower latitude. This occurs despite the Pathfinder location's higher thermal inertia, which would act to decrease noontime variance relative to a lower thermal inertia surface. Comparison of MSL temperature variance to pressure drops related to convective vortex activity shows consistent seasonal patterns; however, pressure drops tend to increase with increasing rover elevation, while variance remains consistent. Landed surface missions have collected a long record of meteorological data dating back to the 1970s. Atmospheric temperature, pressure, relative humidity, and winds have been typically measured with each new mission. The atmospheric surface layer consists of the lowest layer of the atmosphere that is directly influenced by the surface. Temperature is a highly consistent measurement and contains signatures of atmospheric surface layer activity in the form of temperature fluctuations. These fluctuations are on the order of seconds to minutes and can be caused by rising thermals, dust devils and convective vortices, changes in wind, and large‐scale dynamics. This work compares temperature fluctuations by detrending air temperature data over three missions: the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Mission, Phoenix mission, and Pathfinder mission. The results show that these fluctuations change with season and time of day. Greater fluctuations are observed in the afternoon for all three missions and when seasonal insolation is highest. Comparison of MSL temperature fluctuations to pressure drops shows similar trends and decreases during large dust events. However, pressure drops tend to increase over the mission with increasing rover elevation, while temperature variance remains the same with elevation. Diurnal air temperature fluctuations measured by Phoenix, Pathfinder and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) follow solar forcing cyclesThe MSL daytime temperature variance is lower than Phoenix and Pathfinder daytime temperature variancesChanges in the MSL temperature fluctuations correlate with the seasonal and diurnal timing of pressure drops and dust storm activity Diurnal air temperature fluctuations measured by Phoenix, Pathfinder and Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) follow solar forcing cycles The MSL daytime temperature variance is lower than Phoenix and Pathfinder daytime temperature variances Changes in the MSL temperature fluctuations correlate with the seasonal and diurnal timing of pressure drops and dust storm activity

Hematologic malignancies are one of the more common neoplasms to occur in the sinonasal tract and include a wide range of entities, including mature and immature B cell and T cell neoplasms as well as plasma cell dyscrasias and histiocytic disorders. CD45 expression can be helpful in identifying many, but not all, hematopoietic neoplasms in the sinonasal tract, and more extensive immunophenotyping, including EBV in situ hybridization, as well as correlation with genetic results and clinical features may be required for diagnosis.

With banking-as-a-service startup Synapse struggling, former client Mercury has gone to court to protect its interests in the event of Synapse's collapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]