La atrofia muscular espinal tipo II, conocida como AME II, es una enfermedad genética que ataca a los niños desde muy pequeños. El gen SMN1 deja de funcionar bien y las neuronas que controlan los músculos mueren poco a poco.

El resultado es una debilidad que avanza sin pausa: las piernas pierden fuerza, levantarse de una silla se vuelve imposible y muchos terminan dependiendo de una silla de ruedas. Los medicamentos actuales solo frenan el avance, pero no devuelven lo perdido.

Frente a esa situación, investigadores de la Universidad de Beihang y el Tercer Hospital de la Universidad de Pekín, en China, y del Laboratorio de Medios del Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts (MIT), en Cambridge, Estados Unidos probaron un camino distinto.

Diseñaron un robot portátil de entrenamiento isocinético para niños y niñas con AME II. El entrenamiento es un tipo de ejercicio en el que la máquina ajusta la resistencia para mantener el movimiento siempre a la misma velocidad. Los resultados se publicaron en la revista Nature.

La AME II no impide sentarse, pero sí caminar o levantarse solo. El problema está en la falta de la proteína que produce el gen SMN1, lo que provoca que las neuronas motoras se deterioren y los músculos pierdan masa y potencia.

Con el tiempo, el cuerpo hace cada vez menos. “Actualmente, los medicamentos solo ralentizan la progresión de la enfermedad, y ninguna terapia puede curar completamente la atrofia muscular espinal”, afirmaron los investigadores.

Los equipos de rehabilitación pueden ser costosos y difíciles de usar fuera de las clínicas especializadas. Eso deja a muchas familias sin opciones reales de tratamiento.

Frente a esa falta de opciones, los investigadores diseñaron un robot que pesa menos de un kilo y se fija sobre la pierna para hacer extensiones de rodilla con resistencia ajustada a cada participante. Es portátil, fácil de usar en casa y no requiere personal médico presente.

Seis niños y niñas de entre 6 y 10 años participaron en el programa, dividido en cuatro etapas. La primera fue una fase sin intervención de seis semanas para medir el estado de base de cada uno.

Ninguno mejoró durante ese período con su fisioterapia habitual, lo que confirmó que el tratamiento convencional no alcanzaba. Luego llegó la etapa central: seis semanas de entrenamiento intensivo con treinta sesiones en casa, siempre con supervisión familiar.

Una aplicación móvil convertía cada sesión en un juego donde el niño o niña pateaba una pelota virtual cuya distancia dependía de la fuerza aplicada. El robot medía en tiempo real la fuerza, el ángulo y la velocidad, y ajustaba la dificultad según el avance de cada participante.

Tras esa etapa, el programa continuó con seis semanas de ejercicios de menor intensidad y, finalmente, más de treinta días sin el robot para ver si los logros se sostenían.

Para medir el efecto real, los investigadores usaron resonancia magnética y ultrasonido para analizar el cuádriceps, el músculo del frente del muslo que es clave para ponerse de pie.

Los resultados mostraron un aumento del 130% en la fuerza máxima y una mejora del 51% en el rango de movimiento, es decir, cuánto puede moverse la articulación.

El volumen del cuádriceps creció un 19% y su sección transversal un 12%, cambios verificados con imágenes de resonancia magnética.

Lo más alentador fue que los avances no desaparecieron al dejar el robot. Los participantes mantuvieron las mejoras al volver a su fisioterapia habitual, lo que sugiere que el entrenamiento isocinético dejó una huella real en los músculos y en el sistema nervioso.

Los investigadores reconocieron que la muestra fue pequeña, algo habitual en enfermedades poco frecuentes. Recomendaron estudios más amplios y aleatorizados, y sugirieron probar la tecnología en otras enfermedades neuromusculares para explorar su alcance.

The state of North Carolina now must remove noncitizens excused from jury duty from voter rolls, Fox News Digital has learned Thursday.

The Republican National Committee and North Carolina Republican Party say they secured a consent judgment requiring the North Carolina State Board of Elections to use jury-duty records to identify registered voters who have acknowledged they are not U.S. citizens.

Those noncitizens will have to be removed from voter rolls, a significant legal victory in forcing a state to purge its voter rolls amid strong Democrat opposition.

«This agreement is a major win for election integrity in North Carolina,» RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told Fox News Digital in a statement. «It’s straightforward: if someone admits they’re not a U.S. citizen during jury duty, that information should be used to check the voter rolls and remove anyone who doesn’t belong.»

OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE REVERSES COURSE, RULES VOTER ID LAW ISN’T DISCRIMINATORY IN GOP WIN

The agreement was accepted by Superior Court Judge Jennifer Bedford after an 19-minute online hearing Wednesday.

«This type of information, I think the General Assembly has made somewhat clear, should not fall on deaf ears,» Bedford said, The Carolina Journal reported, adding that information submitted to the court system should also be recognized by other agencies.

The agreement sets a schedule through 2028 for clerks to send the information to the elections board. Within 30 days of receiving it, the board must review voter-registration and citizenship status, send county elections boards reports on any registered voters identified, and refer cases to the State Bureau of Investigation and district attorneys if a person appears to have voted before becoming a U.S. citizen.

DEMOCRATS CELEBRATE AS 73,000 NORTH CAROLINA VOTERS WITHOUT PROPER ID STAY ON ROLLS

Two groups represented by the Elias Law Group, North Carolina Asian Americans Together and El Pueblo, objected to part of the deal requiring the list of people who claimed noncitizenship for jury-duty purposes to be posted on the state elections board’s FTP website.

Their attorney argued that publishing the information online could raise privacy concerns and have a chilling effect, even if the records are public under state law.

The agreement stems from a lawsuit the GOP groups filed in 2024, accusing the state board of failing to comply with a North Carolina law requiring clerks of court to report people who seek to be excused from jury service by saying they are not citizens.

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Under state law, noncitizens are barred from voting in state elections and from serving on juries, but that has not stopped then-Gov. Roy Cooper from vetoing a bill in 2019 that would remove illegal immigrants from voter rolls.

The consent judgment, if approved by the court, would require the state’s elections board to review information received from county clerks, determine whether those individuals appear on the voter rolls and begin removal procedures for anyone found to be ineligible.

The RNC said it filed a public-records request in 2024 seeking to determine whether the board was complying with the law but did not receive a response.

‘ESSENTIAL TO OUR NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY’: NONCITIZEN VOTER CRACKDOWN LED BY GOP AHEAD OF 2026 MIDTERMS

The RNC and the state GOP later sued, and the board agreed to use the jury-duty information as part of voter-roll maintenance, according to the RNC.

A majority of North Carolina — 83% of Republicans, 59% of Independents and 52% of Democrats – support states removing noncitizens from voter registration rolls, according to Heritage Action polling.

The case is part of a broader Republican legal push focused on voter eligibility and citizenship requirements.

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The RNC is involved in litigation defending President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship, and has also asked the Supreme Court to take up a case involving Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship law.

Former Cuban President Raúl Castro was indicted Wednesday in connection with the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft that killed four people — reviving scrutiny of former President Barack Obama’s highly publicized 2016 trip to Havana. 

«President Obama’s approach to Cuba was not merely a policy mistake. It was a diplomatic disaster — naive at best, incompetent at worst, and deeply disrespectful to the dissidents, political prisoners and victims who suffered under the Castro regime,» former Miami mayor Francis Suarez, who is Cuban-American,  told Fox News Digital.

«Obama treated normalization as enlightened diplomacy. It handed legitimacy to a brutal dictatorship while asking little in return,» said the Fox News contributor. «The administration reopened relations, relaxed restrictions and gave Havana a public-relations victory, yet the Cuban people remained trapped under the same repressive system and the United States gained no meaningful security concessions.»

The Justice Department on Wednesday unsealed a superseding indictment charging Castro and five co-defendants over the deaths of four U.S. nationals aboard two unarmed civilian aircraft operated by the Miami-based exile group. Cuban-American critics said the charges underscore longstanding objections to Obama’s normalization push, which they argue gave legitimacy to the Castro regime.

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Obama traveled to Cuba in 2016 as part of his administration’s push to normalize U.S.-Cuba relations after decades of hostility, arguing that engagement on diplomacy, the economy and human rights would be more effective than isolation. The visit also included Obama and Castro attending a baseball game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team in Havana. 

«I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas,» Obama said from Havana that year. «I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.»

Photos of Obama and Castro embracing during the 2016 Havana trip quickly resurfaced online after the indictment, going viral across social media and triggering a wave of criticism from users who blasted the optics of the former president’s relationship with the communist leader.

«While Raoul was harboring American terrorists like Joanne Chesimard and Guillermo Morales. Disgusting,» wrote Fox News contributor Paul Mauro on X. 

«Barack Obama in his element with communists and criminals,» wrote General Mike Flynn on X.

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Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz reposted a photo with a cringe emoji.

Castro, 94, is the younger brother of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Raul Castro served as Cuba’s president from 2008 to 2018.

Suarez said that Obama’s Cuba policies were not just a human rights failure but a national security failure not understanding the serious threat the regime posed.

DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS CRITICIZE BIDEN ADMIN’S CUBA DETENTE’

Photos of Obama and Raul Castro at a baseball game in Havana resurface after the DOJ unsealed the Castro indictment. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

«It did nothing to curtail Cuba’s role as a base for America’s enemies. It did nothing to confront the island’s use as an intelligence and spy platform so close to our shores. It did nothing to reduce the regime’s support for terrorism. It did nothing to confront Cuba’s narco-state behavior or its destabilizing influence throughout the hemisphere,» said Suarez.

RUBIO BLASTS COMMUNIST CUBAN REGIME AS NJ TROOPER’S KILLER REMAINS FREE

President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro stand together during Obama’s visit to Cuba. (Getty Images)

Obama’s trip came two decades after the 1996 incident, which became a major flashpoint in U.S.-Cuba relations, as the Trump administration adopted a more public and hardline approach toward Cuba.

TRUMP DECLARES NATIONAL EMERGENCY OVER CUBA, THREATENS TARIFFS ON NATIONS THAT SUPPLY OIL TO COMMUNIST REGIME

«Raúl Castro and five co-defendants participated in a conspiracy that ended with Cuban military aircraft firing missiles at those planes and killing four Americans,» said acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday during the indictment announcement. «Nations and their leaders cannot be permitted to target Americans. Kill them, and not face accountability.»

Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro attend a parade in Havana, Cuba, on Dec. 2, 1996. (Sven Creutzmann/Mambo Photography/Getty Images)

Following the indictment, Trump said Cuba is «very important.» 

«A lot of people have suffered very big, very, very at levels that few people would understand. And I think the Cuban population of Miami, and certainly beyond Miami,» said Trump. «People that came there that were decimated, whose families were ruined, appreciate what the Attorney General just did today, and he’s just doing it now. He’s just watching it. We have Cuba on our mind. Very important.»

Suarez said that for Cuban Americans, Obama cozying up with Castro was disrespectful. 

«It is about families torn apart, property confiscated, voices silenced, dissidents beaten, prisoners of conscience abandoned and generations forced to live under fear. To treat the Castro government as a normal partner without first honoring those victims was not diplomacy,» he said.

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Trump has previously joked the U.S. would be «taking over» Cuba «almost immediately.» 

«Cuba’s got problems. We’ll finish one first. I like to finish a job,» he added this month.

Fox News Digital reached out to Obama’s office and the White House for additional comment on the renewed criticisms of the trip.