Skip to main content

Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

3 comments

Why Chikungunya Virus Can Cause Years of Pain

 For most people, chikungunya is a painful but temporary illness. After a mosquito bite, symptoms such as high fever, rash, fatigue, and severe joint pain usually disappear within a few weeks. However, for millions of people around the world, the story does not end there. Long after the fever is gone, intense joint pain and swelling can continue for months or even years, making everyday activities difficult and affecting quality of life.

Now, scientists may have uncovered an important clue that explains why some chikungunya infections become chronic. A new study from researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus suggests that the virus can hide inside specialized immune cells in joint tissues, allowing it to persist in the body and continue driving inflammation.

The discovery could open the door to future treatments for a condition that currently has no specific cure.

A Growing Global Health Concern

Chikungunya virus is spread by infected Aedes mosquitoes, the same mosquitoes that transmit dengue and Zika viruses. The disease has re-emerged in many parts of the world in recent years, causing significant outbreaks.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 445,000 chikungunya cases and 155 deaths were reported from 40 countries during the first nine months of 2025 alone.

While the infection is rarely fatal, its long-term effects can be devastating. Researchers estimate that nearly half of infected individuals may develop chronic symptoms, particularly recurring joint pain and arthritis-like inflammation that can persist for years.

For people who rely on physical labor to earn a living, especially in resource-limited regions, chronic pain can have serious economic and social consequences.

The Mystery of Chronic Chikungunya

For years, scientists have struggled to understand why some people recover completely while others continue suffering long after the initial infection.

One popular theory suggested that the virus triggered an autoimmune reaction. In this scenario, the immune system would mistakenly attack healthy joint tissues even after the virus had disappeared, creating symptoms similar to rheumatoid arthritis.

Although some studies appeared to support this idea, evidence remained inconclusive.

Another possibility was that the virus never truly left the body. Instead, it might remain hidden in certain tissues where the immune system could not completely eliminate it. Researchers suspected this might be happening, but they lacked clear proof.

The new study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that persistent viral infection plays a major role in chronic disease.

Looking Deep Inside Infected Tissues

The research team, led by immunologist Thomas “Tem” Morrison and colleagues, used several advanced technologies to investigate what happens inside joint tissues after infection.

These included:

  • Single-cell RNA sequencing

  • Spatial transcriptomics

  • Flow cytometry

Together, these techniques allowed scientists to examine individual cells, identify their functions, and determine whether they contained viral genetic material.

Instead of looking at tissues as a whole, researchers could pinpoint exactly which cells were harboring the virus.

This level of detail had never been achieved before in studies of chronic chikungunya infection.

The Surprising Role of Macrophages

The team's most important discovery involved macrophages.

Macrophages are specialized white blood cells that serve as part of the body's immune defense system. Their job is to detect, engulf, and destroy harmful invaders such as viruses, bacteria, and damaged cells.

Ironically, the researchers found that these protective cells may also provide a safe hiding place for chikungunya virus.

The study revealed that viral RNA persisted inside macrophages located in tissues surrounding the joints. Rather than being completely eliminated, the virus appeared to remain sheltered within these cells for long periods.

Scientists describe this phenomenon as a viral "sanctuary."

In other words, while the immune system successfully clears the virus from many parts of the body, it struggles to remove it from certain joint-associated tissues where macrophages reside.

This hidden reservoir may continuously stimulate inflammation, leading to chronic pain and swelling.

Why the Immune System Cannot Fully Eliminate the Virus

Persistent infections are not unique to chikungunya. Several viruses are known to survive in specific tissues even after the body's immune response has controlled the main infection.

Viruses often exploit locations where immune surveillance is less effective or where immune responses are naturally limited to avoid damaging important tissues.

The new findings suggest that chikungunya may use a similar strategy.

After entering the body, the virus spreads widely through various organs and tissues. Although the immune system mounts a strong response and reduces viral levels dramatically, small amounts of viral material can remain hidden in macrophages within joint tissues.

As a result, inflammation may continue long after the acute illness appears to be over.

This could explain why some patients experience recurring symptoms for years.

Testing a Potential Solution

The researchers wanted to determine whether persistent viral infection was truly responsible for chronic disease or simply an unrelated observation.

To answer this question, they used a small-molecule antiviral drug capable of blocking viral replication.

The results were encouraging.

When the antiviral treatment reduced persistent viral RNA in joint tissues, inflammation also decreased. This strongly suggested that the lingering virus itself was contributing directly to chronic symptoms.

If inflammation had continued despite elimination of viral RNA, it would have supported the autoimmune theory. Instead, the findings point toward persistent infection as a key driver of long-term disease.

This is an important distinction because it changes how scientists think about treatment.

A New Direction for Future Therapies

Currently, there is no approved treatment specifically designed to eliminate chronic chikungunya infection.

Most patients receive medications aimed at controlling pain and inflammation rather than addressing the underlying cause.

The new research suggests that antiviral therapies could potentially do more than relieve symptoms. They might prevent chronic disease from developing in the first place or help resolve long-standing illness by targeting the remaining virus.

Researchers are now investigating how chikungunya manages to survive inside macrophages and what makes these immune cells such effective reservoirs.

Understanding these mechanisms could lead to the development of drugs that specifically target viral sanctuaries and eliminate hidden infections.

Hope for Millions of Patients

The discovery represents a major step forward in understanding one of the most puzzling aspects of chikungunya disease.

For years, scientists knew that chronic joint pain was a common consequence of infection, but they lacked a clear explanation. The identification of virus-containing macrophages in joint tissues provides a compelling answer and offers a promising new target for treatment.

While more research is needed before antiviral therapies become available, the findings bring hope to millions of people living with chronic chikungunya-related pain.

The study suggests that the virus may not simply trigger long-term damage and disappear. Instead, it may continue hiding within the body, quietly fueling inflammation and pain. By uncovering this hidden sanctuary, scientists have taken an important step toward developing treatments that could finally help patients move beyond years of suffering and regain their quality of life.

Reference: Zarrella, K.M., Sheridan, R.M., Ware, B.C. et al. Chikungunya virus persists in joint-associated macrophages and promotes chronic disease in mice. Nat Microbiol 11, 1302–1317 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-026-02303-9

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular

Scientists Discover Way to Send Information into Black Holes Without Using Energy

For years, scientists believed that adding even one qubit (a unit of quantum information) to a black hole needed energy. This was based on the idea that a black hole’s entropy must increase with more information, which means it must gain energy. But a new study by Jonah Kudler-Flam and Geoff Penington changes that thinking. They found that quantum information can be teleported into a black hole without adding energy or increasing entropy . This works through a process called black hole decoherence , where “soft” radiation — very low-energy signals — carry information into the black hole. In their method, the qubit enters the black hole while a new pair of entangled particles (like Hawking radiation) is created. This keeps the total information balanced, so there's no violation of the laws of physics. The energy cost only shows up when information is erased from the outside — these are called zerobits . According to Landauer’s principle, erasing information always needs energy. But ...
3 comments
Read more

Black Holes That Never Dies

Black holes are powerful objects in space with gravity so strong that nothing can escape them. In the 1970s, Stephen Hawking showed that black holes can slowly lose energy by giving off tiny particles. This process is called Hawking radiation . Over time, the black hole gets smaller and hotter, and in the end, it disappears completely. But new research by Menezes and his team shows something different. Using a theory called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) , they studied black holes with quantum corrections. In their model, the black hole does not vanish completely. Instead, it stops shrinking when it reaches a very small size. This leftover is called a black hole remnant . They also studied something called grey-body factors , which affect how much energy escapes from a black hole. Their findings show that the black hole cools down and stops losing mass once it reaches a minimum mass . This new model removes the idea of a “singularity” at the center of the black hole and gives us a better ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How Planetary Movements Might Explain Sunspot Cycles and Solar Phenomena

Sunspots, dark patches on the Sun's surface, follow a cycle of increasing and decreasing activity every 11 years. For years, scientists have relied on the dynamo model to explain this cycle. According to this model, the Sun's magnetic field is generated by the movement of plasma and the Sun's rotation. However, this model does not fully explain why the sunspot cycle is sometimes unpredictable. Lauri Jetsu, a researcher, has proposed a new approach. Jetsu’s analysis, using a method called the Discrete Chi-square Method (DCM), suggests that planetary movements, especially those of Earth, Jupiter, and Mercury, play a key role in driving the sunspot cycle. His theory focuses on Flux Transfer Events (FTEs), where the magnetic fields of these planets interact with the Sun’s magnetic field. These interactions could create the sunspots and explain other solar phenomena like the Sun’s magnetic polarity reversing every 11 years. The Sun, our closest star, has been a subject of scient...
Post a Comment
Read more