Venous thromboembolism (VTE), a common condition in Western countries, is a cardiovascular disorder that arises due to haemostatic irregularities, which lead to thrombus generation inside veins. Even with successful treatment, the resulting disease spectrum of complications considerably affects the patient’s quality of life, potentially leading to death. Cumulative data indicate that long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) may have a role in VTE pathogenesis. However, the clinical usefulness of these RNAs as biomarkers and potential therapeutic targets for VTE management is yet unclear. Thus, this article reviewed the emerging evidence on lncRNAs associated with VTE and with the activity of the coagulation system, which has a central role in disease pathogenesis. Until now, ten lncRNAs have been implicated in VTE pathogenesis, among which MALAT1 is the one with more evidence. Meanwhile, five lncRNAs have been reported to affect the expression of TFPI2, an important anticoagulant protein, but none with a described role in VTE development. More investigation in this field is needed as lncRNAs may help dissect VTE pathways, aiding in disease prediction, prevention and treatment.

Astrophysical tests of the stability of Nature's fundamental couplings are a key probe of the standard paradigms in fundamental physics and cosmology. In this report we discuss updated constraints on the stability of the fine-structure constant α and the proton-to-electron mass ratio µ = m p /m e within the Galaxy. We revisit and improve upon the analysis by Truppe et al.[1] by allowing for the possibility of simultaneous variations of both couplings and also by combining them with the recent measurements by Levshakov et al. [2]. By considering representative unification scenarios we find no evidence for variations of α at the 0.4 ppm level, and of µ at the 0.6 ppm level; if one uses the [2] bound on µ as a prior, the α bound is improved to 0.1 ppm. We also highlight how these measurements can constrain (and discriminate among) several fundamental physics paradigms.