Reporting world updates to you
Look inside a brain cell with Huntington’s disease or ALS and you are likely to find RNA clumped together. These solid-like clusters, thought to be irreversible, can act as sponges that soak up surrounding proteins key for brain health, contributing to neurological disorders. How these harmful RNA clusters form in…
In a comprehensive Genomic Press Innovators & Ideas interview published today, distinguished neuroscientist Dr. Randy J. Nelson shares insights from his pioneering research on how disrupted circadian rhythms affect brain function and overall health. The interview, published in Brain Medicine, traces Dr. Nelson’s unconventional path from farm work and autopsy…
In medicine and biotechnology, the ability to evolve proteins with new or improved functions is crucial, but current methods are often slow and laborious. Now, Scripps Research scientists have developed a synthetic biology platform that accelerates evolution itself — enabling researchers to evolve proteins with useful, new properties thousands of…
Chronic diabetic wounds, including diabetic foot ulcers, are a significant burden for patients, as impaired blood vessel growth hinders the healing process. A recent breakthrough offers hope by combining small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) loaded with miR-221-3p and a GelMA hydrogel to target thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1), a protein that suppresses angiogenesis. This…
Patients prescribed drugs to help them lose weight may experience a rebound in weight gain after halting their prescription, finds a meta-analysis published in BMC Medicine. The study, which analyses data for patients receiving weight loss drugs across 11 randomised trials, suggests that while the amount of weight regain varies…
Chinese researchers have recently challenged the long-held belief that “all life depends on sunlight.” In a study published in Science Advances, the researchers identified how microbes in deep subsurface areas can derive energy from chemical reactions driven by crustal faulting, offering critical insights into life deep below Earth’s surface. The research…
Scientists have discovered that jewel wasps can slow down their biological rate of aging. A study of jewel wasps, known for their distinctive metallic colors, has shown that they can undergo a kind of natural ‘time-out’ as larvae before emerging into adulthood with this surprising advantage. The groundbreaking study by…
University of Warwick astronomers have uncovered compelling evidence that a nearby white dwarf is in fact the remnant of two stars merging — a rare stellar discovery revealed through Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet observations of carbon in the star’s hot atmosphere. White dwarfs are the dense cores left behind when…
Astronomers have observed an explosion in space that is pushing back against and influencing the baby star which triggered the explosion in the first place. If explosions like this one are common around young stars, then the young stars and their planets are exposed to a harsher environment than previously…
A world-first study led by Museums Victoria Research Institute has revealed that beneath the cold, dark, pressurized world of the deep sea, marine life is far more globally connected than previously imagined. Published on July 23 in Nature, this landmark study maps the global distribution and evolutionary relationships of brittle stars…
About 56 million years ago, when Earth experienced a dramatic rise in global temperatures, one meat-eating mammal responded in a surprising way: It started eating more bones. That’s the conclusion reached by a Rutgers-led team of researchers, whose recent study of fossil teeth from the extinct predator Dissacus praenuntius reveals…
A University of Queensland-led study has found Australian skinks have evolved molecular armor to stop snake venom from shutting down their muscles. Professor Bryan Fry from UQ’s School of the Environment said revealing exactly how skinks dodge death could inform biomedical approaches to treating snakebite in people. “What we saw…
Human eyes are complex and irreparable, yet they are structurally like those of the freshwater apple snail, which can completely regenerate its eyes. Alice Accorsi, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Davis, studies how these snails regrow their eyes — with the goal of…
Dramatic CCTV video of fault slip during a recent large earthquake in Myanmar thrilled both scientists and casual observers when it was posted to YouTube. But it was on his fifth or sixth viewing, said geophysicist Jesse Kearse, that he spotted something even more exciting. When Kearse and his colleague…
Researchers have for the first time isolated a compound that could open new doors in understanding the chemistry that supports life in space. Ryan Fortenberry, an astrochemist at the University of Mississippi, Ralf Kaiser, professor of chemistry at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, and Alexander M. Mebel, computational chemist…
Using one of the most detailed sets of observations ever of a galaxy cluster 700 million light-years from Earth, astronomers have captured the faint glow of stray stars in the process of being ripped from their home galaxy and absorbed into another. The ‘bridge’ of diffuse light — spanning roughly…
An international team of scientists have provided an unprecedented tally of elemental sulfur spread between the stars using data from the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) spacecraft. Astronomers used X-rays from two binary star systems to detect sulfur in the interstellar medium, the gas and dust found in…
Lightning might not strike twice, but black holes apparently do. An international group of researchers led by Tel Aviv University astronomers observed a flare caused when a star falls onto a black hole and is destroyed. Surprisingly, this flare occurred about two years after a nearly identical flare named AT…
New research led by the University of Victoria (UVic) has illuminated a significant and previously unrecognized source of seismic hazard for the Yukon Territory of northwestern Canada. The Tintina fault is a major geologic fault approximately 1,000 km long that trends northwestward across the entire territory. It has slipped laterally…
In a breakthrough that reimagines the way the gut and brain communicate, researchers have uncovered what they call a “neurobiotic sense,” a newly identified system that lets the brain respond in real time to signals from microbes living in our gut. The new research, led by Duke University School of…
A new article appearing in the current issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry explores the concept of “superfoods” and makes a case that fresh grapes have earned what should be a prominent position in the superfood family. The author, leading resveratrol and cancer researcher John M.…
Cancer cells and tumors do not exist in a vacuum. Far from the isolation and self-sufficiency of the fictional Wakanda, tumors develop in and alter the nearby milieu of immune cells, connective tissue, blood vessels and a sea of proteins and carbohydrates that provide structure and other supportive functions. Cancer…
McGill University researchers have developed and are licensing a digital tool to help safely reduce patients’ use of medications that may be unnecessary or even harmful to them. When clinicians review a patient’s file, MedSafer flags potentially inappropriate medications. In a new clinical trial, the software helped deprescribe such medications…
When given nutritionally matched diets, participants lost twice as much weight eating minimally processed foods compared to ultra-processed foods, suggesting that cutting down on processing could help to sustain a healthy weight long term, finds a new clinical trial led by researchers at UCL and UCLH. The study, published in…
A new analysis of the bite strength of 18 species of carnivorous dinosaurs shows that while the Tyrannasaurus rex skull was optimized for quick, strong bites like a crocodile, other giant, predatory dinosaurs that walked on two legs — including spinosaurs and allosaurs — had much weaker bites and instead…
A team of Chinese researchers led by Prof. GAO Caixia from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed two new genome editing technologies, known collectively as Programmable Chromosome Engineering (PCE) systems. The study, published online in Cell on August 4, achieves multiple…
Johns Hopkins University researchers have grown a novel whole-brain organoid, complete with neural tissues and rudimentary blood vessels — an advance that could usher in a new era of research into neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism. “We’ve made the next generation of brain organoids,” said lead author Annie Kathuria, an…
The brain’s health depends on more than just its neurons. A complex network of blood vessels and immune cells acts as the brain’s dedicated guardians — controlling what enters, cleaning up waste, and protecting it from threats by forming the blood-brain barrier. A new study from Gladstone Institutes and UC…
Paleontologists have identified a new species of ancient marine reptile from Germany’s world-renowned Posidonia Shale fossil beds, expanding our understanding of prehistoric ocean ecosystems that existed nearly 183 million years ago. The newly classified species, named Plesionectes longicollum (“long-necked near-swimmer”), represents a previously unknown type of plesiosauroid — the group…
Rich with detail, the spiral galaxy NGC 1309 shines in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week. NGC 1309 is situated about 100 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus. This stunning Hubble image encompasses NGC 1309’s bluish stars, dark brown gas clouds and pearly white centre, as…
