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Molecular basis of DNA cross-linking by bacteria

The relevance of the gut microbiome, the community of microorganisms living in the digestive tract, to human health is a topic of intense interest. However, among the numerous benevolent bacteria living in the gut, there are some species that are harmful to humans.

For example, certain strains of Escherichia coli produce the genotoxin colibactin, which causes DNA damage and is linked with colon cancer. However, the colibactin molecule is complex and unstable, which has made it challenging to elucidate its chemical structure and the mechanism by which it damages DNA. In the culmination of years of research from multiple laboratories, researchers in a new Science study reveal the structure of the active form of colibactin bound to DNA.

The findings go a long way toward explaining the mutation signatures associated with colibactin exposure and provide substantial insight into how colibactin contributes to colorectal carcinogenesis.

Learn more in a new Science Perspective.

The structure of the bacterial genotoxin colibactin bound to DNA shows how it might contribute to cancer risk.

Orlando D. Schärer Authors Info & Affiliations

Continue reading “Molecular basis of DNA cross-linking by bacteria” | >

Swen Vincke says the price of RAM and SSDs means Larian will be doing lots of optimisation in Divinity’s early access ‘that we didn’t necessarily want to do at that point in time’

Maybe that big flesh pillar’s the result of trying to download more?

Scientists Discover Protein That Can Rejuvenate the Aging Immune System

A single blood protein can make aging stem cells act young again. As people age and notice changes like graying hair or reduced muscle strength, their immune system also undergoes shifts. One key change involves the stem cells that give rise to blood and immune cells, which can accumulate mutatio

Active thermal metasurfaces amplify heat signatures by a factor of nine

Light undergoes a unique phenomenon called superscattering, an optical illusion where a very small object scatters far more light than expected. This happens when multiple scattering modes overlap and interact, allowing tiny objects to scatter far more light than their size should allow.

Scientists have now found a way to expand the scope of superscattering beyond optics into the thermal world.

A team of researchers from Taiyuan University of Technology, China, has experimentally demonstrated thermal superscattering by surrounding an object with an active shell comprising arrays of controllable heating and cooling elements along its boundary. This shell allowed the tiny object to fake the thermal signatures of an object nine times larger than itself.

Machine learning model predicts protein binding on gold nanoclusters

Researchers in the Nanoscience Center at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, have developed a pioneering computational model that could expedite the use of nanomaterials in biomedical applications. The study presented the first generalizable machine-learning framework capable of predicting how proteins interact with ligand-stabilized gold nanoclusters, materials widely employed in bioimaging, biosensing, and targeted drug delivery.

The adsorption of proteins onto nanomaterial surfaces is fundamental to many biological applications, including bioimaging and biosensing to targeted drug delivery. Gold nanoclusters, in particular, have attracted attention thanks to their biocompatibility and tunable optical properties. Yet existing studies that predict how proteins interact with these ligand-protected nanostructures often focus on isolated cases, leaving researchers without a unified model to guide design.

“This gap has created a clear need for general, scalable models capable of capturing the underlying rules of protein–nanocluster binding,” specifies Postdoctoral Researcher Brenda Ferrari from the University of Jyväskylä

Microgel-based antioxidant system advances biohybrid brain research

Researchers have unveiled a breakthrough technology that could transform the way scientists build and study lab-grown brain tissue models. The innovation, called Cellular RedOx Spreading Shield (CROSS), delivers long-lasting antioxidant protection to stem cells, enabling the reliable production of high-quality extracellular vesicles (EVs) that strengthen neuron-glia networks.

The study, published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, was led by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Hyunjoon Kong and chemistry professor Hee Sun Han, and performed by Ryan Miller, currently a post-doctoral fellow at Georgia Tech.

Jonghwi Lee, in the chemical engineering department at Chung-Ang University in South Korea, and Young Jun Kim at the Korean Institute of Science and Technology–Europe, collaborated on the project.

One and done is not enough: Study challenges traditional evolutionary research

Every living being must cope with a changing world—summer gives way to winter, one year it floods and the next is a drought. It’s obvious that populations of plants and animals must constantly face new challenges, says University of Vermont scientist Csenge Petak. But what’s not obvious is how these changes in the environment affect evolution.

“Do populations benefit from lots of environmental fluctuations, making new generations more prepared to face future changes,” she wondered, “or are they impaired, forced to readapt again and again, never reaching the heights of fitness that the same populations in a stable environment could achieve?”

To explore this question, she and University of Vermont computer scientist Lapo Frati—as well as two other UVM researchers and one at the University of Cambridge—developed a first-of-its-kind study using a powerful computer model that tracks thousands of generations of digital organisms.

Observing synapses in action: Images capture real-time neurotransmitter release

It takes just a few milliseconds: A vesicle, only a few nanometers in size and filled with neurotransmitters, approaches a cell membrane, fuses with it, and releases its chemical messengers into the synaptic cleft—making them available to bind to the next nerve cell.

A team led by Professor Christian Rosenmund of Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin has captured this critical moment of brain function in microscopic images. They describe their achievement in the journal Nature Communications.

The Psychedelic Scientist

The reality is Deamer and the psychedelics-inspired Damer may very well be right about the origin of life on Earth. They may never win over scientists like Nick Lane, an evolutionary biochemist at University College London, who argues life needed the singular mix of physics and chemistry in hydrothermal ocean vents to originate. As recently as 2024, Lane and chemist Joana C. Xavier of Imperial College London explained in Nature that the wet and dry cycles of hot springs, key to Deamer’s and Damer’s hypothesis, could not lead to “the network of hundreds of reactions that keeps all cells alive.”

However, biologist Jack Szostak, a Nobel laureate, whose lab at the University of Chicago focuses on the origin of life, told me it’s likely that life did begin in volcanically active regions or impact craters on Earth’s surface. “Deep sea hydrothermal vents are not a plausible site for the origin of life,” he said. “Geothermally active areas,” he added, “are attractive because they do provide the environmental fluctuations needed to drive the primordial cell cycle.” Synthetic biologist Kate Adamala, from the University of Minnesota, who builds artificial protocells to probe how life might have first taken shape, agreed. “I’m on Team Dave and Bruce,” she said.

Presented with either criticism or praise of his origin-of-life theory, Damer remained as sanguine as ever. “You’re never going to have a complete understanding of the origin of life on the early Earth, because we just can’t reproduce the exact conditions,” he said. Of course, he believed the hot springs hypothesis would stand the test of time.

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