In a study published in Nature today1, researchers report a ‘megacluster’ of genes in Streptomyces bacteria that target a key metabolic process in bacteria. Streptomyces is one of the most studied bacterial genera and produces many antibiotic compounds, including those used to produce streptomycin, the first effective antibiotic against tuberculosis.
“They’ve discovered something new in a system so extensively studied — hidden in plain sight,” says Mark Blaskovich, who works on antibiotic development at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. The gene cluster produces five compounds — four antibiotics and a protein — that target different stages of the production of biotin, or vitamin B7, which is essential for bacterial cell growth. “Since evolution has already optimized this combination, we may be able to leverage it to develop novel antibiotic combinations,” Blaskovich says.
It is much more difficult for bacteria to develop resistance to antibiotics that attack multiple parts of an essential metabolic pathway, explains Brendan Wren, a microbiologist at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The latest work could also lead to the discovery of gene clusters that produce antibiotic compounds involved in other metabolic processes.
The temporal and spatial dynamics of kidney basement membrane remodeling during disease are largely unknown. Using metabolic labeling combined with proteomics, Preston et al. uncover accelerated matrix turnover and structural destabilization in Alport syndrome, linking protease activity to circulating collagen and laminin fragments with biomarker potential for earlier disease detection.
Quantum computing could transform medicine, cybersecurity, clean energy and countless other industries, with Ottawa playing a leading role in the technology’s development.
CTV’s Austin Lee reports that researchers at the University of Ottawa and local cybersecurity companies are helping prepare for the quantum era.
Experts say quantum computers will solve complex problems dramatically faster than today’s computers but could also threaten current encryption methods.
Ottawa-based companies are already developing quantum-safe cybersecurity technologies to protect future digital infrastructure.
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When the Pentagon branded Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei “a liar with a god complex” over fears that his company’s AI could be used for weapons and surveillance, it exposed a deeper truth: the boundary between civilian and military technology no longer exists. The same systems that power translation, logistics, and digital assistants can just as easily identify targets or manipulate populations. Thomas Christian Bächle and Jascha Bareis argue that today’s AI is not simply “dual use” — it is inherently violent in design. Adaptive, autonomous, and globally networked, these machines fuse daily life with geopolitics, making peace itself a fading abstraction.
Drones have become an uncanny threat—not least in the wake of the cost of human life and the degrees of suffering and destruction they have inflicted in Russia’s war on Ukraine. In many European countries they have been sighted near critical infrastructure or military sites, either used for reconnaissance or sabotage, at times causing major disruptions in civilian air travel. Drones unsettle a population that is fearful and weary of the brutality of war at their doorstep. They have become a major element to what is labelled hybrid warfare, fought beyond the conventional ways of violence.
But this is not the whole picture. For years, drones have also been envisioned as a technology that bears the potential of bringing about major changes for the better: more efficient disaster relief, medical supply chains reaching even the remotest areas, optimized logistics or transportation. Drones also introduced a new visual – bird’s-eye-aesthetic of how to see the world.
Plants convert light into energy efficiently through photosynthesis—an ability that scientists and engineers still struggle to match with electronic devices. Recently, researchers have looked beyond traditional semiconductor materials to create devices using a promising class of materials called nanoplasmonics. These tiny metal structures can absorb and concentrate optical energy and generate energetic charge carriers.
In a new study, researchers from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) and Department of Chemistry developed a nanoplasmonic “leaf,” a wireless bioelectronic device they used to stimulate nerves and pace heartbeats in an animal model.
The team also showed that their material could be used as a computer-like sensing platform, where users can interact with the screen using invisible light—a potentially secure way to transmit information.
From detecting pneumonia on a chest X-ray to assessing whether a dark spot on the skin is benign or malignant, medical AI systems are playing an increasingly important role in clinical diagnosis. Unfortunately, the models used to train these AI systems are often victims of cyberattacks, specifically membership inference attacks (MIAs), which can lead to people’s personal information being stolen or revealed.
In a recent study, researchers conducted a first-ever patient-level privacy audit to see how easily individual patients could be identified from the underlying data used to train medical AI models.
At first glance, an AI model may appear to protect everyone’s privacy equally well, but a closer look reveals a different story. Researchers found that attackers can identify certain individual patients with near-perfect accuracy, exposing a hidden unfairness in privacy.
A groundbreaking method known as coherently controlled quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy has been developed to detect and identify gases at very low concentrations rapidly.
This new technique, with promising applications in environmental monitoring, early cancer detection, and chemical process safety, allows for comprehensive gas analysis in mere seconds, a process that traditionally took much longer.
Enhanced sensitivity in trace gas detection.
This was a prospective, single-arm, open-label pilot trial. The primary end point was 6-month progression-free survival (PFS). Disease progression was assessed according to the Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology criteria by independent radiological review. Radiological response was evaluated using fluid-attenuated inversion-recovery sequences to compare FUS-exposed vs nonexposed regions. Plasma cell–free DNA (cfDNA) concentrations were measured before and after FUS treatment.
RESULTS:
Between July 2020 and August 2023, 6 patients received a median of 14.5 sessions of biweekly FUS-BEV (10 mg/kg). The median PFS was 11 months, with a 6-month PFS rate of 66.7%. The only FUS-related adverse event was transient scalp heating (grade 1; 1.9%). A fluid-attenuated inversion recovery normalization effect emerged within 1 month after treatment. Plasma cfDNA increased significantly post-FUS, with total cfDNA rising 2.03 ± 0.76-fold, EGFR cfDNA 1.77 ± 0.76-fold, and HMBS cfDNA 1.68 ± 0.66-fold.
New research has shown that a genome editing technique can be used to alter a single gene in human embryonic cells, enabling the study of very early human development in unparalleled detail.
The technique, called base editing, is a more precise version of the genome editing technique CRISPR/Cas9. It can change a single nucleotide base pair — the basic building block of DNA — within a human genome of approximately 3 billion base pairs.
Using base editing, the researchers blocked a gene called NANOG in very early-stage human embryos, and found that the cells of the early embryo could not develop into more specialised pluripotent cells called the epiblast — which later form the body.