Enzymes known as kinases play a critical role in cell growth, metabolism and signaling in a multitude of organisms across the tree of life—from algae to helminths to mammals. Now, scientists have developed an atlas of bacterial kinases and say their new compendium holds a motherlode of possible targets for reimagined antimicrobial drugs.
A team of researchers at the University of Georgia has zeroed in on serine-threonine kinases, regulators of cell growth and pathogenicity in a multitude of bacterial species. They say their compendium can provide guidance on research into bacterial virulence and potentially trailblazing ways to attack bacteria by inhibiting the activity of serine-threonine kinases. The team’s compendium was developed by analyzing serine-threonine kinases in nearly 26,000 strains of bacteria.
“Bacterial serine-threonine kinases regulate diverse cellular processes associated with cell growth, virulence, and pathogenicity and are evolutionarily related to the druggable eukaryotic serine-threonine kinases,” writes researcher Dr. Brady O’Boyle of the University of Georgia, lead author of the new study involving the massive atlas. O’Boyle and his team found that the number of serine-threonine kinases within bacterial genomes ranges from 1 in Escherichia coli to more than 60 in some species of Actinobacteria.
Childhood brain tumor survival depends on the type of tumor. Comparing survival rates across countries is difficult, because brain tumors aren’t recorded in the same way everywhere in Europe. A new study led by the Princess Máxima Center is helping to change that. For the first time, the research provides a clear and clinically relevant overview of survival outcomes for children with brain tumors.
Researchers at the Princess Máxima Center analyzed data from more than 30,000 children diagnosed with a brain tumor between 1998 and 2013. The data came from 80 cancer registries across 31 European countries. The study was published today in The Lancet Oncology.
Researchers have discovered a way to make the immune system’s T cells significantly more effective at fighting cancer. By blocking a protein called Ant2, they were able to reprogram how these cells consume and generate energy—essentially rewiring their internal power supply.
This shift makes T cells more active, resilient, and better at attacking tumors. The findings open the door to new treatments that could strengthen the body’s own immune response, offering a smarter, more targeted approach to cancer therapy.
Led by Ph.D. student Omri Yosef and Prof. Michael Berger from the Faculty of Medicine at Hebrew University, in collaboration with Prof. Magdalena Huber of Philipps University of Marburg and Prof. Eyal Gottlieb of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the international team discovered that fine-tuning immune cells’ metabolism dramatically improves their ability to destroy cancer.
Scientists have been studying a fascinating material called uranium ditelluride (UTe₂), which becomes a superconductor at low temperatures.
Superconductors can carry electricity without any resistance, and UTe₂ is special because it might belong to a rare type called spin-triplet superconductors. These materials are not only resistant to magnetic fields but could also host exotic quantum states useful for future technologies.
However, one big mystery remained: what is the symmetry of UTe₂’s superconducting state? This symmetry determines how electrons pair up and move through the material. To solve this puzzle, researchers used a highly sensitive tool called a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) with a superconducting tip. They found unique signals—zero-energy surface states—that helped them compare different theoretical possibilities.
Their results suggest that UTe₂ is a nonchiral superconductor, meaning its electron pairs don’t have a preferred handedness (like left-or right-handedness). Instead, the data points to one of three possible symmetries (B₁ᵤ, B₂ᵤ, or B₃ᵤ), with B₃ᵤ being the most likely if electrons scatter in a particular way along one axis.
This discovery brings scientists closer to understanding UTe₂’s unusual superconducting behavior, which could one day help in designing more robust quantum materials.
UTe₂ currently operates at very low temperatures (~1.6 K), so raising its critical temperature is a major goal.
Scaling up production and integrating it into devices will require further material engineering.
UK-based mobility company Bo has racing in its blood, and its latest creation is designed to bring that heritage to the forefront in the form of a high-performance electric scooter subtly named the Turbo.
It might look a lot like the consumer-grade M model that Bo revealed in 2023, but after 18 months in the garage, it’s mutated into an absolute fire-breather that’s built to exceed 100 mph (160 km/h) and – according to Bo’s initial testing – accelerate quicker than a Tesla Model 3.
How do you push a 15 mph (25 km/h) scooter all the way up past the 100-mph mark? The same powertrain simply wouldn’t cut it, so the Turbo got twin electric motors, each rated for over 300A peak current, along with a new 88-V 1,800-Wh battery to deliver plenty more power on demand.
The passage of time may be linear, but the course of human aging is not. Rather than a gradual transition, your life staggers and lurches through the rapid growth of childhood, the plateau of early adulthood, to an acceleration in aging as the decades progress.
Now, a new study has identified a turning point at which that acceleration typically takes place: at around age 50.
After this time, the trajectory at which your tissues and organs age is steeper than the decades preceding, according to a study of proteins in human bodies across a wide range of adult ages – and your veins are among the fastest to decline.