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Targeting biomolecular condensates: beyond dissolution

Biomolecular condensates control key cellular processes, from gene expression to signal transduction, by organizing molecules through selective compartmentalization. Increasing evidence links their dysregulation to cancer, neurodegeneration, and other diseases, positioning condensates as promising therapeutic targets. This review explores emerging strategies that go beyond dissolving pathological condensates, including approaches that induce, redirect, or reprogram their dynamics, composition, and physical state. Rather than inhibiting individual proteins, these interventions reshape the cellular organization itself. By targeting the material and functional properties of condensates, such strategies offer a new conceptual framework for therapeutic design in complex, dysregulated biological systems.

These blazing blue explosions may be born when a compact dead star slams into a Wolf-Rayet star

Luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs) are among the universe’s brightest and fastest explosions but their origin is not completely understood. A new study takes a closer look at the galaxies they occur in, offering two important clues about their nature. A paper outlining these results was uploaded to the preprint server arXiv on March 24.

LFBOTs are called cow-like events, nicknamed after the first member of this class—AT2018cow—discovered in 2018. They are extremely bright explosions whose brightness peaks within a week and fades to half its peak value in the following week. Their peak brightness is typically greater than 1043 erg per second at optical wavelengths. This is comparable with that of superluminous supernovae, which take a few weeks to months to peak and are generally 10 to 100 times brighter than normal supernovae.

Moreover, LFBOTs’ light curve—a graph that shows changes in their brightness over time—cannot be explained by the decay of nickel-56, which is a common energy source for normal and core-collapse supernovae. There are several theories for their origins; however, there is a lack of consensus.

Quantum model explains how single electrons cause damage inside silicon chips

Researchers in the UC Santa Barbara Materials Department have uncovered the elusive quantum mechanism by which energetic electrons break chemical bonds inside microelectronic devices—a detrimental process that slowly degrades performance over time. The discovery, published as an Editors’ Suggestion in Physical Review B, explains decades-old experimental puzzles and moves scientists closer to engineering more reliable devices.

How Google DeepMind is researching the next Frontier of AI for Gemini — Raia Hadsell, VP of Research

In this presentation, Raia Hadsell, VP of Research at Google DeepMind and AI Ambassador for the United Kingdom, opens AIE Europe and explores what’s open in Frontier AI and the future of intelligence by focusing on advancements beyond standard large language models. She categorizes these innovations into three key areas:

00:00 Introduction.
05:05 Advanced Embedding Models: Raia discusses the importance of embedding models for fast retrieval and recognition, similar to how the human brain uses ‘Jennifer Aniston cells’ to identify concepts across modalities. She highlights Gemini Embeddings 2, a fully omnimodal model that processes text, video, and audio into unified semantic vectors.
09:53 AI for Weather Forecasting: The team has developed revolutionary models for atmospheric prediction, moving away from traditional physics simulations. Notable breakthroughs include:
11:00 GraphCast: A spherical graph neural network that provides accurate 15-day weather forecasts.
12:47 GenCast: A probabilistic model that offers higher efficiency and accuracy (97% of the time compared to gold-standard benchmarks).
13:51 FGN: A functional generative network that directly predicts cyclone behavior, which is currently being utilized by the US National Hurricane Center.
14:35 World Models: Hadsell introduces Genie, a project focused on creating interactive, real-time environments. Starting from Genie 1 (2D platformers) and progressing to Genie 3, these models allow users to create and interact with high-quality, 3D photorealistic worlds. These environments demonstrate capabilities like memory, consistency, and the ability to be dynamically prompted by the user to change the surroundings in real-time.

Speaker info:
/ raia-hadsell-35400266
https://github.com/raiah

Monster black holes are silencing star formation across the universe

Giant black holes may be secretly controlling how entire clusters of galaxies grow. A blazing supermassive black hole can influence far more than its own galaxy. Scientists found that quasars emit radiation strong enough to shut down star formation in nearby galaxies millions of light-years away. This could explain why some galaxies near early quasars appear faint or missing. The finding suggests galaxies grow and evolve together, not in isolation.

Powerful radiation from active supermassive black holes, which are believed to sit at the center of most galaxies, can do more than shape their own surroundings. A new study led by Yongda Zhu at the University of Arizona suggests these black holes can also slow the formation of stars in galaxies located millions of light-years away.

“Traditionally, people have thought that because galaxies are so far apart, they evolve largely on their own,” said Zhu, the study’s lead author, whose findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “But we found that a very active, supermassive black hole in one galaxy can affect other galaxies across millions of light-years, suggesting that galaxy evolution may be more of a group effort.”

Local cues, local killers: human natural killer cells across tissues

Human natural killer cells across tissues.

Natural killer cells residing in tissues are distinct compared to those in the bloodstream, and their diversity is likely shaped by the microenvironment of individual tissues.

In tissues, natural killer cells are exposed to an environment with low oxygen levels, a distinct cytokine milieu, and different neighboring cells compared to their circulating counterparts, leading to a unique metabolic and functional profile.

Tissue-resident natural killer cells in most human tissues appear to be only transiently tissue-resident and recirculate via the lymphatic system back to the bloodstream. Lymphatic vessels and lymph nodes contain various natural killer cell populations of distinct origins. Tumor responses of tissue-resident natural killer cells depend on the tissue niche and tumor microenvironment context, with tissue-resident natural killer cells having a more immunoregulatory rather than a direct cytotoxic role during tumorigenesis. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/natural-killer-cells

Natural killer (NK) cells are part of the innate immune system and reside in multiple tissues. During steady-state conditions, they contribute to tissue homeostasis, while in disease settings, tissue-resident (tr) NK cells are positioned at the frontline of immune surveillance. Due to their exposure to local microenvironments, NK cells residing outside the bloodstream exhibit phenotypic, transcriptional, functional, and metabolic features that distinguish them from their circulating counterparts. In this review, we outline the defining characteristics of tr NK cells, discuss their recirculation potential, and summarize their functional and metabolic specialization across human tissues. Finally, using cancer as an example, we highlight how tr NK cells are altered in disease and how local tissue environments shape their functional states.

B cell deficiency limits exercise capacity by remodeling liver glutamate metabolism

Now online! B cells regulate exercise capacity through immune-independent liver-muscle metabolic signaling, and B cell deficiency limits muscle performance. Mechanistically, B cell-secreted TGF-β1 increases hepatic glutamine-to-glutamate conversion, raising glutamate in blood and muscle. This promotes muscle calcium signaling and mitochondrial function, positively regulating exercise capacity.

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