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A unifying mechanism for cancer-driving mutations

A family of mutations seen in about 20% of human cancers drives malignancy by changing the accessibility of genes to a particular regulatory protein, according to a study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The findings suggest new therapeutic strategies for a variety of cancer types.

The study, published Oct. 28 in Nature, focused on a protein complex called the BAF complex, which regulates gene activity in the nucleus. Mutations in genes that encode subunits of this complex are found in tumors as different as lymphoma, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and liver cancer, but the common mechanism underlying this broad connection to cancers has been elusive. In the study, the scientists showed that these BAF mutations effectively allow the three-dimensional architecture of DNA to be reshaped extensively by a protein called CTCF. This shifts gene activity in a direction that promotes malignancy, but deleting CTCF in an animal model reverses the effect.

“These findings help us establish a unifying mechanism for one of the most common classes of cancer mutations, and identify CTCF and its partner proteins as candidate therapeutic targets in these cancers,” said study co-corresponding author Darko Barisic, an assistant professor of cancer biology in medicine and a member of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine.

We should not exist — but two researchers have solved the mystery of why we are here after all

When the Big Bang took place 13.8 billion years ago, exactly equal quantities of matter and antimatter ought to have formed, cancelling each other out into pure energy.

The cosmos should have ended up as radiation, yet here we are, surrounded by stars, galaxies, and planets made of pure matter.

Two physicists now believe to have found out how that is possible.

Physicists created a tiny universe and watched time emerge without a clock

Scientists have created a miniature universe in the laboratory that could help answer one of the biggest mysteries in physics: What is time, and where does it come from? Using 24,000 ultracold atoms, a University of Birmingham researcher built an isolated quantum system that repeatedly expands and contracts, mimicking the Big Bang and a possible Big Crunch. Remarkably, the experiment showed that time could emerge from changes happening inside the system, without relying on an external clock.

Armored caterpillars offer robot designers lessons in crossing slippery glass

Animals have long been one of the primary sources of inspiration for robotics researchers. This is because they rely on sophisticated biological mechanisms and locomotion strategies that could be artificially reproduced in robots to equip them with desired capabilities.

Caterpillars, the wormlike larvae that later develop into butterflies or moths, have also attracted the attention of many roboticists. Their elastic bodies and their ability to stick onto many types of surfaces allow them to move in complex natural environments and squeeze through narrow openings.

Caterpillars adapt their movements based on what they are crawling on, as they might not always adhere perfectly to each surface. Researchers at the University of Naples Federico II and the University of Palermo recently assessed how well caterpillars moved on wood, steel, slate and glass, observing how they coped with more challenging conditions.

The missing link between event cameras and robot vision

For decades, event cameras, which emulate the biological retina by continuously monitoring changes in light intensity, have promised to revolutionize how robots perceive the world by allowing them to react faster and operate more reliably than conventional cameras permit.

But interpreting event-camera data, which resembles a dizzying stream of points rather than a recognizable series of images, has traditionally required a patchwork of specialized algorithms, each built for a single task.

Now, engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have developed Fast Feature Field, or F³, a general-purpose computational tool to efficiently transform the tens of millions of signals that event cameras produce each second into information that many different kinds of robots can use.

Stimulation modulates gene-linked cell assemblies in the human brain

Could deep brain stimulation change not only brain circuits, but also the genes that help those circuits communicate?

This may be an important next chapter in deep brain stimulation (DBS). Gene expression refers to how brain cells turn specific genes on or off to influence their function. Neuron al assemblies are groups of brain cells that fire together to process information.

Haley Moore and colleagues describe in a new paper in Nature how electrical stimulation of human brain tissue can strengthen coordinated neuronal activity and activate specific genetic programs involved in synaptic plasticity. The implications for the future of DBS are exciting.

Key points:

- Electrical stimulation strengthened neuronal assemblies, increasing coordinated firing and changing how neurons participated in functional brain networks.

- Stimulation produced cell-type-specific changes in gene expression, particularly in excitatory neurons, involving genes such as FOS, EGR1, BDNF and HOMER1 that are linked to neuronal activity and synaptic function.

- By combining electrical recordings and single-cell genomic analyses, the researchers connected stimulation-induced changes in brain activity to molecular pathways and identified related signatures following stimulation in living human brains.

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