Antibiotics Selectively Supercharged Against MRSA
Yale and Cornell chemists have devised a metal‑free aminoxyl catalyst that oxidizes a single secondary alcohol in the macrolide antibiotic erythromycin A. The catalyst, paired with mCPBA, proved highly selective, but analogous macrolides clarithromycin and azithromycin required different reagents to achieve selective oxidation. The newly oxidized derivatives displayed enhanced activity against methicillin‑resistant Staphylococcus aureus while retaining potency against other bacteria. Researchers say the method offers a practical entry point for further structural diversification of established antibiotic scaffolds.
Russia Launches the First 16 Satellites in Its Own Internet Satellite Constellation
Russia quietly placed the first 16 satellites of its Rassvet broadband constellation into a polar orbit using a Soyuz‑2 launch from the Plesetsk spaceport. The satellites, built by the state‑linked Bureau‑1440, are the initial step toward a planned 700‑plus satellite...
Ocugen Heads to Phase 3 with Gene Therapy for Geographic Atrophy
Ocugen announced that its investigational gene therapy for geographic atrophy, a leading cause of vision loss in age‑related macular degeneration, will move into a Phase 3 clinical trial. The company reported mixed Phase 2 results, showing a favorable safety profile but inconsistent...
Fusion Enzyme Boosts Polyester Textile Recycling – Study
Researchers at the University of Portsmouth and the University of Manchester have engineered a “plastic‑eating” enzyme that dramatically speeds the depolymerisation of PET, the polymer used in polyester clothing. The enzyme remains highly active even at the high substrate concentrations...
What's that Critter? New Tech Guidelines Can Help Ensure We Get the Right Answer
Biologist Julie Allen, fresh from winning the 2024 XPRIZE Rainforest for surveying 100 hectares in 24 hours, helped draft nine guidelines to standardize biodiversity monitoring. The recommendations, published in PNAS, aim to harmonize data collection across AI‑driven image and sound...
New Research Shows Cannabis Compounds May Boost Liver and Heart Health
Researchers at HU School of Pharmacy found that the non‑psychoactive cannabinoids cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabigerol (CBG) can remodel liver metabolism, enhancing energy storage and lysosomal function. In mouse models of metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), both compounds lowered...
NASA’s Juno Delivers New Science While Its Future Remains Uncertain
NASA’s Juno spacecraft, originally slated for a five‑year Jupiter science campaign, received a two‑year extension that allowed it to record unprecedented lightning data in 2021‑2022. Researchers analyzing the data found Jovian storms produce lightning flashes at least 100 times more...
Astrocytes in Mouse Amygdala Encode Emotional State
A new Neuron study shows that astrocytes in the mouse basolateral amygdala, not neurons, encode anxiety‑like states. Calcium imaging revealed astrocytic activity spikes during exposure to open, threatening environments and closely mirrors freezing and hesitancy. A machine‑learning model using astrocyte...
Data Duplications Flagged in Highly Cited Gut-Brain Studies
Two high‑profile gut‑microbiome studies—one on Parkinson’s disease published in Cell in 2016 and another on anxiety published in Nature in 2022—have been flagged for duplicated mouse‑behavior data. The duplications were uncovered by a software engineer using a repository‑scanning tool and...
A Much More Sensitive Fentanyl Detection Strip, Thanks to Physics
University of California, San Diego researchers introduced a physics‑based model that quantifies the sensitivity limits of competitive lateral flow assays (cLFAs). By applying the model, they engineered fentanyl test strips that are roughly 100 times more sensitive than existing commercial...
These Insects Fly with Their Legs. Physics Explains How
Researchers at UC Berkeley demonstrated that the Eastern phantom crane fly can remain airborne by splaying its six legs into a drag‑producing cone, effectively “flying” without wing motion in an updraft. High‑speed camera and wind‑tunnel tests showed the leg cone...
What Are Transparency and Seeing?
Transparency and seeing are the two primary atmospheric metrics that dictate the quality of astronomical imaging. Transparency describes how clear the sky is, influencing how faint an object can be seen, while seeing measures atmospheric steadiness, affecting image sharpness. Amateur...
The Truth About Those Stealable Little Hotel Toiletries and Why They Were Replaced with Refillable Dispensers
U.S. states including California, New York and Illinois have banned single‑use hotel toiletries, prompting chains like Marriott and InterContinental to roll out refillable dispensers. Hotels tout the switch as a waste‑reduction win, claiming hundreds of millions of mini bottles are kept...
Inside DOE’s Genesis Mission to Power AI-Driven Science
The Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission is creating an integrated ecosystem that ties together supercomputers, artificial‑intelligence platforms and emerging quantum technologies across its 17 national laboratories. Argonne National Laboratory, leveraging its multidisciplinary CELS Directorate, is positioned to accelerate discovery through...
Optibrium Introduces Graphical Interface for QuanSA to Enhance Ligand-Based Affinity Predictions
Optibrium has released a new PyMOL plugin that adds a graphical user interface to its QuanSA ligand‑based affinity prediction tool. QuanSA uses physically‑motivated machine learning to deliver free‑energy perturbation‑level accuracy without needing a protein structure, dramatically lowering computational cost. The...
Nasa to Spend US$20 Billion on Moon Base, Cancel Orbiting Lunar Station
NASA announced it will cancel the Lunar Gateway orbital station and redirect its resources to build a $20 billion lunar surface base over the next seven years. The decision was made by new NASA chief Jared Isaacman, who said the agency...
Karyopharm’s Mixed Myelofibrosis Data; Rezolute to Seek FDA Approval Despite Trial Failure
Karyopharm reported mixed results from its Phase 3 SENTRY trial of selinexor in myelofibrosis, achieving a statistically significant reduction in spleen volume but raising safety concerns. The data fell short of expectations for overall survival benefit. Meanwhile, Rezolute announced it will...
On Manatee Appreciation Day, Remember These Gentle Giants Who Protect Aquatic Ecosystems (Commentary)
On Manatee Appreciation Day, the article highlights the rescue and lifelong care of a manatee calf named Daniel by Mexican scientist Dr. Benjamín Morales. It explains how manatees graze underwater vegetation, maintaining water quality and supporting fisheries. The piece notes...
NASA Adds Moon Base and Nuclear-Powered Mars Spacecraft to Road Map
NASA announced that a lunar outpost is now a formal element of its upcoming roadmap, moving the Artemis program toward a twice‑annual launch cadence. The agency also unveiled plans to field a nuclear‑propelled spacecraft for a Mars mission by the...
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NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day showcases a striking photograph of light pillars over Mohe, China’s northernmost city. The pillars arise from flat ice crystals near the ground that reflect artificial lights rather than sunlight. The image also captures the...
What Brain Waves Reveal About People Who Can Solve a Rubik’s Cube in Seconds
A study in Experimental Brain Research examined 13 elite Rubik’s Cube speed‑cubers who average 17 seconds per solve. Using EEG caps, researchers recorded brain activity during a 15‑second mental planning phase and the subsequent physical execution. They found that the...
New Ultra-Fast Particle Detector Could Help Unmask Dark Matter
Physicists on the CMS experiment at CERN are installing a new ultra‑fast timing detector that can measure particle arrival times with 30‑picosecond precision—roughly the distance light travels in a centimeter. The system combines about 10,000 crystal sensors in a barrel...
Seven T Cell Engager Companies You Should Know About
T‑cell engagers are bispecific antibodies that redirect T cells to destroy cancer cells and are being explored for autoimmune disorders. Seven companies are leading the field: Adaptin Bio secured FDA IND clearance for APTN‑101 in glioblastoma; Candid Therapeutics merged with...
NASA’s Water-Hunting Tool Will Help Scout Moon’s South Pole
NASA is contributing its Neutron Spectrometer System (NSS) to the JAXA‑ISRO Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) mission, which plans to land a rover at the Moon’s South Pole no earlier than 2028. The NSS detects hydrogen signatures up to three feet...
Exercise Is Even Better For Your Brain Than We Thought—And in Surprising Ways, New Report Shows
A new umbrella review from the University of South Australia confirms that regular exercise enhances brain health, memory, and overall cognition for people of all ages. The analysis, the largest of its kind, found the most pronounced memory gains in...
Aardvark Pauses 2 Obesity Trials, Reveals New Details on Cardiac Concerns
Aardvark Therapeutics has paused two Phase 2 obesity trials, POWER and STRENGTH, after cardiac safety signals emerged in its lead compounds ARD‑101 and ARD‑201. The anomalies were observed in healthy volunteers receiving double the target dose, prompting a halt to the...
The Exploration Company Licenses LEAP 71's Noyron RP Technology for Rocket Engine Design
The Exploration Company (TEC) has signed a five‑year renewable agreement to license LEAP 71’s Noyron RP Large Computation Model for its next‑generation rocket engine development. Noyron RP encodes physics, engineering logic, and production constraints to autonomously generate engine component geometries from...
Dual-Action Antiviral Treatments Offer A New Path Forward
Scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have engineered a dual‑action antibody that simultaneously targets two stages of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEEV) entry. The single‑molecule treatment protected animals even when given after exposure and neutralized...
Viz.ai and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Partner to Launch AI Care Pathway for Cardiac Amyloidosis
Viz.ai and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals have teamed up to launch an AI‑driven care pathway targeting cardiac amyloidosis, a frequently underdiagnosed heart disease. The solution embeds the FDA‑cleared Us2.ai echocardiography algorithm and generative AI into hospital IT systems to automatically detect subtle...
Astronomers Witness the Birth of a New Solar System
Astronomers have confirmed a second newborn solar system around the star WISPIT 2, located about 437 light‑years from Earth. Using the Very Large Telescope, they imaged two massive gas‑giant planets, one roughly ten times the size of Jupiter, and identified a...
Quotient Therapeutics & Merck Enter ~$2.2B Partnership to Discover Novel Drug Targets in IBD
Quotient Therapeutics and Merck have signed a multi‑year collaboration to use Quotient’s somatic genomics platform for discovering new drug targets in inflammatory bowel disease. The agreement provides Quotient with $20 million upfront and includes milestone payments that could lift the total...
Live Science Today: Jensen Huang AGI Claim and Major Leap to Reanimation After Death
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced on the Lex Fridman podcast that humanity has already reached artificial general intelligence, citing recent advances in large language models and the OpenClaw platform. He later qualified his claim, acknowledging that the probability of 100,000...
Fatty Liver Breakthrough: A Common Vitamin Shows Promise
Researchers at UNIST and partner institutions identified microRNA‑93 as a central driver of metabolic‑associated fatty liver disease (MASLD) and demonstrated that vitamin B3 (niacin) can suppress this molecule, restoring SIRT1 activity and reducing liver fat in mice. The study, published in...
Radiopharmaceutical Clinical Trials in 2026: How to De-Risk Isotope Supply, Imaging Variability, and Regulatory Pathways
Radiopharmaceutical clinical trials are becoming a high‑velocity segment in 2026, but they remain vulnerable to three predictable bottlenecks: isotope supply chain fragility, imaging variability, and regulatory pathway selection. Axcellant, a boutique CRO with an integrated imaging core lab, demonstrates that...
Molecular Solar Battery Stores Energy for Days, Yields Hydrogen on Demand
Researchers at Ulm University and Friedrich‑Schiller‑Universität Jena have created a water‑soluble redox copolymer that functions as a molecular solar battery, achieving over 80% charging efficiency and storing energy for several days. The stored electrons can be released on demand as...
Menstrual Hormones May Worsen ADHD Symptoms in Medicated Women
A pilot study of thirty adult women with ADHD who take amphetamine‑based stimulants found that symptom severity and negative mood spike during the menstrual phase, while mid‑follicular days show milder symptoms. Daily medication dosages remained unchanged across the cycle, indicating...
Synthetic DNA Manufacturing Hub Set Up in Boston by Artis BioSolutions
Artis BioSolutions, a San Diego‑based advanced therapies firm, has launched a synthetic DNA manufacturing hub in Boston using Syngoi Technologies' proprietary enzymatic platform. The new site complements its GMP manufacturing facility in Watertown, creating a bi‑continental network with an existing...
Glycidol: The DNA-Damager in Fried Foods
Recent research highlights glycidol, a genotoxic carcinogen generated when vegetable oils are refined for frying, as a hidden risk in fried foods. Average daily exposure in the U.S. may exceed 50 micrograms, far above the estimated safe level of less...
Supercomputers Just Solved a 50-Year-Old Mystery About Giant Stars
Researchers at the University of Victoria and the University of Minnesota used high‑resolution 3D simulations on cutting‑edge supercomputers to pinpoint stellar rotation as the missing mechanism that transports deep‑interior material to the surface of red giant stars. The simulations show...
Wicked Stepmother No Longer, a Female Pharoah Gets a Reputational Makeover
Recent research published in Antiquity reexamines the damage to statues of Egypt’s 18th‑dynasty queen Hatshepsut, suggesting the destruction was not solely ordered by her successor Thutmose III. The study, led by doctoral candidate Jun Yi Wong, analyzed decades of excavation notes and photographs,...
‘Warcraft… with Pure Thought Control’ — 100 Days with Neuralink ‘Feels Like Science Fiction’ to Early Brain Chip Pioneer
British Army veteran Jon Noble has spent 100 days with Neuralink’s N1 brain‑computer interface implanted in his motor cortex, allowing him to play World of Warcraft using only thought. The implant translates neural activity into digital commands, letting him navigate...
New Research Links Higher B Vitamin Levels with Lower Stroke Risk
A new analysis of roughly 222,000 participants from the Women’s Health Initiative and the All of Us Research Program shows that higher dietary intake of several B‑complex vitamins—particularly B1, B2, B3, B6 and folate—correlates with up to a 20 percent lower...
World's Freshwater Fish in Crisis, U.N. Report Warns
A new United Nations report reveals that freshwater fish populations have plummeted 81 percent over the past 50 years, endangering hundreds of species that feed millions of people. The decline is driven by warming waters, pollution, dam construction and intensive fishing, with...
New Research on 3D Printed Heart Attack Sensing Platform With 17 Cents Electrodes
Researchers at the University of Brighton and the University of Strathclyde have created a fully 3D‑printed electrochemical sensor that detects the heart‑attack biomarker cardiac troponin I at 7.4 pg/mL in undiluted human serum. The electrodes, printed on a desktop FlashForge Creator Pro 2 using...
CMS Strengthens the Case for Toponium
The CMS Collaboration announced a five‑sigma observation of a top‑antitop bound state, toponium, at the Moriond 2026 conference. By analyzing events where one top decays leptonically and the other hadronically, researchers measured unusually low relative velocities, a hallmark of binding....
Carbon Shell‐Mediated Electronic Modulation of NiFe Alloy Electrocatalysts for Efficient CO2 Electroreduction
Researchers introduced a carbon‑coated NiFe alloy (NiFe@NC) that uses a thin carbon shell to electronically reconfigure the catalyst surface, facilitating CO desorption and suppressing hydrogen evolution. Density‑functional theory and in‑situ spectroscopy confirm the electronic reconstruction and protective role of the...
Chronic Medical Conditions Predict Childhood Depression More Strongly than Social or Family Hardships
A new analysis of the 2022‑2023 National Survey of Children’s Health, covering 65,652 U.S. youths, finds that chronic medical conditions are the strongest predictor of childhood depression, outpacing poverty or parental divorce. Each additional medical health risk nearly doubles the...
We’ve Been Underestimating Flying Foxes
Researchers have quantified that Australia’s flying foxes generate between $195 million and $673 million annually by facilitating the growth of over 91 million trees, primarily eucalypts. Historically deemed pests and even eradicated with napalm, these large fruit bats now appear essential to the...
Welcome: Stephanie Lo
Stephanie Lo has been appointed Protein Function Content Team Leader at EMBL‑EBI, overseeing the curation of protein function data for UniProt. She brings experience from leading the Global Pneumococcal Sequencing project at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where she linked bacterial...
Effect of Microstructure on the Tensile-Tensile Fatigue Response and Damage Behavior of Laminated Braided Composites
Researchers examined how microstructural variations affect fatigue performance in laminated braided composites by fabricating thick‑ply and thin‑ply laminates with identical overall thickness. Quasi‑static and high‑cycle tension tests, coupled with macro‑ and microscopic analysis, revealed that thick‑ply configurations initiate damage at...