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Khabre desk
Recent reporting, analysis and explainers from the Science desk.
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Researchers report that voltage can drive cyclic rotation in a helicene molecule held between gold electrodes. The rotation changes how readily current passes through the junction, and reversing voltage polarity reverses the preferred direction of motion.
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The UK Metascience Unit has tested ways to change research-grant review, including applicant-led peer review. Its co-head says that approach can speed assessment, while email appeals to reviewers’ social obligation did not increase acceptance.
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The STAR Collaboration measured about 20% lower yields of recoiling charged hadrons and jets in high-activity than low-activity oxygen–oxygen collisions at RHIC. The result provides evidence for jet quenching in this relatively small collision system.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover measured fine and ultrafine Martian dust clinging to samples of spacesuit materials carried on the rover. The results could help guide spacesuit, habitat and dust-removal designs for future Mars crews.
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A NASA-funded study dates the Martian meteorite Teghaza 001 to more than 4.1 billion years ago. Its minerals also record alteration by water around that time, offering a rare sample of ancient Martian crust.
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A NASA-funded study dates the formation of Teghaza 001 to more than 4.1 billion years ago. Its minerals preserve evidence of ancient Martian crust and alteration by water.
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An expedition into the Rub’ al Khali found no stone tools or other signs of ancient human occupation. The result has prompted a theory that early settlement depended on access to stone as well as water.
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A Nature study reports a dual-copper strategy for using unactivated alkyl chlorides in chlorine atom-transfer radical chemistry. The approach can switch between small-molecule synthesis and polymer reactions.
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Researchers brought two archaeal strains from a lineage closely related to the ancestor of eukaryotic cells into culture. Their simple internal organization, elaborate surfaces, microbial partnerships and protein-dependent lifestyle offer clues about how complex cells arose.
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A peer-reviewed Nature study reports a chemical method that cleaves silicone’s Si–O–Si backbone and regenerates an industrially relevant dichlorosilane monomer. The approach worked across linear and cyclic siloxanes, including commercial silicone oils and elastomers.
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Nature Medicine has issued an Editorial Expression of Concern over northern blot images in a 2007 paper on microRNA-133 and cardiac hypertrophy. The journal says the original data are no longer available and advises readers to interpret the affected data with caution.
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NASA ended science operations of the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory after atmospheric drag at its low orbit made steady astronomical observations impossible. The spacecraft leaves a public archive of nearly 22 years of multiwavelength data.
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Anthropic says an internal research Claude model found a deterministic subexponential-time algorithm for 3-SAT, contradicting the Exponential Time Hypothesis. Its repository includes a Lean 4 formalization and describes the result as asymptotic, not a practical solver.
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Two nearly complete skeletons from China identify Gerrothorax maritimus, a stem amphibian that lived about 237 million years ago. The fossils’ position far from land and associated strontium isotope evidence suggest it inhabited fully marine environments.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover detected fine and ultrafine Martian dust clinging to spacesuit-material samples carried on board. The measurements could help guide ways to limit dust exposure during future crewed missions.
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ESO says observations with the Very Large Telescope have revealed plausible evidence for a Jupiter-mass object orbiting a brown dwarf in the CD-35 2722 system. If confirmed, it could be the first moon-like object detected beyond the Solar System.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces LangAAI, a model that uses antibody and antigen sequences to model antibody hypervariable regions without requiring 3D structures. The authors report that changing the antigen input to a non-binding decoy particularly affects sequence recovery in the CDR3 loop.
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A fossil from southeastern China represents a newly described Late Jurassic avialan with a mix of bird-like and troodontid-like features. Its short forelimbs and comparative anatomy support a terrestrial, flightless lifestyle.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports higher Serpin A3 levels in human brain tissue from cases with cerebral amyloid angiopathy and Alzheimer’s disease than in neurological controls. The protein was also prominent around damaged vessels in one postmortem case of severe lecanemab-associated ARIA.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that nonsense-mediated decay suppresses many RNA isoforms created when transposable-element sequences become part of genes. The findings suggest this cellular quality-control system helps regulate a pool of potential evolutionary novelty.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports XXY and XXYY females at frequencies as high as 88% in some strains of four Drosophila species. The researchers link the pattern to a bias in the chromosome types carried by eggs.
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A Physical Review Letters study presents a first-principles framework for calculating internal conversion in optically active spin defects. The authors report quantitative agreement with experiments for the NV− centre in diamond and identify a previously overlooked nonradiative channel affecting a divacancy triplet lifetime in silicon carbide.
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NASA says the Psyche spacecraft began using its solar-powered thrusters nearly 90% of the time after a Mars gravity assist. The extended thrusting is intended to keep it on course for an asteroid rendezvous in summer 2029.
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NASA says the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has completed its observatory checkout and entered science commissioning. Teams are now testing performance, calibrating the instruments and refining image quality before science operations.
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An assessment of 29,038 studies reports that 85% found positive human and environmental co-benefits from avoiding forest conversion. The authors also identify gaps in evidence for countries facing imminent forest-conversion threats.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that DFCP1 assembles into a helical coat that concentrates the membrane lipid PI3P and helps organise sites where cells repair damaged lysosomes.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes three recurring leukaemia stem-cell states in paediatric acute myeloid leukaemia and reports that the surface antigens CLEC12A and CD84 together cover them broadly. The findings offer a target-selection framework for future immunotherapy research.
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A not-yet-peer-reviewed preprint analyses sediment layers in New Jersey and offshore as records of repeated disturbance after the Chicxulub impact. The authors suggest the deposits may capture environmental disruption and recovery over decades.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that multiple neurotransmitter vesicles are commonly released at cortical synapses in living brains. The researchers link this multiquantal signalling to more reliable transmission and to behavioural-state-dependent changes in synaptic potency.
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Researchers report a helicene molecule that rotates directionally when voltage is applied, with the direction reversing when voltage polarity changes. Above a threshold, rotation enhances current through the molecule, and stretching or compressing it tunes that threshold.
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A bioRxiv preprint analysing fMRI data from 1,712 people reports that task-related changes in brain activity timescales vary across cortical regions, track cognitive performance and follow a two-stage pattern during youth. The findings link these changes to cortical features associated with neural plasticity, but do not establish a causal mechanism.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes iFLiP, a low-cost fiber photometry system using off-the-shelf components to measure fluorescence lifetime. The researchers report demonstrations tracking protein kinase A activity in cells and mice, including measurements over multiple days.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that lipopolysaccharide supports several distinct functions in the cell envelope of two Gram-negative bacteria. Experiments suggest that its mechanical role alone cannot explain why it is essential for growth.
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In a preprint, researchers report that antibiotic selection on human airway tissue favoured Pseudomonas aeruginosa clones that preserved the tissue and survived treatment better. The finding suggests that standard susceptibility measurements can miss infection traits shaped by the host environment.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that microbiome-colonized rice and two defined bacterial communities had less rice blast disease in a gnotobiotic experimental system. The results suggest that microbes can shape rice immune responses as well as act against the fungus.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a single-amplicon sequencing workflow that recovered high-quality rhinovirus genomes from clinical specimens and enterovirus coding sequences from isolates. The authors report lower reagent costs and shorter processing time than hybridization capture sequencing.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes Carbon-A, a 1.2-billion-parameter model for predicting protein-coding genes across eukaryotes. Its authors used the model to create a database covering 48,167 genome assemblies and report strong performance across 42 benchmarks.
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Researchers used generative protein design and directed evolution to create artificial metalloenzymes that control the stereochemistry of light-driven reactions. The study reports diverse reactions, catalyst recycling and high turnover.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover drove 28.10 miles (45.22 kilometres) on Mars by Oct. 11, 2026, surpassing the previous off-world driving record held by Opportunity. NASA says autonomous navigation has enabled the rover to cover more terrain as it investigates Jezero Crater.
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OpenAI says it worked with PerturbAI and Scripps Research to use thousands of GPT-Rosalind agents to analyse a whole-brain mouse CRISPR atlas in 32 minutes. The agents linked gene-disruption effects with scientific literature to produce leads for follow-up research.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces hEVO, a genomic model trained on 4.784 billion haplotype sequences reconstructed from whole-genome data. Its authors report strong results across variant-interpretation benchmarks, including tests that required no task-specific training.
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A Nature correspondence links research into how single-celled algae sense light to the discovery of channelrhodopsins and the development of optogenetics. Its authors say this line of work underpins this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces Chaperone, a framework for coordinating protein-design tools. Its authors report reduced token use and GPU costs across nine design tasks, alongside results from several protein-design campaigns.
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A 30-month study of wild mosquitoes in western Kenya found that Microsporidia MB infection was associated with lower odds of Plasmodium falciparum infection. The association was stronger in mosquitoes with high-intensity symbiont infections.
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A model that represents broad grounding zones matched historical satellite data more closely than models that omit them. In some simulations, it projected as much as twice the glacier’s current sea-level contribution estimates.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that Cell Painting PLUS uses additional organelle-resolved imaging to improve morphological profiling of compounds. In tests of 284 compounds in U2OS cells, it performed better than conventional Cell Painting for identifying compounds that interfere with lysosome function.
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A bioRxiv preprint compares a simple model of the primary visual cortex with phosphenes described and drawn by one cortical-implant recipient. The model reproduced a variety of reported shapes and suggests that some electrodes may activate multiple locations.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that simulated mixtures of E. coli strains made sequence-type and serotype prediction less reliable than detection of individual resistance and virulence genes. Increasing the dominant strain’s abundance improved strain-level predictions, while longer reads alone did not resolve the challenge.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that canary breeds selected for song differ from other breeds in neural development, song-related brain regions and auditory sensitivity. Genome-wide findings point to many genes contributing to song divergence, including an ADGRV1 variant associated with singing and hearing traits.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that a butterfly population’s female-heavy sex ratio returned to near parity in 2024–2025 as the frequency of feminizing Wolbachia fell. The population had reached 93.1% females in 2022.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a method combining extrusion-based 3D bioprinting with multi-pillar anchors to guide skeletal muscle fibre orientation. The researchers report engineered tissues with four architectures and a multi-tissue system modelled on facial musculature.
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JAXA’s Martian Moons eXploration mission lifted off on an H3 rocket on 20 October 2026. It is planned to investigate Phobos and Deimos, collect a sample from Phobos and return to Earth.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes LongVerse, a system that uses AI agents to configure a fixed pipeline for haplotype-resolved DNA methylation analysis from Nanopore or PacBio reads. In tests on the HG002 reference genome, the authors report calls identical to a human expert’s and comparisons with bisulfite sequencing.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports cryo-EM structures showing aphidicolin blocking human DNA polymerases δ and ε at the site where they add DNA building blocks. Reconstituted assays and the structures suggest that differences in how the enzymes grip the DNA template help explain why Pol δ is more sensitive.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that wheat resistance to four soil-borne pathogens is shaped by many genetic factors, with some genomic regions shared across diseases. The authors say the patterns also depend on pathogen, environment and local genetic context.
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Researchers report Airscope, a 1.0-gram wireless mesoscope that records calcium activity across the mouse cortex during free behaviour. The system enabled neural recordings during social interactions, maze exploration and fear conditioning.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that stress granules contain elevated hydrogen peroxide in living cells and use a locally recruited redox system to restrain TDP-43 aggregation. The findings come from cellular and in-vitro experiments.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that hippocampal Cajal-Retzius cells receive traced input from at least seven areas outside the hippocampus. The authors also describe strychnine-sensitive activity and close positioning of entorhinal fibres to glycinergic receptors.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps about 400,000 effects of μ-opioid receptor variants across 15 opioids. The researchers report that ligands with different signalling efficacy rely on different regions of the receptor.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that UV and laser light reveal leaf venation and shape invisible under white light in about half of the fossil leaves surveyed. The authors say the images could improve fossil identification and support future AI-based analysis.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps nucleosome patterns across 410 tumours from 23 cancer types and reports that tissue-derived patterns could distinguish cancers using circulating cell-free DNA. The findings point to a possible source of information for non-invasive cancer detection, but the reported results are from research analyses rather than a demonstrated clinical test.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that correcting ambient RNA before detecting doublets can leave more doublet-containing droplets in single-cell RNA-sequencing data. The authors recommend detecting doublets first, except when using CellBender.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a prime-editing method that creates genomic deletions while adding molecular tags, letting researchers identify edited cells and measure gene-expression effects. In K562 cells, the team reports intronic enhancer deletions associated with 20–30% lower host-gene expression.
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A bioRxiv preprint reanalysed 115 whole-body RNA-sequencing libraries from female Anopheles gambiae kept at 27, 30 or 32°C. A gene-expression clock estimated warmer mosquitoes as older, but its age offset stopped widening after day five.
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NASA says the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Wide Field Instrument reached an optical error of 63 nanometers RMS after commissioning adjustments, against an image-quality requirement of about 90 nanometers RMS. The team describes the instrument’s performance as nearly 30% better than predicted.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports more than 200 newly identified transposable-element families in Arabidopsis thaliana, based on long-read genome assemblies from 91 strains. The authors say these families contribute to genetic variants with large effects, even though full-length copies are often found in only a few strains.
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JAXA’s MMX mission is targeting an October 2026 launch to study Mars’ moons and return a sample from Phobos. NASA is contributing a composition-measuring instrument, sampler technology, communications support and scientific expertise.
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Antarctic sea ice likely reached its annual maximum on September 14, 2026, covering 17.59 million square kilometres. That was the third-lowest maximum in the satellite record.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that intracortical signals predicted movement onset 250–400 milliseconds ahead in three people with tetraplegia. Participants reported intending to act on 88% of trials when a virtual opponent interrupted them.
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NASA is contributing a science instrument, sample-collection technology and communications support to JAXA’s MMX mission to study Mars’ moons and return a sample from Phobos. The spacecraft is targeting launch on Oct. 19, 2026, with sample return planned for 2031.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that two introns from the PRK gene increased reporter expression in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii by up to 35-fold compared with intronless versions. The researchers also used one of the introns to produce detectable patchoulol under conditions where a reference intron was insufficient.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports SPEAR, a method combining laser microdissection and mass spectrometry to measure RNA modifications in small regions of preserved tissue. In human diffuse glioma samples, the authors found lower levels of several methylated RNA modifications in higher-grade foci than in low-grade regions.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes RaMN-Seq, a roughly two-hour method for purifying micronuclei and sequencing their DNA. The researchers report tests in induced chromosome-missegregation experiments and cancer cell lines and tumour samples.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes DeepMM, a method that detects suspected misassembly junctions and splits contigs before microbial genomes are grouped into bins. In benchmark datasets, this reduced gene annotations that disagreed with sample-matched reference genomes.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports cryo-EM structures of the flagellar motor in Borrelia burgdorferi, revealing stators that remain attached to the motor while disengaged from its rotor. The authors propose that this arrangement lets the bacterium regulate torque by switching individual stators in and out of engagement.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that three enzymes in Escherichia coli release polysaccharide cargo from the lipid carrier undecaprenyl. The findings connect carrier recycling to several bacterial cell-envelope pathways.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports a pooled CRISPRi screen that measured 1,326 pairwise genetic interactions among 51 Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug-target genes. Follow-up experiments found drug synergies involving ATP synthase targets and reported that inhibiting Pks13 potentiated antitubercular agents.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a two-part fertilization apparatus in male Cryptosporidium parasites. In infected mice, conditional inactivation of the membrane-fusion protein HAP2 blocked fertilization and oocyst production, and the authors report that it rapidly cleared infection.
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AMD says CEO and chair Lisa Su received the National Medal of Science on October 8, 2026. The award recognises her engineering career and contributions to computing through her leadership at the company.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that centromeres in isolated human metaphase chromosomes have a distinct force response, including softening at some force levels. The researchers also found that topoisomerase IIα is recruited to centromeric regions under significant tension.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the timing of hippocampal neurons’ spikes relative to theta rhythms carried information about locations and viewed images, including in neurons without corresponding firing-rate changes. In human navigation data, spike timing improved location decoding beyond firing rates alone.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that vagus nerve stimulation recruited neurons in the default mode network in mice. Selectively activating or silencing those neurons reproduced or abolished stimulation-related changes in cognitive behaviours.
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A Nature reassessment classified 340 of 774 reef-building coral species with sufficient data as threatened under IUCN Red List criteria. The estimates rely partly on projected bleaching risk and coral-cover trends because species-level population trends are unavailable for most corals.
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Arctic sea ice reached an estimated 4.6 million square kilometres on September 12, 2026, tying three other years for the 10th-lowest minimum in the satellite record. The long-term decline continues even as recent summer minimums have been relatively steady.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes COMET, a 3.75-g head-mounted imaging system that recorded more than 15,000 cortical neurons in freely moving mice during five-minute sessions. The researchers used it to examine brain activity during social interaction and fear conditioning.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes TriComm, a three-strain microbial community maintained in continuous culture to study plasmid-mediated antimicrobial resistance. The authors report that resistance plasmids protected the community from collapse under antimicrobial treatment, with protection depending on plasmid transfer.
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A Nature Research Briefing reports that a combined global and national-level dataset puts terrestrial conservation coverage at up to 27%. It also says gaps in ecological representation remain.
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A bioRxiv preprint benchmarked 16 tools using 30× Illumina whole-genome sequencing and found that only five reliably produced exact deletion, insertion and duplication calls against truth sets. It also reported accuracy losses in ensemble pipelines compared with their strongest component tools.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports sex-specific reference charts for 296 structural brain measures, built from imaging data from 59,915 healthy people aged from 266 days after conception to 100 years. The authors found differences in when measures reached peak milestones and reported improved prediction compared with charts that pooled sexes.
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A Nature study reports a rhodium-catalysed method that inserts a carbon atom into biphenylene frameworks to form spirocyclic structures. The approach activates carbon–carbon single bonds and uses N-isocyanoiminophosphorane as a carbon-atom equivalent.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports Epulopiscium-related 16S sequences across human and animal gut samples. In human samples, the authors found age- and disease-associated differences in their abundance.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps the maturation of human choroid-plexus organoids and reports that their response to valproic acid depends on developmental stage. Early changes recovered after the drug was withdrawn, while some late-stage transporter impairments persisted.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports maternal microchimerism in epilepsy surgery tissue and healthy-brain datasets, with cells matching several neuronal, immune and vascular identities. The reported frequency declined with age.
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A bioRxiv preprint benchmarking differential scanning fluorimetry across 26 laboratories found good repeatability within instruments but moderate differences between them. The fluorescence readout and analysis workflow also affected apparent protein melting temperatures.
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A Nature study used helical edge modes as a spin-selective scanning tunnelling microscopy probe to map signatures of d-wave altermagnetism on the surface of KV₂Se₂O. The researchers report evidence from both real-space and momentum-space measurements.
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A peer-reviewed Nature study reports a low-temperature method for oxidizing polyethylene at a solid–liquid interface. The treatment improved adhesion to polar surfaces while preserving bulk properties such as melting temperature and tensile strength.
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NASA says Perseverance drove 45.22 kilometres on Mars by Oct. 11, 2026, surpassing the previous off-world distance record held by Opportunity. The rover uses autonomous navigation for more than 90% of its total driving distance.
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JWST observations show that the distant cluster XLSSC 122 strongly lenses light from more distant galaxies, making it the most distant known galaxy cluster with this effect. The team also found an unusually concentrated mass distribution, a result that challenges predictions from conventional cosmological models.
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An unusual mix of elements in the white dwarf HS 0209+0832, together with a repeating brightness signal, points to an evaporating giant-planet candidate. Researchers say its material may have formed from gas expelled by the star during an earlier giant phase.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes three triple-negative breast cancer subtypes defined by differences in tumour cells and their surrounding tissue. The authors link the groups to distinct immune, fibrotic and metabolic patterns.
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A bioRxiv preprint comparing human H1N1 strains collected from 1977 to 2024 reports a recurring preference for α2,6-sialylated glycans. The study also found changes in binding avidity and a binding-null egg-adapted mutant.
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A bioRxiv preprint combines data from eight healthy Indian cohorts into a reference atlas and proposes a four-part Indian Gut Health Index. The authors report geographic patterns in the data, while noting that cohort and geography effects are strongly intertwined.
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A Nature study describes DRT10, a bacterial antiviral system that uses a noncoding RNA to guide repeat-DNA synthesis. Its RNA-templated mechanism has parallels with eukaryotic telomerase.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps labeled nutrients across adult female fruit flies, finding distinct patterns of metabolism in different body regions. In flies with gut tumors, alanine’s contribution to malate increased, and reducing gut alanine uptake lowered tumor burden.
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A taxonomic study in Phytotaxa recognises five species in the giant waterlily genus Victoria, including V. colombiana in Colombia’s upper Orinoco and V. mattogrossensis in the Pantanal. The researchers compared plant morphology and mapped populations against South American river drainage patterns.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that a scalp EEG signal associated with awareness of touch corresponds to activity recorded inside the brain. The study connects the N140/SAN with an insulo-opercular signal that follows high-frequency activity after stimulation.
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A preprint analysing the Rubin Observatory’s Data Preview 2 asteroid catalogue reports two asteroids larger than 2 km completing a rotation in about five minutes. Its method adjusts the complexity of each asteroid’s light-curve model and can retain multiple possible periods when one cannot be selected reliably.
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NASA has uploaded more than 800 gigabytes of Artemis II lunar science data to its public Planetary Data System. The release includes more than 11,000 images and videos, crew audio recordings, annotated images and three science publications.
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An Anthropic-authored bioRxiv preprint reports that Claude Code agents surveyed 1.9 billion protein clusters and identified a family of phage reverse transcriptases associated with tandem DNA repeats. The researchers also report that the repeat arrays are highly expressed during Staphylococcus phage infection.
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Researchers operated a thorium-229 nuclear clock by using absorption in a crystal to steer the laser probing the nuclei. They also used the clock to search for oscillations that could be caused by ultralight dark matter.
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ESA says BepiColombo is scheduled to separate its Mercury Transfer Module on 3 September 2026, beginning the mission’s Mercury arrival phase. Mercury orbit insertion is planned for November, followed by separation of the ESA and JAXA science orbiters in December.
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ESA says FLEX and Copernicus Sentinel-3C are scheduled to launch together on a Vega-C rocket on 15 September 2026. FLEX will measure faint plant fluorescence alongside data from a Sentinel-3 satellite to help characterise global vegetation.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes ModDNA, a sequence-design and cloning toolkit for building custom DNA molecules up to 100 kilobases. The researchers used the constructs in single-molecule visualisation assays, including an assay of DNA loop extrusion by human condensin I.
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ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot has returned to Europe after 237 days, 5 hours and 18 minutes in space. Her εpsilon mission set a European record for the longest single spaceflight and included three spacewalks.
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An analysis of SPHEREx observations of 37 nearby brown dwarfs found atmospheric signatures of water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane. The spectra also show differences among objects that current models struggle to explain during cloudy transitions.
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A study of 37 nearby brown dwarfs used NASA’s SPHEREx observations to identify water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane in their atmospheres. The findings also show that existing models struggle to match spectra during some cloudy atmospheric transitions.
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Solar Orbiter traced a large magnetic switchback in the solar wind to hot magnetic loops at the Sun. The findings point to interchange reconnection at its origin, with waves and turbulence influencing its later movement through space.
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A mathematics preprint argues that Lean’s verification of a formal proof does not guarantee that the proof faithfully represents the original natural-language argument. The authors say this mismatch occurs in the formalisation of OpenAI’s announced Navier–Stokes blow-up proof.
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NASA selected three payload suites to study lunar hazards, look for a possible lava tube at the Marius Hills Pit, and measure ice and surface conditions. The investigations are intended to support planning for future Moon operations.
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An analysis of JWST and Spitzer spectra from 21 extreme debris disks found abundant tiny, thermally altered dust. The researchers interpret its mineral signatures as evidence of large collisions during planetary-system evolution.
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OpenAI’s public math repository lists 722 manuscripts across 372 related-work families, produced through an evaluation using an unreleased internal model. The company says the manuscripts are at different stages of verification, and not all have Lean formalizations.
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Biohub, US federal agencies and industry partners announced a combined $1.8 billion commitment to develop open, AI-ready biological data and measurement technologies. The initiative aims to support predictive models of cell behaviour; the announcement describes planned work, not a completed virtual cell.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes REZCUE, a method for imaging archived tissue in three dimensions while preserving DNA, RNA and proteins for later molecular analysis. The authors report its use across commercial antibodies and in a multi-omic analysis of one archived breast cancer specimen.
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A two-year field study of 60 Zea accessions found that some had 20–40% of their nitrogen derived from the atmosphere. Aerial-root traits changed more consistently across the domestication continuum than this measure of biological nitrogen fixation.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that ibuprofen increased ciprofloxacin tolerance in Campylobacter jejuni in a screen of 2,415 small molecules. The same study identified human-targeted drugs that inhibited the bacterium while sparing commensal microbes.
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OpenAI’s public repository catalogues 722 mathematical manuscripts in 372 families, produced mostly with an unreleased internal model. The company says the results are at different stages of verification, and many—but not all—have Lean formalizations.
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NASA’s six-satellite SunRISE radio astronomy mission is targeting launch no earlier than mid-2027. Flying slightly above geosynchronous orbit, the satellites will work together to track radio bursts from the Sun’s corona.
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NASA’s Curiosity rover captured a six-image dawn panorama of wind-carved cliffs on Mount Sharp. Mission scientists hope to reach the yardangs in 2027 and investigate how the distinctive layer formed.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that tunicamycin, a compound produced by Streptomyces bacteria, induced unisexual reproduction in Cryptococcus fungi. The reported cycle included meiotic recombination and spore formation.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that LptZ connects surface lipoprotein transport with outer membrane vesicle formation in Bacteroides. Experiments in an lptZ mutant also point to an expanded role for the bacterial Lpt transport machinery.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the host protein HNRNPM binds stem-loop 5 in the SARS-CoV-2 5′-UTR and promotes protein synthesis from the viral RNA. Mutations in the structure’s lower stem reduced both HNRNPM binding and protein synthesis.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that oversampling closely related prokaryotic strains makes genome collections less informative than their raw counts suggest. Applying the authors’ PhyloThin method to 402 species, the study estimates that the effective sample count is 41% below the actual count.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes four rounds of computational screening that identified natural hydroxymethylfurfural oxidases with improved activity on a key FDCA-production reaction. Some candidates approached an engineered benchmark under the tested conditions.
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NASA selected three payload suites to investigate lunar hazards, possible underground lava tubes, ice and surface conditions. The planned investigations are intended to inform science and operational planning for a sustained presence on the Moon.
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NASA selected the Planetary Science Institute-led GIMLI project to investigate whether a large underground void extends from the Moon’s Marius Hills Pit. The planned lander-and-rover study will combine radar, seismic and gravity measurements.
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Panama, Tonga and Vanuatu launched a voluntary coalition to build dialogue around a proposed UN process on the rights of nature. Its members are not committed to endorsing any particular legal framework or outcome.
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Psychologist Mirta Galesic recommends brief public disagreement, support from others and continued dialogue as ways to respond to hateful online speech. The interview describes social-media analyses behind the advice.
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ESA says Juice’s 28 September 2026 Earth flyby bent its path by 20° and increased its velocity by 3.5 km/s. The encounter also gave the mission teams an opportunity to test and calibrate science instruments in space.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces AuditPPI, a framework for examining the signals behind protein-interaction predictions. Its authors report that benchmark performance can reflect cellular context and other cues, with limited evidence that the predictive signals specifically capture interaction interfaces.
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A study used roughly 2-ps electrical pulses to probe intrinsic current limits in thin films of NbN and YBa₂Cu₃O₇. NbN showed a sharp depairing onset at about 2.2 times its conventional critical current density, while YBa₂Cu₃O₇ lost superconductivity gradually as current increased.
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The MEGATRON simulations connect pair-instability supernovae from the first stars with a flat iron-abundance trend in the smallest dwarf galaxies. They also predict that about 20% of the simulated dwarfs are extremely iron-poor.
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NASA says the Roman Space Telescope passed fine-guidance stability tests and captured its first coronagraph images during commissioning in September 2026. The initial coronagraph observations tested focus and pointing rather than reporting a planet detection.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces fp-SMD, which models the optically trapped bead, linker and biomolecule together. The authors report that it reproduces a cholesterol–β-cyclodextrin rupture-force histogram and captures force-dependent changes in the molecule’s escape route.
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ESA and The Pokémon Company International are launching exhibitions and Pokémon GO activities across Europe for World Space Week 2026. A Pikachu plush previously spent 67 days aboard the International Space Station.
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ESA expects astronaut Sophie Adenot to return to Europe around 7 or 8 October 2026 after a nearly eight-month ISS mission. She passed 200 days in orbit and completed three spacewalks during the mission.
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A study of wild African savannah elephants found that overlapping rumble choruses carry acoustic cues associated with behavioral context. Rumbles also became more acoustically similar during some multi-caller exchanges.
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A nearly complete fossil from China reveals that the Early Cretaceous mammal Dongoconodon replaced teeth in multiple generations at some positions. Its skeleton also points to semiaquatic life and preserves a short connection between the middle-ear region and the jaw.
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A bioRxiv preprint analysing a PLP1-mutant Jimpy brain dataset finds that normalization choices and shared controls can affect which genes appear to move toward healthy levels after a rescue. The authors say such transcriptomic patterns can indicate broad state restoration without identifying which downstream gene mediates it.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that ALS- and FTD-linked TDP-43 alterations reduce HSV-1 infection in experimental models. The researchers connect the effect to changes in cell-adhesion signalling involving focal adhesion kinase.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that ventral tegmental area dopamine activity drives bursting in basal forebrain neurons in rats and mice. The researchers measured a roughly 10-millisecond delay and used optogenetic manipulations to test the connection.
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A bioRxiv preprint analysing more than two million tree measurements finds canopy height mostly increased across eastern US ecoregions, while changes varied in the West. Shifts in tree populations and in how tree dimensions relate to one another both contributed.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that Plasmodium male-gamete axonemes retain key surface motility modules but have a reduced set of proteins inside their microtubule doublets. It also describes proteins involved in doublet organization and the progressive assembly of outer dynein arms.
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A bioRxiv preprint analysing about 29,000 microbiomes reports that network and functional traits were associated with community stability under drought, warming and salinity. The authors suggest baseline sequencing could help identify vulnerable communities before disturbance.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a sequence-design model that encodes preferred protonation states to create pH-sensitive PD-L1 binders. Yeast-display screens recovered hundreds of candidate designs with transition pH values from 4.0 to 5.8.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a transformer model trained on 8.8 million measured SARS-CoV-2 RBD–ACE2 interactions. It predicts receptor-binding compatibility across animal species and pairs predictions with uncertainty estimates to help prioritise surveillance.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports two functionally distinct amyloid-beta intermediate populations in laboratory, mouse-model and human Alzheimer’s brain material. In mice, pharmacologically suppressing the intermediates reduced plaque burden and astrogliosis and improved cognition.
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Nature has retracted a 2014 study that reported miRNAs and the NMD pathway regulate ribosomal frameshifting in CCR5 mRNA. The journal says a cryptic splice site created artefactual reporter variants, and follow-up assays found no detectable frameshifting with a revised reporter.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that seven days of partial sleep deprivation progressively reduced spontaneous neuronal activity in the live mouse hippocampus while tissue oxygen levels rose. After seven days of recovery, activity had not returned to baseline and oxygenation continued to increase.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that increased nuclear acetyl-CoA in lab-grown neurons from people with sporadic Alzheimer’s disease was linked to altered RNA-protein acetylation and splicing. Inhibiting the enzyme ACLY reversed these changes in the cell model.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that cerebral organoids cultured for more than six months reproduce a pattern of interneuron migration seen in the postnatal human cortex. The researchers used imaging, transcriptomics and gene perturbations to investigate how the cells move and organize.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents a synapse-resolved electron-microscopy dataset of the mouse spinal dorsal horn and a deep-learning tool for classifying sensory neuron types. Its circuit reconstruction identifies inhibitory pathways that preferentially target individual sensory subtypes while also crossing between sensory pathways.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps how mouse spinal-cord circuits route different sensory signals toward the brain. The wiring diagram distinguishes direct routes for noxious and cooling signals from an interneuron-mediated route for touch and itch.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that rice peptide OsRALF7 can trigger infection-structure formation in the rice blast fungus. Experiments in rice plants also suggest the peptide helps guide where those structures form.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports cryo-EM structures of human VIAAT in two states, identifying a GABA-binding pocket and a proposed gate that opens toward the synaptic-vesicle interior.
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A bioRxiv preprint uses dengue virus genome data and phylodynamic analysis to reconstruct global lineage spread. It finds an asymmetric pattern, with Asia continuing to seed transmission elsewhere and spread to the Americas increasing.
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A genome-scale analysis combining bat DNA with fossil anatomy identifies Europe as the probable origin of bats, and therefore powered flight, in the late Palaeocene. The study also revises relationships among bat families and places laryngeal echolocation before the diversification of living bats.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that mice developed opioid-induced hyperalgesia even when spinal microglia were absent. The findings also separate changes in microglial appearance from a necessary role in the measured opioid effects.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes ProxiNet, a framework that learns cellular proximity from spatial transcriptomics and applies those relationships to dissociated single-cell RNA sequencing. The authors report spatial validation and use the approach to identify inferred neighborhoods in an Alzheimer dataset.
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A bioRxiv preprint analysing 231 haplotype-resolved human pangenomes reports that variable transposable elements can gain, change or lose regulatory effects before they become fixed. Their effects depend on DNA methylation and transcript context.
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Exposomics combines measurements of environmental and lifestyle exposures with genetic information. A 2026 analysis found that groups of exposure markers explained more variation in disease-related traits than markers assessed individually, while researchers work to connect those patterns to individual risk.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes BEACON, a method that learns background count patterns to assign single cells to their samples in multiplexed sequencing. The authors report improved classification across human datasets and applications in cancer-cell experiments and protein–transcriptome profiling.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes PRIORITI, a framework that combines language-model synthesis of human genetic evidence with supervised learning to forecast whether a proposed drug target–disease pairing will succeed. The authors report results on historical and post-cutoff benchmark sets.
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A Nature study links broad, multidecadal changes in Earth’s day length to gravitational torque from the inner core. Its model-based reconstruction combines seismic estimates of inner-core rotation with core-flow models derived from changes in Earth’s magnetic field.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes MIMOSA, a framework that guides antibody-generating models using the structure of a known binder interface. The authors report experimentally validated binders against three targets, with hit rates of 20–26%.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that BXD34 mice resisted diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance despite eating more, alongside widespread urinary nutrient loss. The strain was also profoundly susceptible to acute kidney injury.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces Tau, a mathematical method for reconstructing and timing copy-number gains in cancer genomes. Its authors report that abrupt amplification bursts, including at oncogenes, cluster around whole-genome duplication.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces EpiZoo, a 2.6-billion-parameter model trained on about 20.9 million single cells from multiple species. Its authors report performance on several single-cell analysis tasks and describe applications in comparing regulatory patterns and prioritising cancer mutations.
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A Nature editorial argues that brain-organoid research needs international oversight as human lab-grown brain tissue is integrated into animal brains. It points to independent, multidisciplinary ethics advisers as one way to guide research.
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A 57-centimetre fossil from China has been named Norellraptor barsboldi, a new feathered microraptorine dinosaur. Comparing its anatomy with birds, the researchers conclude that many similar aerial adaptations evolved in different sequences in the two lineages.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports one adversity-related pattern linking 104 measures of children’s environments with brain imaging in 5,976 youth. The pattern was associated chiefly with socioeconomic and neighborhood deprivation, lower cortical surface area and differences in functional connectivity.
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An arXiv preprint describes Chair44, a single polyhedral tile that the author says fills three-dimensional space only in arrangements with no translational period. The reported proof combines geometric constraints with exhaustive finite checks and Lean 4 formalization.
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NASA says Hubble completed its 200,000th orbit around Earth on Sept. 19, 2026, the same day it imaged galaxy cluster MACS J0417. The observatory is making repeated observations as astronomers anticipate a lensed reappearance of supernova Athena.
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NASA says an engineering model of its DAVINCI Venus probe completed six furnace cycles reaching 465°C. The test evaluated the model’s thermal protection ahead of the probe’s planned descent through Venus’ atmosphere.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that tumour-cell states, mutations, tumour architecture and immune signals were associated with differences in ctDNA release in ten patients with non-metastatic HR+/HER2− breast cancer. The findings offer a biological framework for understanding why tumour DNA detected in tissue may differ from what appears in blood.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that TabICL and TabPFN prediction performance declines as genetic ancestry dispersion increases in evaluation data. The authors also report that instruction-tuning TabICL on synthetic tasks designed to model ancestry-dependent effects improves performance stability across ancestry-distance groups.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that targeted finetuning helped the co-folding model Boltz-1 predict a ligand-bound, inactive conformation of Werner helicase. The authors used ten previously unseen X-ray structures and report generalisation to other chemical series and related helicases.
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Researchers report a single-nucleus atlas spanning 21 adult human tissues and four donors, combining gene-expression and chromatin-accessibility data. It maps candidate regulatory elements and gene links, and uses sequence-to-function models to predict effects of fine-mapped variants.
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A bioRxiv preprint uses single-cell transcriptomics to reconstruct an unusual anaerobic mitochondrion in the rhizarian flagellate PCE SSF. The proposed metabolism includes hydrogen production and a reduced, branched pathway for processing carbon.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that mitochondrial DNA mutations arising during mice’s first two months were sufficient to drive age-related pathologies. The authors also found that tissue-specific selection and mitochondrial fusion influenced the mutations’ later fate.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes DS3dRNA, a method that scores interactions among groups of RNA structural elements to design sequences for target structures. The authors report improved benchmark performance and experimental activity in designed Mango II and twister RNAs.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that rare and common STARD9 variants are associated with different lipid disorders and opposite changes in lysosome positioning. The authors connect those differences to cholesterol handling in cells and, in knockout mice, to intestinal cholesterol absorption.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that UHRF1 reads ubiquitin marks it places on histone H3, promoting further marking and supporting DNA methylation maintenance in CpG-sparse regions.
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A bioRxiv preprint uses a polymer-physics model to explain how ecDNA copy number may shape regulatory contacts in cancer-cell condensates. In the model, contacts in oncogene-associated regions grow stronger and become less variable as copy number increases.
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A 13-spin trapped-ion simulator reproduced string breaking in a one-dimensional gauge-theory model. The experiment found that simulated charge pairs formed near the string’s edges and spread towards its centre when string tension was present.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the Pks12 enzyme helps generate a lipid that shapes the surface and arabinoglycan architecture of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The researchers combined analysis of more than 50,000 bacterial isolates with validation in zebrafish and mouse models.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports H5N1 and H5N5 infections in six red foxes in Norway between 2022 and 2024. The investigation found systemic infection and detected a mammalian-adaptation marker in two H5N1 viruses.
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Researchers at OmiCore have released an openly licensed image-analysis model that marks tumour-enriched regions in colorectal cancer tissue slides. In a preprint, the team reports agreement with transcriptomics on one section and describes limits including its 112 μm resolution and lack of validation across scanners and institutions.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes MCseg, a no-code tool whose segmentation workflow was selected through AI-agent-guided searches. In a lung adenocarcinoma dataset, its fixed-parameter workflow scored higher on panoptic quality than an Optuna-tuned Cellpose baseline.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that RELAX produced different likelihood estimates in repeated runs, with some changes reversing statistical conclusions. The authors link the instability to site-class models and show that a seed alone did not ensure repeatable results in their tests.
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Anthropic says Claude agents identified a previously uncharacterised system in bacteriophages, built around a reverse transcriptase and an array of DNA repeats. Early lab experiments found that the array is expressed as distinct short RNAs; the system’s function is still under investigation.
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CERN has begun dismantling magnet sections near the ATLAS and CMS experiments as part of the LHC’s third long shutdown. The work prepares for new niobium-tin inner triplets designed to produce magnetic fields about 40% stronger than those of the current magnets.
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A Nature correction fixes a normalization formula and a Methods expression in a 2025 study of chiral metamaterials. The revised figures report a maximum force ratio of 24 instead of 0.8 for one example; the authors say the corrections do not affect the study’s analyses or conclusions.
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ESO says observations with the Very Large Telescope reveal a long-lived bow shock around the white dwarf RXJ0528+2838, despite the system having no disc to drive the outflow. Its strong magnetic field may help explain the shock, but the observed field appears insufficient to account for its full inferred lifetime.
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Nature Index data for 2016–2025 puts the United States first in regenerative-medicine research output, while China’s expansion could narrow the gap if it continues.
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A bioRxiv preprint uses Drosophila connectomics data and biophysical modeling to explain how visual neurons may distinguish a moving figure from whole-field background motion. The model centres on interactions between T4a motion neurons and vCH cells.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces ProFinder, a computational tool that ranks candidate constitutive promoters in bacterial genomes. The authors report generating candidates for 99.76% of 56,742 genomes spanning 149 phyla.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports nine high-confidence hybrids between invasive Bursaphelenchus xylophilus and native B. mucronatus in Japanese field samples. Genome-wide analyses identified both F1-like and advanced backcross-like individuals, including some missed by a single-locus test.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports cryo-EM structures of human THIK1 bound to two chemically related inhibitors. Both occupy the same pore site, but structural and electrophysiological results indicate that they affect a second channel gate differently.
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A Stanford team reports that electrostatic charge screening, rather than target-triggered DNA shape changes, dominates the signal in a benchmark aminoglycoside electrochemical sensor. The findings are from a bioRxiv preprint and concern this sensor system.
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Anthropic says Claude agents identified a previously uncharacterized enzyme system in bacteriophages, built around a known reverse transcriptase and an array of DNA repeats. Early laboratory experiments found that the array is expressed as distinct short RNAs, but the system’s function is still being investigated.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes REAL-SWIT, a generative system for exploring make-on-demand chemical space. In experiments on ROCK1, six of 23 synthesized compounds inhibited the target in biochemical tests.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces PLABench, a benchmark comparing nine deep-learning methods for predicting protein–ligand binding affinity. Its authors report that strong overall accuracy did not translate into consistent performance across targets or protein families.
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NASA has selected PRIMA to enter Phase B, advancing plans for a far-infrared space telescope designed to survey the universe. The mission is targeted to launch in 2033, pending further development and review.
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A peer-reviewed Nature study reports a haemprotein-catalysed reaction sequence that makes chiral oxazolidinones directly from unactivated alkenes.
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A Nature study models changes in Earth’s day length from 1964 to 2019 and finds that gravitational torque associated with the inner core can drive the broad multidecadal variations. In the models, electromagnetic or topographic torques at the core–mantle boundary tend to oppose that motion.
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A study of human and great-ape cartilage found roughly threefold lower glycosaminoglycan levels in humans and traced this difference to widespread changes in skeletal gene regulation. The authors suggest the shift may have influenced human skeletal traits and vulnerability to degenerative disease.
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Researchers compared two room-temperature 176Lu+ optical frequency references and measured a fractional frequency difference consistent with zero. Each reference had an evaluated systematic uncertainty near 1 × 10−19.
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A study used single-nucleus data from human prefrontal cortex to map genetically regulated gene-expression signals across 12 brain disorders. Its cell-type and ancestry-aware models identified associations that bulk-tissue analyses missed.
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A global analysis of 58,319 outbreak events across 32 diseases found shared landscape associations for several vector-borne infections, but less consistent patterns for directly transmitted zoonoses. The study also found that outbreak reporting was strongly associated with access to healthcare.
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A bioRxiv preprint links autism-associated genes to three molecular programs and to particular neuronal lineages, developmental stages and cortical patterns. The findings come from an integrative analysis of genomic and brain-atlas data.
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A cache of more than a tonne of iron bars found in northern Austria is the largest reported and suggests substantial Iron Age transport along the Danube. The metal could have been enough to make roughly 500 swords.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents a physics-based framework that combines protein, nucleic-acid and metabolite models to simulate biomolecular condensates. Its authors report predictions for more than 60 disordered proteins and simulations of RNA- and protein–nucleic-acid condensates.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports genome-pattern evidence for an ancient whole-genome duplication shared by bryozoans. Few duplicate genes remain, but retained copies are enriched for cilia-related genes.
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Fieldwork at Quebec’s Uhackatik structure found shatter cones that support an impact origin for a 25-kilometre feature. Rock samples indicate it likely formed about 390 million years ago.
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Lake Powell fell below its previous record-low elevation in August 2026 and stood at 3,517.24 feet on September 10. NASA links the decline to scarce mountain snow and unusually warm conditions in the Upper Colorado Basin.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that bumble bees adjusted opt-out choices to task difficulty and transferred the strategy to new tactile and working-memory tasks without retraining. The findings suggest that uncertainty-guided decision-making can occur in a brain with about one million neurons.
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NASA-funded research reports that Incendiamoeba cascadensis can reproduce at 63°C in heated waters at California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park. The finding raises the known upper temperature limit for reproduction among eukaryotes.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that lysosomal acid lipase helps release cholesterol during phagosome maturation. Inhibiting the enzyme changed membrane organisation and had different effects on the survival of two bacterial pathogens.
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Researchers developed an engineered budding-yeast system to test resistance-conferring mutations in genes from several pathogenic fungi. They also used random mutagenesis to identify new candidate mutations.
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A Nature Comment by Leiden University rector Sarah de Rijcke proposes six principles for protecting academic freedom while recognising legitimate concerns such as research security and public accountability. It argues that independent enquiry is a practical condition for producing reliable, challengeable knowledge.
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An analysis found that 440 journals that once published without charging authors or readers switched to other publishing models between 2009 and 2026. Most began charging authors article-processing fees, while others introduced subscriptions or paywalls.
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Modern gene editing, high-resolution imaging and omics tools have expanded cell biology beyond the two classic forms of cell death. Researchers are also finding that some cells can delay death or recover after a death programme begins.
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A bioRxiv preprint profiles RISC-bound small interfering RNAs produced after insecticidal double-stranded RNA was injected into Tribolium castaneum larvae. The study links strand representation and terminal RNA modifications with sequence and structural features that could improve future pest-control design.
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Sea-surface temperatures in the central tropical Pacific were about 2.9°C above the current climate baseline in early September, and forecasts give the event more than a 90% chance of surpassing every El Niño recorded since the 1870s. The expected effects vary by region but include drought, crop losses, peatland fires, floods and coral bleaching.
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Researchers used lead-containing ink, tomography and virtual unrolling to detect writing in carbonized scrolls without opening them. The laboratory demonstration could improve efforts to read fragile scrolls buried by the eruption of Vesuvius.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that trimethoprim reduced phage production and toxin production in laboratory experiments with a clinical Shiga toxin-producing E. coli isolate. The effect persisted alongside DNA-damaging antibiotics that normally increase phage activity.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents stEDGE, a computational framework that uses local tissue boundaries to reconstruct nested spatial domains and transition interfaces. The authors report results across 15 tissue sections and an application to cell-resolved profiling of fibrotic human lung.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces SPECTRA, a graph-based model that predicts gene-expression responses to CRISPR perturbations by propagating signals through gene regulatory networks. The authors report improved recovery of sparse perturbation-related changes in a large-scale single-cell CRISPRi benchmark.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a graph neural network that incorporates viral evolutionary relationships when predicting the host associated with a paramyxovirus sequence. The authors report advantages over unstructured neural networks when training data are sparse, while finding that phylogeny alone explains much of the predictive performance.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes BRIDGE, a platform that transferred a 16-kilobase, five-gene violacein pathway into ten phylogenetically diverse yeast genera. Expression was strongest across six tested Saccharomyces species and varied in other yeasts.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that blocking bumblebee dorsal ocelli disrupts the visual system’s normal response to brightness. The effect was associated with poorer orientation at dusk and reduced flight speed under bright daytime conditions.
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A bioRxiv preprint tested picture naming in six vision-language models by silencing each attention head in turn. The results ranged from one strongly necessary early head to no critical head, showing that disruption and computation are not the same.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces ARCHER-LD, a multi-GPU tool for calculating linkage disequilibrium across very large sequencing datasets. The authors report speedups of about eightfold to 28-fold over PLINK in benchmark tests and complete a 10-quadrillion-element LD matrix in under six hours on 512 GPUs.
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A bioRxiv preprint found no measurable change in arousal when focused ultrasound was applied to the central lateral thalamus of two anaesthetised rhesus macaques. The animals remained physiologically stable, while the authors propose testing more distributed stimulation in future studies.
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Mouse lineage-tracing experiments and human stem-cell differentiation studies indicate that the developing brain arises from two parallel neural ectoderm progenitors. The finding concerns embryonic cell lineages, not two physically separate adult organs.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that dermal bone thickens through invading osteoblasts that deposit new mineralised matrix inside older bone. The finding challenges the conventional view that growth relies mainly on bone-forming cells adding matrix at the surface.
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A Nature Astronomy study finds that tidal disruption events produce a second outflow when accretion falls to about 2% of the Eddington limit. The result points to a scale-invariant link between accretion and jet formation in stellar-mass and supermassive black holes.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover found evidence that water altered rocks in Mars’ Jezero Crater on at least three separate occasions. The sequence includes carbon-dioxide-rich groundwater, a possible lake-related episode and later hot underground water.
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A Nature paper introduces RetroChimera, an AI model that combines two chemically different modelling approaches to predict routes for synthesising small molecules. The researchers report stronger performance than leading baselines, favourable evaluations from organic chemists and transfer to internal pharmaceutical datasets.
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Researchers tested a biodegradable battery made from body-compatible materials in two swallowable devices: an RFID transmitter and a stomach stimulator. The battery began breaking down in simulated gastric fluid within two weeks and dissolved completely after several months.
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A bioRxiv preprint comparing rats with Chinese tree shrews reports that tree-shrew CA1 uses a hybrid spatial code, combining weaker position tuning with more multiplexed neural activity. The findings suggest that spatial representations can change within a conserved hippocampal circuit while retaining core network properties.
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NASA has activated the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Wide Field Instrument, a 300-megapixel infrared camera, and completed an initial test of its coronagraph. The observatory remains in commissioning, with first science images expected by early 2027.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that DNA recovered from museum hair samples attributed to Thomas Jefferson supports his direct paternity of children descended from Sally Hemings. The study compares inherited DNA shared with known and putative descendants and remains a preprint.
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A bioRxiv preprint identifies the nuclear enzyme MSK1 as a regulator of TRPV1 expression in a specific subset of pain-sensing neurons. In experimental models, blocking this inflammatory pathway reduced heat hypersensitivity while preserving acute heat sensation and body-temperature control.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover found that the Margin Unit in Jezero Crater records at least three separate episodes of water-rock interaction, including a later episode involving heated underground water. The findings revise the picture of how water moved through early Mars.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that maintaining 10% oxygen throughout human iPSC-cardiomyocyte differentiation favoured atrial rather than ventricular specification. The laboratory finding could help produce atrial cells but raises process-design concerns for manufacturing ventricular cells.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports chemical and microscopy evidence of synthetic polymers in plastics-enriched preparations from human brain tissue. Particles with spectral properties similar to polyethylene and polypropylene were observed along arterioles and venules, but the work is an early laboratory study of a possible association with brain microvascular pathology.
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A bioRxiv preprint links a focal 2026 meningococcal outbreak in Kent, UK, to genetic changes that may have been acquired from carriage-associated Neisseria. The researchers propose that such highly invasive variants can emerge briefly and then disappear because they are poorly suited to sustained transmission.
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A bioRxiv preprint finds that the reproducibility of functional assays can cap measured performance for variant-effect predictors. Correcting for assay reliability shifts the apparent prediction gap from canonical splice sites toward intronic regions 11–50 base pairs from the splice boundary.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes miRstring, a biogenesis-aware RNA language model trained on 77,708 miRNA precursors from 414 species. The authors report cross-species mature-miRNA boundary decoding and artificial miRNA scaffold designs that repressed target mRNAs in validation experiments.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents Z-Hunt-DP, a dynamic-programming reformulation of a thermodynamic Z-DNA prediction method. The authors report that it preserved the original minimum-energy result while producing a 3.30 × 10^5 speedup at 20 dinucleotide positions.
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A Technical University of Munich preprint describes synthetic DNA strands carrying flavin chromophores that generate spin-correlated radical pairs. The system can be manipulated with radiofrequency fields and read using optically detected magnetic resonance, with DNA sequence and structure controlling its response.
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A preprint study of nearly 900 early-career scientists found that researchers commonly rely on several mentors, with different roles associated with research, job and personal outcomes. The survey analysed US National Institutes of Health K-award applicants, most of whom were award recipients.
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A Nature essay examines zoologist Paul Kammerer’s controversial experiments on inherited traits, the specimen-tampering accusation that damaged his reputation and why his scientific questions still resonate with modern biology.
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A survey of 4,262 UK adults found that most respondents trusted scientists, especially when they saw them as transparent and aligned with people like themselves. These factors were more strongly associated with trust than perceived scientific expertise.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports a previously uncharacterised porcine adenovirus in a New Zealand high-health pig herd affected by neonatal deaths and reproductive problems. Genome sequencing placed the virus in the Mastadenovirus genus but on a distinct lineage from characterised porcine adenoviruses.
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A bioRxiv preprint tracking seven Burkholderia multivorans strains from chronic infections in eight cystic fibrosis patients found that the emergence of a dominant bacterial lineage was associated with faster lung-function decline. The study also identified repeated evolutionary changes affecting bacterial functions linked to persistence in the airways.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that neonatal AAV-SIL1 gene therapy prevented neurological and muscle disease in a mouse model of Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome. The treatment preserved cerebellar Purkinje cells and maintained its effects through 26 weeks.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that MERS-CoV spike substitutions L507I and L507H reduced binding to soluble DPP4 while preserving entry into cells with high DPP4 levels. Polymorphisms at the same site found in patient virus sequences showed stronger resistance in the study’s VSV-based cell system.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that insertions and deletions in several classes of repeated DNA sequences can change antibiotic susceptibility in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Laboratory reconstruction identified a ppe53 repeat deletion that produced intermediate resistance to isoniazid, rifampicin and streptomycin.
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Anna Sandak describes how two major European grants shifted her work from laboratory experiments to leading a 16-scientist research group and a cross-border consortium developing fungal-biofilm-based building materials.
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A virtual biotech using up to 37,000 AI agents identified CD276 as a lung-cancer target and proposed an antibody linked to an anticancer drug. The work is at the computational discovery stage, with experimental and clinical validation still ahead.
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A new AI system trained on ageing-biology data combines specialist language models, 17 benchmark tasks and research tools operated through AI agents. In testing, the specialist models outperformed larger commercial models on many, but not all, ageing-related tasks.
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An analysis of wrinkles across Mercury’s cratered surface suggests that the planet’s diameter has decreased by around 23 kilometres since it formed. The finding offers new constraints on how Mercury’s interior evolved over roughly 4.5 billion years.
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A bioRxiv preprint combining mathematical modelling with intracellular recordings in behaving mice reports that CA3 pyramidal neurons have an activation exponent slightly above 1, as predicted for stable memory recall. The analysis included 49 new recordings and 133 cells from two earlier studies.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents GAVURD, a trio whole-genome analysis system for finding potentially pathogenic variants outside protein-coding regions. In a proof-of-concept involving 10 unresolved rare-disease cases, it prioritised six potentially causal variants for further study.
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A bioRxiv preprint of 47 patients links phase-specific brain activity and connectivity patterns to early and later language recovery after ischemic stroke.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents a 658,059-cell reference atlas of human hippocampus development and uses it to study brain organoids carrying the familial Alzheimer’s disease-associated PSEN1 E280A variant. The organoids showed altered cell composition, gene expression and inferred neuronal maturation.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports a single-neuron correlate of mnemonic pattern separation in the human hippocampus. The finding came from recordings of 3,506 neurons in 97 patients performing a recognition-memory task involving false memories.
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OpenAI says an AI model solved the Navier–Stokes problem. The claim is awaiting peer review and has prompted a wider debate about credit for ideas shared with chatbots.
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New ground-penetrating radar and microgravity surveys suggest a corridor and possible chambers near Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. The findings revive the possibility that the site contains an earlier royal burial complex, potentially linked to Nefertiti, but direct inspection still requires approval.
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A modelling analysis using student data from five sub-Saharan African countries found that nutritious school meals were associated with longer enrolment and higher projected lifetime earnings.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that synthetic, taxonomically complex bacterial communities rapidly evolved after adapting to novel plant hosts. The changes improved colonisation fitness while preserving the stability of the root microbiota.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents Sma3s v3, a scalable workflow for assigning functions to proteins in proteomes, pangenomes and metagenomes. In tests on a Vibrio cholerae pangenome and a metagenomic catalogue, it reported higher annotation coverage than the cited comparator tools.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the bacterial protein RfaH helps Escherichia coli RNA polymerase continue through prolonged pauses during long-range transcription. In experiments using reconstituted transcription and in vivo depletion, RfaH supported longer transcription runs than NusG and was required for successful conjugation.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps two distant binding sites in the cancer-associated protein KRAS and reports three forms of allosteric control: coupled, anti-coupled and independent. The finding suggests that a single protein can contain multiple regulatory networks with potential implications for drug design.
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A Purdue University team reports a loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay for detecting Balamuthia mandrillaris. In laboratory testing, the assay detected multiple isolates with higher sensitivity than conventional PCR and produced a visible colour-based result.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents LongPhase-TO, a long-read method for reconstructing somatic haplotypes from tumour samples without matched normal DNA. In tests on eight datasets from six cancer cell lines, the method lengthened haplotype blocks and improved somatic variant-calling scores.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the protein PBF/PTTG1IP helps coordinate cell adhesion, front–rear polarity and directional movement. The findings come from mouse fibroblasts and human thyroid cancer cells, making them preclinical mechanistic evidence.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports severe growth depression in Chinese bahaba after two generations of closed captive breeding from 18 wild founders. Whole-genome analysis linked the decline to increased genomic inbreeding and identified candidate pathways relevant to conservation breeding.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes zAcademy, an open-source programmable arena for conditioning adult zebrafish. In experiments, avoidance responses differed between wild-type and shank3 knockout fish and were driven mainly by females.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents Rsearch, an R package that integrates VSEARCH with visualisation, parameter optimisation and conversion tools for metabarcoding analysis. In a mock-community comparison with DADA2, the two pipelines produced abundance profiles that closely matched the expected composition, with differences in OTU counts and computational performance.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that incomplete reference profiles can leave bulk RNA deconvolution targets non-identifiable even when an algorithm returns precise estimates. The authors propose measuring coverage and false-certification risk, and estimate the measurement precision needed for a decisive result in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.
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Researchers at King's College London report TomoFLIM, a compressed multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging method. In a preprint benchmark, it reproduced a 60-second raster-scanned dataset in 3.75 seconds.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports metabolic changes and multiorgan pathology in ageing mice exposed to 450 nm LED light for 40 weeks.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that repeated measurements of circulating alanine aminotransferase, combined with time since acetaminophen exposure, estimated liver necrosis in mice. The method could let researchers follow liver injury in the same animals instead of using separate groups at every timepoint.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents a continuous three-dimensional structural map of a whole adult human heart at 8.01-micron isotropic voxel size. The dataset brings myocardial structure, electrical conduction tissue, blood vessels, lymphatic collectors and autonomic nerves into one spatial framework.
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A Duke-led computational preprint compares cortical-column models to explain the short-latency D- and I-wave responses produced by cortical stimulation. Models of motor and auditory cortex reproduced both wave types, while the somatosensory model generated rhythms with mismatched timing.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that blocking the P2Y6 receptor reduced CCL2 but increased CXCL1 release from mouse macrophages stimulated through TLR3. The findings identify extracellular-nucleotide signaling as a selective regulator of inflammatory chemokine responses in this cell model.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes BiAb J31, an IgG-like bispecific antibody that links TNF-α to the endocytic receptor ASGPR1. In HepG2 cell experiments, the antibody recruited TNF-α-containing complexes and promoted their uptake.
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A NASA-led team has proposed a satellite-tracking technique for measuring seasonal shifts in Earth’s center of mass. The study finds that the annual movement may be about half as large as estimates made eight years earlier.
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A Nature study tested nearly all single amino-acid mutations in RSV’s fusion protein and measured their effects on two antibodies used to prevent severe disease in infants. Resistance-associated sequence patterns were rare in current surveillance data, while the results provide a framework for tracking viral escape.
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Researchers detected the low-energy nuclear resonance of thorium-229 using a continuous-wave laser and absorption measurements rather than slow fluorescence detection. The technique provides a faster spectroscopy and feedback method for developing a solid-state nuclear clock.
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A Nature Review proposes that Alzheimer’s disease develops through discrete molecular, cellular and network transitions rather than a single linear cascade from amyloid-β to Tau pathology and neurodegeneration. The framework places amyloid-associated Tau phosphorylation at a pivotal biological threshold.
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NASA says its 10 astronaut candidates are approximately halfway through a nearly two-year training programme. Recent exercises included lunar geology fieldwork, aircraft flights, altitude-chamber runs and water-survival training.
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Researchers developed a mouse model in which human stem-cell-derived cortical organoids occupy most of the cerebral cortical space and connect with the host nervous system. The grafts showed organized electrical activity, influenced behaviour and produced measurable responses to experimentally induced hypoxic injury.
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A Nature study systematically made 257 small chemical changes to 18 ligands across six targets. Eleven-point-three percent improved measured affinity or potency at least tenfold, but those gains often came with worse in-vitro pharmacokinetic properties.
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Nature reports extensive cellular integration after human brain tissue was transplanted into mice lacking a cortex. The work could provide a living-animal platform for testing therapies involving human neural tissue.
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A Nature research highlight reports that intense magnetic fields around many stars could explain why coronal mass ejections comparable to the Sun’s are rarely observed.
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A Nature study in Arabidopsis maps how salicylic acid activates plant defence genes through NPR1 and relieves NPR3/NPR4-mediated repression. It identifies MED15A and chromatin changes that connect hormone perception to transcription.
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NASA will host a free International Observe the Moon Night event on Sept. 19 at its Goddard Space Flight Center Visitor Center in Maryland. People worldwide can also participate through local observations, virtual events and other activities.
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Google and Terradot have agreed to combine methane-reducing irrigation with enhanced rock weathering across more than 200,000 hectares of Brazilian rice farms. Google says the project targets 1 million metric tons of methane-related CO2e impact by 2030 and 1 million metric tons of permanent carbon removal by 2040.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that parvalbumin interneurons and dentate-gyrus changes shape seizure susceptibility in Angelman syndrome model mice. The findings point to altered inhibitory control and homeostatic plasticity as possible drivers of epileptogenesis.
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A bioRxiv preprint using data from 1,494 donors finds that many single-cell gene-expression studies may lack sufficient statistical power to detect small effects. Cell counts, gene-expression levels and sequencing depth strongly influenced which findings were detected and reproduced.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces NANHA, a searchable atlas of published non-invasive brain-stimulation studies spanning 22 neurodevelopmental disorders.
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A bioRxiv preprint in a DYT-TOR1A mouse model links striatal cholinergic interneuron pathology to abnormal movements while showing that antimuscarinic drugs can act without those neurons being present. The findings separate a developmental role for the neurons from the circuit mechanism through which the drugs suppress movements.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps bacterial host factors involved in infection by single-stranded RNA and DNA bacteriophages. The study identifies conserved requirements for F-pilus-dependent infection and links an E. coli capsule architecture to selective phage access.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports valerolactam production in engineered Corynebacterium glutamicum, reaching 3.6 g/L after pathway design and fed-batch process optimization.
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A bioRxiv preprint identifies phosphatidylinositol (PI) as the preferred direct substrate of the enzyme PLCXD2. In a PLCXD2-deficient retinal model, the loss was associated with altered lipid products, synaptic abnormalities, retinal-layer thinning and weaker electrical responses from photoreceptors.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes moisture-responsive seedpods that delay seed exposure and create a measurable air-filled microclimate around each seed. Indoor and field trials across several tree species reported faster early seedling emergence without penalising subsequent growth.
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A UCSF-led bioRxiv preprint introduces CELL-FM, a bidirectional generative model that connects protein sequences and cellular context with fluorescence microscopy images. The authors use it for virtual localization, motif analysis and mutagenesis of intrinsically disordered peptides.
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NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified McGetchin, a 728-foot-wide crater formed on the Moon between April 11 and May 22, 2024. The impact also disturbed the surrounding surface, creating a four-mile-wide region that is significantly colder at night.
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Astronomers have confirmed Elias 2-24 b, a Jupiter-mass exoplanet less than a million years old and still forming inside its star’s gas-and-dust disk. Its confirmation came from combining archival observations from the Keck Observatory with earlier observations from ALMA and the Very Large Telescope.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports a Tris-EDTA-supplemented photobleaching workflow that reduced autofluorescence by 58–70% in fresh-frozen aged human brain sections while preserving tissue architecture and cellular content. The study also introduces a 28-plex antibody panel for spatial proteomics.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that perivascular fibroblasts regulate the movement of pial arterioles and fluid around brain-surface vessels.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a probe-based method for measuring lysosome acidity in living mouse brain immune cells. The researchers found substantial variation among meningeal phagocytes, with only about 5% reaching a pH below 5.0.
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A bioRxiv preprint maps how cryogenic focused ion beam milling affects structural preservation at different depths. The apparent damage profile varied with the ion species, molecular reporter and lamella thickness.
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Experiments in mouse embryos, human pluripotent stem cells and other species suggest that the brain develops from two distinct progenitor populations. The study also reports an efficient route to hindbrain motor-neuron cells for laboratory disease research.
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OpenAI says its most advanced AI model produced a mathematical result involving a singularity in the Navier–Stokes equations. The case highlights why continuum fluid models need molecular descriptions at very small scales.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes ST9, a designed peptide that binds claudin-5 and produces a rapid, transient and reversible increase in blood-brain barrier permeability in reported cell-based experiments.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the accessibility and membrane organisation of cholesterol help control TLR4 signalling in microglia. The study identifies SR-B1 and sphingomyelin–cholesterol interactions as regulators of this inflammatory pathway.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a convolutional neural network that measured Douglas-fir pollen germination and elongation across temperatures from 5 to 40°C. The study found narrow, distinct thermal optima for the two reproductive processes, mostly between 19 and 23°C.
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An analysis of Chinese companies from 2010–22 found that firms placed on the US Entity List produced more patents citing scientific papers and published more research than comparable firms. The pattern suggests that technology restrictions changed how affected companies sought knowledge for innovation.
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A bioRxiv preprint identifies the soil bacterium genus Trinickia as a candidate for supporting soybean drought resilience. Its abundance was strongly associated with greater root biomass during drought, while drought and rewetting produced different responses in the rhizosphere and bulk soil.
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Researchers have identified a measure of cognitive resilience that helps explain why people with similar Alzheimer’s-related brain pathology can develop dementia symptoms of different severity. The finding could improve understanding and prediction of Alzheimer’s dementia risk.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a physics-based framework that combines machine learning, molecular mechanics and microkinetic modelling to predict enzyme reaction rates and selectivity. In tests on an oxidative amidase, the authors report near-experimental accuracy across substrates, mutations and enzyme homologues.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports the first three-dimensional structure of a class II GalT enzyme from Bifidobacterium longum at 2.25 Å resolution. The study links its unusual architecture to a preference for N-acetylated sugars involved in human milk oligosaccharide metabolism.
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A new set of cosmological radiation-hydrodynamic simulations shows that heavy black hole seeds of about a million solar masses form naturally in dense protocluster regions, undergo a super-Eddington accretion phase that reproduces the spectral features of little red dots, and then grow into the overmassive black holes observed by the James Webb Space Telescope.
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A bioRxiv preprint uses electronic genome mapping to measure CRISPR-Cas9 target and off-target binding across the human genome in vitro. The study also examines how guide-RNA mismatches and binding-site spacing affect the system.
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Consumer smartwatches, rings and health apps can make studies easier to run, but a Nature interview highlights risks involving data privacy, security and opaque algorithms. These concerns become more complicated when wearable data are combined with AI systems that shape health interventions.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports reproducible shifts in seawater microbial community composition after controlled near-space exposure, while overall diversity remained relatively stable.
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A numerical study finds that a hypothetical Venusian moon could have been destroyed by tidal evolution, depending on Venus’s early spin, the moon’s mass and the planet’s tidal response.
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A University of Michigan team has introduced AmbientMapper, a computational method that estimates ambient chromatin contamination in combinatorial single-cell experiments. In a bioRxiv preprint, the authors report a 0.19% wrong-genome rate on a 26-genome reference panel and recovery of low-depth nuclei that standard pipelines discarded.
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A bioRxiv preprint identifies a previously undescribed association between the Saccharimonadia bacterium Candidatus Lutisaccharimonas and the phosphorus-accumulating Candidatus Phosphoribacter in wastewater treatment plants. The findings suggest that this microbial interaction could be relevant to biological phosphorus removal.
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A bioRxiv preprint analysing 16,645 bench-grafted grapevines found that scion genetics explained a limited share of success variation. The study identified one modest, reproducible signal on chromosome 7, while most variation was linked to events affecting entire grafting bundles.
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A chromosome-level reference genome and resequencing data from 80 Saimaa ringed seals show extremely limited Y-chromosomal diversity compared with other ringed seals. The bioRxiv preprint estimates that the population retains about 1% of the broader Y-chromosomal diversity and 5% of mitochondrial diversity.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents the first genome-wide maps of four major histone modifications in the reef-building coral Pocillopora damicornis. The maps associate distinct chromatin states with gene expression, receptor-related genes, developmental functions and transposable element-like regions.
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University of Manchester researchers used NVIDIA Earth-2 generative models to build a UK-wide air-pollution forecasting workflow at 2–3 kilometre resolution. The training process took two days on an eight-GPU node at Isambard-AI, while smaller training runs and inference now run on NVIDIA’s DGX Spark desktop system.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents POME, a self-supervised model that represents incomplete mixed-type biomedical data as a graph. The authors report improved missing-data imputation and useful sample representations across three biomedical datasets.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a human stem-cell-derived nerve-like construct that supported axon regeneration and remyelination in 7-mm sciatic nerve defects in mice.
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Researchers are culturing Asgard archaea, rare microbes whose genomes link them to the ancestors of eukaryotic cells. Microscopy is revealing cell protrusions, movement and possible partnerships that may illuminate how complex life began.
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Researchers mapped 4,321 microproteins in 608 post-mortem human brain samples, including dozens with altered expression in Alzheimer’s disease. The atlas expands the molecular inventory available for studying neurodegeneration, while the proteins’ biological roles still require experimental validation.
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The European Union has changed how gene-edited crops are regulated, dividing them into NGT-1 and NGT-2 categories. The framework could ease adoption of CRISPR-based crop improvements, but limits on the number and size of edits may restrict more complex traits.
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Camera-trap footage from Senegal shows wild chimpanzees transferring tools during algae fishing, ant dipping and termite fishing. The study found that recipients used tools more after transfers, while initial possessors generally reduced their tool use.
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A University of Gothenburg preprint models glycan motifs as a containment hierarchy rather than independent features. Across 45 glycomics datasets, the authors report more estimated true positives and identify motif redistributions that conventional marginal analysis misses.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports Cx36 gap junctions at direct contacts between neuronal cell bodies in the adult mouse inferior olive. The finding expands the anatomical basis used to model electrical coupling in this brain region beyond dendritic-spine connections.
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A bioRxiv preprint integrates genome-wide maps of DNA breaks, replication and transcription in U2-OS and HeLa cancer cell lines. It reports that prolonged low-dose DNA polymerase inhibition redirects breaks toward late-replicating regions and identifies MUS81 as a regulator of recurrent break clusters.
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Researchers at Shandong University and BGI Research describe DiffGSP, a computational framework that models mRNA diffusion to reconstruct spatial gene-expression patterns. The work is a bioRxiv preprint evaluated across diverse spatial-transcriptomics datasets.
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A bioRxiv preprint compares two landscape-scale restoration scenarios in the French Alps, finding that the configuration with greater ecological impact relied on actions local stakeholders considered harder to implement. Both scenarios affected about 14.5% of the landscape, while their modeled effects extended across much larger areas for connectivity-dependent ecosystem services.
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A bioRxiv preprint finds that randomly dividing single-cell data can leak information between training and test sets when related cells share labels. The authors propose eakcheck, a tool that estimates this leakage before a predictive model is trained.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that brain-originating dopaminergic neurodegeneration can produce persistent NaV1.7-dependent hyperexcitability in peripheral sensory neurons in a preclinical Parkinson’s model. Blocking NaV1.7 or disrupting its CRMP2 regulation reduced pain-like behaviours, while human Parkinson’s DRG profiling found related excitability-gene changes.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that 20 MHz focused ultrasound activated auditory circuits and sharply reduced noise-induced hearing loss in anesthetized guinea pigs.
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A bioRxiv preprint functionally profiled 80 human PRDM9 alleles and found that most produce similar genome-wide DNA-binding patterns despite extensive sequence diversity. Rare and infertility-associated variants showed unusually broad or minimal DNA binding, pointing to a possible role in disrupted meiotic recombination.
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A team led by Sandia National Laboratories has developed the QUOPS benchmark, which directly measures the largest computationally relevant quantum circuits a machine can execute and the speed at which it can execute them. Applied to processors from Quantinuum, Google, and IBM, the benchmark revealed a roughly 5-order-of-magnitude gap between current capability and the resource requirements for useful quantum computation.
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Genetic ablation of the Unc13a cryptic exon preserved memory in a mouse model of TDP-43 dysfunction, supporting UNC13A as a therapeutic target for related dementias.
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Researchers have found that supermassive black hole winds are roughly 100 times more powerful than previously estimated, carrying energy across distances of about 300,000 light-years. The discovery, based on X-ray observations of a quasar 3.4 billion light-years away, shows these outflows extend far beyond their host galaxies.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the palm pest Rhynchophorus ferrugineus established on mainland America through Uruguay, spread across nearly 80,000 square kilometres and reached Argentina. The weevil is now attacking several native South American palms.
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A bioRxiv preprint comparing environmental DNA sampling with camera trapping found that water samples detected established coypu populations more reliably with less field effort in southern France. The researchers propose using eDNA for rapid screening and camera traps for information about animal activity and habitat use.
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The James Webb Space Telescope has identified brown dwarfs in the star-forming region IC 348 with masses as low as twice that of Jupiter. The objects are the least massive brown dwarfs known and could challenge models of how stars form.
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Energy companies are exploring for naturally occurring hydrogen in nearly 30 countries, hoping to find a cheaper alternative to manufactured hydrogen. The scale and commercial value of these underground deposits remain open scientific questions.
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ESA’s FLEX Earth Explorer satellite and the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite have reached orbit after launching together on a Vega-C rocket from French Guiana. FLEX will measure plant fluorescence linked to photosynthesis, while Sentinel-3C will extend monitoring of oceans, land, ice and the atmosphere.
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A Nature study identifies RNF213 as an enzyme that marks abnormal glycogen, or polyglucosan, for autophagy in brain cells. Experiments in engineered cells and mice link the pathway to protection against polyglucosan accumulation.
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A Nature correspondence says Nepal’s 26 August flash flood exposed a crucial gap between satellites’ ability to observe a glacial collapse and the systems needed to turn signals into timely action.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that interleukin-27 induces a cytotoxic CD4+ T-cell program distinct from conventional Th1 cells. The findings combine proteomic analysis with evidence from acute murine cytomegalovirus infection.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that a metastable dimeric intermediate helps recombinant spidroin assemble into native-like fibrils in solution. X-ray diffraction showed that drying drives these fibrils toward amyloid-like cross-β structures.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes Bio-CM2, a miniature mesoscope combining fluorescence and label-free reflectance imaging across a 7.5 × 10 mm² field of view. Demonstrations in worms, zebrafish and mice paired molecular signals with morphology, behaviour and physiology.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes RNA-fragment end joining (REJ), a modular system that joins separate RNA units into functional coding mRNAs. The reported platform supports gene complementation, intersectional cell labeling and expression of large proteins.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that 19 human patients used the same cortical regions and oscillatory architecture during easy and difficult visual-search tasks. The researchers suggest that alpha rhythms adjust the speed of this shared circuit rather than switching between dedicated systems.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes a hydrogel made from the extracellular matrix produced by Acinetobacter baylyi ADP1. The material can be modified for light-triggered crosslinking and is reported as porous, injectable, cytocompatible and suitable for 3D bioprinting.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that reinforcement learning identified previously unreported ways to initiate reentry in models of excitable tissue. Learned stimulation patterns produced unidirectional propagation in cardiac monolayers, while whole-heart experiments offered preliminary evidence that they can influence early wave propagation.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents PHACTn, a training-free method that uses mammalian evolutionary history to infer how tolerable single-nucleotide variants may be across the human genome. The authors report strong performance on benchmark sets of non-coding variants using four interpretable parameters and no GPU.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces LucaCell, a foundation model that represents genes through mRNA sequence embeddings instead of fixed gene identifiers. The authors report applications spanning cross-species cell annotation, microbial analysis, chromatin accessibility and influenza infection states.
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A Cornell-led collaboration reconstructed the magma pathways behind two major Mount Etna eruptions and found sharply different roles for carbon dioxide and water. One eruption paused underground for weeks before erupting, while another reached the surface in hours.
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A Nature study analysed a large-scale proteogenomic dataset from 29 healthy human tissues and identified 13,910 protein variants, including non-genetic amino-acid substitutions. The findings suggest that errors and variation during protein production may expand the set of protein forms with potential biological functions.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that blood DNA methylation patterns vary across development, chronic disease and aging in humans and other mammals. The researchers also describe epigenetic clocks designed to predict expected mortality across species and tissues.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents ForceFlowAb, a mixture-of-experts flow-matching model that designs antibody CDR sequences and structures with force-field guidance. The authors report more favourable antibody–antigen interaction-energy results than two comparison methods in CDR-H3 and six-CDR design tasks.
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A pharmaceutical consortium fine-tuned an OpenFold3-based model on 20,167 private protein–ligand structures. It outperformed comparable models trained on public data in a test of 1,056 held-out structures, although the study has not yet been peer-reviewed.
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Researchers used a 253-electrode cortical implant and artificial intelligence to decode intended speech and gestures simultaneously in two people with severe paralysis. The proof-of-concept system displayed words as text and represented gestures through a personalised animated avatar.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that binding of the substrate eIF2α relieves an autoinhibitory loop in the mammalian GCN2 kinase. The finding revises the proposed roles of ribosomes and deacylated tRNAs in the integrated stress response.
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A bioRxiv preprint identifies how the Pmk1, Mst12 and Bip1 network coordinates the infection process of the rice blast fungus. The network controls appressorium function, effector deployment and invasive growth.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that the protein language model ESM-2 retains meaningful biological information in intrinsically disordered protein regions, despite assigning them less attention. The authors also derive structural features of these proteins from the model’s internal signals.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents SGFP–G, a split-GFP graphene grid that selectively captures GFP11-tagged proteins and lets researchers check enrichment by fluorescence before vitrification. The authors demonstrated the platform with apoferritin and obtained a 2.58 Å cryo-EM reconstruction.
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A bioRxiv preprint finds that some adult zebrafish fail to recover movement after complete spinal-cord transection despite forming a tissue bridge. Multi-omic analyses and genetic screening identified hoxb5a as a regulator associated with bridge formation, axon regrowth and functional recovery.
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The US National Science Foundation plans to combine investigator-led research with agency-directed opportunities focused on four cross-disciplinary priorities. The agency has not yet specified the funding or allocation plan, raising concerns among staff about pressure on core discovery research.
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NASA’s Perseverance rover captured Earth passing behind Phobos from the surface of Mars on July 2, 2026. The observation is the first of its kind, showing Earth briefly disappearing behind an object as seen from another planet.
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A KU Leuven-led bioRxiv preprint describes a modular click-chemistry method for attaching fluorophores and DNA to CRISPR-Cas9 ribonucleoproteins without tying the engineering process to how the complex is assembled. In vitro experiments reported by the authors found that modifying an already formed complex provided two-fold greater accessibility of attached DNA.
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A trial across five countries found that children’s mathematics learning improved most when text messages were combined with weekly 20-minute calls from a teacher. Text messages alone also produced better results than the control condition during prolonged school closures.
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A bioRxiv preprint comparing matched full-UDG and non-UDG libraries from two medieval Mongolian individuals found trade-offs between site retention, residual disagreement and kinship inference. Corrected mixed-library data supported a first-degree, likely mother–son relationship, while uncorrected data shifted one estimate towards second degree.
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A bioRxiv preprint analyses 435 thalidomide-affected limbs and proposes that the unusual order of bone reductions follows the sequential exit of developing bones from a sensitive window.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports nanoscale chemical mapping of a roughly 150-million-year-old Giraffatitan brancai tooth. The researchers identified magnesium, organic-matter clusters and unexpected Cu3As particles in the enamel, offering clues about tooth formation and fossilisation.
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A bioRxiv preprint from Queen Mary University of London presents a genome-wide framework that uses native Oxford Nanopore reads to measure molecule-level DNA methylation variation and co-methylation. In human lymphoblastoid cell data, the analysis found patterns hidden by site-level averages.
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A bioRxiv preprint describes Isocall, a deterministic method for jointly identifying known and novel transcripts across large PacBio long-read RNA-sequencing datasets. The authors report a joint call across 206 samples in 25 minutes after alignment and profiling.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces RADIS, a chemical-probing strategy that maps RNA secondary structure across long, intron-rich genomic loci. The study applies it to splice sites, branchpoints and Alu elements, including deep intronic regions that are difficult to analyse experimentally.
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A bioRxiv preprint presents a machine-learning structural atlas of kinase inhibitor binding sites, built from 11,945 inhibitor complexes. The analysis suggests that evolutionary relationships between kinases can help predict shared access to allosteric drug pockets.
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A bioRxiv preprint used giant unilamellar vesicles to visualise how two ionisable-lipid nanoparticles interact with model endosomal membranes. The results suggest that apparent pKa alone does not predict the pH at which functional membrane engagement occurs.
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NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than Aug. 30, 2026, for the launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket. The observatory will study dark energy, dark matter and planetary systems.
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A strengthening El Niño has already disrupted Peru’s anchovy fishery and contributed to drought, flooding and crop losses across several regions. Forecasts suggest this eastern Pacific event could become unusually intense as it combines with ongoing global warming.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that six days of audiovisual timing training reduced susceptibility to the sound-induced flash illusion in both children with ADHD and typically developing children. A Bayesian model indicated that the groups reached this similar behavioral outcome through different changes in perceptual precision and causal expectations.
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A study highlighted by Nature indicates that rivers deliver substantially more microplastics to the ocean than earlier observations suggested. Intense rainfall and poor waste management are linked to sharp pollution spikes.
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A NASA-funded network of 10 ground sensors measured PM2.5 and black carbon across Addis Ababa from 2022 to 2025. The data show pollution patterns linked to traffic, fuel burning and holiday bonfires, creating a baseline for future satellite observations.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports that people in windowless offices exposed to desk lamps supplemented with 850-nm near-infrared light had reduced glucose measurements over a three-day experiment, while standard LED exposure was associated with increased levels. The study used an oral glucose tolerance test and continuous glucose monitoring.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces MindEvolve, an autonomous workflow that uses large language models to generate interpretable symbolic models of human decision-making in social interactions. The models performed most reliably on simpler economic and social preferences, while some advanced systems showed promise on theory of mind and recursive planning.
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NASA’s Curiosity rover has discovered an unusually extensive field of polygonal fractures in a Martian valley. Scientists are studying whether the honeycomb-like patterns formed through drying, temperature changes or processes that compressed ancient sediments.
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Analysis of seismic data from Tonga’s 2022 Hunga eruption found that distant sensors detected T-waves linked to the collapse that produced the eruption’s largest tsunami. Because these signals travel at least seven times faster than tsunamis, they could support earlier warnings after underwater volcanic eruptions.
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A bioRxiv preprint reports using six-base sequencing to analyse DNA modifications in cell-free DNA released by neural cells into cerebrospinal fluid. The authors say the approach could support liquid-biopsy research into neurodegenerative disease.
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An investigation has found that drugs mimicking the effect of GABAergic neurons slowed glioma growth in mice. The result points to a possible way of targeting interactions between neurons and nervous-system cancer, but remains preclinical.
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NASA and European partners are using the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and Sentinel-6B satellites to measure sea level, waves and atmospheric conditions during El Niño. The observations are being prepared for hurricane forecasting models that estimate how quickly storms may intensify.
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A bioRxiv preprint introduces CynoBrain, a macaque brain atlas that combines 9.4-tesla MRI, autofluorescence, cortical layers, gene-expression data and neural connectivity in one reference space. The authors also describe an online platform for exploring and integrating the data.
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NASA and international partners launched Sentinel-6B from California to continue high-precision measurements of Earth’s sea level. The satellite will support coastal flood predictions, marine weather forecasting and shipping safety.
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NASA engineers have redesigned Voyager 2’s power use so that three science instruments can continue operating in interstellar space for at least one extra year. The change addresses the spacecraft’s steadily declining electrical supply after almost half a century in operation.
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NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy on Aug. 30, beginning its three-month journey to its final orbit. The mission will study dark matter, dark energy and exoplanets while testing a coronagraph designed for future direct imaging of Jupiter-like planets.
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A preprint proposes coupling the free electrons in an electron microscope to a trapped-ion quantum processor. Its analysis indicates that individual electrons could produce resolvable qubit excitations, enabling quantum-coherent detection and information accumulation across multiple electrons.
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OpenAI says an internal multi-agent AI system produced an analytical proof of finite-time singularity formation in a three-dimensional Navier–Stokes flow and formalized it in Lean. The claim is now presented with proof materials for mathematical scrutiny.
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Apple researchers describe SimpleDesign, a Transformer-based model that jointly generates protein sequences and three-dimensional structures using a single-stage training approach. The system was trained on more than 2 million sequence–structure pairs, but the supplied evidence reports no experimental validation of its designs.
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NASA held two virtual workshops with Artemis Accords signatories on making lunar science data more interoperable, reproducible and accessible. NASA presented its Planetary Data System and related tools as a working model, but no common framework or adoption target has yet been announced.
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NASA says Sentinel-6B and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich are measuring ocean height, waves, marine winds and atmospheric properties during El Niño. The observations are intended to improve understanding of storm-fuelling ocean conditions and support hurricane-intensity forecasting, although a quantified forecasting improvement has not yet been reported.
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Astronomers found 84 unusually low-energy X-ray sources in six galaxies by searching publicly available Chandra data. Their physical nature remains unknown, but they may involve accreting black holes, neutron stars or white dwarfs.
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An Environmental Research Letters modelling study estimates warming-induced emissions from permafrost, wetlands, freshwaters and wildfires could add 0.2–0.4°C of warming by 2100, with substantial uncertainty.
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A 2026 arXiv preprint proposes that the unusually energetic long gamma-ray burst GRB 220101A involved two supernova-related events separated by 3.5 seconds.
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ESA expects to launch the FLEX photosynthesis mission and Copernicus Sentinel-3C together on Vega-C flight VV30 from French Guiana on 14 September 2026.
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NASA’s Dragonfly rotorcraft has received its flight electrical harness, while the International Astronomical Union has named its planned Titan landing region Ahmakiq Undae.
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A Nature Astronomy Comment reports that surveyed astrobiologists were more persuaded by evidence linked to Mars’s Cheyava Falls than by evidence associated with exoplanet K2-18 b.
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Coordinated Hubble and Webb observations of 27 faint trans-Neptunian objects found that small bodies show colour relationships linked to their dynamical populations, while their numbers were lower than some planet-formation models predicted.
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ESA says the MTG-I2 weather satellite launched on 27 August 2026 aboard Ariane 6, completing the initial three-satellite Meteosat Third Generation system and preparing the mission for faster weather and atmospheric observations after commissioning.
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Google DeepMind says AlphaGenome Atlas pre-calculates predicted molecular effects for approximately 9 billion possible single-nucleotide changes, giving researchers a searchable tool for prioritising variants.
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Google DeepMind says AlphaGenome Atlas precomputes molecular-effect predictions for approximately 9 billion single-nucleotide variants and provides scores and interpretation tools for non-commercial academic research.
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ESA says Euclid has identified 31 quasars from the early Universe, including two at redshifts 7.77 and 7.69—the most ancient quasars yet observed.
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ESA reports that Euclid has identified 31 quasars from the early Universe, including two with redshifts of 7.77 and 7.69 that were observed when the Universe was about 670 million years old.
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HHMI Janelia, Google Research and collaborators report a complete brain and central nervous system map of an adult male fruit fly containing more than 166,000 neurons and 11,691 neuron-cell types.
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A NASA sounding-rocket experiment used five detectors to sample a sporadic E layer simultaneously, revealing more complex internal structure in the ionosphere than single-point measurements could show.
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NASA's Pandora mission has begun science observations aimed at separating exoplanet atmospheric signatures from changes in their host stars, with at least 20 planets planned for detailed study.
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ESA's MAGPIE rover is planned to fly to the lunar south pole in 2029 with a drill, analyser, radar and neutron detector to study water, volatiles and subsurface geology.
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Isar Aerospace's Spectrum rocket reached low Earth orbit from Norway on 5 September 2026, a milestone for Europe's emerging commercial launch sector.
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ESA and JAXA's BepiColombo mission has separated its Mercury Transfer Module, beginning a staged arrival that is scheduled to place two science orbiters around Mercury later in 2026.
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NASA says Hubble observations reveal a large, evolving decagonal atmospheric pattern around Saturn's south pole, adding a new polygonal structure to the planet's already unusual polar weather.
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A ground test of an improved solid first stage for India's Small Satellite Launch Vehicle met predicted performance and is expected to increase payload capability by about 100 kilograms to low Earth orbit.
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ISRO has begun releasing calibrated NISAR S-band synthetic-aperture radar products covering India and selected global locations through its Bhoonidhi Earth-observation data portal.
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A coordinated Indian radar and balloon campaign observed an unusually strong stratospheric ozone layer near the head of the Bay of Bengal, persisting for more than 24 hours.
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ISRO says observations from three Aditya-L1 instruments detected short-lived brightenings in the hours before a major solar flare, concentrated around the region where the flare later erupted.
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A Nature Neuroscience study found that peripheral dendritic cells can prime CD8 T cells in a way that worsens tau-mediated neurodegeneration in mice, suggesting that immune activity outside the brain can influence disease inside it.
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A Nature Medicine study combining human brain tissue with cognitive histories found that worse age-related cognitive decline was associated with abnormal oligodendrocyte and myelin biology, with experimental work implicating reduced NRF2 activity.
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A Nature study using naturally accumulated somatic mutations as lineage markers found evidence that bone-marrow-derived cells enter the ageing human brain and can become a substantial part of the microglial population.
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A Nature study reports that WeatherNext Cyclones improved forecasts of cyclone track, intensity and wind extent, with roughly a day or more of lead-time advantage over leading operational models in 2023–2025 evaluations.
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ISRO says GSLV-F17 successfully placed EOS-05 into its intended transfer orbit. The mission is designed to become India’s first imaging satellite operating from geosynchronous orbit.