In the ever-evolving landscape of plant physiology and cellular biology, a groundbreaking study published in Nature Plants in 2025 unveils a pivotal revelation regarding the mechanisms underlying stomatal opening in leaves. This research, led by Wei, Hu, Liu, and their colleagues, dissects the intricate variations in potassium ion channel compositions between guard cells located on … Read more

MIT chemists have shown that they can greatly boost the efficiency of a bacterial version of rubisco, a key enzyme in photosynthesis. They identified mutations that could boost its catalytic efficiency by up to 25%. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT During photosynthesis, an enzyme called rubisco catalyzes a key reaction—the incorporation of carbon dioxide into organic … Read more

A groundbreaking study has unveiled compelling evidence of decadal shifts in Earth’s atmospheric circulation, achieved through an innovative analysis of cloud motion vectors captured by NASA’s Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR). Spanning two decades, from 2000 to 2020, this research leverages high-resolution stereoscopic imagery to characterize how winds traverse the globe at varying altitudes, revealing subtle … Read more

Advancing protein evolution with inverse folding models integrating structural and evolutionary constraints. Credit: IGDB A team of researchers has developed a method that could transform the field of protein engineering. The new approach, called AI-informed Constraints for protein Engineering (AiCE), enables rapid and efficient protein evolution by integrating structural and evolutionary constraints into a generic … Read more

In the complex tapestry of plant evolution, polyploidy – the presence of more than two sets of chromosomes – often acts as a pivotal mechanism driving diversification and adaptation. A recent groundbreaking study has shed light on one such polyploid wild relative of barley, Hordeum bulbosum, which intriguingly contains both diploid and tetraploid individuals that, … Read more

Illustration of urease and CA-induced MICP in B. megaterium using urea and CO2 as reactants, respectively. Credit: Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-07323-9 At more than 470 times the atmospheric concentration of CO₂, a humble soil bacterium does something extraordinary: it turns gas into stone. In the future, could the walls of our houses be partly … Read more

In the rapidly evolving landscape of photonics and integrated optics, the quest for advanced light sources with precise control over their emission properties has long captivated researchers. Nanolasers, miniature lasers embedded within photonic circuits, have played a pivotal role in breakthroughs ranging from high-speed optical communications to innovative medical treatments. For decades, efforts have sought … Read more

Study first author Maureen Kahiu, who earned her master’s degree from Penn State with this research project, maneuvers a light box on a research fairway, used to take closeup photos of turfgrass damage resulting from fungicides that golf course managers use to suppress diseases such as dollar spot. Credit: Pennsylvania State University Golf course managers … Read more

The new system, known as microfluidic EM-based polyclonal epitope mapping (mEM), offers researchers faster, clearer insights that could help accelerate vaccine development and antibody discovery. Credit: Scripps Research A new microchip invented by Scripps Research scientists can reveal how a person’s antibodies interact with viruses—using just a drop of blood. The technology offers researchers faster, … Read more

Many regions of the genome form topologically associating domains (TADs). Parts of the genome within these domains can interact more frequently with each other, while they tend to be isolated from the region outside this domain. This schematic figure shows how the proportions of interactions in TAD-like domains in individual single cells (scDomains) are related … Read more