Meteor impacts may have helped spark life on Earth, creating hot, chemical-rich environments where the first living cells could take shape, according to research integrated by a recent Rutgers University graduate.

“No one knows, from a scientific perspective, how life could have been formed from an early Earth that had no life,” said Shea Cinquemani, who earned her bachelor’s degree in marine biology and fisheries management from the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences in May 2025. “How does something come from nothing?” Cinquemani is the lead author of a scientific review, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, examining where life may have first formed on Earth. The paper focuses on hydrothermal vents, places where hot, mineral-rich water flows through rock and emerges into surrounding water, creating the chemical conditions and energy gradients needed for complex reactions.

Soil salinization is a growing global threat that reduces crop yields and limits sustainable agriculture, especially in arid and semi-arid regions. A new study shows that carefully designed biochar amendments can significantly improve plant growth and soil health in these challenging environments by reshaping both plant metabolism and soil microbial communities.

The discovery of changes to a 200-million-year-old gene in a mutant clownfish with a unique pattern provides a central clue to the mystery of how nature can create sharply defined boundaries: clear communication. This new research upends our understanding of the mathematical rules that pigmentation cells follow, and suggests a common mechanism shared across species.

This mechanism is completely different from the way collagen is broken down by collagen-digesting enzymes in humans and animals. The finding is interesting from an evolutionary point of view and may also help future advances in transplantation medicine and the treatment of infectious diseases. 

Cells naturally exchange cytoplasmic components like proteins, RNA, and mitochondria, but scientists lack tools to control such transfers in living cells. Now, researchers in Japan have developed a nanotube membrane-based injector—a system that enables high-efficiency, minimally invasive cytoplasmic transfer between cells. This platform preserves cell viability and can even transfer functional mitochondria, opening new possibilities for cell engineering and regenerative medicine.

A research team led by Zhen-Xing Endowed Professor Jian Yang at the School of Life Sciences, Westlake University, together with collaborators, published their latest findings in Nature on April 1. The study innovatively developed a pangenome-informed genome assembly (PIGA) method. By combining a cost-effective hybrid sequencing strategy of long and short reads, the team successfully constructed a pangenome for over a thousand individuals. This achievement breaks through the limitations of previous small-sample pangenomes and provides a critical foundational infrastructure for medical and population genetics research.