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Biology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 25-Jun-2026 16:16 ET (25-Jun-2026 20:16 GMT/UTC)

Does iron accumulation in the brain contribute to neurodegeneration?

Salk Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Salk scientists explore long-standing mystery of why iron that builds up in neuronal cells becomes harmful over time in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, finding a new cellular process, named chronoferroptosis, wherein chronic iron dysregulation in neurons makes them more vulnerable to stressors. The study complements other ongoing research at Salk to design compounds that inhibit this pathway, and could be a promising future avenue for creating therapies that boost resilience in aging brains.

Journal: Cell Death Discovery

Teamwork: An unexpected strategy bacteria use to survive antibiotics

Baylor College of Medicine
Peer-Reviewed Publication

When bacteria are under antibiotic attack, it is not ‘every man for himself.’ Researchers have discovered that bacterial populations work as a team to survive antibiotics. The study reveals that bacteria pool their resources, helping quiescent or dormant cells survive. The findings help explain why some bacteria are hard to eliminate and suggest potential future approaches to improve antibiotic effectiveness.

Journal: Science

Flowering plants diversified seed dispersal strategies earlier than thought, study suggests

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

While reproductive evolution of flowering plants (angiosperms) is traditionally linked to the end-Cretaceous biotic crisis, new research suggests angiosperm dispersal ecologies had already diversified by that time. The study is based on an analysis of flowering plant diaspores – the units comprising seeds and associated structures – from a Late Cretaceous fossil forest site in New Mexico. Flowering plants possess remarkable diversity in fruit and seed size and shape, reflecting morphology for dispersal by wind, water, and animals. This diversity is thought to have only originated during the Paleogene, despite an earlier increase in abundance and diversification of angiosperms across the Cretaceous. Here Jaemin Lee et al. suggest an earlier origin of variation in angiosperms seeds and fruits. They describe a relatively well-preserved collection of 77 diaspore morphotypes from a Late Cretaceous fossil forest in New Mexico, USA, featuring fleshy fruits and an average weight approximately the size of a blueberry. Though likely dispersed by vertebrates, their emergence may have been part of the shift to shady, humid tropical forests, rather than driven by vertebrate diversification. The results broaden “our understanding of forest ecology and plant-animal interactions during the first half of angiosperm evolutionary history,” say the authors.

Journal: Science

Egg shuffle reveals how innate drivers and early environments affect European songbird’s ranges

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Migratory birds fly precise seasonal paths to their breeding and non-breeding grounds, even when those grounds are separated by thousands of miles. But how do the birds know the difference between these two areas – is this information innate, or is it learned as hatchlings? The answers may affect how or if these birds can adapt to potential shifts in these grounds caused by global climate change. To learn more about what determines the non-breeding ranges of the pied flycatcher, Koosje Lamers and colleagues performed an egg shuffle, moving eggs from nests in the Netherlands to Sweden in a five-year experiment. The resulting “common garden” of fully genetic Dutch birds hatched in Dutch nests, genetically Dutch but Swedish-hatched birds, and fully genetic and hatched Swedish birds offered a way to track differences in migratory journeys. The researchers found that both inheritance and the hatching environment determined non-breeding areas, with the “half Dutch” birds traveling to non-breeding areas that were intermediate in location between the fully Swedish and Dutch populations.

Journal: Science

AI to reconstruct the diet of human ancestors

University of Barcelona
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The study of dental microwear allows the analysis of the microscopic marks that foods leave on the surface of tooth enamel during mastication. In palaeoanthropology, this methodology helps reconstruct the diet of fossil primates and hominins throughout human evolution. The microscopic striations in dental enamel are like microscopic archives that reveal whether the diet was rich in foods with softer or more abrasive components. Now, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports presents an innovative artificial intelligence (AI)-based methodology for identifying 3D wear patterns consistently and independently of the analyst.

Journal: Scientific Reports

First use of precision editing to study human embryo development reveals role of master gene

University of Cambridge
Peer-Reviewed Publication

- Scientists have, for the first time, used an extremely precise genome editing technique called base editing to study gene function in human embryos.

- Using the technique, they found that a gene called NANOG is essential for forming the future body from an embryo. Without it, the embryo loses its ability to differentiate into different body tissues.

- This reveals fundamental differences between early development in human and mouse embryos, underscoring the importance of directly investigating human embryonic development.

Journal: Nature
Funder: Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK

Apes and humans have been sharing a laugh for 15 million years

University of Warwick
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Great apes may have been laughing with a similar rhythm to modern humans for at least 15 million years, a University of Warwick study reveals. The finding offers unexpected clues to how human speech evolved.

Journal: Communications Biology

Could a dog’s skull shape tell us something about a spinal condition?

Cornell University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new Cornell University study helps deepen the understanding of skull shapes within different sized dogs and draws a link between cranial and facial shapes, body weight and the risk of syringomyelia, a spinal condition common in some dog breeds.

Journal: Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound

Developing a new methodology to identify biomarkers for male infertility

University of the Basque Country
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from the EHU-University of the Basque Country have developed a robust protocol to detect the molecules involved in the metabolic reactions of sperm. The new method enables a detailed analysis to be made even with small samples, and the largest number of potential biomarkers identified to date to be detected; this advance could help to diagnose male infertility and develop future clinical solutions.

Journal: Cells

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