Some of Earth’s oldest living organisms may be right beneath our feet: not ancient trees or coral reefs but fungi. Yet despite their ubiquity and importance, scientists still don’t know how long most fungi can live—or even how to define their age. 

In an opinion paper publishing in the Cell Press journal Trends in Microbiology on August 13, researchers examine why fungal longevity remains so difficult to study. To investigate the long-overlooked biological mystery, the team recommends leveraging new technologies such as “fungi-on-a-chip” and conducting long-term lab experiments with genetic tracking. 

Duraplasty is a surgical procedure that is used to repair or reconstruct the dura mater using a patch graft. Several graft materials are used for the surgery, but their comparative safety remains uncertain. Now, researchers conducted a prospective randomized study in Central India to compare the outcomes of autologous pericranium (natural graft) with those of synthetic high-density polypropylene (G-Patch) in patients undergoing cranial duraplasty. Findings confirmed that both materials demonstrated acceptable short-term safety profiles.

Researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to reveal that two classes of antibiotics shut down RNA polymerase in bacteria by locking a key structural component in place. This discovery gives new insight into the basic biology of the enzyme, revealing a previously unknown moving part that may be essential across domains of life. The work provides a blueprint for developing the next generation of antibiotics.

An international team of researchers from Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain, and the USA has reconstructed the evolution of body mass in carnivorous mammals during the Paleogene – a crucial window in the diversification of mammals, that follows the extinction of dinosaurs. This work, published in Biology Letters, challenges the long-standing hypothesis that competition decided the fate of ancient top predators.

Boston University researchers have now developed an antibody-specific AI framework. Rather than building a larger AI model, the team redesigned how AI learns, focusing it on the small regions of antibodies that recognize disease targets.