Insects use a wax layer on their bodies to prevent water loss. Furthermore, they use the layer for communication. Although the chemical composition of this layer has been extensively studied, researchers have now, for the first time, turned to examining its physical properties, especially its phase behavior. They focused on analyzing its viscosity by determining its resistance to flow.

This review focuses on the critical role of amino acid metabolism in breast cancer development and progression. It explains how cancer cells reprogram amino acid usage—especially glutamine, serine, glycine, aspartate, arginine, and tryptophan—to support proliferation, survival, immune evasion, and metastasis. The review emphasizes metabolic heterogeneity among different breast cancer subtypes and explores therapeutic strategies targeting these pathways.

This review article provides a comprehensive overview of stress granules (SGs) —membraneless organelles formed in response to cellular stress—and their interactions with other organelles. It explores their structure, function, roles in health and disease, especially neurodegeneration, and discusses methodologies used to study these interactions. SGs influence critical cellular pathways, and understanding their interplay with both membrane-bound and membraneless organelles can reveal potential therapeutic targets for diseases like ALS and FTD.

New research has revealed alarming coral mortality rates of 92 per cent after last year’s bleaching event at Lizard Island on Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef, marking one of the highest coral mortality rates ever documented globally.  

Case Western Reserve University chemist Divita Mathur was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) grant for her research in synthetic DNA nanoparticles, which have potential applications in gene therapy.

A first-of-its-kind study in mice reveals that neurons add and shed synapses at a frenzied pace during development to integrate visual signals from the two eyes.