Newly sequenced ancient genomes from Yunnan, China, have shed new light on human prehistory in East Asia. In a study published in Science, a research team led by Prof. FU Qiaomei at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed data from 127 ancient humans, dating from 7,100 to 1,400 years ago. The results show that this region is pivotal to understanding the origin of both Tibetan and Austroasiatic (i.e., ethnic groups with a shared language group in South and Southeast Asia) population groups.

Los Angeles, CA – May 29, 2025 - The Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) and California State University, Northridge (CSUN) are proud to announce the launch of a new collaboration initiative that brings advanced hands-on laboratory experience to CSUN Biology graduate students as part of their curriculum.

A new scientific study, led by San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, and additional researchers, offers a unique lens for understanding the unprecedented extinction crisis of native Hawaiian forest birds. Just 17 out of approximately 60 species of the iconic honeycreeper remain, most of which are facing rapid decline due to avian malaria. The findings, published today in Current Biology, include new evidence that there is still time to save the critically endangered honeycreeper ‘akeke‘e—but the window is rapidly closing. 

Monarch butterflies are famous for their annual migrations, but in recent years, more and more monarchs have been living and breeding year-round in California’s Bay Area, thanks in part to the growing presence of non-native milkweeds in urban gardens. In a new study, UC Davis researchers show that these resident butterflies are not connected to the larger population of migratory monarchs. Their work suggests that resident monarchs and the non-native milkweeds that sustain them are not harmful to their migratory kin.

Kyoto, Japan -- Whether you are lucky enough to have a cat companion or must merely live this experience vicariously through cat videos, Felis catus is a familiar and comforting presence in our daily lives. Unlike most other feline species, cats exhibit sociality, can live in groups, and communicate both with other cats and humans, which is why they have been humans' trusted accomplices for millennia.

Despite this intimacy, there is still much that we don't know about our feline friends. Numerous behavioral studies have been conducted on other mammal species, but relatively few on cats.

In part to fill this gap, a team of researchers at Wildlife Research Center of Kyoto University are investigating the genetic background of cats' behavioral traits. Specifically, they aim to understand the association between traits like purring and variation in the androgen receptor gene. Though the exact function of purring remains unclear, previous studies have indicated that it is beneficial for feline communication and survival.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a new way to help doctors make better, personalized decisions and predict how a disease or treatment might play out in the future. Researchers from CMU’s School of Computer Science developed a new approach to bridge the gap between available data and actionable insight, creating personalized models to help doctors better understand individual patients and improve their prognosis. The researchers published their work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team introduced contextualized modeling, a family of ultra-personalized machine learning methods, to build individualized gene network models for nearly 8,000 tumors across 25 cancer types simultaneously. These networks helped identify new cancer biology, revealing hidden cancer subtypes and improving survival predictions, especially for rare cancers. This development opens the door to more precise, individualized cancer treatment.