Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus might be more supportive of life than was previously thought. An LMU study reveals that microorganisms could survive in its hidden ocean.

KANAZAWA, Japan — Spatial transcriptomics can reveal where thousands of genes are active across a tissue, creating molecular maps at single-cell resolution. But comparing two such maps is difficult: thin slices of tissue may be rotated, stretched, or otherwise distorted, so equivalent regions do not automatically line up.

Researchers at Kanazawa University and Sapienza University of Rome have developed a computational method that aligns these maps directly from the individual measurement locations and their gene-activity values. Called Domain Elastic Transform (DET), it smoothly reshapes one digital map to match another without first converting the measurements into a regular grid of pixels.

The research, led by Osamu Hirose of Kanazawa University in collaboration with Emanuele Rodolà of Sapienza University of Rome, was published online in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence on September 15, 2026.

A collaborative study led by researchers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology has demonstrated that tau filaments extracted from Alzheimer's disease (AD) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD) patient brains, when injected into wild-type mouse brains, induce the formation of endogenous tau amyloid-like filaments with the same disease-specific structures. The injected human tau disappears within a week, while mouse tau pathology arises and spreads over months, confirming prion-like transmission. Cryo-electron microscopy revealed that the newly formed tau filaments share identical folded structures with the original human tau strains. This mouse model provides vital insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying tauopathies and offers a platform for developing novel therapies targeting tau-related neurodegenerative diseases.

To bridge the gap between carbon monoxide's notorious toxicity and its hidden potential in biology, Dr. Matthew R. Dent, assistant professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Wayne State University, has received a prestigious U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award. The five-year, $749,702 grant supports his project, "CAREER: Carbon Monoxide Sensing, Selectivity, and Signaling in Microbes."

Researchers at Upstate Medical University published a study in PLOS Biology that reveals a key mechanism underlying nervous system organization and may inform future research into myelin-related neurological diseases. Myelin is essential for efficient nerve signaling and healthy brain and spinal cord function. Damage to myelin is associated with conditions such as multiple sclerosis and other neurological disorders. By identifying how myelin sheath length is regulated, this research advances understanding of nervous system development and provides a foundation for future investigations into myelin repair and regeneration.