Some of the world’s leading scientific infrastructures, institutions and experts relating to biodiversity information are uniting around a new 10-year roadmap to ‘liberate’ data presently trapped in research publications. The initiative aims to enable the creation of a ‘libroscope’ - a mechanism for unlocking and linking data from scientific literature to support understanding of biodiversity, as the microscope and telescope previously revolutionized science.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, which mimic human-like conversations have the capacity to respond to questions, admit mistakes, and provide instantaneous linguistic feedback. A new study among college students in China has revealed the technological, educational, and social applications, as well as the limitations, of GenAI feedback. This study highlights the potential of GenAI feedback to enhance L2 writing outcomes, despite its current shortcomings.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have discovered that what was previously thought to be a unique seaweed species of bladderwrack for the Baltic Sea is in fact a giant clone of common bladderwrack, perhaps the world's largest clone overall.  The discovery has implications for predicting the future of seaweed in a changing ocean.

For the first time in the world, the molecular structure of the motor component that powers the gliding apparatus of Mycoplasma mobile, one of the few mycoplasma bacteria that can move, has been revealed by an Osaka Metropolitan University-led research team using cryo-electron microscopy.

A team of researchers from the School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), addressed these questions in a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), USA, by compiling information on nearly 15,000 funded projects focused on species conservation. Professor Benoit GUÉNARD, the lead author of the study, noted that, “Our first conclusion is that funding for species conservation research remains extremely limited with only US$ 1.93 billion allocated over 25 years in the projects we assessed.”

Researchers from Osaka University found that TEX38 and ZDHHC19 co-localize on the plasma membrane of spermatids and mediate S-palmitoylation of ARRDC5, a crucial protein for spermatogenesis. Disrupting either TEX38 or ZDHHC19 inhibited cytoplasm removal from the sperm head, resulting in deformed sperm and infertility in a male mouse model.