A team from the Technion Faculty of Biology has discovered how marine viruses use a “Trojan horse” strategy to exploit the energy systems of ocean bacteria, reshaping key global processes. The study, published in Nature, reveals that cyanophages—viruses that infect oceanic cyanobacteria—carry a hijacked bacterial gene, nblA, which dismantles the bacteria’s photosynthetic machinery.

Under normal stress, this gene helps cyanobacteria survive by recycling components of their photosynthetic systems. However, when activated by the virus, it turns against the host: the virus triggers the breakdown to release amino acids it then uses to replicate rapidly. This allows the virus to exploit the host’s resources while destroying it from within.

The discovery was made by Prof. Debbie Lindell, Prof. Oded Béjà, and Prof. Oded Kleifeld, together with Dr. Omer Nadel, Dr. Rawad Hanna, and Dr. Andrey Rozenberg, using a combination of genetic engineering, proteomics, and environmental metagenomics to map the process in detail.

The researchers estimate that this viral mechanism reduces the global photosynthetic energy production of marine cyanobacteria by about 5%, with potential implications for the Earth’s carbon and oxygen cycles.

Researchers at Northern Arizona University and the Smithsonian went to the top of a Panamanian rainforest to simulate heat death in leaves and measure the effects on surrounding leaves. The results were encouraging: Tropical forests may be less sensitive to climate change than originally feared.

Research published "early online" in AMS journals discusses topics including the vulnerability of China's high-speed rail to tropical cyclones, war's impact on meteorology, how cities make each other warmer, whether trees or buildings provide better urban shade, and the discovery of "pinned" clouds over Texas industrial facilities.

Two early-career researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) convinced the expert reviewers of the Carl Zeiss Foundation with their projects. They now have five years to establish their research groups at KIT through the “CZS Nexus” funding program. Each researcher will receive approximately 1.5 million euros. Boris Karanov is developing new algorithms for digital signal processing in optical communication systems, while Frank Rhein is investigating how the CO2 emissions produced by cryptocurrency mining can be reduced by means of physical processes.

In a new study, researchers show that gas bubbles can form in the rising magma not only due to a drop in pressure but also due to shear forces. If these gas bubbles grow in the volcanic vent early on and combine with one another, they can form degassing channels. This could explain why some volcanoes sometimes do not explode. With their work, the researchers provide a vital new piece of the puzzle when it comes to better understanding processes taking place inside active volcanoes and more precisely assessing how volcanoes will erupt.