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Researchers report that water droplets carrying electric charge erode surfaces more aggressively than neutral droplets upon impact. The finding, published via Nature.com, points to charge as an overlooked factor in droplet-driven erosion processes.
Researchers report in Nature that an abandoned quarry in southwestern China contains fossils and artefacts showing Denisovans occupied the site for at least 30,000 years, possibly up to 120,000 years. The finds include bone tools resembling those made by Neanderthals and evidence that Denisovans hunted deer and other animals skillfully.
Two independent research teams, led by Bower and colleagues and by Jerabek and colleagues, applied base editing—a precise form of genome editing—directly to human embryos to study how a specific gene shapes the earliest stages of development. Their experiments, published in Nature, show how embryos respond when particular DNA letters are altered, offering a clearer picture of this critical developmental window.
Researchers analyzed whole-genome sequencing data from 1,001 prostate cancer patients (1,172 tumour samples) collected through the PPCG consortium, applying computational tools to classify structural variants, including simple, complex, and chromothripsis-related genomic rearrangements. The team combined breakpoint detection, copy number segmentation, and statistical tests to build a detailed picture of mutational processes driving the disease.
Researchers developed a palladium-based membrane that functions as the anode in a molten-hydroxide electrochemical cell paired with a hydrogen-evolving cathode, enabling hydrogen removal from dehydrogenation reactions without relying on a pressure gradient. Using anode potentials below 0.3 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode, the system achieved a fourfold increase in hydrogen separation rate at 300°C and converted dilute hydrogen into a pure 1.0 atm stream. When paired with catalysts, the setup drove ammonia and methylcyclohexane conversion to 91% and 94% at 250°C, respectively.
Preclinical data show TRI-611 forms a ternary complex with ALK kinase and CRBN/DDB1, promoting degradation of ALK protein including the EML4-ALK fusion. Combined with TKIs like alectinib and lorlatinib, TRI-611 enhanced tumor suppression in NCI-H3122 xenograft mice without significant body weight loss, indicating a tolerable combination therapy approach.
Researchers analyzed proteins from two fossilized teeth—a fourth premolar and a second molar—recovered from Bianfu Cave in southwestern China's Yunnan Province, dated to roughly 140,000 years ago. The proteomic evidence confirms these remains belong to Denisovans, adding to the small but growing collection of physical evidence for this elusive archaic human population. The cave, one of the oldest Palaeolithic sites in western Yunnan, also yielded thousands of stone tools and animal fossils alongside four hominin teeth.
Researchers used ancient protein analysis to identify additional Denisovan skeletal remains from a site in Southwest China, expanding the known geographic and fossil record of this archaic human population. The study, published in Nature, builds on prior genetic and proteomic work that has traced Denisovans from Siberia's Denisova Cave to the Tibetan Plateau, Laos, Taiwan, and now southwestern China.
A new methodology integrates multiple existing data sources—Sentinel-1 radar-based damage detection, Overture Maps building footprints, VIINA territorial control data, and UCDP fatality records—to analyze building destruction across Ukraine from March 2022 to October 2023. The approach disaggregates damage data from 10-meter pixel grids down to individual building level using over 26 million mapped footprints, mostly sourced from Microsoft's ML Building Footprints and OpenStreetMap.
Researchers describe a generative sampling approach that models transitions between molecular conformations using diffusion-based machine learning, bypassing the extremely long molecular dynamics runs traditionally needed to capture rare structural changes. The technique draws on diffusion probabilistic models and path-sampling theory to generate plausible transition pathways directly, rather than waiting for these events to occur naturally in simulation.
Researchers delivered the ABE8e-V106W base editor as a protein into fertilized human embryos and successfully edited all copies of the PCSK9 gene without producing insertions or deletions, allowing embryos to develop to the blastocyst stage and yielding homozygous edited stem cell lines. However, they also observed occasional chromosome breaks, mosaic editing at nearby and off-target sites, and frequent embryo arrest when the editor was delivered as mRNA instead of protein.
Scientists have developed a drug delivery approach that targets specific structures within individual cells rather than simply reaching a cell as a whole. This subcellular precision aims to route therapeutic payloads to particular organelles or compartments where they can act most effectively.