Researchers at Westlake University built an AI-based 'virtual cell model' trained on over 38 million protein measurements from breast cancer cell lines, most of them triple-negative. Tested on real patient biopsies, the model successfully identified which drugs would be effective against individual tumours, matching actual clinical outcomes. The findings, published in Nature, mark the first time such a virtual cell model has moved from lab experiments to clinical testing.
On September 4, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution to phase out the 16th-century Mercator map projection in favor of the Equal Earth projection, which more accurately represents the relative sizes of continents and countries. The Mercator map, created by Gerardus Mercator in 1569, has long been criticized for exaggerating the size of Northern Hemisphere landmasses like Canada and Russia while shrinking equatorial regions such as Africa.
A new study examined whether phone tutoring could offset learning losses when schools close, finding that students who received such tutoring showed measurable gains in math performance compared to peers without access to it. The research points to remote, low-tech tutoring as a viable stopgap during disruptions to in-person schooling.
Researchers examining a set of unusual ancient fossils found evidence that the earliest insects were far more anatomically varied than previously assumed. The specimens display body structures that don't fit neatly into existing insect classification schemes, complicating the picture of how insects first diversified.
Scientists have discovered a protein, nicknamed 'superdark' for its poorly characterized status, that structurally resembles a G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) but does not behave like typical members of this receptor family. The finding suggests the protein may represent an unusual or previously unrecognized branch of GPCR-like signaling molecules.
A large-scale genetic study analyzed data from roughly one million people to identify genetic variants associated with the Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The research aimed to uncover the biological underpinnings of personality by pinpointing specific genomic regions correlated with these traits.
Researchers used family-based genetic analyses to examine how inherited genetic variants influence important traits in children, such as growth, cognition, or behavior. The approach controls for shared family environment and population structure, allowing more precise estimates of direct genetic effects than standard population studies.
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.
A study spanning randomized trials in India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda found that 20-minute weekly tutoring calls to primary-school children produced substantial learning gains during COVID-19-related school closures. The approach paired widely available mobile phones with tutoring tailored to each child's current skill level, costing about $11 per child, and worked whether delivered by government teachers or NGO staff.
A study led by Oxford researcher Noam Angrist tested a low-cost intervention combining text-message nudges and a weekly 20-minute phone call from a teacher to support children's learning when schools shut down. The randomized trials, involving more than 16,000 households across India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda during COVID-19 closures, followed an earlier pilot in Botswana and were published in Nature.
A new Nature study by Angrist and colleagues examined how remote phone-based tutoring affected children's learning during periods when schools were shut, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research found strong evidence that this low-tech approach helped students keep learning despite the disruption, offering a rare data-backed solution to an otherwise poorly understood problem.
A new Nature paper by Sticher et al. argues that combining satellite imagery with traditional news-coded reports could reveal aspects of armed conflict that text-based monitoring misses. For over 20 years, conflict researchers have relied on coders converting news reports into structured event data, a method with inherent blind spots where reporting is scarce or biased.
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