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‘Rapture and beauty’: a writer’s portrait of the International Space Station
What Trump’s election win could mean for AI, climate and health
Analysis methods for large-scale neuronal recordings
Science, Volume 386, Issue 6722, November 2024.
COVID-19 pandemic interventions reshaped the global dispersal of seasonal influenza viruses
Science, Volume 386, Issue 6722, November 2024.
The interhemispheric amygdala-accumbens circuit encodes negative valence in mice
Science, Volume 386, Issue 6722, November 2024.
Retrotransposons are co-opted to activate hematopoietic stem cells and erythropoiesis
Science, Volume 386, Issue 6722, November 2024.
Continuous evolution of user-defined genes at 1 million times the genomic mutation rate
Science, Volume 386, Issue 6722, November 2024.
Former research chimps will move to sanctuary, after NIH reverses course
Staffing concerns at biomedical facility outweigh risk of transferring elderly animals, agency says
How much power do Trump and Kennedy have to reshape health agencies?
Georgetown University’s Lawrence Gostin weighs in on what the new administration can—and can’t—do to at FDA, CDC, and NIH
‘Scienticide’: Argentina’s science workforce shrinks as government pursues austerity
Key science agency has lost 9% of employees since President Javier Milei took office last year
Saved from the scrapyard, this famed ‘flipping ship’ gets a second shot at ocean research
U.K. firm plans to revamp FLIP before deploying it to study air-sea interactions and how sonar beams travel
Many human infections with ‘cow flu’ are going undetected
Scientists find evidence of past H5N1 infection in 7% of workers exposed at dairy farms—but no signs of human-to-human transmission
Gastrointestinal tract cleavage of alpha-synuclein by asparaginyl endopeptidase leads to Parkinson's disease
Pathologic α-synuclein (α-syn) aggregates from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract may contribute to Parkinson's disease (PD). Xiang et al.¹ report in Neuron that enteric nervous system-specific expression of asparaginyl endopeptidase (AEP)-truncated α-syn and tau spreads to the brain, synergistically causing PD-related neurodegeneration and neurobehavioral deficits.
Microbiota-derived lysophosphatidylcholine alleviates Alzheimer's disease pathology via suppressing ferroptosis
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a pervasive neurodegenerative disorder, and new approaches for its prevention and therapy are critically needed. Here, we elucidate a gut-microbiome-brain axis that offers actionable perspectives for achieving this objective. Using the 5xFAD mouse model, we identify increased Clostridium abundance and decreased Bacteroides abundance as key features associated with β-amyloid (Aβ) burden. Treatment with Bacteroides ovatus, or its associated metabolite...
SIRT6-dependent functional switch via K494 modifications of RE-1 silencing transcription factor
RE-1 silencing transcription factor (REST) is a key repressor of neural genes. REST is upregulated under stress signals, aging and neurodegenerative diseases, but although it is upregulated, its function is lost in Alzheimer's Disease. However, why it becomes inactive remains unclear. Here, we show that the NAD-dependent deacetylase SIRT6 regulates REST expression, location and activity. In the absence of SIRT6, REST is overexpressed but mislocalized, leading to a partial loss of its activity...
Identifying the bioimaging features of Alzheimer's disease based on pupillary light response-driven brain-wide fMRI in awake mice
Pupil dynamics has emerged as a critical non-invasive indicator of brain state changes. In particular, pupillary-light-responses (PLR) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients show potential as biomarkers for brain degeneration. To investigate AD-specific PLR and its underlying neuromodulatory sources, we combine high-resolution awake mouse fMRI with real-time pupillometry to map brain-wide event-related correlation patterns based on illumination-driven pupil constriction ( P c ) and...
Slip-pulses drive frictional motion of dissimilar materials: Universality, dynamics, and evolution
Frictional slip between bodies having different elastic or geometrical properties (bimaterial interfaces) creates a unique type of rupture, bimaterial "slip pulses." These slip pulses propagate along the interfaces separating elastically different contacting bodies. They exhibit highly localized slip with accompanying local normal stress reduction. These pulses do not result from properties of "friction laws" but, instead, are formed via the elastic mismatch of the contacting bodies. Here, we...
Physical activity and DNA methylation-based markers of ageing in 6208 middle-aged and older Australians: cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses
Epigenetic age quantifies biological age using DNA methylation information and is a potential pathway by which physical activity benefits general health. We aimed to assess the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between physical activity and epigenetic age in middle-aged and older Australians. Blood DNA methylation data for 6208 participants (40% female) in the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study (MCCS) were available at baseline (1990-1994, mean age, 59 years) and, of those, for...
A neural implementation of cognitive reserve: Insights from a longitudinal fMRI study of set-switching in aging
Aging is often accompanied by changes in brain structure and executive functions, particularly in tasks involving cognitive flexibility, such as task-switching. However, substantial individual differences in the degree of cognitive impairment indicate that some individuals can cope with brain changes more effectively than others, suggesting higher cognitive reserve (CR). This study identified a neural basis for CR by examining the longitudinal relationship between task-related brain activation,...
Autophagy-dependent splicing control directs translation toward inflammation during senescence
The cellular proteome determines the functional state of cells and is often skewed to direct pathological conditions. Autophagy shapes cellular proteomes primarily through lysosomal degradation of either damaged or unnecessary proteins. Here, we show that autophagy directs the senescence-specific translatome to fuel inflammation by coupling selective protein degradation with alternative splicing. RNA splicing is significantly altered during senescence, some of which surprisingly depend on...