AI designs novel pathogens from scratch for the first time; new physics reframes the Chicxulub extinction as a thermal event measured in hours.
Researchers used large genomic foundation models — trained on millions of viral sequences — to design novel viruses not found in nature, demonstrating that AI can now engineer biology at the sequence level without a wet-lab starting point.
New atmospheric modeling of Chicxulub impact ejecta shows fine silicate dust could have raised surface temperatures above 100°C within 24 hours of impact — incinerating exposed life before the decade-long nuclear winter even began.
The NSF Inouye Solar Telescope identified Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities — rolling vortices — forming at sunspot magnetic field boundaries hours before major flares erupt, providing a potential early-warning signature.
American bullfrogs produce a peptide that neutralises saxitoxin — the paralytic agent in shellfish poisoning — by binding it through a mechanism distinct from all known synthetic compounds, confirmed by cryo-EM structure.
A new study links a mutation enhancing fructose-to-fat conversion — arising in a great ape ancestor ~17 million years ago — to shifts toward energy-dense fruit diets, larger brain energy budgets, and modern metabolic disease susceptibility.
Corals spin microscale boundary-layer vortices to pull dissolved oxygen from surrounding water, but new experiments show this mechanism breaks down above 30°C — the same threshold at which bleaching begins.
Researchers traced tactile signals from mechanoreceptors through distinct spinal cord interneuron populations that gate whether a touch is perceived as pleasant or aversive, with no shared circuitry between the two outcomes.