What's happening in Biology right now. Hosted by Sofia & Daniel.

Tracing the roots of Creatures Worth Meeting across 6 papers. Hosted by Sofia & Daniel.

The left-right asymmetry of South African butterfly lilies (genus Wachendorfia) has been regarded as a classic evolutionary puzzle for more than a century. Due to the mirror-image arrangement of the floral parts, the plants achieve efficient cross-pollination. The molecular basis of this arrangement has now been uncovered by an international team led by the University of Potsdam. Hosted by Theo & Dr. Mara.

Blocking degradation of broken mtDNA lets linear fragments accumulate and drive cruciform structures, heterodimeric complexes and recombinant genomes, but the copy-choice recombination already performed by the mitochondrial replisome is probably sufficient for the genome's needs — no dedicated recombination machinery is required. Hosted by Theo & Dr. Mara.

What's happening in AI right now. Hosted by Sofia & Daniel.

Tracing the roots of Turning Viruses Into Tools across 6 papers. Hosted by Theo & Dr. Mara.

Research teams from INRAE, the University of Clermont Auvergne and the CNRS have reconstructed 10 ancient genomes (paleogenomes) that are the common ancestors of 84 botanical species of agronomic interest. Their work makes it possible to identify particular genes, shared across different species of plants and retained throughout their evolutionary history, that might play a key role in adapting to environmental constraints such as drought. Hosted by Sofia & Daniel.

In Salmonella enterica, DndCDE proteins are "parked" at Dam-methylated G^6m^ATC sites they cannot modify, forcing redistribution of phosphorothioate modifications to GAAC/GTTC motifs via DNA shape recognition, while genome-wide PT density remains clamped at ~1,500 per 10^6 nt — revealing density homeostasis as a regulatory property independent of site identity. Hosted by Theo & Dr. Mara.

Tracing the roots of The Physics of Being Alive across 6 papers. Hosted by Theo & Dr. Mara.

Xenophagocytosis is a natural immune process that limits interspecies organ generation by eliminating living donor cells, researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan, report. By uncovering how embryonic macrophages eliminate living donor cells, the researchers developed strategies to block this response. Using this strategy, they significantly improved donor cell survival and the generation of rat pancreas in mice, bringing us one step closer to producing transplantable human organs in animals. Hosted by Sofia & Daniel.