NASA Crew Completes 378-Day Simulated Mars Mission
Four volunteers completed NASA’s 378-day simulated Mars mission, gathering health and performance data that researchers will assess to inform future exploration planning.
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View allIn fruit flies, an early bacterial cue can shape adult food avoidance
A PLOS Biology article describes how uracil exposure in young fruit flies triggers gut redox signaling and sensory neurons, priming adults to avoid peptidoglycan-containing food while the lasting memory remains unexplained.
When CRISPR Helps Bacteria Resist Phages
Experiments with Pseudomonas aeruginosa found that CRISPR immunity’s benefit against virulent phages varied with how readily bacteria evolved receptor resistance, suggesting phage diversity may shape this defense.
Hubble and Webb Find Clues to the Solar System’s Earliest Building Blocks
A survey of 27 faint objects beyond Neptune found that small and large bodies share color patterns, while their size distributions challenge some predictions about how planets formed.
How Cells Help Zip the Mouse Spine Closed
In mouse embryos, removing CFL1 from surface ectoderm slowed spinal neural-tube zippering by about 30%, and roughly 30% developed spina bifida, implicating cell-edge dynamics in closure.
A Deeper Genetic Map of the Algae Closest to Land Plants
A broad genetic comparison strengthens the case that Zygnematophyceae are land plants’ closest algal relatives and reveals deep splits, repeated shifts in growth form and unevenly shared genes.
Darwin’s wasps show how evolution can repeat a path—and struggle to reverse it
A genetic analysis of 697 Darwin wasp species found that some host-use strategies evolved repeatedly but rarely reversed, suggesting evolutionary history can narrow the paths available to later lineages.