The engineering of artificial cells requires a reconfigurable cytoskeleton that can organize at distinct locations and dynamically modulate its structural and mechanical properties. This study combines peptide self-assembly with DNA programmability to realize a synthetic cytoskeleton in droplets showing that programmable peptide–DNA nanotechnology approach is a powerful platform towards the construction of functional, fully artificial cells.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41557-024-01509-w (open access)

Internet Watch Foundation has found a manual on dark web encouraging criminals to use software tools that remove clothing. The manipulated image could then be used against the child to blackmail them into sending more graphic content, the IWF said.

"For all that science has learned about the workings of life, death remains among the most intractable of mysteries....

"New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be less distinct than previously thought...

"Death may be far more alive than we ever thought possible..."

This study reveals how life’s complexity could originate from simple RNA molecules on early Earth. Through experiments demonstrating RNA’s recycling and replication abilities under conditions such as low salinity and high pH, the research suggests life could emerge from minimal molecular sets in environments akin to volcanic islands. This means that an RNA world could arise without the prior necessity for long complex sequences.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jacs.3c10813# (open access)

This study shows that a ketogenic diet slows early Alzheimer’s memory loss in mice, in which the molecule beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), plays an important role thus offering hope for its application in human ageing and cognitive health.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-05860-z (open access).

This study uncovers that activation of endogenous retroviruses affects prion-like spreading of proteopathic seeds. It supports that endogenous retroviruses play a role in protein misfolding diseases and suggest that antiviral drugs could represent promising candidates for inhibiting protein aggregate spreading.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40632-z (open access)

This study has used publicly available MS/MS spectra for bile-acid-selective ion patterns to identify thousands of polyamine bile amidates. It highlights the existence of many more bile acid modifications than previously recognized and the value of leveraging public large-scale untargeted metabolomics data to discover metabolites.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00185-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867424001855%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
(open access)

Metformin is a widely prescribed anti-diabetic medicine that also reduces body weight. There is ongoing debate about the mechanisms that mediate metformin’s effects on energy balance. This study shows that metformin induces the formation of hunger-reducing metabolite N-lactoyl-phenylalanine (Lac-Phe), a byproduct of muscle fatigue and an amino acid called phenylalanine, found after heavy exercise.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-024-00999-9

Breast cancer diagnoses in women under 50 have increased significantly in the past two decades, primarily driven by estrogen-receptor positive tumors. This research highlights the importance of early detection and the need for prevention strategies. Prevention efforts in young women need to adopt a targeted approach to address racial disparities in incidence rates observed at different age phases.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2814306 (open access)

Emotion artificial intelligence uses biological signals such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, to detect and predict how someone is feeling. It can be used in the workplace, for hiring, etc. Loss of privacy is just the beginning. Workers are worried about biased AI and the need to perform the ‘right’ expressions and body language for the algorithms.

An interesting story of how a silver denarius, minted over 2,000 years ago, reveals efforts taken by Ancient Rome to counter voter intimidation and manipulation during elections.

Brin’s “We definitely messed up.”, at an AI “hackathon” event on 2 March, followed a slew of social media posts showing Gemini’s image generation tool depicting a variety of historical figures – including popes, founding fathers of the US and, most excruciatingly, German second world war soldiers – as people of colour.