Biochemists in Germany have isolated two previously unknown natural molecules, lavasamycin A and B, from a bacterial strain collected in Iran. The study shows that lavasamycin A stops the growth of Bacillus subtilis, pointing to chemical structures that could aid the invention of new antimicrobial agents.
Giovanni Sapere
Molecular biologists have struggled to adapt prime editing to broad-leaved plants because editing rates in dicot species routinely lag behind those in grasses. To overcome that barrier, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed an engineered prime editing system called SmartPE. The biological invention, published in Nature Plants, raises target modification rates across tomato, soybean and rapeseed tissues.
Letizia Giugliano
Scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences and commercial partner Light Bio have engineered a dual-color autoluminescent system that tracks plant immune defenses in real time. The approach bypasses metabolic fluctuations by measuring the ratio between green and red light emissions rather than raw brightness. The work, published in Nature Plants, converts self-sustained light emission into a precise quantitative tool for tracking plant health over extended timeframes.
Giovanni Sapere
Researchers from the University of Nottingham and Tohoku University have identified the specific genetic mechanism determining whether snail shells coil to the left or to the right. The biological discovery links structural variations in the motor protein myosin to early embryonic cell twisting in wild Japanese snails. Published in October 2026, the findings explain how organisms establish fundamental left-right asymmetry without congenital developmental defects.
Letizia Giugliano
Colossal Biosciences plans to bring back to life the long-extinct Mammoth, Dodo and Tilacino. Reality or science fiction?
Giovanni Sapere
