An engineered pandemic, a nuclear war, a planet paved over with paper clip factories: AI researchers have floated plenty of ways the technology could end humanity. Now the debate over…
Category: Genetics
Cell Membrane Lipid Governs Retinal Light Sensitivity
Summary: Using cryogenic electron microscopy and synthetic model membranes, researchers have mapped how the membrane phospholipid PIP2 binds to cyclic nucleotide-gated (CNG) ion channels in retinal rod cells. Even at…
Finally, a true blue rose exists
This development could change poetry forever. Roses are red and now they’re also blue. True blue roses were once thought impossible. Roses can make red and yellow pigments but don’t…
Viewpoint: Is corporate embrace of regenerative agriculture greenwashing?
Major food companies are racing to tout “regenerative agriculture,” but the term has no legal definition — and that vagueness is letting some companies claim environmental credit without necessarily changing…
The Placenta May Decide Autism Vulnerability
Summary: A new study in mice reveals that maternal immune activation during a precise gestational window triggers autism-like developmental disruptions exclusively in male fetuses. Researchers traced this vulnerability to damaged…
Disruption of Striatal D2 Receptor Neurons Drives ADHD and Impulsivity
Summary: Researchers have demonstrated that deleting the membrane-fusion protein NSF specifically from dopamine D2 receptor (D2R)-expressing neurons leads to striatal shrinkage, severe dopamine depletion, and classic ADHD-like hyperactivity and impulsivity…
Viewpoint: Dubious environmental fears: Why the AI buildout is critical to America’s ecological future
Opposition to artificial intelligence has intensified over the past year. A majority of Americans worry that AI will kill jobs, distrust the information it generates, and doubt that tech leaders…
A meaty problem: How to make cell-grown protein taste like steak, chicken, and seafood
Lab-grown, or cultivated, meat options are already a reality in select restaurants worldwide. For example, the omakase restaurant Robin in San Francisco sells cultivated salmon as part of a tasting…
Central Genetic Switch Controls Long-Distance Axon Navigation
Summary: Challenging the dogma that growing axons navigate exclusively via local cues processed at their tips, neuroscientists have discovered that a centralized genetic switch inside the neuron’s cell body directs…
‘Jet fuel didn’t melt the steel’: 9/11 conspiracy theories debunked
Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, conspiracy theories about the World Trade Center’s collapse still circulate — but as Popular Mechanics reports in a piece revisiting its long-running fact-check…
