science

Quest to create viable human sex cells in lab progressing rapidly, with huge implications for reproduction

Scientists are just a few years from creating viable human sex cells in the lab, according to an internationally renowned pioneer of the field, who says the advance could open up biology-defying possibilities for reproduction.

Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi, a developmental geneticist at the University of Osaka, said rapid progress is being made towards being able to transform adult skin or blood cells into eggs and sperm, a feat of genetic conjury known as in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG).

His own lab is about seven years away from the milestone, he predicts. Other frontrunners include a team at the University of Kyoto and a California-based startup, Conception Biosciences, whose Silicon Valley backers include the OpenAI founder, Sam Altman and whose CEO told the Guardian that growing eggs in the lab “might be the best tool we have to reverse population decline” and could pave the way for human gene editing.

cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/221468

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At 8700 feet, it's Imaging the entire available southern sky every 3 days!

Website: https://rubinobservatory.org/

Other details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_C._Rubin_Observatory

The science paper:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03773-w

Otoferlin was already working for children

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32388210

The Trump administration’s proposed budget seeks to shut down the laboratory atop a peak in Hawaii where scientists have gathered the most conclusive evidence of human-caused climate change since the 1950s.

The president’s budget proposal would also defund many other climate labs, including instrument sites comprising the US government’s greenhouse gas monitoring network, which stretches from northern Alaska to the South Pole.

But it’s the Mauna Loa laboratory that is the most prominent target of the President Donald Trump’s climate ire, as measurements that began there in 1958 have steadily shown CO2’s upward march as human activities have emitted more and more of the planet-warming gas each year.

The curve produced by the Mauna Loa measurements is one of the most iconic charts in modern science, known as the Keeling Curve, after Charles David Keeling, who was the researcher who painstakingly collected the data. His son, Ralph Keeling, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, now oversees collecting and updating that data.

The proposal to shut down Mauna Loa had been made public previously but was spelled out in more detail on Monday when NOAA submitted a budget document to Congress. It made more clear that the Trump administration envisions eliminating all climate-related research work at NOAA, as had been proposed in Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for overhauling the government.

It would do this in large part by cutting NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research entirely, including some labs that are also involved in improving weather forecasting.

https://archive.ph/caA1y

Air pollution has been linked to a swathe of lung cancer-driving DNA mutations, in a study of people diagnosed with the disease despite never having smoked tobacco.

The findings from an investigation into cancer patients around the world helps explain why those who have never smoked make up a rising proportion of people developing the cancer, a trend the researchers called an “urgent and growing global problem”.

The scientists analysed the entire genetic code of lung tumours removed from 871 never-smokers in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia as part of the Sherlock-Lung study. They found that the higher the levels of air pollution in a region, the more cancer-driving and cancer-promoting mutations were present in residents’ tumours.

Kennedy's criticism largely stems from his belief that modern medicine and mainstream science are part of a global conspiracy to generate pharmaceutical profits. Kennedy is a germ-theory denier who believes people can maintain their health not by relying on evidence-based medicine, such as vaccines, but by clean living and eating—a loose concept called "terrain theory."

Access to top scientific and medical journals is essential for federal scientists to keep up to date with their fields and publicize high-impact results. One NIH employee added to Nature news that it "suppresses our scientific freedom, to pursue information where it is present."

The ocean around Antarctica is rapidly getting saltier at the same time as sea ice is retreating at a record pace. Since 2015, the frozen continent has lost sea ice similar to the size of Greenland. That ice hasn’t returned, marking the largest global environmental change during the past decade.

This finding caught us off guard – melting ice typically makes the ocean fresher. But new satellite data shows the opposite is happening, and that’s a big problem. Saltier water at the ocean surface behaves differently than fresher seawater by drawing up heat from the deep ocean and making it harder for sea ice to regrow.

The loss of Antarctic sea ice has global consequences. Less sea ice means less habitat for penguins and other ice-dwelling species. More of the heat stored in the ocean is released into the atmosphere when ice melts, increasing the number and intensity of storms and accelerating global warming. This brings heatwaves on land and melts even more of the Antarctic ice sheet, which raises sea levels globally.

Three prominent researchers warn about the current existential threat in the United States

Helmut Schwarz has been reading about what happened to science during the rise of Adolf Hitler, almost a century ago.

The German chemist just received the Frontiers of Knowledge Award from the BBVA Foundation in Spain, due to his contributions to the field of catalysis. For him, there are parallels between the situation in Nazi Germany and Trump’s United States.

“From 1900 to 1932, a third of all Nobel Prizes went to Germany, more than to the U.S. and the U.K. combined,” he tells EL PAÍS. He and two other scientists sat down with EL PAÍS in Bilbao, where they received their awards.

“When Hitler came to power,” he continues, “German science — which led the world — completely disintegrated. But Hitler thought that wouldn’t be a problem,” he continues. Now, Donald Trump’s administration views universities — supposed hotbeds of progressive ideology — as the enemy. He wants to bring them under his control. “In my opinion, the threat isn’t immediate, but it’s very important in the long term,” Schwarz adds.

...when atacamite is exposed to a magnetic field, its temperature changes, a rare and valuable behavior that could help shape the future of cooling technologies...

Journal article:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.216701

For years now, U.S. police departments have employed officers who are trained to be experts in detecting "drugged driving." The problem is, however, that the methods those officers use are not based on science, according to a new editorial in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (JSAD).

With marijuana now legal in many U.S. states, the need for reliable tests for marijuana impairment is more pressing than ever. Police can evaluate alcohol-intoxicated drivers by using an objective measure of breath alcohol results. But there is no "breathalyzer" equivalent for marijuana. The drug is metabolized differently from alcohol, and a person's blood levels of THC (the main intoxicating chemical in marijuana) do not correlate with impairment.

So law enforcement relies on subjective tactics—roadside tests and additional evaluations by police officers specially trained to be so-called drug recognition experts (DREs). These officers follow a standardized protocol that is said to detect drug impairment and is said to even determine the specific drug type, including marijuana.

The process involves numerous steps, including tests of physical coordination; checking the driver's blood pressure and pulse; squeezing the driver's limbs to determine if the muscle tone is "normal" or not; and examining pupil size and eye movements.

But while the protocol has the trappings of a scientific approach, it is not actually based on evidence that it works, said perspective author William J. McNichol, J.D., an adjunct professor at Rutgers University Camden School of Law.

...This warmth acts as a natural incubator for the giant eggs, which span 18 to 20 inches in width and require an extended gestation period of four years.

This unique environment accelerates the development of young Pacific white skates, giving them a vital advantage in the harsh conditions of the deep sea. The interaction between the volcano and marine life demonstrates the profound influence geological features can have on biological processes...

Japan on Sunday successfully launched a climate change monitoring satellite on its mainstay H-2A rocket, which made its final flight before it is replaced by a new flagship model designed to be more cost competitive in the global space market.

The H-2A rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan, carrying the GOSAT-GW satellite as part of Tokyo's effort to mitigate climate change. The satellite was safely separated from the rocket and released into a planned orbit about 16 minutes later.

Scientists and space officials at the control room exchanged hugs and handshakes to celebrate the successful launch, which was delayed by several days due to a malfunctioning of the rocket's electrical systems.

Keiji Suzuki, a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries official in charge of rocket launch operations, said he was more nervous than ever for the final mission of the rocket, which has been his career work. "I've spent my entire life at work not to drop H-2A rocket ... All I can say is I'm so relieved."

Defining the minimal genetic requirements for cellular life remains a fundamental question in biology...Here, we report the discovery of Candidatus Sukunaarchaeum mirabile, a novel archaeon with an unprecedentedly small genome of only 238 kbp —less than half the size of the smallest previously known archaeal genome...lacking virtually all recognizable metabolic pathways, and primarily encoding the machinery for its replicative core: DNA replication, transcription, and translation. This suggests an unprecedented level of metabolic dependence on a host, a condition that challenges the functional distinctions between minimal cellular life and viruses...