A flexible metal–organic framework developed by researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo enables the structural determination of large “beyond rule of 5” molecules from microgram-scale samples. Using APF-40 as a crystalline sponge, the researchers determined the structures of 12 pharmaceutical-related molecules, including the 899 Da drug molecule doramectin and trace ivermectin derivatives. The method could aid drug discovery, natural products research, and the characterization of rare compounds available only in very small quantities.

The smell of Japanese Igusa (rush grass), the core component of tatami mats, has long been associated with comfort and relaxation. However, there was little scientific evidence behind such claims. To test this, researchers measured the brain activity of volunteers while they sat on Igusa mats and completed simple tasks. The researchers found that when using the Igusa mats the participants’ brain activity suggested they had better focus, cognitive engagement, and stress resilience.

The textbook view often describes euchromatin, the active part of the genome, as open and accessible. A research team led by Kazuhiro Maeshima has now shown that euchromatin in living human cells forms condensed domains whose local mixing is constrained by cohesin. When cohesin is lost, these domains become more fluid and locally mix without global decompaction, weakening transcriptional insulation.

You can now get glossy, car-paint-quality color from a coating that contains no pigment at all. The Kobe University development makes non-fading structural color applicable to complex surfaces at scale, fixes angle-dependent color and allows for applying protective layers for real-world use.

Researchers at the University of Osaka discovered FoeAB, a previously unknown bacterial pump that exports the antibiotic fosfomycin. By combining transport experiments with cryo-electron microscopy, the team revealed how the protein recognizes and moves the drug across the cell membrane. The findings expand understanding of antibiotic efflux in Gram-positive bacteria and could support new strategies to counter drug resistance and improve treatment of bacterial infections.

Researchers have developed a new computational method that enables cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) datasets to surpass traditional physical resolution limits after data collection. The technique, called Post-Acquisition Super Resolution (PASR), enhances standard cryo-EM movies through a lightweight pre-processing step applied before motion correction. PASR allows higher-resolution structural information to be recovered from existing datasets without recollecting data at higher magnification and can also be applied to data acquired as super-resolution. The method was successfully tested on multiple datasets, including apoferritin, adeno-associated virus, jack bean urease, and the giant virus Melbournevirus, and proved compatible with standard cryo-EM software pipelines such as RELION and CryoSPARC. PASR may reduce microscope time, storage demands, and data-collection costs while improving structural analysis of large, flexible, or heterogeneous biological complexes.

Researchers in Japan developed MOFU (MOrphing Fluffy Unit), a mobile robot capable of whole-body expansion and contraction, and investigated how these volume-changing movements affect perceived animacy, or how lifelike the robot appears. In online video experiments, both expansion-contraction and rotational motion increased animacy ratings. Presenting two expanding and contracting robots instead of one did not produce a clear difference, while adding rotational and expansion-contraction motions to locomotion resulted in higher animacy ratings than locomotion alone. The findings suggest that whole-body volume change may serve as a design element for shaping the impressions conveyed by robot movement.