Harbour porpoises “buzz” less when boats and ships and nearby – suggesting a drop in feeding and socialising, new research shows.

IRB Barcelona inaugurates the country’s first end-to-end fully integrated spatial omics platform, enabling scientists to map biological activity directly within its original tissue context.

The Institute has invested more than €3 million to equip the platform with the latest spatial transcriptomics and spatial proteomics technologies, along with advanced image analysis and bioinformatics capabilities.

This strategic initiative unites five specialised Core Facilities to create a coordinated, end-to-end workflow supporting research and innovation across academic, clinical, and industry partners in Spain and beyond.

A new study finds that microbiomes in similar habitats across geographically  distant regions are more alike than those found in the same region but in a different habitat type. While most microbes adapt to a specific ecosystem, a small subset known as ‘generalists’ can thrive across different habitats, ranging from wastewater to the human gut. The team found that generalists connect vastly disparate habitats by carrying genes, including those that confer antibiotic resistance, and passing them on to other microbes through horizontal gene transfer. Humans accelerate the dispersal of these microbes by creating new connections between environments that otherwise would not exist. The findings provide support for One Health, a framework which proposes that human, animal, and environmental health are interdependent and mutually influential.