Babies of every species from mouse to human rapidly forget things that happen to them—an effect called infantile amnesia. A type of brain immune cell called microglia might control this type of forgetting in young mice, according to a study published January 20^th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Erika Stewart, from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, and colleagues.

Scientists have found that blocking microglia (specialist immune cells in the brain) prevents infant forgetting (“infantile amnesia”) and improves memory in mice, suggesting that microglia may actively manage memory formation and dictate what, and when, we forget. Infants of many species from mouse to human rapidly forget things that happen to them—a phenomenon called infantile amnesia, but until now we have known little about how this happens. The new discovery, just published in leading international journal PLOS Biology, now offers strong support for the mechanism at play.

Cities profoundly shape how animals interact with one another. A new comprehensive review by researchers at Bielefeld University shows that urbanisation alters animal social behaviour – from mate choice to group living. The findings are striking and highly relevant for conservation and urban planning.

Alkaline media simultaneously modified both the bacterial exopolysaccharides (EPSs) yield and its monosaccharide profile, promoting the synthesis of rare sugars such as fucose and arabinose, indicating the effectiveness of alkaline media in enhancing the yield of rare sugars.

This large-scale UK Biobank study of 89,935 individuals with MASLD demonstrates that accelerated biological aging—measured by PhenoAge, KDM-BA, and leukocyte telomere length—is associated with a higher risk of cirrhosis. Combined with polygenic risk scores (PRS), accelerated aging identifies high-risk individuals, and mitigating biological aging may substantially reduce cirrhosis risk, even among those with high genetic susceptibility.

Infection with the neurotropic pathogen Toxoplasma gondii induced release of extracellular vesicles (EVs) with microRNAs involved in regulating long term potentiation, depression and neuronal growth. The EVs down-regulated calcium-signaling calmodulin.