China has moved from patchy, post-crisis biosafety rules to a unified legal regime anchored by the 2020 Biosecurity Law, yet fragmentation, weak risk intelligence and poor inter-agency coordination still leave gaps that could be exploited by novel pathogens, synthetic biology or geopolitical tension.  Historical review shows three phases: 1949-2002 built basic disease reporting and plant-quarantine systems but relied on paper records; 2003-2019 introduced internet-based surveillance, BSL-3/4 laboratories and alignment with WHO’s International Health Regulations after the SARS shock; 2020-present elevated biosafety to national-security status, enacted the Biosecurity Law and poured funds into diagnostics, vaccines and bio-economic R&D during COVID-19.  These steps created the skeleton of a modern system, but four structural weaknesses persist: strategic plans lack operational road-maps and AI-enabled foresight; the legal framework offers no clear dispute-resolution or accountability mechanisms; organisational silos among health, agriculture, science and military agencies hamper horizontal coordination; and public awareness plus professional training remain patchy, weakening compliance culture.

The integration of PD-1 inhibitors into standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy regimens has revolutionized nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment, yet only a minority of patients achieve durable responses, creating an urgent need for reliable biomarkers that can predict immunotherapy benefit. Recent investigations have identified multiple candidate predictors spanning both the tumor microenvironment and macroenvironment, ranging from tumor-intrinsic factors like PD-L1 expression and Epstein-Barr virus DNA levels to systemic indicators including peripheral blood cell counts and circulating cytokines. These biomarkers reflect the complex interplay between tumor biology, host immunity, and environmental factors that ultimately determine treatment outcomes.

Glycine, a non-essential amino acid derived from serine, plays an increasingly recognized role in metabolic regulation. Epidemiological studies consistently show that reduced circulating glycine levels are associated with insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes (T2D), and obesity across diverse populations. However, the molecular mechanism linking glycine to insulin production has remained incompletely understood, limiting therapeutic applications.

Kyoto, Japan --  The species Orcinus orca, generally known as orcas or killer whales, is made up of many genetically distinct populations called ecotypes. Each ecotype indicates an ecological specialization with its own ecological and phylogenetic characteristics. The North Pacific is home to three known ecotypes of killer whales, called the transient, resident, and offshore ecotypes. While transient ecotype killer whales are mammal-eating, the resident and offshore orcas are fish-eating.

Though killer whale populations in the eastern North Pacific near Vancouver Island and Alaska have been studied extensively, populations in the western North Pacific have been less studied, especially around Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. One of these sea areas, Shiretoko, is the best in Japan to spot killer whales and is even home to a UNESCO natural World Heritage site, yet information on its killer whale population has remained limited. Researchers from Kyoto University and collaborating institutions worked together with a shared determination to change that.

"Clarifying the ecological characteristics of killer whales is crucial for achieving coexistence with them, as they are deeply entwined with human activities such as tourism and fisheries in Hokkaido," says first and corresponding author Momoka Suzuki.

Kyoto, Japan -- Aged and frail people often suffer a decline in tissue reserve capacity during aging. This reserve, called resilience, helps the body maintain homeostasis through various defense, compensation, modulation, and repair responses. When resilience is impaired, elderly people tend to experience a gradual waning of their daily activity and an increase in multimorbidity, or dealing with multiple chronic illnesses.

One major cause of resilience decline is an increase in senescent cells that have stopped dividing. The human body has a natural mechanism for eliminating these cells called senolysis, but as we age this 'clearing' mechanism becomes less efficient.

Senescent cells exert harmful effects through the senescence-associated secretory phenotype, or SASP: the release of pro-inflammatory molecules that can adversely affect surrounding cells. This leads to chronic inflammation and age-related diseases, partly explaining why elderly people suffer impaired resilience. Yet how metabolic resilience is involved in survival capacity and SASP has remained unclear.

A groundbreaking video from Kumamoto University's Center for Water Cycle, Marine Evironment and Disaster Management (Aitsu Marine Station) has been selected as one of "November's Best Science Images" by the scientific journal Nature. This special feature celebrates the most visually striking and scientifically innovative research images each month, and the selection is an incredible honor for Associate Professor. Yoshikawa and his team.

Understanding the evolution of insect mating behavior is essential for explaining how early insects adapted to life on land. A new study examines Petrobiellus akkesiensis, a rare jumping bristletail, and reveals that its highly specialized male genital structures enable direct spermatophore transfer via genital coupling—a mechanism previously undocumented in apterygote insects. This discovery provides an important missing link in the evolution of mating strategies within Archaeognatha.

An international team, including researchers from HSE University, has created the first comprehensive map of quadruplexes—unstable DNA structures involved in gene regulation. For the first time, scientists have shown that these structures function in pairs: one is located in a DNA region that initiates gene transcription, while the other lies in a nearby region that enhances this process. In healthy tissues, quadruplexes regulate tissue-specific genes, whereas in cancerous tissues they influence genes responsible for cell growth and division. These findings may contribute to the development of new anticancer drugs that target quadruplexes. The study has been published in Nucleic Acids Research.