How stressors during pregnancy impact the developing fetal brain
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 7-Jan-2026 02:11 ET (7-Jan-2026 07:11 GMT/UTC)
Dr. Maria Margarita Behrens traces her journey from South America to the Salk Institute in a Genomic Press Interview exploring brain epigenomics and the BRAIN Initiative's groundbreaking cell atlas research.
In a paper published in aBIOTECH, the authors introduce NLRSeek, a reannotation-based pipeline for comprehensive mining of nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) genes in plants. NLR genes are essential for plant immunity but are frequently missed by conventional annotation methods. NLRSeek effectively recovers and identifies these overlooked genes, facilitating studies of plant defense mechanisms and the discovery of resistance gene resources.
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that infant brain development during the first year of life is linked to families’ ability to meet everyday needs. Using brain activity recordings collected during routine pediatric visits, researchers found that infants whose caregivers reported significant financial hardship showed differences in brain maturation over the first year of life. The findings highlight the potential importance of policies and supports that help families meet basic needs during this critical period of early brain development.
A new study from Northwestern University provides the first empirical data showing the direct role the gut microbiome plays in shaping differences in the way the brain functions across different primate species.
A new Special Report (https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf175) published in the journal BioScience warns that long-term ecological and evolutionary research faces severe threats from lack of recurring funding and governmental/institutional support, to data manipulation and political interference, even as these studies become more crucial for addressing issues of broad societal importance, such as biodiversity loss and climate change.
Life begins with a single fertilized cell that gradually transforms into a multicellular organism. This process requires precise coordination; otherwise, the embryo could develop serious complications. Scientists at ISTA have now demonstrated that the zebrafish eggs, in particular their curvature, might be the instruction manual that keeps cell division on schedule and activates the appropriate genes in a patterned manner to direct correct cell fate acquisition. These insights, published in Nature Physics, could help improve the accuracy of embryo assessments in IVF.