Silencing stress signals could pave the way to a longer life, study reveals
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-Jun-2026 07:15 ET (2-Jun-2026 11:15 GMT/UTC)
Silencing a major cellular stress signal could be the key to a longer life, according to new University of Sheffield research.
Researchers have developed a new way to understand how cells survive heat stress by tracking how genes shift under changing temperatures. Studying skin fibroblasts from humans and heat-adapted one-humped camels, they created models of gene interactions using small datasets by measuring the magnitude of gene changes rather than simple on/off responses. Findings reveal that camels exhibit stronger cellular resilience than humans, offering new insight into heat adaptation and a powerful tool for studying environmental stress biology and ecological responses to environmental change.
30 April 2026 / Kiel / Mindelo. Tomorrow, fourteen Master’s students in the West African Master’s programme ‘Climate Change and Marine Sciences’ will begin their two-week training and research voyage aboard the research vessel POLARSTERN. Travelling from Mindelo in Cabo Verde to Bremerhaven, Germany, they will carry out physical, biogeochemical and biological measurements together with ten experienced scientists. This is the fourth time that the Floating University is taking place under the leadership of GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. This initiative significantly contributes to the goals of the UN Decade of Ocean Science and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) as part of the WASCAL programme (West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use).
In a new study published today in Nature, scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science, together with colleagues at Sheba Medical Center and the Mayo Clinic, present the first genetic atlas of a healthy human liver at a resolution of 2 microns. The findings show that the division of labor in the human liver differs from that of other mammals and is more extensive than previously recognized, helping explain why certain regions of the liver are particularly vulnerable to fatty liver disease.
Fruit volume in Chinese flowering plants is largely shaped by evolutionary relationships, but warmer climates weaken this phylogenetic constraint, highlighting the context‑dependent role of evolutionary history in plant reproductive traits.
The results suggest that chaperone-mediated autophagy, a cellular ‘selective cleaning’ system, could become a new therapeutic target. The study, published in Acta Neuropathologica Communications, was conducted using human tissues from clinical trials and opens new avenues for the development of treatments to slow the progression of ALS.