Captive male Asian elephants can live together peacefully and with little stress, if introduced slowly and carefully, per Laos case study of 8 unrelated males

Researchers have decoded the signalling pathway that inhibits nerve regeneration in diabetes and have developed a therapeutic peptide that could transform the treatment—and possibly even the prevention—of diabetic nerve damage, published in Science Translational Medicine.

For decades, kinase inhibitors have been a mainstay of cancer therapy, designed to switch off enzymes that fuel uncontrolled cell growth. But new research shows that these drugs often go further: they can also cause the very proteins they target to be dismantled by the cell, making them yet another tool for the emerging field of Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD). In a new study published in Nature, scientists at CeMM and AITHYRA in Vienna, and the IRB in Barcelona, with partners across Europe, the US and China, have now mapped this effect systematically, uncovering a widespread but overlooked phenomenon in pharmacology.

Flight is a rare skill in the animal world. Among vertebrates, it evolved only three times: in bats, birds, and the long-extinct pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were the pioneers, taking to the skies more than 220 million years ago, long before early bird relatives such as Archaeopteryx appeared, around 150 million years ago. While scientists have a detailed fossil record that sheds light on how birds’ brains evolved for flight, the same story for pterosaurs has been far less clear. Until now. In a new study published in Current Biology, an international team now reveals how pterosaurs evolved the neurological structures required for powered flight. 

With the help of newly identified bones, an enigmatic 3.4-million-year-old hominin foot found in 2009, is assigned to a species different from that of the famous fossil Lucy providing further proof that two ancient species of hominins co-existed at the same time and in the same region.

Statins save lives by lowering cholesterol and reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes, but they can bring muscle pain, weakness and, in rare cases, severe muscle breakdown that can lead to kidney failure. UBC researchers used cryo-electron microscopy to pinpoint the cause: Statins interact with a critical muscle protein called the ryanodine receptor (RyR1), which acts like a gatekeeper for calcium inside muscle cells, opening only when muscles need to contract. When statins bind to it, they force the gate open, causing calcium to leak continuously—a toxic effect that can damage muscle tissue. By adjusting only those parts of the statin molecule that are responsible for the negative effects, scientists could preserve the part that lowers cholesterol while reducing the risk.