To study growth-defence trade-offs in the context of metabolism in crops, scientists from the Universities of Potsdam and Erlangen, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, and the National Institute of Biology, Ljubljana, have generated the genome-scale metabolic model potato-GEM. The first large-scale metabolic reconstruction of its kind presents a useful resource to breed plant varieties with improved stress tolerance and high yields in the future.

Researchers at EPFL and Harvard University have engineered a chip that can convert between electromagnetic pulses in the terahertz and optical ranges on the same device. Their integrated design could enable the development of devices for ultrafast telecommunications, ranging, spectroscopy, and computing.

A perspective published by researchers at the University of Science and Technology Beijing discusses research by Stoddart et al. in Nature Chemistry that demonstrates that engineered supramolecular crystals can optimize hydrogen storage performance.

A comprehensive review reveals how large language models (LLMs) are transforming bioinformatics by enabling unprecedented analysis of biological sequences, protein structures, and multi-omics data. The study highlights LLMs’ capabilities in accelerating drug discovery, improving disease diagnostics, and mining biomedical literature—while addressing critical challenges like interpretability and data bias. Future directions emphasize multimodal AI integration and ethical frameworks to advance precision medicine.