A technique used for the long-term preservation of human and animal remains is now being tested on one of Canada’s most iconic building materials—the Western red cedar.

Plastination, originally designed to embalm the dead, is now being used to improve the functionality and durability of advanced composite materials.

Translation factors eIF1A and eIF5B are key repressors of an abnormal protein translation process linked to neurodegenerative disorders, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. Using a human cell-free translation system, they reconstructed the aberrant translation of a mutated C9orf72 gene. This translation process revealed that the initiation factors (eIF1A and eIF1B) act at distinct checkpoints to suppress toxic protein synthesis implicated in frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Are we ready to live with caregiving robots? With Japan facing a projected shortage of 570,000 care workers by 2040, researchers at Chiba University surveyed older adults, families, caregivers, and developers about their acceptance of home-care robots. They found that openness to using robots influenced willingness among both users and developers, while other factors differed between the groups—revealing distinct perspectives and highlighting the need for collaboration and ethical awareness in developing home-care robots.