The reigning UEFA Champions League, Ligue 1, Coupe de France and Trophée des Champions winners have their sights set on a Club World Cup title that would give them a rare quintuple of trophies in one season.
Luis Enrique’s side has gotten key contributions from Khvicha Kvaratskhelia (1g/2a) and João Neves (2g/1a), while Ballon d’Or contender Ousmane Dembélé returned from injury to score in their quarterfinal win over Bayern Munich.
Scientists have been working on the artificial production of blood for several decades. Now, researchers from the University of Konstanz and Queen Mary University of London have taken an important step closer to that goal with a new discovery.
Roughly 15,000 units of blood are needed daily in Germany, most of which currently come from donations. Research into developing alternative sources, such as large-scale artificial blood production, has been ongoing for decades but is still far from reaching its widespread utility. The main challenge lies in the complex and still not fully appreciated means how our bodies naturally produce this vital fluid.
Doctor Julia Gutjahr, a biologist at the Institute of Cellular Biology and Immunology Thurgau at the University of Konstanz, studies the mechanisms of blood production. Together with colleagues from Queen Mary University of London, she has identified the molecular signal, chemokine CXCL12, that triggers the expulsion of the nucleus by the red blood cell precursors, a key step in the development of red blood cells.
In the body, natural blood production takes place in the bone marrow. Stem cells develop into erythroblasts, which are precursor cells to erythrocytes – the red blood cells.
“In the final stage of an erythroblast’s development into an erythrocyte, the erythroblast expels its nucleus. This process only occurs in mammals, allowing to make more room for haemoglobin involved in the transport of oxygen”, Gutjahr explains.
While the process of stem cell maturation into erythrocytes is now nearly optimised, it was previously unclear what factors induce the expulsion of the nucleus. “We discovered that the chemokine CXCL12 found mainly in bone marrow can trigger such nucleus expulsion, albeit in an interplay with several factors. By adding CXCL12 to erythroblasts at the right moment, we were able to artificially induce the expulsion of their nucleus,” says Gutjahr.
This finding is a scientific breakthrough that in the future should help make artificial blood production much more efficient. However, further research will still be necessary. Gutjahr began this work in 2019 as a postdoctoral researcher in the Lab of Professor Antal Rot at Queen Mary University of London. She is now continuing her research at the University of Konstanz. Since 2023, she has led her own research groups at the Institute of Cellular Biology and Immunology Thurgau, where she continues the studies on CXCL12.
“We are currently investigating how to use CXCL12 to optimize the artificial production of human erythrocytes,” Gutjahr explains.
Importantly, apart from immediate practical application for the industrial production of red blood cells, our results brought a completely new understanding of cell biological mechanisms involved in erythroblast responses to chemokines. While all other cells migrate when stimulated by CXCL12, in erythroblasts this signalling molecule is transported into the interior of the cell, even into the nucleus. There, it accelerates their maturation and helps to expel the nucleus. Our research shows for the first time that chemokine receptors not only act on the cell surface but also inside the cell, thus opening entirely new perspectives on their role in cell biology.”
Professor Antal Rot at Queen Mary University of London
Stem cells are currently the most effective method for producing artificial blood with nuclear expulsion taking place in about 80% of cells. However, stem cell sources are limited relying on isolation from umbilical cord blood or bone marrow donations for the treatment of specific diseases, not feasible for mass production of blood to fulfil the clinical need.
However, recently it became possible to reprogram different types of cells into stem cells and use them to generate red blood cells. This approach offers an almost unlimited cell source for artificial blood production, but takes much longer, and the success rate for nucleus expulsion is only about 40%. “Based on our new findings highlighting the key role of CXCL12 in triggering nuclear expulsion, we can expect that using CXCL12 should bring significant improvement in producing red blood cells from reprogrammed cells,” says Gutjahr.
If large-scale production becomes possible, a wide range of applications could emerge. “Even though body cells are readily available, the lab-based production process will remain complex. But it would enable the targeted generation of rare blood types, help bridge shortages, or allow individuals to reproduce their own blood for specialized treatments in many different diseases,” says Gutjahr.
Source:
Journal reference:
Gutjahr, J. C., et al. (2025). Intracellular and nuclear CXCR4 signaling promotes terminal erythroblast differentiation and enucleation. Science Signaling. doi.org/10.1126/scisignal.adt2678.
Nottingham Forest have announced former Arsenal sporting director Edu Gaspar as their new global head of football.
The Midlands club said Edu will “will oversee all football-related functions, including recruitment, performance, squad strategy, and player development.”
His appointment is a statement of ambition for a club that is set to embark on its first season with European football in 30 years.
Edu announced his shock resignation at Arsenal in November 2024 after five years at the club.
The Brazilian, who joined Arsenal as a technical director in 2019, was a key figure behind the hiring of manager Mikel Arteta, and helped establish the north London side as credible title contenders. He became Arsenal’s first-ever sporting director in November 2022.
Jason Ayto was Edu’s interim replacement at Arsenal before the permanent appointment of Andrea Berta this summer.
“I’m truly excited about this new chapter and honoured by the trust placed in me,” Edu said in a statement.
“This project connects deeply with my values around innovation and long-term planning.
“I look forward to building a global football model that is competitive, sustainable, and aligned with our president’s ambition.”
• Ethiopia, East Africa’s top soybean exporter, is able to export soybean meal to China since July 3, 2025.
• China’s new regulation serves to diversify soy supply sources; Ethiopia shipped 29,408 tons of soybeans to China in 2024, earning nearly $18 million from the sales.
Ethiopia, the principal soybean exporter in East Africa, has been seeking new outlets globally.
Since July 3, 2025, the country can export soybean meal – a byproduct of soybean oil extraction – to China, as announced by the General Administration of Customs in China.
According to Shanghai-based agricultural consulting firm JCI’s analyst, Rosa Wang, who spoke to Reuters on July 7, the approval given to Addis Ababa aligns with a broader strategy to diversify supply sources. It also aims to lessen China’s dependency on its main suppliers which include Brazil, Russia, Argentina, and Uruguay.
“However, the expected volumes remain modest,” adds the analyst. Regardless, this announcement opens a path to fresh agricultural trade exchanges between the two nations while offering Ethiopia an opportunity to bolster its presence in China, where until now, it only exported soybeans.
Based on the data compiled by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in the 2024/2025 marketing campaign, China should import 60,000 tons of soybean meal from the global market and maintain the same volume in the next campaign.
In 2024, Ethiopia exported 29,408 tons of soybeans to China, generating nearly $18 million, according to data compiled on the Trademap platform. This sum is expected to rise in the coming years with the addition of soybean meal exports.
This article was initially published in French by Stéphanas Assocle
Edited in English by Ola Schad Akinocho
Coral reefs are in trouble. As oceans warm and environments shift, the vibrant ecosystems built by corals are turning pale and dying off.
While scientists have known for years that coral bleaching is linked to the loss of symbiotic algae, they’ve never been able to watch the process unfold at the cellular level in realtime – until now.
Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have created a handheld underwater microscope. The device makes it possible to study coral photosynthesis right where it happens – in the ocean, inside living coral tissue – without causing any damage.
The team named the device the Benthic Underwater Microscope imaging PAM – BUMP, for short.
The Jaffe Lab for Underwater Imaging at Scripps Oceanography built the microscope with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation.
The tool combines imaging with a light-based technique known as pulse amplitude modulated (PAM) fluorometry to measure how efficiently tiny algae inside corals are photosynthesizing.
The algae, called symbionts, are essential for coral survival. They live within coral tissue and convert sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen.
The coral, in turn, uses that energy to grow and build reefs. But when stressed by warming seas or pollution, corals eject these algae. Without them, corals appear white and slowly starve – known as the bleaching effect.
The BUMP microscope makes it possible to monitor this relationship in real-time and in natural environments – something that couldn’t be done before.
“This microscope is a huge technological leap in the field of coral health assessment,” said study lead author Or Ben-Zvi, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps Oceanography.
“Coral reefs are rapidly declining, losing their photosynthetic symbiotic algae in the process known as coral bleaching.”
“We now have a tool that allows us to examine these microalgae within the coral tissue, noninvasively and in their natural environment.”
The microscope is small enough to fit in a carry-on suitcase. It’s light enough for a diver to bring to the seafloor without a ship’s help.
Controlled with a touchscreen and powered by a battery pack, the microscope uses focused LED lights and high-magnification lenses to capture vivid images and videos. It also creates detailed 3D scans and maps photosynthesis in high resolution.
At just 10 micrometers wide – one-tenth the width of a human hair – coral symbionts are invisible to the naked eye. But when corals are viewed under the microscope, the algae glow red due to chlorophyll, the pigment that powers photosynthesis.
PAM technology measures this glow to calculate how efficiently the algae are converting light into energy. Other glowing areas, like cyan and green patches, come from fluorescent proteins that the coral produces, often around its mouth and tentacles.
The images help researchers “see” coral health without touching or harming them. “We get a lot of information about their health without the need to interrupt nature,” said Ben-Zvi.
“It’s similar to a nurse who takes your pulse and tells you how well you’re doing. We’re checking the coral’s pulse without giving them a shot or doing an intrusive procedure on them.”
Ben-Zvi and her colleagues tested the microscope at coral hotspots around the world – including Hawaii, the Red Sea, and Palmyra Atoll – in collaboration with the Smith Lab at Scripps Oceanography.
What they saw surprised them. Corals weren’t passive. They moved constantly, changing shape, reacting to particles, and even behaving in ways that looked like fighting or kissing.
Ben-Zvi observed coral polyps contracting their tentacles, possibly trying to remove or capture something floating by.
“The more time we spend with this microscope, the more we hope to learn about corals and why they do what they do under certain conditions,” she said.
“We are visualizing photosynthesis, something that was previously unseen at the scales we are examining, and that feels like magic.”
Corals face serious threats from climate change, and once bleaching begins, it can be hard to stop. But this microscope might help researchers catch problems earlier.
“The microscope facilitates previously unavailable, underwater observations of coral health, a breakthrough made possible thanks to the National Science Foundation and its critical investment in technology development,” said Jules Jaffe, a research oceanographer at Scripps and co-author of the study.
Without continued federal funding, scientific research is at risk. In this case, however, support from NSF enabled the team to build a device that helps solve the physiological mystery of coral bleaching and, ultimately, inform efforts to reverse it.
By detecting signs of stress before the coral reaches the tipping point, the researchers hope to create better strategies for protecting reefs from events like marine heatwaves.
The potential doesn’t stop with corals. Scientists at Scripps Oceanography are already using the BUMP microscope to study other tiny marine life that rely on photosynthesis, including baby kelp off the coast of California.
“Since photosynthesis in the ocean is important for life on earth, a host of other applications are imaginable with this tool, including right here off the coast of San Diego,” said Jaffe.
In short, the BUMP microscope gives scientists something they’ve never had before: a new way to look at life underwater – close up, in motion, and alive. And with this new perspective, scientists are hoping to find better ways to protect some of the most fragile ecosystems on the planet.
The full study was published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.
About the image: The photo features the coral Stylophora pistillata taken with the new micrsope, BUMP. Each polyp has a mouth and a set of tentacles, and the red dots are individual microalgae residing inside the coral tissue. Credit: Or Ben-Zvi
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Material innovation takes two forms. You can develop alt materials that have less impact on the planet, or you can take existing fossil fuel-based materials and develop circular recycling systems to keep them out of landfills and use them again. Both innovations are exciting and both are hard.
The good news is that VC funding in the green space has bounced back, albeit with a more selective approach that shifts the investing vibe from “gold rush” to “growth state.” In fact, biomaterials startups pulled in $392 million during the first quarter of 2025 alone, per Net Zero Insights—underscoring that next-gen investors are coming back after a few quiet years. Also back is the Material Innovation Initiative—the next-gen material innovation think tank that shuttered operations in September but quickly re-opened after a cash infusion.
In this podcast episode of Sourcing Journal Radio, Alex Harrell, Sourcing Journal’s sustainability and innovation reporter, chats with Lauren Parker, director, Fairchild Studio, about what’s new and what’s next in material innovation, and why “innovation tourism” is slowing progress.
“The idea of innovation tourism is what happens when fashion brands want the experience of engaging with next-gen material innovations, but not the responsibility of partnership,” explained Harrell. “To extend the metaphor, they’ll book the resort’s day-long excursion, pause for the photo op at the mycelium step and repeat, maybe take a boat tour on seaweed sourcing and attend a panel on algae-based textiles. But when it comes time to sit down for dinner with the locals, aka co-invest in scaling, commit to offtake agreements and pay for prototyping iterations, they’re already back on the hotel’s shuttle bus.”
To listen to the podcast, click here.
To download the Material Innovations Report, click here.
Lewis Capaldi dropped in to Good Morning America on Monday morning (July 7) for his first TV performance in more than two years as part of the show’s Summer Concert Series. In addition to performing a pair of songs with a full band during the visit — including an emotional run through his new single, “Survive,” as well as his breakthrough 2019 smash “Someone You Loved,” the most-streamed song of all time in the U.K. — Capaldi broke some news during the chat.
“I don’t know about an album, but hopefully it will be… I’m doing an EP at some point this year,” he said, joking that he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to share the news, but was going to do it anyway. “And then an album will follow maybe next year.” Capaldi did not provide the name of the EP or a targeted release date, but he also teased that there will be a another new song later this summer and then, “another song after that and another song after that until the day I die.”
Capaldi gingerly stepped back into the spotlight at the Glastonbury Festival on June 27 with a brief set two years after the 28-year-old’s last full show, which was also at the famed festival in 2023. During the previous gig, he’d struggled with a strained vocal cord and his Tourette’s syndrome diagnosis, which manifested in a series of tics during his performance. That same day Capaldi announced that he was taking a break from touring to focus on his health.
“The fact that this probably won’t come as a surprise doesn’t make it any easier to write, but I’m very sorry to let you know I’m going to be taking a break from touring for the foreseeable future,” he wrote to fans in June 2023. “I used to be able to enjoy every second of shows like this and I’d hoped 3 weeks away would sort me out. But the truth is I’m still learning to adjust to the impact of my Tourette’s and on Saturday it became obvious that I need to spend much more time getting my mental and physical health in order so that I can keep doing everything I love for a long time to come.” Prior to his 2023 Glastonbury set, Capaldi had canceled a series of planned, sold out shows in Glasgow, Dublin, Norway and London.
The singer discussed the intensive therapy he’s been undergoing over the past two years on GMA, saying that his time out of the spotlight has involved, “lots and lots of therapy. It’s been nice, talking a lot about myself. Crying quite a lot over the last two years… I’ve just been locking in and putting it all together and here we are.”
Watch Capaldi on GMA below.
It was a measure of how highly Nico Hulkenberg is rated among his rivals that they so warmly received his first-ever podium after 15 years of trying with a superb drive at Silverstone. But as the German deftly handled the tricky conditions, others were left floundering. Lawrence Barretto selects his winners and losers from the British Grand Prix.
At the 239th time of asking, Nico Hulkenberg secured a podium his talent has long deserved.
It was all the more remarkable given he started 19th, following his eighth Q1 elimination of the season, as his experience shone through in wet-dry conditions.
And thanks to artificial intelligence, the trend of developing blockbuster companies at home is sure to continue. Mark Cuban, the billionaire former principal owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Shark Tank star, recently said AI could help make the world’s first trillionaire.
“We haven’t seen the best or the craziest of what [AI is] going to be able to do,” Cuban told the High Performance podcast in an episode published June 29. “And not only do I think it’ll create a trillionaire, but it could be just one dude in the basement. That’s how crazy it could be.”
Take OpenAI, for example, which was formed in cofounder and President Greg Brockman’s living room in 2015. OpenAI is currently valued at $300 billion thanks to a $40 billion fund-raising deal in March. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, is worth at least $2 billion.
While that’s a far cry from AI creating the world’s first trillionaire, a September 2024 report by wealth-tracking service Informa Connect said Tesla CEO Elon Musk is on pace to become a trillionaire by 2027. Musk also has his own AI startup xAI, which has an estimated $80 billion valuation.
“There’s always something bigger and better that’s created by an innovative entrepreneur,” Cuban said. “But AI just dwarfs all that.”
How Mark Cuban uses AI
Cuban appears to firmly believe in the power of AI, and said we’re only in the “preseason” of what the technology can really do.
“As it becomes more advanced—and I’m not saying we’re going to get the Terminator— I’m not saying all of a sudden there’s going to be robots that are smarter than people, like the movie,” he told High Performance. “But we’ll find ways to make our lives better, more interesting, to work better, more effectively.”
Cuban also said he uses AI for nearly everything. He gave an example of how he uses it to track health metrics since he suffers from atrial fibrillation (A-Fib).
He had to track when he was taking medications and working out and used ChatGPT to help him record it. He also asked ChatGPT to let him know if there’s something he writes down that doesn’t seem right or that he should be concerned about.
“And damn if it doesn’t do it,” Cuban said. “Now you’ve got to be careful. It’s like talking to a friend who you think knows a lot about something. You’ve still got to be careful and talk to an expert, but being able to do the process and just having things identified that I might not have known to look for was insane—just insane.”
Cuban touches on one of the larger concerns when it comes to relying on AI for making important health- or life-related decisions. While ChatGPT has served as an accessible means for getting advice, and even therapy, experts have warned the technology still has limitations and makes mistakes.
To combat this, Cuban said he challenges the AI tools he’s using with more questions and does his own research.
“There’s times when I don’t think the answer is what it should be, or I think it’s wrong. And I’ll say, ‘I don’t think you’re right. I need you to show me the evidence of how you got to this decision,’” he explained. “And it’s no different than talking to a friend or a work colleague and just calling bullsh-t.”
And on the hot topic of whether AI will take everyone’s jobs, Cuban said no.
“I can just go on all the sh-t I’m trying with AI, and I’m not here to tell you that it’s going to replace everybody’s job. It won’t,” he predicted. “But the things that you like to do, if you’re creative, innovative, whatever it may be—or you’re just bored—it might end up being the best alternative to boredom.”