Category: 7. Science

Aging and neurodegeneration are both known to disrupt the production of functional proteins in cells – a process called “proteostasis,” or protein homeostasis. Brain cells in particular fall prey to proteostasis disruptions, which are linked to the accumulation of protein aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases. In a new study published July 30 in Science, Stanford researchers have discovered the cascade of events that leads to declining proteostasis in aging brains.

The findings, based on study of the turquoise killifish, lay the foundation for developing therapies that can combat and prevent neurodegenerative diseases in people – and the gradual decline in mental abilities we will all face one day. 

“We know that many processes become more dysfunctional with aging, but we really don’t understand the fundamental molecular principles of why we age,” said study author Judith Frydman, the Donald Kennedy Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford. “Our new study begins to provide a mechanistic explanation for a phenomenon widely seen during aging, which is increased aggregation and dysfunction in the processes that make proteins.” 

Locating the problem 

The turquoise killifish, Nothobranchius furzeri, is a vibrantly colorful fish that adapted to thrive in the ephemeral freshwater pools of the African savanna. Killifish, the shortest-lived vertebrates bred in captivity, develop many issues as they grow old and provide a great model of accelerated aging. Studying why and how the brain ages would be harder in longer-lived animals, such as mice.

To make their new discovery, the researchers conducted a comprehensive investigation of proteostasis in the brains of aging killifish. The scientists compared young, adult, and old killifish. They looked at various players in protein production, such as amino acid concentrations, levels of transfer RNA, messenger RNA (mRNA), proteins, and more. 

In cells, proteostasis balances protein synthesis and degradation and also prevents protein aggregation – harmful clumps of proteins that can result from errors in protein folding. Proteostasis dysfunction and aggregation are part of a series of molecular and cellular changes classified as aging hallmarks. Proteostasis has received attention as a likely link between brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases tied to protein aggregation, like Alzheimer’s. 

Frydman’s lab explores how cells achieve proteostasis and has previously focused on how aging affects proteostasis in the simple models of aging provided by yeast and roundworms. The new study confirms that aging processes observed in those simple organisms reflect those in more complex vertebrates like killifish – and humans. 

“With aging, problems mysteriously emerge at many levels – at the mechanistic, cellular, and organ level – but one commonality is that all those processes are mediated by proteins,” Frydman said. “This study confirms that during aging, the central machinery that makes proteins starts to have quality problems.” 

Ultimately, the team located the disruption at a specific stage of protein synthesis called translation elongation. In this step, the ribosome enacts its role as the cellular machinery responsible for converting mRNA into proteins by moving along the mRNA and adding amino acids one by one. In the aging fish brains, the researchers documented ribosomes colliding and stalling, which both resulted in reduced levels of proteins and protein aggregation. 

“Our results show that changes in the speed of ribosome movement along the mRNA can have a profound impact on protein homeostasis – and highlight the essential nature of ‘regulated’ translation elongation speed of different mRNAs in the context of aging,” said Jae Ho Lee, co-lead author of the paper who worked on this as a postdoctoral scholar in the Frydman lab. He is now an assistant professor at Stony Brook University. 

The finding helped to illuminate another aging mystery. One of the hallmarks of aging in all organisms, including humans, is called “protein-transcript decoupling.” In this phenomenon, changes in levels of some mRNA no longer correlate to changes in protein levels in aged individuals. The new study shows that changes in protein synthesis during aging, including ribosomes, can explain the “protein-transcript decoupling.” Since many of the affected proteins are involved in genome maintenance and integrity, these new observations rationalize why these processes decline during aging.

“Showing that the process of protein production loses fidelity with aging provides a kind of underlying rationale for why all these other processes start to malfunction with age,” said Frydman. “And, of course, the key to solving a problem is to understand why it’s gone wrong. Otherwise, you’re just fumbling in the dark.” 

Future aging research 

As a next step, the researchers will explore directly how ribosome dysfunction – which they identified as a key culprit of declining proteostasis – may contribute to age-related neurodegenerative disorders in people. They also want to know whether targeting translation efficiency or ribosome quality control in treatments can restore proteostasis in brain cells and even delay aging-related cognitive decline. 

“This work provides new insights on protein biogenesis, function, and homeostasis in general, as well as a new potential target for intervention for aging-associated diseases,” said Lee. 

Additionally, the research team is probing what leads to cognitive decline as we age and how modulating such processes may shape longevity in a range of different species.

Reference: Di Fraia D, Marino A, Lee JH, et al. Altered translation elongation contributes to key hallmarks of aging in the killifish brain. Science. 2025;389(6759):eadk3079. doi: 10.1126/science.adk3079

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Yet, teeth without staining may not mean that people didn’t chew betel nuts. Now, using a new method, an international team of researchers examined ancient dental plaque from Bronze Age Thailand and found evidence of betel nut chewing.

“We identified plant derivatives in dental calculus from a 4,000-year-old burial at Nong Ratchawat, Thailand,” said first author of the Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology study Dr Piyawit Moonkham, an anthropological archaeologist at Chiang Mai University in Thailand. “This is the earliest direct biomolecular evidence of betel nut use in south-east Asia.”

“We demonstrate that dental calculus can preserve chemical signatures of psychoactive plant use for millennia, even when conventional archaeological evidence is completely absent,” added Dr Shannon Tushingham, the senior author, who is the associate curator of anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. “In essence, we’ve developed a way to make the invisible visible — revealing behaviors and practices that have been lost to time for 4,000 years.”

Hidden in plaque

At Nong Ratchawat, an archaeological site in central Thailand that dates back to the Bronze Age, 156 human burials have been unearthed since 2003. For the present study, the team collected 36 dental calculus samples from six individuals.

Back in the lab, they removed tiny amounts of plaque from the samples and the chemical residues found therein underwent analysis. The team also used betel liquid samples they produced themselves to ensure psychoactive compounds could be reliably detected through their analysis and to understand the complex biochemical interactions between ingredients. “We used dried betel nut, pink limestone paste, Piper betel leaves, and sometimes Senegalia catechu bark and tobacco. We ground the ingredients with human saliva to replicate authentic chewing conditions,” Moonkham said. “Sourcing materials and experimentally ‘chewing’ betel nuts to create authentic quid samples was both a fun and interesting process.”

The results showed that three of the archaeological samples – all stemming from a molar of the same individual, Burial 11 – contained traces of arecoline and arecaidine. These organic compounds, found in betel nuts but also plants like coffee, tea, and tobacco, have pronounced physiological effects on humans. This suggests that betel nuts were chewed as early as 4,000 years ago in Thailand.

‘Archaeologically invisible’ proof

“The presence of betel nut compounds in dental calculus does suggest repeated consumption, as these residues become incorporated into mineralized plaque deposits over time through regular exposure,” explained Tushingham. Accordingly, the absence of tooth-staining raises questions. It could be the result of different consumption methods, the team pointed out. It could also be due to post-consumption teeth cleaning practices, or post-mortem processes affecting stain preservation over 4,000 years.

While traces of betel nut chewing were found in samples from only one individual, there is currently no proof that Burial 11 received special treatment or was of elevated social status or unique ritual significance compared to the other burials at Nong Ratchawat. The presence of stone beads as grave goods, however, could provide hints as to the individual’s identity or lived experience. Studying more individuals at Nong Ratchawat and other local sites to learn when and to whom such grave goods were given could provide valuable evidence, the team said.

The methods the researchers applied can be used to examine the remaining burials at Nong Ratchawat and at other sites, they said. “Dental calculus analysis can reveal behaviors that leave no traditional archaeological traces, potentially revolutionizing our understanding of ancient lifeways and human-plant relationships,” Tushingham said. “It could open new windows into the deep history of human cultural practices.”

“Understanding the cultural context of traditional plant use is a larger theme we want to amplify — psychoactive, medicinal, and ceremonial plants are often dismissed as drugs, but they represent millennia of cultural knowledge, spiritual practice, and community identity,” Moonkham concluded. “Archaeological evidence can inform contemporary discussions by honoring the deep cultural heritage behind these practices.”

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The full sturgeon moon — the second full of summer in the Northern Hemisphere — will turn full on Saturday, Aug. 9. It will be best seen during dusk that evening, but also be a spectacular sight the previous evening on Friday, Aug. 8. It takes its name from the sturgeon fish found in the Great Lakes in North America during summer. One consequence of the timing of this full moon is the ruining of the annual Perseids meteor shower, whose peak on Aug. 12-13 will be marred by bright moonlight.

Key Facts

Best Time To See The Full ‘sturgeon Moon’ Rise

To find the best time to see it appear from where you are, consult a moonrise calculator. Here are some sample times :

• New York: sunset at 8:04 p.m. EDT, moonrise at 8:03 p.m. EDT on Friday, Aug. 8 and sunset at 8:03 p.m. EDT, moonrise at 8:32 p.m. EDT on Saturday, Aug. 9.
• Los Angeles: sunset at 7:48 p.m. PDT, moonrise at 7:48 p.m. PDT on Friday, Aug. 8 and sunset at 7:47 p.m. PDT, moonrise at 8:21 p.m. PDT on Saturday, Aug. 9.
• London: sunset at 8:37 p.m. BST, moonrise at 8:40 p.m. BST on Friday, Aug. 8 and sunset at 8:36 p.m. BST, moonrise at 8:58 p.m. BST on Saturday, Aug. 9.

Next Month’s Total Lunar Eclipse

Next month’s full moon — September’s corn moon — will be a total lunar eclipse on Sunday, Sept. 8. Visible from parts of Asia, Australia and the Pacific, the event will see the moon move through Earth’s shadow in space in stages. The penumbral and partial phases (as the full moon moves through Earth’s fuzzy outer shadow, the penumbra, and into its dark umbra) will precede totality when the lunar surface turns dark and red. Totality will last for 82 minutes and will be followed by partial and penumbral phases as the moon exits Earth’s shadow. The entire event will last five hours and 27 minutes. No part of the eclipse will be seen from North or South America. It will be the third and final full summer moon in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

Next Year’s Total Solar Eclipse

The next total solar eclipse on Earth will occur just over a year after this month’s full sturgeon moon. On Aug. 12, 2026, a path of totality will travel through eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain, where a dramatic totality of about two minutes will be experienced. The next total solar eclipse in the contiguous U.S. will occur on Aug. 22, 2044.

Further Reading

ForbesSee Two ‘Blood Moons,’ Three ‘Supermoons’ And The Biggest Full Moon Since 2019: The Moon In 2025By Jamie CarterForbesPerseid Meteor Shower 2025: Why You Need To Change Your PlansBy Jamie CarterForbesThese Are The Meteor Showers Not To Miss In 2025 — By An ExpertBy Jamie Carter

NASA and SpaceX have postponed the highly anticipated Crew-11 launch to the International Space Station (ISS) due to unfavorable weather conditions in Florida. Originally scheduled for liftoff on July 31 but now the launch is rescheduled for August 1, 2025. This mission is significant not only for ferrying four astronauts from the United States, Japan, and Russia but also for making history as the first-ever NASA SpaceX launch broadcast on Netflix, expanding space exploration coverage to mainstream streaming audiences. The six-month mission will focus on microgravity research, scientific innovation, and operational handover aboard the ISS, marking another milestone in NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme with SpaceX.

NASA SpaceX Crew-11 launch postponed due to adverse weather

The SpaceX Crew-11 mission, scheduled to ferry four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), faced an unexpected delay due to adverse weather conditions over Florida’s Space Coast. The initial launch was planned for 9:40 PM IST on July 31, 2025, but deteriorating cloud cover and high winds at Kennedy Space Center forced mission controllers to call off the attempt. The launch is now rescheduled for 11:43 AM EDT (9:13 PM IST) on August 1, 2025. Launch delays due to weather are not uncommon, as spacecraft must meet strict atmospheric and wind requirements to ensure crew safety during ascent and booster recovery.

NASA expands SpaceX launch coverage with first Netflix broadcast

In a first for the space industry, the Crew-11 launch broadcast was made available on Netflix, marking a significant expansion of space content into mainstream entertainment platforms. Traditionally, NASA launches are streamed on NASA TV, NASA+, YouTube, and Amazon Prime Video, catering mainly to space enthusiasts. With Netflix joining the list, the audience reach increased dramatically, attracting younger and non-traditional viewers who may not typically tune in to live space launches. This move reflects a growing effort to make space exploration more accessible, engaging, and globally recognised, much like major sports events or high-profile entertainment premieres.

NASA Crew-11 astronaut team composition

The Crew-11 mission is notable for its international crew, showcasing global collaboration in space exploration:

This diverse crew composition underscores how the ISS acts as a platform for multinational research and cooperation, uniting countries in pursuit of common scientific goals.

NASA Crew-11 astronauts 6 months mission aboard the ISS

Once docked, the Crew-11 astronauts will begin a six-month science mission aboard the ISS. Their research will focus on microgravity studies, which allow scientists to explore biological, chemical, and physical processes in unique conditions. Planned experiments include biotechnology advancements, space medicine, Earth observation, material science innovations, and life-support technology development for future deep-space missions. The team will also conduct maintenance and upgrades to ISS systems, ensuring the station remains operational and efficient. This rotation replaces the crew stationed since March 2025, ensuring a continuous human presence in space and the smooth handover of operational duties.

Why the SpaceX Crew-11 launch was delayed

Despite early forecasts showing favorable weather, increasing wind speeds and thickening clouds violated launch safety criteria, leading to the decision to delay. Acting NASA Administrator and US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy personally attended the launch attempt, emphasising the mission’s significance. Launch postponements are common in crewed missions because weather can affect rocket stability, trajectory accuracy, and emergency abort options. Even slight atmospheric disturbances could compromise astronaut safety or damage rocket components. By delaying rather than risking a marginal weather window, NASA and SpaceX demonstrated their commitment to “safety first” policies, ensuring optimal conditions before liftoff.

Falcon 9 and Dragon spacecraft: Journey to the ISS

The Crew-11 mission uses SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, a partially reusable two-stage launch vehicle, to propel the Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit. After liftoff, Falcon 9 will accelerate Dragon to 17,500 mph (28,000 km/h), achieving the velocity needed for low Earth orbit. Once separated, Crew Dragon will rely on its onboard Draco thrusters to adjust its trajectory and rendezvous with the ISS autonomously. The docking process is carefully timed to ensure a smooth connection with the station’s docking port. This flight marks the 11th routine crew rotation under NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme, continuing the push for cost-efficient, private-sector-supported human spaceflight.Also Read | Solar Eclipse rumours clarified: Will August 2, 2025 really bring ‘6 minutes of darkness’? NASA answers after viral buzz

Making quantum anomalies accessible to experimentalists could redefine next-generation technologies and device engineering.

Making quantum anomalies accessible to experimentalists could redefine next-generation technologies and device engineering.

Could the strange mathematics of particle physics help design tomorrow’s technologies? Does condensed matter theory hold the key to testing some of quantum theory’s most elusive predictions? Michael T. Pettes and collaborators at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Naval Research Laboratory think so: they suggest a new way to explore the interface between theoretical quantum physics and materials science, in particular, proposing a shift in how the scientific community approaches quantum anomalies.

These anomalies emerge when classical field theory is quantized and some symmetries that are preserved in the classical realm are broken, leading to singularities known as quantum fluctuations or quantum anomalies. Despite their central role in modern quantum field theory, quantum anomalies have remained largely intangible to experimentalists. A major challenge is proving that observed signals arise because of these anomalies, and not from more conventional phenomena. Many of the predicted effects are subtle and difficult to isolate, requiring careful cross-disciplinary collaboration.

Writing in Advanced Physics Research, Pettes et al. claim that quantum anomalies, long considered the domain of theoretical physics, can now be measured and leveraged in real-world materials. They argue that these theoretical peculiarities may have practical implications for real-world devices built from topological quantum materials, meaning that they play a vital role for the design of next-generation quantum technologies and device engineering. “Condensed matter experiments on topological materials indeed provide a viable cradle for realizing otherwise esoteric quantum anomalies predicted by field theory,” says Avadh Saxena, co-author and condensed matter theorist.

“We want to invite new communities into this conversation,” says Pettes, an experimental physicist, to “showcase the potential for experimentalists to make a difference in an area closely tied to fundamental physical understanding” and also to explore “the potential for real-world impact through new applications that don’t yet exist”. One problem is linguistic: condensed matter physicists, field theorists, and materials chemists often speak different technical languages; the work from Pettes et al. therefore aims to bridge the language gap between different communities. “We are hoping that the introduction of this topic to a more materials-focused physics community can bring about new discoveries that leverage quantum anomalies and may ultimately be drivers for new technologies,” the authors state.

Looking ahead, two critical challenges remain: first, to conclusively observe the scale anomaly—a prediction still unverified in solids—and, second, to enhance the magnitude of anomaly-related signals to make them useful in devices. The authors suggest that tools such as materials informatics and artificial intelligence may be key to identifying new compounds with amplified responses.

As boundaries blur between high-energy theory and low-temperature lab work, quantum anomalies could evolve from conceptual oddities into design principles for next-generation quantum technologies, reshaping how we understand both matter and measurement.

For more on this topic, see the special issue “Quantum Anomalies in Condensed Matter“.

Featured image by Gerd Altmann via Pixabay.

Proteins sustain life as we know it, serving many important structural and functional roles throughout the body. But these large molecules have cast a long shadow over a smaller subclass of proteins called microproteins.

Microproteins have been lost in the 99% of DNA disregarded as “noncoding”-hiding in vast, dark stretches of unexplored genetic code. But despite being small and elusive, their impact may be just as big as larger proteins.

Salk Institute scientists are now exploring the mysterious dark side of the genome in search of microproteins. With their new tool ShortStop, researchers can probe genetic databases and identify DNA stretches in the genome that likely code for microproteins.

Importantly, ShortStop also predicts which microproteins are most likely to be biologically relevant, saving time and money in the search for microproteins involved in health and disease.

ShortStop shines a new light on existing datasets, spotlighting microproteins formerly impossible to find. In fact, the Salk team has already used the tool to analyze a lung cancer dataset to find 210 entirely new microprotein candidates-with one standout validated microprotein-that may make good therapeutic targets in the future.

The findings were published in BMC Methods on July 31, 2025.

Most of the proteins in our body are well known, but recent discoveries suggest we’ve been missing thousands of small, hidden proteins-called microproteins-coded by overlooked regions of our genome. For a long time, scientists only really studied the regions of DNA that coded for large proteins and dismissed the rest as ‘junk DNA,’ but we’re now learning that these other regions are actually very important, and the microproteins they produce could play critical roles in regulating health and disease.”

Alan Saghatelian, Study Senior Author and Professor, Salk Institute

More about microproteins

It is difficult to detect and catalog microproteins, owing mostly to their size. Compared to standard proteins that can range from hundreds to thousands of amino acids long, microproteins typically contain fewer than 150 amino acids, making them harder to detect using standard protein analysis methods. Therefore, instead of searching for the microproteins themselves, scientists search large, publicly available datasets for the DNA sequences that make them.

Scientists have now learned that certain stretches of DNA called small open reading frames (smORFs) can contain the instructions for making microproteins. Current experimental methods have already cataloged thousands of smORFs, but these tools remain time-consuming and expensive. Furthermore, their inability to separate potentially functional microproteins from nonfunctional microproteins has stalled their discovery and characterization.

How ShortStop works

Not all smORFs translate to biologically meaningful microproteins. Existing methods can’t discriminate between functional and nonfunctional microprotein-generating smORFs. This means that scientists must independently test each microprotein to determine whether it is functional or not.

ShortStop radically alters this workflow, optimizing smORF discovery by sorting microproteins into functional and nonfunctional categories. The key to ShortStop’s two-class sorting is how it’s trained as a machine learning system. Its training relies on a negative control dataset of computer-generated random smORFs. ShortStop compares found smORFs against these decoys to quickly decide whether a new smORF is likely to be functional or nonfunctional.

ShortStop cannot definitively say whether a smORF will code for a biologically relevant microprotein, but this two-class system narrows down the experimental pool immensely. Now researchers can spend less time manually sorting through datasets and failing at the bench.

When the researchers applied ShortStop to a previously published smORF dataset, they identified 8% as likely functional microproteins, prioritizing them for targeted follow-up. This accelerates microprotein characterization by filtering out sequences unlikely to have biological relevance. ShortStop could also identify microproteins that were overlooked by other methods, including one that was validated by being detected in human cells and tissues.

“What makes ShortStop especially powerful is that it works with common data types, like RNA sequencing datasets, which many labs already use,” says first author Brendan Miller, a postdoctoral researcher in Saghatelian’s lab. “This means we can now search for microproteins across healthy and diseased tissues at scale, which will reveal new insights into human biology and unlock new paths for diagnosing and treating diseases, such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.”

ShortStop spots microprotein associated with lung cancer

The researchers have already used ShortStop to identify a microprotein that was upregulated in lung cancer tumors. They analyzed genetic data from human lung tumors and adjacent normal tissue to create a list of potential functional smORFs. Among the smORFs ShortStop found, one stood out-it was expressed more in tumor tissue than normal tissue, suggesting it may serve as a biomarker or functional microprotein for lung cancer

The identification of this lung cancer-related microprotein demonstrates the value of ShortStop and machine learning to prioritize candidates for future research and therapeutic development.

“There’s so much data that already exists that we can now process with ShortStop to find novel microproteins associated with health and disease, stretching from Alzheimer’s to obesity and beyond,” says Saghatelian. “My team is really good at making methods, and with data from other Salk faculty, we can integrate these methods and accelerate the science.”