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TOKYO, June 30 — Our species arose in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago and later trekked worldwide, eventually reaching some of Earth’s most remote places. In doing so, our ancestors surmounted geographic barriers including treacherous ocean expanses. But how did they do that with only rudimentary technology available to them?
Scientists now have undertaken an experimental voyage across a stretch of the East China Sea, paddling from Ushibi in eastern Taiwan to Japan’s Yonaguni Island in a dugout canoe to demonstrate how such a trip may have been accomplished some 30,000 years ago as people spread to various Pacific Islands.
The researchers simulated methods Palaeolithic people would have used and employed replicas of tools from that prehistoric time period such as an axe and a cutting implement called an adze in fashioning the 25-foot-long (7.5-metre) canoe, named Sugime, from a Japanese cedar tree chopped down at Japan’s Noto Peninsula.
Researcher Kunihiro Amemiya uses a period-accurate axe to chop down a Japanese cedar tree in Noto Peninsula, Japan, to make a dugout canoe for a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from Taiwan to Yonaguni Island, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. — Yousuke Kaifu handout pic via Reuters
A crew of four men and one woman paddled the canoe on a voyage lasting more than 45 hours, traveling roughly 140 miles (225km) across the open sea and battling one of the world’s strongest ocean currents, the Kuroshio. The crew endured extreme fatigue and took a break for several hours while the canoe drifted at sea, but managed to complete a safe crossing to Yonaguni.
Just as prehistoric people would have, the voyagers navigated by the sun and stars, as well as the direction of the ocean swells, though for safety’s sake they were accompanied by two escort craft. Yonaguni is part of the Ryukyu chain of islands stretching from Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, down to Taiwan.
The researchers previously failed with attempted crossings using reed rafts and then bamboo rafts, finding that they were too slow, insufficiently durable and unable to overcome the strong ocean current.
A dugout canoe is pictured before departure on a crossing across a region of the East China Sea to Yonaguni Island, with leaf wave guards at the bow and stern, near Ushibi, Taiwan, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. — Yousuke Kaifu handout pic via Reuters
“Through the project with many failures, we have learned the difficulties of crossing the ocean, and this experience gave us a deep respect for our Palaeolithic ancestors,” said University of Tokyo anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu, lead author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
“We found that the Palaeolithic people could cross the sea with the strong ocean current if they had dugout canoes and were skilful, experienced paddlers and navigators. They had to face the risk of being drifted by the strong ocean current and the possibility that they would never be able to come back to their homeland,” added Kaifu, who was aboard one of the escort boats.
Archaeological evidence indicates that people approximately 30,000 years ago first crossed from Taiwan to some of the Ryukyu islands, which include Okinawa. But scientists had puzzled over how they could do this with the rudimentary technology of the time — no maps, no metal tools and only primitive vessels. And the Kuroshio current, comparable in strength to the Gulf Stream off Mexico, presented a particular challenge.
The research was in the vein of the famous 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition in which Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl carried out a much longer journey by raft from South America across the Pacific to the Polynesian islands. Heyerdahl aimed to show how prehistoric people from the Americas could have colonised Polynesia.
An axe accurate to a period of 30,000 years ago, that scientists used to make a dugout canoe for a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from Taiwan near Ushibi to Yonaguni Island, traversing the Kuroshio current, is seen at Noto Peninsula, Japan, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. — Yousuke Kaifu handout pic via Reuters
“His theory is now countered by a series of pieces of evidence, but it was a great trial at the time. Compared to the time of the Kon-Tiki, we have more archaeological and other evidence to build realistic models” of prehistoric voyages, Kaifu said.
The researchers in a companion study published in the same journal used simulations of sea conditions between Taiwan and Yonaguni 30,000 years ago to examine whether such a crossing was attainable at a time when the Kuroshio was even more powerful than today.
“As our paleo-ocean model simulation showed, crossing the Kuroshio was possible in ancient times, so I believe they achieved it,” said physical oceanographer and study lead author Yu-Lin Chang of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.
“However, ocean conditions were highly variable. Thus, ancient people may have encountered unpredictable weather conditions during their journey, which could have led to failure,” Chang added. — Reuters
A new gas giant world discovered by citizen scientists using data from NASA’s exoplanet-hunting spacecraft TESS is cool, literally and figuratively.
The extrasolar planet, or “exoplanet,” designated TOI-4465 b is located around 400 light-years from Earth. It has a mass of around six times that of Jupiter, and it’s around 1.25 times as wide as the solar system’s largest planet. What is really exciting about TOI-4465 b, however, is the fact that it circles its star at a distance of around 0.4 times the distance between Earth and the sun in a flattened or “elliptical” orbit. One year for this planet takes around 102 Earth days to complete. Its distance from its star gives it an estimated temperature of between 200 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit (93 to 204 degrees Celsius).
This makes TOI-4465 b a rare case of a giant planet that is large, massive, dense, and relatively cool, existing in an underexplored region around its star in terms of what we know about planet size and mass.
Planets like TOI-4465 b are cool prospects for exoplanet scientists to study because they bridge the gap between “hot Jupiters,” scorching planets that orbit so close to their stars that their years last a matter of hours, and frigid ice giant worlds like the solar system’s own Neptune and Uranus.
Unfortunately, we don’t know of many such worlds because they are difficult to detect.
“This discovery is important because long-period exoplanets, defined as having orbital periods longer than 100 days, are difficult to detect and confirm due to limited observational opportunities and resources,” team leader and University of Mexico researcher Zahra Essack said in a statement. “As a result, they are underrepresented in our current catalog of exoplanets.
“Studying these long-period planets gives us insights into how planetary systems form and evolve under more moderate conditions.”
The rarity of such exoplanets makes TOI-4465 b a prime target for future investigation with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). But just how did the JWST’s sibling, NASA spacecraft, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), detect such an elusive planet to begin with?
TESS detects planets when they “transit” the face of their parent star, meaning they cross between their star and Earth. This causes a tiny dip in the light received from that star.
TOI-4465 b was spotted by TESS during a single fleeting transit event. That meant, in order to confirm this planet, the team needed to observe at least one more transit event. Something easier said than done due to some frustrating complications.
“The observational windows are extremely limited,” Essack explained. “Each transit lasts about 12 hours, but it is incredibly rare to get 12 full hours of dark, clear skies in one location. The difficulty of observing the transit is compounded by weather, telescope availability, and the need for continuous coverage.”
To combat these issues, the team turned to the Unistellar Citizen Science Network, calling upon 24 of its citizen scientists across 10 countries. These amateur astronomers used their personal telescopes to observe TOI-4465 b’s host star.
Combining this data with observations from several professional observatories resulted in the discovery of that elusive second transit, thus confirming TOI-4465 b.
“The discovery and confirmation of TOI-4465 b not only expands our knowledge of planets in the far reaches of other star systems but also shows how passionate astronomy enthusiasts can play a direct role in frontier scientific research,” Essack said.
The discovery of this planet wouldn’t have been possible without international collaborations and several initiatives, including the TESS Follow-up Observing Program Sub Group 1 (TFOP SG1), the Unistellar Citizen Science Network, and the TESS Single Transit Planet Candidate (TSTPC) Working Group.
“What makes this collaboration effective is the infrastructure behind it,” Essack added. “It is a great example of the power of citizen science, teamwork, and the importance of global collaboration in astronomy.”
The team’s research was published on Wednesday (June 25) in The Astrophysical Journal.
BYLINE: Savannah Peat
Newswise — News readers often click on articles not based on topic but rather the behavior of their fellow audience members, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
And the way that news organizations label those articles could directly influence how much attention they receive and ultimately impact their revenue.
When you go to a news organization’s homepage, they typically label articles that readers are engaging with the most. The researchers focused on two common labels: “most shared” and “most read.”
“These types of labels are not going anywhere. Popularity even in news labels is a psychological phenomenon,” said Tari Dagago-Jack, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of marketing in the UGA Terry College of Business. “Popularity labels on news outlets are taking advantage of the idea that we follow the lead of others and that our decision-making is influenced by what other people are doing.”
At first glance, you may assume that these labels, “most shared” and “most read,” mean the same thing: A lot of people checked out the article. But there’s a clear difference that consumers pick up on.
“If something is most shared, we might assume that means many people had to read it and then deem it interesting enough or important enough to pass it on,” Dagogo-Jack said. “But then there’s this other reality where we know a lot of things that are widely shared are often extremely frivolous like cat videos or funny memes.”
In nine surveys and experiments involving hundreds of people, the study found respondents interpreted “most read” stories as being more informative. “Most shared” articles were viewed as less serious and more entertainment based.
“The primary goal for reading news is to gain information, and the label ‘most read’ is a stronger signal of an article’s information value.” —Tari Dagago-Jack, Terry College
“We as readers have two primary motives: to be informed or to be entertained — that is, for a welcome diversion,” said Dagogo-Jack. “At a baseline level, we were finding that people were choosing ‘most read’ at a way higher rate than ‘most shared.’ The primary goal for reading news is to gain information, and the label ‘most read’ is a stronger signal of an article’s information value.”
That means if editors want certain articles to get more attention, they should tailor the label to the readers’ goals.
The same went for articles advertised on social media. Posts from faux news organizations that had captions describing a more educational article as “most shared” received fewer clicks.
This wasn’t the case, however, for news stories that were less serious and newsworthy. In that case, the “most shared” label worked as well as the “most read” label.
It’s a key message for reporters, editors and web developers: Know your audience and your content.
“People should ask themselves: Why am I even clicking on this thing? Is it just because everyone else read it?” —Tari Dagago-Jack
“For pop culture, sports or music — more entertainment — in those sections you should highlight what is ‘most shared,’” Dagogo-Jack said. “But for world news, politics and science sections, you should be using things like ‘most read’ or ‘most viewed.’”
Dagogo-Jack also recommends putting thought into labels. Ambiguous choices like “trending” or “most popular” may stump readers altogether, as there are so many things this could mean.
“Providing these lists helps us get over information overload or choice paralysis,” he said. “It’s a crutch and makes the decision process easier, but I often wonder: At what cost?
“You’re clicking on something that a lot of people like and social proof is valuable, but it may not necessarily provide what you are looking for, and you just gave up on the search. People should ask themselves: Why am I even clicking on this thing? Is it just because everyone else read it?”
This study was published in the Journal of Consumer Research and was co-authored by New York University assistant professor Jared Watson.
Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.
How does the camera on the James Webb Space Telescope work and see so far out? – Kieran G., age 12, Minnesota
Imagine a camera so powerful it can see light from galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago. That’s exactly what NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is built to do.
Since it launched in December 2021, Webb has been orbiting more than a million miles from Earth, capturing breathtaking images of deep space. But how does it actually work? And how can it see so far? The secret lies in its powerful cameras – especially ones that don’t see light the way our eyes do.
I’m an astrophysicist who studies galaxies and supermassive black holes, and the Webb telescope is an incredible tool for observing some of the earliest galaxies and black holes in the universe.
When Webb takes a picture of a distant galaxy, astronomers like me are actually seeing what that galaxy looked like billions of years ago. The light from that galaxy has been traveling across space for the billions of years it takes to reach the telescope’s mirror. It’s like having a time machine that takes snapshots of the early universe.
By using a giant mirror to collect ancient light, Webb has been discovering new secrets about the universe.
Unlike regular cameras or even the Hubble Space Telescope, which take images of visible light, Webb is designed to see a kind of light that’s invisible to your eyes: infrared light. Infrared light has longer wavelengths than visible light, which is why our eyes can’t detect it. But with the right instruments, Webb can capture infrared light to study some of the earliest and most distant objects in the universe.
Although the human eye cannot see it, people can detect infrared light as a form of heat using specialized technology, such as infrared cameras or thermal sensors. For example, night-vision goggles use infrared light to detect warm objects in the dark. Webb uses the same idea to study stars, galaxies and planets.
Why infrared? When visible light from faraway galaxies travels across the universe, it stretches out. This is because the universe is expanding. That stretching turns visible light into infrared light. So, the most distant galaxies in space don’t shine in visible light anymore – they glow in faint infrared. That’s the light Webb is built to detect.
Before the light reaches the cameras, it first has to be collected by the Webb telescope’s enormous golden mirror. This mirror is over 21 feet (6.5 meters) wide and made of 18 smaller mirror pieces that fit together like a honeycomb. It’s coated in a thin layer of real gold – not just to look fancy, but because gold reflects infrared light extremely well.
The mirror gathers light from deep space and reflects it into the telescope’s instruments. The bigger the mirror, the more light it can collect – and the farther it can see. Webb’s mirror is the largest ever launched into space.
The most important “eyes” of the telescope are two science instruments that act like cameras: NIRCam and MIRI.
NIRCam stands for near-infrared camera. It’s the primary camera on Webb and takes stunning images of galaxies and stars. It also has a coronagraph – a device that blocks out starlight so it can photograph very faint objects near bright sources, such as planets orbiting bright stars.
NIRCam works by imaging near-infrared light, the type closest to what human eyes can almost see, and splitting it into different wavelengths. This helps scientists learn not just what something looks like but what it’s made of. Different materials in space absorb and emit infrared light at specific wavelengths, creating a kind of unique chemical fingerprint. By studying these fingerprints, scientists can uncover the properties of distant stars and galaxies.
MIRI, or the mid-infrared instrument, detects longer infrared wavelengths, which are especially useful for spotting cooler and dustier objects, such as stars that are still forming inside clouds of gas. MIRI can even help find clues about the types of molecules in the atmospheres of planets that might support life.
Both cameras are far more sensitive than the standard cameras used on Earth. NIRCam and MIRI can detect the tiniest amounts of heat from billions of light-years away. If you had Webb’s NIRCam as your eyes, you could see the heat from a bumblebee on the Moon. That’s how sensitive it is.
Because Webb is trying to detect faint heat from faraway objects, it needs to keep itself as cold as possible. That’s why it carries a giant sun shield about the size of a tennis court. This five-layer sun shield blocks heat from the Sun, Earth and even the Moon, helping Webb stay incredibly cold: around -370 degrees F (-223 degrees C).
MIRI needs to be even colder. It has its own special refrigerator, called a cryocooler, to keep it chilled to nearly -447 degrees F (-266 degrees C). If Webb were even a little warm, its own heat would drown out the distant signals it’s trying to detect.
Once light reaches the Webb telescope’s cameras, it hits sensors called detectors. These detectors don’t capture regular photos like a phone camera. Instead, they convert the incoming infrared light into digital data. That data is then sent back to Earth, where scientists process it into full-color images.
The colors we see in Webb’s pictures aren’t what the camera “sees” directly. Because infrared light is invisible, scientists assign colors to different wavelengths to help us understand what’s in the image. These processed images help show the structure, age and composition of galaxies, stars and more.
By using a giant mirror to collect invisible infrared light and sending it to super-cold cameras, Webb lets us see galaxies that formed just after the universe began.
Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.
And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.
CORD: A Comprehensive Portal into Chordate Olfactory Receptors.
GA, UNITED STATES, June 30, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ — How animals sense and respond to smells plays a pivotal role in their survival, communication, and evolution. Recently, a groundbreaking online database has compiled the most expansive collection of olfactory receptor (OR) genes ever assembled in chordates—animals with backbones. Encompassing over 1.1 million sequences across nearly 2,800 species, this resource offers a unified platform for exploring both functional genes and pseudogenes. It integrates advanced tools for visualizing molecular structures, mapping odor interactions, and analyzing evolutionary relationships. With its comprehensive design, the database opens new avenues for researchers to decode how animals perceive chemical cues and adapt to diverse ecological environments.
Olfactory receptors (ORs) are key to how animals perceive their surroundings, guiding behaviors like foraging, mating, and avoiding danger. In chordates, the genes encoding these receptors are remarkably diverse and evolve rapidly, shaped by species-specific environmental pressures. Despite the explosion of genomic data in recent years, the annotation of these genes has struggled to keep pace. Many species still lack reliable OR gene catalogs, and most existing databases focus narrowly—often omitting pseudogenes or comparative frameworks. These limitations hinder the broader understanding of OR gene function and evolution. Due to these issues, a comprehensive and scalable platform for OR annotation and integration is urgently needed.
To meet this need, researchers from ShanghaiTech University and Research Center for Life Sciences Computing, Zhejiang Lab, etc. have developed the chordata olfactory receptor database (CORD), published (DOI: 10.1093/procel/pwae050) in Protein & Cell on September 20, 2024. The online platform compiles and standardizes more than 1.1 million OR gene entries from 2,776 chordate species, offering a massive leap in the coverage, consistency, and accessibility of olfactory genomic data. By integrating functional receptors, pseudogenes, and odorant-interaction data, CORD sets a new benchmark for studying the genetic basis of smell across evolutionary lineages.
At the heart of CORD lies Genome2OR, a high-performance gene annotation tool built on hidden Markov models. Its latest update simplifies the annotation pipeline and supports custom profiles, enabling the accurate identification of over 663,000 functional ORs and more than 513,000 pseudogenes. The database spans seven major chordate groups—from mammals and birds to jawless fish—highlighting the evolutionary richness of olfactory systems. CORD’s interface is designed with researchers in mind, featuring nine functional modules for genome browsing, structural prediction, and comparative analysis. Tools include BLAST search, sequence logos (WebLogo), and OpenFold-based 3D modeling. Users can explore complex gene–odorant relationships, supported by 3,118 receptor–ligand pairs and data on nearly 24,000 odorant compounds. Advanced visualization techniques such as snake diagrams and interactive heatmaps reveal how ORs are structured and distributed across species. Further, protein clustering datasets (CORDclust30–90) and community network analysis offer new insight into OR gene families and their evolutionary pathways. Altogether, CORD blends depth with usability, empowering researchers to unravel the biology of smell with unprecedented precision.
Scent is one of the most ancient and intricate senses, said Dr. Suwen Zhao, one of the co-corresponding authors. Yet until now, researchers lacked a unified, scalable tool to study the extraordinary diversity of ORs in chordates. CORD fills this gap. It not only delivers a vast quantity of high-quality data, but it also makes that data discoverable and usable across disciplines—from molecular neuroscience to comparative genomics. Dr. Zhao highlighted the database’s potential to illuminate how olfactory genes function beyond the nose, impacting broader biological processes.
With its wide-ranging data and flexible interface, CORD is poised to transform multiple research fields. Evolutionary biologists can now trace how OR gene repertoires expand and contract across ecological niches. Biomedical researchers gain a new tool to study the role of ORs in conditions like inflammation, metabolic disorders, and cancer—where these receptors are increasingly found outside the nose. In computational biology, CORD’s modular structure supports machine learning applications for modeling protein–ligand interactions. Future updates will incorporate experimentally derived OR structures, integrate AlphaFold3-based odor–receptor simulations, and launch a genome browser to map gene neighborhoods. By unifying data and tools under one roof, CORD is set to propel olfaction research into its next frontier.
DOI
10.1093/procel/pwae050
Original Source URL
https://doi.org/10.1093/procel/pwae050
Funding information
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Programs of China (2022YFA1302900, S.Z.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32122024, S.Z.), Shanghai Frontiers Science Center for Biomacromolecules and Precision Medicine, the Shanghai Science and Technology Plan (21DZ2260400) and ShanghaiTech University.
Lucy Wang
BioDesign Research
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The study focused on three major elements of Martian weather: dust devils, small spinning columns of air…
New Delhi: In a groundbreaking study, an international team of researchers led by the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela has explored the impact of spinning dust devils, massive dust storms, and extensive water-ice clouds on the Martian atmosphere. Collaborating with scientists from the UAE University and Sun Yat-sen University in China, the team analysed more than two decades of data from multiple Mars missions, including India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MoM).
Understanding these processes will also help in preparing for human exploration missions. Knowing how Martian weather works can help protect spacecraft, support future astronauts, and improve our understanding of whether Mars may once have supported life, said the researchers in the paper published in the prestigious journal New Astronomy Reviews.
“Advancing the weather prediction on Mars is not just a scientific pursuit; it is the cornerstone of ensuring that future missions can sustain there and realise the past and future habitability of the red planet,” said Prof. Jagabandhu Panda, Professor at the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, NIT Rourkela.
Mars, also known as the Red Planet, is home to some of the most dramatic weather systems in the solar system. The dust raised by local and regional storms can travel far and disturb wind patterns, resulting in changes in temperatures and some cases, reshaping the Martian atmosphere in dramatic ways.
The study focused on three major elements of Martian weather: dust devils, small spinning columns of air that are common during the summer and more frequent in the northern hemisphere; large dust storms, driven by a loop in which sunlight heats the dust, and can grow to cover entire regions or even the whole planet; water-ice clouds, thin, wispy clouds made of frozen water particles.
Using imaging data from over 20 years, the researchers have traced how changing seasons on Mars affect the dust and cloud formation and movement. These findings refine human knowledge and understanding of Mars’ climate system and may be useful for predicting future weather on the planet.
As more missions head to the Red Planet, long-term studies like this one offer essential clues about its ever-changing skies.
“It would be great if ISRO could conduct more missions to Mars and invest more in the university system to carry out such research. It will help in advancing science and technology further,” Panda said. IANS
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A new type of self-healing and reconfigurable circuit board can withstand heavy damage and still work effectively, scientists say. It can even be completely recycled once it reaches the end of its life.
The new breakthrough is owed to a material called a vitrimer, a special polymer capable of remaining rigid and durable at normal temperatures but malleable and reshapable at higher temperatures. The scientists outlined their findings in a new study published 1 June in the journal Advanced Materials.
Circuit boards are traditionally built with thermosets, such as silicone or epoxy resins, a type of plastic that becomes permanently rigid and hard after being heat cured. But vitrimer can be altered by reapplying heat, meaning that the circuit boards can be adapted into entirely new configurations.
Using vitrimer also allows circuit boards to be repaired if damaged, while making them easy to break down and reclaim materials from.
“Our material is unlike conventional electronic composites,” said Michael Bartlett, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech who co-led the study, in a statement. “The circuit boards are remarkably resilient and functional. Even under mechanical deformation or damage, they still work.”
Researchers used a universal testing machine, a machine that pulls or compresses a material to measure its strain at break (how much a material stretches before it breaks), to evaluate the new material.
Related: Scientists break down cheap plastic using the air — and turn it into something far more valuable
Adding just 5% by volume of liquid metal droplets to the vitrimer approximately doubled the strain at break versus vitrimer alone.
The team also used a device called a rheometer, which measures the flow and deformation behavior of materials, to test the liquid metal-infused material.
They applied 1% deformation at temperatures between 170 °C and 200 °C and found that the vitrimer was able to “relax” back to its original state, something traditional thermosets are incapable of doing.
The vitrimer is blended with droplets of liquid metal, which replicate the function of rigid metal wires in traditional circuit boards, enabling conductivity. The resultant material is so conductive that only 5% of the blend needs to be liquid metal, the scientists said.
It combines the best qualities of traditional thermosets, which are mechanically strong and chemically resistant, with the reconfigurability and recyclability of thermoplastics.
The new type of circuit board can remain fully operational despite significant stress, deformation and “thermally triggered shape-memory transformations,” the scientists said.
The scientists designed the new circuit board to combat the rise of electronic waste. Presently, electronics, including circuit boards, are discarded due to damage or difficulty in reclaiming materials.
Electronic waste has doubled in the past 12 years, according to a 2024 report from the United Nations, from 34 billion kilograms to 62 billion kg.
Currently, only a small percentage of discarded circuit boards, like gold electrodes or select other precious minerals and metals, are recovered during the recycling process, which involves chemical treatment involving strong acids.
Because the base material of most boards is high-performance composites featuring non-recyclable thermosetting plastics, such as epoxy-laminated fiberglass sheets, the majority of the discarded material ends up in landfills.
“Traditional circuit boards are made from permanent thermosets that are incredibly difficult to recycle,” Josh Worch, an assistant professor of chemistry at Virginia Tech and co-lead author of the study, said in a statement.
“Here, our dynamic composite material can be healed or reshaped if damaged by applying heat, and the electrical performance will not suffer. Modern circuit boards simply cannot do this.”
While the team acknowledged that further work is necessary to allow recovery of a higher percentage of some of the materials, they said their work represented an important step forward in creating a circular economy for core electronic materials in everyday devices from cellphones and laptops to wearables and televisions.
A study by the Center for Redox Processes in Biomedicine (Redoxoma) led by Marilene Demasi from the Butantan Institute (São Paulo, Brazil) presents a valuable new experimental model for investigating the interaction between the proteasome and mitochondrial function. In eukaryotic cells, the proteasome is a protein complex responsible for eliminating damaged and nonfunctional proteins, thereby helping to maintain cellular balance and proper functioning.
In recent years, studies have revealed that the proteasome and mitochondria are more closely connected than previously thought. The proteasome plays a role in the quality control of proteins destined for the mitochondria, while mitochondrial metabolism affects the efficiency with which proteins marked for destruction are degraded.
Redoxoma, a Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (RIDC) of FAPESP based at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Chemistry (IQ-USP) conducted research focusing on the effects of proteasome dysfunction in the C76S mutant strain of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The study revealed that deficiency in this system leads to increased mitochondrial oxidative stress. This was evidenced by increased hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) release and a lower peroxiredoxin 1 (Prx1) concentration. Prx1 is a crucial enzyme in the removal of peroxides. In mammals, mitochondrial Prx3 is equivalent to Prx1 in yeast.
The most important thing about this work is that we’ve a yeast strain that can serve as a model for investigating proteasome deficiency in relation to mitochondrial metabolism, a model that didn’t yet exist in the literature.”
Marilene Demasi, Butantan Institute
The study was published in an article in the journal Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics.
The researchers are now working to understand why Prx1 levels decrease in cells with compromised proteasomes. “We don’t yet know if there was a decrease in Prx1 gene expression, which is possible, since the proteasome also plays a role in gene transcription regulation, or if the protein oxidizes more. It may hyperoxidize and, as a result, be degraded more. Perhaps the excess peroxide is promoting its continuous degradation,” says the researcher at the Butantan Institute.
To answer these questions, the group plans to conduct comparative transcriptome and proteomic analyses of the wild and mutant strains cultivated under respiratory conditions. The goal is to establish this strain as a model for studying the role of the ubiquitin-proteasome system in cell metabolism.
Source:
São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)
Journal reference:
Avellaneda Penatti, N. M., et al. (2025). Decreased levels of Prx1 are associated with proteasome impairment and mitochondrial dysfunction in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics. doi.org/10.1016/j.abb.2025.110406.