Category: 7. Science

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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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.

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.

Next steps

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.

Until now, thin and thick disks have only been identified in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies. It has been impossible with previous telescopes to distinguish the thin edge of a distant galaxy when viewed from the side.

That changed with the launching of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021, which is currently the largest telescope in space.

An international team of researchers has examined 111 JWST images of distant edge-on galaxies, ones where the alignments enabled the researchers to observe the galaxies’ vertical disk structures.

Takafumi Tsukui (formerly of the Australian National University and now based at Tohoku University), who led the research team, says that observing distant galaxies is like using a time machine, allowing us to see how galaxies have built their disks over cosmic history.

“Thanks to the JWST’s sharp vision, we were able to identify thin and thick disks in galaxies beyond our local universe, some going as far back as 10 billion years ago.”

The study revealed a consistent trend: in the earlier universe, more galaxies appear to have had a single thick disk, while in later epochs, more galaxies showed a two-layered structure with an additional thin disk component. This suggests that galaxies first formed a thick disk, followed by the formation of a thin disk within it. In more massive galaxies, this thin disk appears to have formed earlier.

The study estimated the thin disk formation time for Milky Way-sized galaxies to be around 8 billion years ago. This figure aligns with formation timelines for the Milky Way itself, where stellar ages can be measured.

To understand the revealed sequential formation from thick to thin disks and the corresponding formation timelines, the team not only examined the stellar structure but also the motion of gas, direct ingredients of stars obtained from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and ground-based surveys in the literature. These observations supported a coherent formation scenario:

• In the early universe, galactic disks are rich in gas and highly turbulent
• Intense star formation in the turbulent disks gives rise to thick stellar disks
• As stellar disks develop, they help stabilize the gas disks and reduce the turbulence
• As the disk calms, a thin stellar disk forms inside the pre-developed thick stellar disks
• Whereas larger galaxies can efficiently convert gas into stars, forming thin disks earlier

Tsukui emphasizes that the images provided by JWST help answer one of the biggest questions in astronomy: was our galaxy’s formation typical or unique? “The JWST images provided a window into galaxies that resemble the Milky Way’s early state, bringing us valuable insights from galaxies far away.”

The team hopes that their study will help bridge studies of nearby galaxies with far away ones and refine our understanding of disk formation. The study was published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on June 26, 2025.

Planets form in disks composed of low-temperature molecular gas and dust, known as protoplanetary disks, found around protostars. Protostars are stars still in the process of forming. The nascent planets are too small to observe directly, but the gravity from a planet can create detectable patterns like rings or spirals in a protoplanetary disk. However, it is difficult to know when these patterns first appeared due to the limited number of protoplanetary disks that are close enough to Earth to be observed in high resolution.

A research team led by Ayumu Shoshi of Kyushu University and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) used improved data processing techniques to search for previously overlooked signs of planet formation in archive data from the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) radio telescope. The team reanalyzed data for 78 disks in the Ophiuchus star-forming region, located 460 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. More than half of the images produced in this study achieved a resolution over three times better than that of previous images.

The new high-resolution images show ring or spiral patterns in 27 of the disks. Of these, 15 were identified for the first time in this study. Combining this new sample with pervious work for a different star-forming region, the team found that the characteristic disk substructures emerge in disks larger than 30 au (astronomical units, 1 au = 149,597,870,700 m, the distance between the Earth and the Sun) around stars in the early stage of star formation, just a few hundred thousand years after a star was born. This suggests that planets begin to form at a much earlier stage than previously believed, when the disk still possesses abundant gas and dust. In other words, planets grow together with their very young host stars.

Once upon a time, the tale of Chang’e flying to the moon existed only in Chinese folklore. But today, that ancient myth has been given a new, modern twist with actual moon samples making their way not to the palace of the moon goddess, but to the headquarters of the United Nations in Vienna.

On June 25, during the 68th session of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, China organized an exhibition featuring lunar samples collected from both the near and far sides of the moon to celebrate 20 years of its lunar exploration program. The exhibition not only showcases China’s remarkable technical achievements, but also offers a window into the country’s vision of inclusive, peaceful and cooperative outer space exploration.

The lunar samples, collected by the Chang’e-5 and Chang’e-6 missions respectively, represent landmarks in space science. Chang’e-5’s successful mission in 2020 made China the third country to retrieve materials from the moon after the United States and the Soviet Union. Chang’e-6 went even further, bringing back the first samples from the moon’s far side in 2024, marking another remarkable achievement for China.

But China’s space program is not just about national pride or technical triumphs. The underlying message of the exhibition is a clear one: China’s space exploration is open to the world.

The journey of Chang’e lunar exploration projects is no longer a solitary leap but a shared path. Over the past two decades, whether through bilateral agreements, joint missions, data-sharing or talent exchanges, China has made cooperation an important part of its space ambitions. The Chang’e-6 mission, for example, carried scientific payloads from France, Italy, Pakistan and the European Space Agency.

China has agreed to share samples with other countries, because they belong not only to China, but also to the world, representing a shared treasure for all humanity. This approach reflects China’s principle of enhancing international cooperation in space on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, peaceful utilization and inclusive development. In a world where geopolitical tensions sometimes spill into the space domain, China’s emphasis on multilateralism and peaceful cooperation sends a timely and constructive signal.

China’s space exploration achievements extend far beyond lunar missions. It made history with its Tianwen-1 mission to Mars, launched in July 2020 as China’s inaugural independent interplanetary endeavor. This groundbreaking mission, for the first time ever, successfully deployed an orbiter, lander and rover on the Red Planet in a single launch.

China also operates two cutting-edge solar observation satellites in orbit. These sophisticated spacecraft have delivered significant breakthroughs, providing scientists with unprecedented insights into the behavior and characteristics of the sun.

In fact, China has gone a step further by proposing the establishment of an open and inclusive platform for deep-space exploration, inviting countries, developed and developing alike, to participate in upcoming missions. For example, China has signed cooperation agreements with 17 countries and international organizations on the International Lunar Research Station construction, offering various levels and forms of collaboration opportunities. The first batch of experimental projects selected through China’s collaboration with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs are being conducted aboard the Chinese space station.

And just like the legend of Chang’e, what once felt distant and mythical is becoming part of a shared human story.