Category: 7. Science

The following press release was issued today by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

Although outbreaks of Ebola virus are rare, the disease is severe and often fatal, with few treatment options. Rather than targeting the virus itself, one promising therapeutic approach would be to interrupt proteins in the human host cell that the virus relies upon. However, finding those regulators of viral infection using existing methods has been difficult and is especially challenging for the most dangerous viruses like Ebola that require stringent high-containment biosafety protocols.

Now, researchers at the Broad Institute and the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) at Boston University have used an image-based screening method developed at the Broad to identify human genes that, when silenced, impair the Ebola virus’s ability to infect. The method, known as optical pooled screening (OPS), enabled the scientists to test, in about 40 million CRISPR-perturbed human cells, how silencing each gene in the human genome affects virus replication.

Using machine-learning-based analyses of images of perturbed cells, they identified multiple host proteins involved in various stages of Ebola infection that when suppressed crippled the ability of the virus to replicate. Those viral regulators could represent avenues to one day intervene therapeutically and reduce the severity of disease in people already infected with the virus. The approach could be used to explore the role of various proteins during infection with other pathogens, as a way to find new drugs for hard-to-treat infections.

The study appears in Nature Microbiology.

“This study demonstrates the power of OPS to probe the dependency of dangerous viruses like Ebola on host factors at all stages of the viral life cycle and explore new routes to improve human health,” said co-senior author Paul Blainey, a Broad core faculty member and professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT.

Previously, members of the Blainey lab developed the optical pooled screening method as a way to combine the benefits of high-content imaging, which can show a range of detailed changes in large numbers of cells at once, with those of pooled perturbational screens, which show how genetic elements influence these changes. In this study, they partnered with the laboratory of Robert Davey at BU to apply optical pooled screening to Ebola virus.

The team used CRISPR to knock out each gene in the human genome, one at a time, in nearly 40 million human cells, and then infected each cell with Ebola virus. They next fixed those cells in place in laboratory dishes and inactivated them, so that the remaining processing could occur outside of the high-containment lab.

After taking images of the cells, they measured overall viral protein and RNA in each cell using the CellProfiler image analysis software, and to get even more information from the images, they turned to AI. With help from team members in the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad, led by study co-author and Broad core faculty member Caroline Uhler, they used a deep learning model to automatically determine the stage of Ebola infection for each single cell. The model was able to make subtle distinctions between stages of infection in a high-throughput way that wasn’t possible using prior methods.

“The work represents the deepest dive yet into how Ebola virus rewires the cell to cause disease, and the first real glimpse into the timing of that reprogramming,” said co-senior author Robert Davey, director of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories at Boston University, and professor of microbiology at BU Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. “AI gave us an unprecedented ability to do this at scale.”

By sequencing parts of the CRISPR guide RNA in all 40 million cells individually, the researchers determined which human gene had been silenced in each cell, indicating which host proteins (and potential viral regulators) were targeted. The analysis revealed hundreds of host proteins that, when silenced, altered overall infection level, including many required for viral entry into the cell.

Knocking out other genes enhanced the amount of virus within inclusion bodies, structures that form in the human cell to act as viral factories, and prevented the infection from progressing further. Some of these human genes, such as UQCRB, pointed to a previously unrecognized role for mitochondria in the Ebola virus infection process that could possibly be exploited therapeutically. Indeed, treating cells with a small molecule inhibitor of UQCRB reduced Ebola infection with no impact on the cell’s own health.

Other genes, when silenced, altered the balance between viral RNA and protein. For example, perturbing a gene called STRAP resulted in increased viral RNA relative to protein. The researchers are currently doing further studies in the lab to better understand the role of STRAP and other proteins in Ebola infection and whether they could be targeted therapeutically.

In a series of secondary screens, the scientists examined some of the highlighted genes’ roles in infection with related filoviruses. Silencing some of these genes interrupted replication of Sudan and Marburg viruses, which have high fatality rates and no approved treatments, so it’s possible a single treatment could be effective against multiple related viruses.

The study’s approach could also be used to examine other pathogens and emerging infectious diseases and look for new ways to treat them.

“With our method, we can measure many features at once and uncover new clues about the interplay between virus and host, in a way that’s not possible through other screening approaches,” said co-first author Rebecca Carlson, a former graduate researcher in the labs of Blainey and Nir Hacohen at the Broad and who co-led the work along with co-first author J.J. Patten at Boston University.

This work was funded in part by the Broad Institute, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the George F. Carrier Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center at the Broad Institute, the National Institutes of Health, and the Office of Naval Research.

Dragonfly Aerospace has successfully demonstrated a significant new capability: capturing high-precision images of the Moon using the dual DragonEye imagers aboard its EOSSAT-1 satellite. This achievement represents a key milestone in the company’s ongoing efforts to extend its imaging technologies beyond traditional Earth observation, marking its expansion into Non-Earth Imaging(NEI).

The Non-Earth Imaging Technqiue

Unlike most small satellite missions that prioritise Earth observation, Non-Earth Imaging (NEI) involves capturing imagery of celestial bodies and objects beyond our planet, such as the Moon, planets, asteroids, space debris, and other astronomical reference points. NEI plays a critical role in validating imaging systems under deep-space conditions. It also contributes to Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and supports future lunar and planetary exploration efforts. In essence, NEI serves as a bridge between conventional Earth observation and deep-space missions, broadening our capacity to observe, understand, and navigate the wider universe.

EOSSAT-1: Precision Non-Earth Imaging in Orbit

To capture images of both a full Moon and a waning Moon, Dragonfly Aerospace utilised the ductile mode of its EOSSAT-1 satellite, a function typically reserved for tracking inertial reference points. Given that the DragonEye payloads are line-scan imagers, the satellite had to perform a continuous pitch manoeuvre across the lunar surface, building each image line by line rather than capturing it in a single frame. This placed stringent requirements on EOSSAT-1’s Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS), which needed to maintain a precise and stable pitch rate throughout the imaging sequence.

Despite the Moon’s relatively slow apparent motion, the satellite was required to execute continuous, high-accuracy pitch adjustments to track its trajectory and preserve exact line-of-sight alignment. EOSSAT-1 successfully imaged multiple lunar phases, demonstrating its ability to maintain stable attitude control on inertial targets, a capability that exceeds the performance typically expected from standard small satellite platforms.

Versatile Imaging for Complex Space Missions

Dragonfly Aerospace develops platforms designed for multi-purpose imaging missions. Although the company’s core expertise lies in high-performance Earth observation, the μDragonfly bus and other satellite platforms offer engineered flexibility, making them capable of:

• Monitoring space assets and tracking debris
• Calibrating onboard sensors using inertial points
• Supporting lunar and planetary exploration
• Validating satellite stability and control systems

The recent lunar imaging demonstration highlights both the increasing importance of NEI and SSA in commercial satellite operations and the advanced capabilities built into Dragonfly’s platforms. Furthermore, this success reflects the company’s commitment to meeting emerging demands in space technology.

Why These Capabilities Matter

As the space environment grows increasingly congested and operationally complex, the demand for robust Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Domain Awareness (SDA) continues to rise. Imaging objects beyond Earth, such as the Moon, satellites, and orbital debris plays a vital role in advancing these capabilities. Such imaging supports collision avoidance and orbital traffic management, facilitates sensor calibration and technology validation, and informs mission planning for future lunar and planetary exploration.

Dragonfly Aerospace remains committed to providing flexible, high-performance satellite solutions that go beyond Earth observation. Both the μDragonfly platform and Dragonfly’s custom payloads are designed to support:

• Earth Observation (EO)
• Non-Earth Imaging (NEI)
• Space Situational Awareness (SSA)
• Scientific and exploratory missions

Looking Beyond Earth

As satellite operations continue to evolve, the ability to capture and process data beyond Earth is becoming increasingly valuable not only for advancing space exploration, but also for enhancing safety, security, and long-term sustainability in orbit. Dragonfly Aerospace’s successful demonstration with EOSSAT-1 underscores the growing potential of small satellite platforms to take on more complex roles, particularly in space monitoring, technology validation, and Non-Earth Imaging. Collectively, these developments signal a shift beyond traditional Earth observation toward more versatile and mission-critical space applications.

The past often hides clues about the present, especially when it comes to evolution. And sometimes, the most surprising discoveries don’t come from deep expeditions into the wild, but from the hidden fossils or preserved museum archives.Using technological advances like micro-CT scanning, researchers can now revisit old specimens and find out secrets hidden beneath the surface, without damaging the samples. These breakthroughs allow us to find connections across time, between the creatures that walked the earth millions of years ago to animals still living today.One among these is an area of recent study involving osteoderms, which are small bony plates located under the skin. While this is commonly associated with dinosaurs, armadillos, and crocodiles, new research shows they may be much more widespread in today’s reptiles than anyone previously thought.

Monitor Lizards share an ancient bone structure with Dinosaurs

Scientists have found that monitor lizards, known as goannas in Australia, have hidden bone structures called osteoderms beneath their skin. Surprisingly, it is a feature they share with prehistoric creatures like the Stegosaurus.This research, published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, represents the first large-scale study of osteoderms in lizards and snakes. The team scanned over 2,000 reptile specimens using high-resolution micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), according to Museums Victoria.

“We were astonished to find osteoderms in 29 Australo-Papuan monitor lizard species that had never been documented before,” said Roy Ebel, lead author of the study and researcher at Museums Victoria Research Institute and the Australian National University. “It’s a fivefold increase in known cases among goannas,” he added in a press release.

What are Osteoderms

Osteoderms are well-known bone structures in animals like armadillos, crocodiles, and dinosaurs, including the iconic Stegosaurus. Their purpose isn’t completely understood, but researchers believe they provide protection, help regulate body temperature, store calcium, and may even support movement.Jane Melville, Senior Curator of Terrestrial Vertebrates at Museums Victoria Research Institute, explained the bigger picture, “What’s so exciting about this finding is that it reshapes what we thought we knew about reptile evolution. It suggests that these skin bones may have evolved in response to environmental pressures as lizards adapted to Australia’s challenging landscapes.”

The researchers also talked about the vital role of museum archives in this discovery. Some of the studied specimens were over 120 years old. By using the non-destructive micro-CT scanning, these preserved reptiles could be examined in detail for the first time.The study reveals that more than half of all lizard species may have osteoderms, about 85% more than previously thought.With this growing dataset, researchers are now poised to look for even more secrets hiding in plain sight, bridging the gap between ancient dinosaurs and the reptiles we see today.

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Soil fungi may not have ticker symbols but they move carbon at planetary scale, drawing an estimated 13 billion tons of CO₂ into the soil each year, equivalent to nearly a third of global fossil fuel emissions. And yet, they’ve been almost entirely absent from climate risk models, ESG reports, and conservation agendas.

Scientists from the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) have released the first-ever high-resolution global maps of mycorrhizal fungal biodiversity, alongside the launch of a groundbreaking public platform called the Underground Atlas. The research, published in the journal Nature, marks the first large-scale scientific application of the global mapping initiative launched by SPUN in 2021. Built using over 2.8 billion fungal DNA sequences from 130 countries, the Atlas reveals a profound oversight: more than 90% of the planet’s most diverse underground carbon ecosystems are unprotected.

“Soils store 75% of Earth’s terrestrial carbon and contain ~59% of Earth’s biodiversity. Yet, we’ve neglected to map, monitor, and protect fungal systems,” says Dr. Toby Kiers, executive director of SPUN. “With the Underground Atlas, we’re making these invisible networks visible, and therefore measurable.”

The Underground Carbon Crisis

Mycorrhizal fungi form vast underground networks that connect and sustain over 90% of all terrestrial plant species, channelling nutrients, supporting food systems, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience. Critically, they also draw carbon from plants into the soil, playing a major role in carbon sequestration and climate regulation. But until now, these fungal networks have gone unmapped and unmonitored, and the implications of this are significant.

“We were surprised to learn that fungal biodiversity didn’t align with traditional conservation indicators like plant richness,” says Dr. Kiers. “That means we’re missing high-value underground ecosystems that are being degraded or lost, increasing global warming and disrupting nutrient cycles.”

The Atlas is also set to help regenerate degraded ecosystems. “Restoration practices have been dangerously incomplete because the focus has historically been on life aboveground,” said Dr. Alex Wegmann a lead scientist for The Nature Conservancy. “These high-resolution maps provide quantitative targets for restoration managers to establish what diverse mycorrhizal communities could and should look like.”

Urgent action is needed to incorporate findings into international biodiversity law and policy. For example, the Ghanaian coast is a global hotspot for mycorrhizal biodiversity. But the country’s coastline is eroding at roughly two meters per year and scientists are concerned that such critical biodiversity could soon be washed into the sea.

A Data Science Breakthrough

To build the Atlas, SPUN and partners used machine learning models trained on billions of environmental DNA sequences, geospatial data, and climate variables. For the first time, decision-makers, restoration managers, and investors can explore mycorrhizal biodiversity at a 1km² scale, identifying underground ecosystems critical to carbon cycling, crop resilience, and biodiversity.

“This is the most data-rich global compilation of fungal eDNA ever assembled,” says Dr. Michael Van Nuland, SPUN’s lead data scientist. “There just aren’t many high-resolution global maps for soil organisms, especially for ecosystem engineers like fungi.”

The Atlas supports biodiversity predictions even in unsampled areas, identifying fungal richness, rarity, and degradation risk. This will enable regulators and restoration practitioners to anticipate biodiversity loss and carbon vulnerability at a landscape scale.

​SPUN is already working with a number of different actors and institutions operating in the space of nature risk and ecosystem restoration, and was granted observer status at last year’s COP16 biodiversity summit. That shows a recognition that, without understanding what’s happening beneath the ground, there is no real understanding of how to most effectively protect and restore nature and biodiversity.

Implications For ESG And Restoration

The new maps also reveal a critical blind spot for companies and governments relying on nature-based solutions, sustainable agriculture, and biodiversity finance. “Conservation is about protecting the systems that sustain life, and those systems don’t stop at the soil surface,” says Dr. Rebecca Shaw, chief scientist at WWF. “Healthy fungal networks are tied to higher aboveground biodiversity and greater ecosystem resilience.”

Dr. Shaw says the maps should be incorporated into frameworks like the 30×30 biodiversity targets, National Biodiversity Strategies (NBSAPs), and even carbon markets. “Much like the human gut microbiome transformed medicine, the soil microbiome is essential for planetary health,” she says.

She argues that mycorrhizal fungi need to be recognized as a priority in the ‘library of solutions’ to some of the world’s greatest challenges, biodiversity decline, climate change, and declining food productivity. “They deliver powerful ecosystem services whose benefits flow directly to people. This research maps where fungal communities are thriving or under threat,” she continues. “There is an opportunity to integrate this knowledge into decision-making about building resilience into our food systems.”

These insights are also guiding restoration and corporate risk assessments. SPUN is currently piloting a project with a corporate partner to evaluate the use of mycorrhizal biodiversity assessments in material supply chains. “This is helping us understand both the economic applications for our data and how these collaborations can contribute valuable information back to our global database,” says Dr. Van Nuland.

Soil fungi aren’t just climate assets, they’re agricultural assets. Research shows mycelial networks can reduce nutrient leaching by up to 50% and supply up to 80% of a plant’s phosphorus needs, positioning fungi as vital components of sustainable farming.

Incorporating fungal biodiversity into land use planning offers a powerful hedge against food system risk, helping companies navigate fertilizer volatility, regulatory pressures, and the growing need to demonstrate climate-resilient practices. For businesses navigating nature risk, this may be the data layer they didn’t know they needed.

A Legal And Regulatory Wake-Up Call

Soil fungi are also being considered in legal and regulatory contexts. Underground biodiversity is included in the Convention on Biological Diversity, but in practice, policies have focused almost entirely on aboveground ecosystems.

César Rodríguez-Garavito, director of NYU’s More-Than-Human Life Program explains, “Because fungal networks have been invisible in climate law, activities that disrupt them have gone largely unregulated, with serious consequences for carbon storage, soil health, and legal accountability. By making visible the presence of climate-significant soil fungi, this data can help prevent climate impacts that stem from their destruction.”

A litigation toolkit is also in development with NYU Law to help Indigenous communities protect underground ecosystems threatened by extraction.

Changing The Climate Narrative

Beyond risk and regulation, the Underground Atlas offers something deeper: a new way of seeing and valuing ecosystems.

As SPUN’s director of impact Dr. Merlin Sheldrake notes, “What we see above ground is in part an expression of what’s happening below the surface. This new tool brings attention to the communities of mycorrhizal fungi that form living underground infrastructure and support so much of life on Earth.”

This reframing helps bridge a persistent gap in how ecosystems are perceived, opening new possibilities for valuing and protecting foundational life systems. While forests and coral reefs have long symbolized ecological richness, the quiet complexity of underground fungal networks has rarely captured public imagination or financial attention.

Dr. Sheldrake calls this persistent oversight ‘fungus blindness.’ “Most fungi live out of sight and studying them is difficult,” he says. “But they are vital ecosystem engineers, and when we ignore them, we are more likely to disrupt and destroy them. If we’re not paying attention to these organisms, it’s no surprise they’re missing from conservation strategies.” That’s beginning to change.

Understanding that fungi store carbon, support biodiversity, and regulate water flows means that protecting them becomes a matter of long-term value, not just ecological virtue. These maps are not just analytical tools; they are conceptual ones, helping businesses and governments see what sustainability has missed.

Recognizing fungi as climate infrastructure could redfine how nature is factored into risk models, insurance products, and even accounting frameworks in the years to come.

Toward An Underground Strategy

Dr Van Nuland says that while the current launch represents the project’s first major milestone, this is only the beginning. SPUN is currently working on more than 10 additional mapping pipelines that will expand the platform’s capabilities, including maps of mycorrhizal carbon drawdown hotspots, underground threat assessments, and restoration potential analyses.

“We’re only beginning to explore the economic and ecological uses of this data,” he says. “We want to discover new applications and we’re inviting researchers, funders, and policymakers to help us.”

In a world increasingly focused on risk, resilience, and real assets, the lesson is clear: funghi, and the fungal networks beneath our feet, are the billion-ton blind spot we can no longer afford to ignore.

Beneath the cold, dark, and highly pressurised world of the deep sea, marine life has been found to be far more globally connected than previously imagined – a finding made by researchers at Museums Victoria which could prove transformational of our understanding of life at the furthest depths of the ocean.

Published this week in Nature, this landmark study maps the global distribution and evolutionary relationships of brittle stars (Ophiuroidea), the ancient, spiny animals found within both shallow coastal waters and the deepest abyssal plains, from the equators to the poles.

By analysing the DNA of thousands of specimens collected on hundreds of research voyages and preserved in natural history museums around the world, scientists have uncovered how these deep-sea invertebrates have ‘quietly migrated across entire oceans’ over millions of years, linking ecosystems from Iceland to Tasmania.

A dataset labelled ‘unprecedented’ by those working with it, the study offers new insights into how marine life has evolved and dispersed across the ocean over the past 100 million years.

“You might think of the deep sea as remote and isolated, but for many animals on the seafloor, it’s actually a connected superhighway,” said Dr Tim O’Hara, senior curator of Marine Invertebrates at Museums Victoria Research Institute and lead author on the study. “Over long time scales, deep-sea species have expanded their ranges by thousands of kilometres. This connectivity is a global phenomenon that’s gone unnoticed, until now.”

Using DNA from 2,699 brittle star specimens housed in 48 natural history museums across the globe, this is the most comprehensive study of its kind. Brittle stars have lived on Earth for over 480 million years and can be found at depths of more than 3,500 metres.

Unlike marine life in shallow waters – which is restricted by temperature boundaries – deep-sea environments are more stable and allow species to disperse over vast distances. Many brittle stars produce yolk-rich larvae that can drift on deep ocean currents for extended periods, giving them the ability to colonise far-flung regions.

Quantum confinement is a physical effect that occurs when the size of a material-usually a semiconductor or conductor-is reduced to the nanoscale thereby restricting the movement of electrons or holes.

This is useful because confinement of electrons to very small spaces causes their energy levels to become discrete rather than continuous, altering the material’s electronic and optical properties.

For example, the photoluminescence (PL) performance of semiconductors can be improved by reducing their size or effective conjugation length-the distance across which π-electrons can move freely through a system of single and double bonds-to form quantum dots. These dots, such as graphene, carbon, and polymer quantum dots, exhibit the quantum confinement effect.

While quantum confinement has long been achieved by reducing the physical size of materials, Chinese researchers have now demonstrated the phenomenon for the first time by modulating the radius of an exciton-a bound electron-hole quasiparticle-without shrinking the material itself.

To achieve this breakthrough, a team led by Prof. DOU Xincun at the Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences synthesized a new covalent organic framework (COF)-a crystalline material made of a light element such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, or oxygen, which can be customized at the molecular level. Using the new COF-dubbed the trans-1,4-diaminocyclohexane (tDACH)-the researchers inserted cyclohexane-based linkers as conjugation “breakpoints,” thereby engineering π-conjugated domains that enable intrinsic exciton confinement at the molecular scale.

This accomplishment, reported in Cell Reports Physical Science, marks the first time quantum confinement has been achieved without physical downsizing.

The new COF exhibited exceptional PL properties, with a PL quantum yield of 73%-outperforming all previously reported imine-based COFs.

Analysis revealed that tDACH-COF lacks long-range π-conjugation, effectively restricting exciton diffusion and migration. The excitons remain localized within the material’s building blocks and recombine radiatively, resulting in strong PL performance. This confirms that quantum confinement indeed occurred in the COF without requiring physical downsizing.

Leveraging these unique properties, the team developed tDACH-COF into a PL probe capable of detecting nerve agent simulants at parts-per-billion levels. This application capitalizes on efficient PL quenching triggered by imine protonation. Transient spectroscopy studies further showed that imine protonation disrupts the inherent quantum confinement, leading to significant PL quenching.

The findings bridge a critical gap between COFs and commercial PL materials, paving the way for COFs to be used in lighting devices, optoelectronic equipment, and chemical sensors.

The research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Timeline of imine-based COFs and their corresponding photoluminescent performance. (Image by Prof. DOU’s group)

Schematic illustration of the exciton confinement in cyclohexane-linked COF. (Image by Prof. DOU’s group)