Life science_
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A first-in-human trial edited the sugar coating on patients' own stem cells so they would home to bone, and ten women with advanced osteoporosis had markedly fewer fragility fractures over five years of follow-up. It also undercuts the assumption that stem cells from older, diseased tissue are too compromised to use.
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Cytotoxic T cells switch from glycolysis to oxidative phosphorylation when a signalling molecule raises mitochondrial ATP, and that energy shift physically opens chromatin at the genes that make them killers. Metabolism is not just fuelling the immune response here, it is directing which genes turn on.
Statistics and methods_
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Metax profiles bacteria, viruses, eukaryotes and archaea from one metagenome at once, using coverage-based probabilistic modelling rather than read counts, and scored 55 percent higher F1 than existing tools across 600 samples. The useful part is that it holds up where reference databases are badly incomplete, which is most non-human systems.
Science careers_
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The NSF is restructuring how it awards funding to line up with White House priorities.
Nature · doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02892-9
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Academic AI groups face what one analysis calls a 1.5 million dollar "academia tax" - the compute and salary gap that industry labs do not pay. Relevant to any computational field where the hardware bill now decides what questions can be asked.
Nature · doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02026-1
Big events_
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A super El Nino is already disrupting weather and fisheries, and forecasters have laid out what the rest of the cycle is likely to bring.
Nature · doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02826-5
Interesting_
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A UK study found people trust scientists they perceive as being on their side, rather than scientists they judge most competent. Shared values move trust more than credentials do.
Nature · doi:10.1038/d41586-026-02883-w