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Core facilities have a different mission than academic research labs. Accordingly, they require different career paths and structures.[Image: see text]

Homosexuality has been a constant throughout human evolution and civilization, and yet, science has been slow to look at the causes of sexual preferences.[Image: see text]

The study of ancient genes in contemporary species is providing new insights about how organisms adapted to new environments during evolution.[Image: see text]

In the wake of economic sanctions, Western funding agencies are increasingly halting scientific collaboration with Russia.[Image: see text]

Posting papers on preprint servers creates patent ‘prior art’ and is likely to affect the patentability of any underlying invention.[Image: see text]

Human challenge trials to deliberately infect volunteers with SARS‐CoV‐2 should inspire wider debates about research ethics and participants’ motivations to take part in such studies. [Image: see text]

Human actions have caused an increasing number of species to go extinct. Do the available data support concerns about a new mass extinction event? [Image: see text]

Various viruses can affect the brain directly or indirectly. The specter of Long COVID has focused research on how respiratory viruses can cause infection and inflammation of brain cells. [Image: see text]

New technologies in forensic science often find other scientific and commercial applications beyond assisting criminal investigators. [Image: see text]

Plant biologists have begun to unravel the molecular mechanisms behind grafting, yielding insights into plant evolution and expanding the scope of this technique.[Image: see text]

Non‐technical summaries of research projects allow tracking the numbers and purpose of animal experiments related to SARS‐CoV2 research so as to provide greater transparency on animal use.

Highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza A viruses occasionally infect humans, but currently do not transmit efficiently among humans. The viral haemagglutinin (HA) protein is a known host-range determinant as it mediates virus binding to host-specific cellular receptors. Here we assess the molecular changes in HA that would allow a virus possessing subtype H5 HA to be transmissible among mammals. We identified a reassortant H5 HA/H1N1 virus-comprising H5 HA (from an H5N1 virus) with four mutations and the remaining seven gene segments from a 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus-that was capable of droplet transmission in a ferret model. The transmissible H5 reassortant virus preferentially recognized human-type receptors, replicated efficiently in ferrets, caused lung lesions and weight loss, but was not highly pathogenic and did not cause mortality. These results indicate that H5 HA can convert to an HA that supports efficient viral transmission in mammals; however, we do not know whether the four mutations in the H5 HA identified here would render a wholly avian H5N1 virus transmissible. The genetic origin of the remaining seven viral gene segments may also critically contribute to transmissibility in mammals. Nevertheless, as H5N1 viruses continue to evolve and infect humans, receptor-binding variants of H5N1 viruses with pandemic potential, including avian-human reassortant viruses as tested here, may emerge. Our findings emphasize the need to prepare for potential pandemics caused by influenza viruses possessing H5 HA, and will help individuals conducting surveillance in regions with circulating H5N1 viruses to recognize key residues that predict the pandemic potential of isolates, which will inform the development, production and distribution of effective countermeasures.

Until COVID‐19, coronaviruses were largely overlooked by virologists. Yet, their abundance in mammalian species could cause new spillover events into humans. [Image: see text]

ヒト胚研究のルールを変更することの意味. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-09-02., Science is based on promises, not on mere rules. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2021-09-06.

As humans, many animal species that communicate via vocalization show a wide range of accents and dialects driven by environmental and social factors. [Image: see text]

New biotechnologies such as gene drives and engineered viruses herald a viral era that would give humans exceptional power over any organism at the level of the genotype.

Molecular biology could find inspiration from social sciences and ecology research on how communities remain resilient in times of crisis to better understand tissue homeostasis and resilience.[Image: see text]

The biological cause for the increase in Autism Spectrum Disorder may be fathers’ older age and the epigenetic marks it leaves on sperm cells.[Image: see text]

Giant viruses continue to yield fascinating discoveries from ancient eukaryotic immune defenses to viruses’ role in the global carbon cycle.[Image: see text]

Farmers’ opinions and concerns are rarely considered in public debates about the use of gene‐editing technologies to modify farm animals.

Whether some animal species possess consciousness is no longer the question; rather how their environment and evolution shaped species‐specific forms of self‐awareness[Image: see text]

Proteomics research infrastructures and core facilities within the Core for Life alliance advocate for community policies for quality control to ensure high standards in proteomics services. The CRG/UPF Proteomics Unit is a member of the ProteoRed PRB3 consortium which is supported by grant PT17/0019 of the PE I + D+i 2013‐2016 from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII) and ERDF. We acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa 2013‐2017”, SEV‐2012‐ 0208, and “Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya” (2017SGR595). The VIB Proteomics Core acknowledges support from the VIB Tech Watch Fund and FWO‐SBO Project S006617N. Research in the Mechtler lab was supported by the ERA‐CAPS I 3686 project of the Austrian Science Fund. We acknowledge support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 823839 (EPIC‐XS)

The EU's Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 makes great promises about halting the decline of biodiversity but it offers little in terms of implementation. [Image: see text]

Giving undergraduate students an opportunity to partake in a research project pays back for both students and the lab. [Image: see text]

Modern biotechnology holds great potential for expanding the scope of fermentation to create novel foods and improve the sustainability of food production. [Image: see text]

There is no doubt that sleep is good for health. Yet, understanding how sleep exerts its healing effects has been a formidable challenge. [Image: see text]

Policymakers should treat DIY‐biology laboratories as legitimate parts of the scientific enterprise and pay attention to the role of community norms.[Image: see text]

The Research Center Borstel developed a bottom-up approach based on communication and team scouts to create a culture that fosters research integrity.

Japanese students’ seeming low proficiency of English is not caused by lack of efforts to internationalize, but rather changing career preferences.[Image: see text]

Since COVID-19 hit last year, lecturers and professors have been exploring digital and other tools to teach and instruct their students.

Despite its limited resources, Portugal has gained a prominent position in research on malaria. Several historical and personal factors have contributed to this achievement. [Image: see text]

The COVID‐19 pandemic highlights how our ancient fear response can be exploited for nefarious purposes with social media lending a helping hand.

Biosafety is a major challenge for developing for synthetic organisms. An early focus on application and their context could assist with the design of appropriate genetic safeguards.

The rumen microbiome ‐ a remarkable example of obligatory symbiosis with high ecological and social relevance[Image: see text]

Brain imaging and research on bilinguals and patients with speech disorders is helping to unravel semantic processing – the way how the brain interprets and stores sentences and stories.[Image: see text]

This year’s Nobel prize for the CRISPR/Cas system is an illustrative example of how scientific breakthroughs rests on preceding work: the discovery of guide RNAs in the 1990s.[Image: see text]

Global climate change and the increasing human population require crop varieties with higher yield and draught resistance. But meeting both goals is not an easy task for breeders and plant science.[Image: see text]

The discovery of extensive plant and animal fossil allows to paint a more detailed picture of how mammals arose after the demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. [Image: see text]

China and the WHO's promotion of herbal and traditional medicines, most of which were not tested for safety and efficacy, have raised public health concerns.[Image: see text]

The transition to a carbon‐neutral bioeconomy becomes increasingly urgent in light of climate change. It will require a whole set of policies to stimulate research, investments and public support. [Image: see text]

Social media has been an effective vector for spreading disinformation about medicine and science. Informational hygiene can reduce the severity of falsehoods about health.

A toolkit for mentoring minority students and trainees in science.[Image: see text]

The ‘Hygiene Hypothesis’ to explain the rise in allergies is being replaced by a more nuanced picture of how the immune system interacts with environmental microbes.[Image: see text]

Synthetic biology has the potential to seed research in impoverished countries. Teaching students and academics has to take into account reality – lessons from Honduras. [Image: see text]

Evolutionary biology is key to potentially predicting virulence and transmission after a pathogen jumps into a new host species. This knowledge would be valuable for designing public health strategies.

Transplantation of functional mitochondria directly into defective cells is a novel approach that has recently caught the attention of scientists and the general public alike. Could this be too good to be true?

Between decreased income and increasing expenses to move classes online, colleges and universities need to adapt to a pandemic‐triggered severe and global recession.

A citizen's conference on xenotransplantation delivers a cautious ‘Yes, but…’ endorsement. It also shows how additional knowledge and debate shifted peoples’ opinion on this technology.

Live vaccines are gradually replaced by protein‐based vaccines given the latter's better safety. But live vaccines seem to be more efficient via stimulation of the innate immune system. [Image: see text]