FOXP2 mutations cause a speech and language disorder, raising interest in potential roles of this gene in human evolution. A new study re-evaluates genomic variation at the human FOXP2 locus but finds...

Dr Ning Xu denies he broke the rules of Nikon's annual Small World In Motion contest.

Seyedolmohadesin et al. record whole-brain activity with cellular resolution in both C. elegans sexes during broad chemosensory stimulation. They find that nearly every sensory neuron and many pharyngeal neurons respond in a sexually dimorphic manner and that these functional dimorphisms are distinct from known synaptic dimorphisms.

The 2026 call has attracted considerable interest from the research community with 21,627 applications submitted.

Epigenetic inheritance provides mutation-free mechanisms for phenotypic adaptation, including modifications to DNA or DNA-associated proteins that create patterns of heritable gene regulation. However...

Polyamines produced by gut bacteria have been proposed to contribute to inflammatory bowel diseases. Here, Nauta et al. show that bacteria can produce a noncanonical polyamine intermediate that functi...

A quantification artifact confounds CRISPR-mediated RNA knockdown.

Opening up peer review

Abstract. Heterozygous deletions in NRXN1, encoding the presynaptic adhesion molecule Neurexin 1, are among the most frequently identified rare variants in

Upon discovery that the Boquila trifoliolata is capable of flexible leaf mimicry, the question of the mechanism behind this ability has been unanswered. Here, we demonstrate that plant vision possi...

Exogenous and endogenous mutagens generate a wide variety of DNA lesions, including bulky adducts, chemical modifications, and single- or double-stranded breaks. A phenomenon called “lesion segregation,” in which lesions evade repair and persist for multiple cell divisions, has recently been documented in tumors and healthy somatic tissues from mice and humans, respectively. Persistent lesions can generate multi-allelic variants (MAVs) by serving as templates for multiple rounds of error-prone replication. By reanalyzing data from a large C. elegans mutagenesis experiment, we observed robust evidence for MAVs at a small fraction (∼0.2%) of mutated sites in the offspring of strains treated with alkylating agents. Because these sequencing data were derived from the progeny of a single F1 animal — itself the offspring of a mutagenized P0 — all mutations should be biallelic. The presence of multi-allelic variation implies that some DNA lesions are transmitted to the F1 zygote, evade repair, and are repeatedly bypassed by error-prone polymerases during embryogenesis. We suspect that many more lesions are inherited than is suggested by MAV prevalence, and that a large fraction of biallelic mutations are also caused by inherited lesions. Our results demonstrate that DNA lesions serve as durable, transgenerational templates for mutagenesis in C. elegans . We speculate that lesion segregation in the early embryo may be a source of mosaicism and genetic diversity in humans, as well. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. National Institutes of Health, https://ror.org/01cwqze88, R01HG012252

Dicer has long been viewed as the RNAse III enzyme that generates small regulatory RNAs to drive RNA interference (RNAi) machinery and posttranscriptional gene silencing. However, a growing body of ev...

Abstract. Comparative genomics provides a powerful framework to uncover the molecular and evolutionary mechanisms that shape genetic diversity, revealing h

Miklas et al. characterize age-related C. elegans intestinal secretory-pathway proteins using proximity labeling tools and in vivo proteomics. They identify a conserved secreted phosphatase, ACP7, that extends lifespan in a secretion- and phosphatase-dependent manner. This resource highlights the role of extracellular enzymes in regulating lifespan.