An innovative scientific instrument, the Compact Color Biofinder may change the game in the search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

While lower vertebrates can repair their adult hearts after a heart attack, mammals -- including humans -- cannot. The ability to regenerate dead muscle tissue in mammalian hearts disappears just a few days after birth because the heart muscle cells, called cardiomyocytes, exit the cell cycle. In 2020, researchers reported that surgery to remove the left ventricle apex of the heart of pigs, one day after birth, somehow extended the replication ability of heart muscle cells. To better understand the underlying gene expression changes in this extended regeneration window, researchers now report nuclear RNA-sequencing of heart muscle cells, using this porcine model. From such knowledge, and much further research yet to come, clinicians may potentially learn how to regenerate adult heart cardiomyocytes after a heart attack.

Along with high blood pressure, diabetes, and smoking, environmental factors such as air pollution are highly predictive of people's chances of dying, especially from heart attack and stroke, a new study shows.

The neural and cognitive complexity of the octopus could originate from a molecular analogy with the human brain, according to a new study. The research shows that the same 'jumping genes' are active both in the human brain and in the brain of two species, Octopus vulgaris, the common octopus, and Octopus bimaculoides, the Californian octopus.

The female hormone estradiol was found to suppress psoriasis in mice by regulating neutrophil and macrophage cells. The conditional knockout mice without the natural ovarian hormones estradiol showed symptoms of severe skin inflammation.