When cell division (mitosis) takes too long, it can be a sign that something is wrong with the cells, for example DNA damage or chromosomal instability. That’s why our cells come with an innate ability to tell the time, with a stress response known as the mitotic stopwatch pathway activating after prolonged mitosis. Now, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have found that certain cancers can ‘lose their sense of time’ to avoid cellular stress responses, revealing new insights that could shape future anti-cancer therapeutics.

The 9th Tsuneko & Reiji Okazaki Award was presented to Professor Masatsugu Toyota of Saitama University on November 27, 2025, at Nagoya University. The international honor recognizes Professor Toyota’s research on how plants sense and respond to touch and chemical signals. The award ceremony took place during the 11th International Symposium on Transformative Bio-Molecules.

Listening to the "whispers" of electrons and crystals has lead to a quantum discovery with terahertz light that could help us advance technological innovations and life science research.

Researchers have developed new means of recycling a common pollutant associated with groundwater and agricultural runoff: nitrate.  By developing an electrocatalyst that turns nitrate into ammonia, they have also helped make ammonia production more greener.

Researchers and students from Okayama University of Science (OUS) and Mapúa University (MU) in the Philippines held their third joint colloquium, the “International Seminar on Sustainable Materials, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering,” as the opening event of MU’s International Month. More than 400 participants joined the hybrid event, which featured invited talks, student presentations, and award-winning posters, as well as campus visits, museum tours, and a student-led English–Japanese Café. The program is deepening research collaboration and inspiring future graduate study at OUS, marking a new phase of academic exchange between the two universities.

Researchers from The University of Osaka found migration of glucose and fructose from the blood to saliva drives oral microbiome dysbiosis in patients with type 2 diabetes, increasing the development of dental caries. This suggests that glycemic control could be an effective strategy for controlling dental caries in this population.

Salt stress is a major factor that impairs plant growth and yield. In a breakthrough, researchers from Waseda University have revealed that Arabidopsis thaliana myosin XI-1—a member of the motor protein myosin XI—significantly regulates adaptation to salt stress via intracellular sodium ion (Na⁺) homeostasis. It can thus serve as a promising molecular target for the development of salt-tolerant crops, contributing to sustainable farming in saline-affected regions.

In organic synthesis, replacing lithium with sodium would be a significant achievement because it is >1000 times more abundant and its extraction from seawater is sustainable and inexpensive. This research demonstrates the first environmental-friendly organosodium methodology that could sustainably replace lithium in modern day organic synthesis. These findings are published in Nature Synthesis on December 8, 2025.

A research group led by Drs. Shusuke Tada and Takashi Tsuyama at the Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toho University, has demonstrated that overexpression of Cdc10-dependent transcript 1 (CDT1), a key regulator of DNA replication initiation, induces DNA damage and potentially results in genetic mutations. Although previous studies have linked CDT1 overexpression to cellular transformation and tumorigenesis, the underlying mechanism has remained unclear. The findings not only reveal the impact of CDT1 overexpression on DNA replication progression post initiation but also provide molecular insights into its role in cancer development.

Brain development during the initial years is critical, shaped by both environment and caregiver behaviors. To clarify the causal relationship between maternal psychological distress and neuropsychiatric developmental delays, researchers in Japan analyzed data from over 82,000 mother–child pairs in a large-scale nationwide cohort. They found that distress within 1 year postpartum had stronger effects on the toddler’s neurodevelopment than prenatal distress, emphasizing the importance of continuous maternal mental health support before and after childbirth.