Can a snake in Thailand influence the evolution of a snake in the Philippines even if the two species never cross paths? According to a new study, the answer may be yes. The research suggests that migratory predators can act as evolutionary “messengers”, carrying their avoidance behavior across continents and linking the fates of species separated by thousands of kilometers. The findings challenge a longstanding assumption in mimicry theory and open the door to a hidden world of long-distance evolutionary relationships connecting distant ecosystems through migration.

A new single-protein analysis technique gives researchers an unprecedented ability to study proteins called scramblases, which have critical roles in biology. The development of the new technique, in a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, expands the toolkit available to cell biologists and biophysicists and could someday be useful in devising new strategies against multiple diseases.

A local research study led by scientists from the A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore (A*STAR GIS) has uncovered how the gut microbiome can influence gene activity in the liver by acting on short stretches of regulatory DNA that function like molecular “switches”. By testing the activity of more than 100,000 human DNA switches linked to liver biology and comparing results from both in vitro and in vivo approaches, the team identified which switches operate under real physiological conditions and how microbial signals can modify their activity. This provides a clearer biological basis for how gut microbes shape liver function, offering new avenues for precision diagnostics and targeted therapies for liver disease. The findings were published in Molecular Cell.

How do you preserve one of the world’s rarest animals when so few remain? Researchers created an unprecedented 3D digital archive of the vaquita — the world’s most endangered marine mammal. Using advanced CT and micro-CT imaging, the team captured the skeleton of a female porpoise from 1966, in extraordinary detail, from its overall anatomy to microscopic bone structures. Freely available online, the models provide a lasting resource for research, education and conservation, ensuring this critically endangered species on the verge of extinction can be studied for generations to come.

Advances in structural biology have allowed scientists to determine molecular structures with atomic‑level detail, sometimes yielding static snapshots that do not reflect the dynamism of proteins. However, these motions are often crucial for biological function. Researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) together with international collaborators have now combined several methods to shed light on how proteins ‘breathe’ and how some experimental techniques freeze their motion. The findings—which could boost protein design approaches and improve AI-based structural prediction tools—were published in Nature Chemistry.