A new Review in Trends in Genetics revisits the chromosome scaffold model and integrates recent findings on condensins, topoisomerase IIα, and physical forces that shape mitotic chromosomes. The authors propose that pre-existing condensed chromatin domains in interphase nuclei may serve as dynamic “building blocks” that are gathered, crosslinked, and reorganized during mitosis, linking chromosome-associated proteins with the physical properties of chromatin.

Four years of monitoring after the 2019 Brumadinho tailings dam collapse show that Brazil's Paraopeba River has not returned to a stable state. Bottom-dwelling invertebrate communities were reshuffled continuously at every site, and the reaches that received tailings show no sign of settling. Tributaries held most of the species, including many found nowhere else, and act as reservoirs that resupply the damaged channel. Protecting them is now the priority for restoring the basin.

Preparing the next generation of animal science professionals requires students to develop both strong scientific skills and the ability to apply that knowledge in real-world agricultural settings. A new program from the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture will provide undergraduate students with hands-on experiences that intentionally connect research, Extension and professional development. Phillip Myer and Jennie Ivey, professors in the UT Department of Animal Science, are leading a new $750,000 project funded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture to establish F.U.S.E. Animal Science – the Fellowship for Undergraduate Scientific Exchange in Animal Science. The five-year program is designed to prepare undergraduate students for careers throughout animal science and agriculture by developing research, Extension, communication and professional skills.

Research teams from INRAE, the University of Clermont Auvergne and the CNRS have reconstructed 10 ancient genomes (paleogenomes) that are the common ancestors of 84 botanical species of agronomic interest. Their work makes it possible to identify particular genes, shared across different species of plants and retained throughout their evolutionary history, that might play a key role in adapting to environmental constraints such as drought. The comparative study, which focuses on wheat and barley genes, has enabled the identification of around a hundred variants of genes that have been key to helping these crops to adapt to changes in climate across the 10,000-year history of their domestication and selection by humans. The teams have developed two open-access tools for scientists and plant breeders. The results, published in Molecular Plant and Nature Plants, open up new avenues for varietal selection programmes now faced with the challenge of adaptation to a changing climate.

Tooth enamel is famously hard, but its strength depends on microscopic organization laid down during tooth development. Researchers at the University of Southern California have now shown that a small amphipathic helix within ameloblastin helps enamel-forming cells orient themselves and build that ordered prism pattern. When the motif was disrupted in mice, enamel still reached normal thickness, yet it was less mineralized and lost much of its normal prismatic architecture. 

Researchers at ULB and UCLouvain have uncovered an exceptional DNA repair strategy in bdelloid rotifers, tiny animals capable of surviving radiation doses that would be lethal to humans. This mechanism, named “BIHER”, provides new insights into the conditions that enable life to adapt to extreme environments.

Long before dinosaurs appeared on Earth, fierce predatory fish developed crushing jaws and sharp teeth to survive and diversify in ancient oceans.

Flinders University researchers have used a new combination of techniques to find out how these armoured fish called placoderms – the first vertebrates to evolve jaws and teeth more than 400 million years ago – caught their prey on an exotic ancient reef that once covered what is now northern Western Australia.