Scientists demonstrate how a weak handgrip can accurately correlate with numerous diseases and poor performance of daily chores among older adults

Contact sports are becoming increasingly popular in Africa, raising concern about the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This report highlights the urgent need for awareness, education, and research on CTE across the region. The authors propose a multifaceted approach that includes improving medical infrastructure, increasing funding, addressing sociocultural barriers to brain donation, and educating healthcare professionals. These efforts are essential to prevent serious long-term health consequences and prepare Africa for the growing challenge ahead.

This review focuses on the critical role of amino acid metabolism in breast cancer development and progression. It explains how cancer cells reprogram amino acid usage—especially glutamine, serine, glycine, aspartate, arginine, and tryptophan—to support proliferation, survival, immune evasion, and metastasis. The review emphasizes metabolic heterogeneity among different breast cancer subtypes and explores therapeutic strategies targeting these pathways.

The photoreaction cycle of the blue-light receptor protein BLUF domains involves forward and reverse proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions, yet a unified cross-species mechanism is lacking. By capturing the key proton relay intermediates, for the first time we resolved the photoreaction mechanism of the BLUF domain light state using a unified kinetic model.

This review article provides a comprehensive overview of stress granules (SGs) —membraneless organelles formed in response to cellular stress—and their interactions with other organelles. It explores their structure, function, roles in health and disease, especially neurodegeneration, and discusses methodologies used to study these interactions. SGs influence critical cellular pathways, and understanding their interplay with both membrane-bound and membraneless organelles can reveal potential therapeutic targets for diseases like ALS and FTD.

Recently, Prof. Shou-Fei Zhu’s research group at Nankai University reported in CCS Chemistry a highly efficient and selective hydro-silylation reaction of asymmetric internal alkynes with trisubstituted silanes, catalyzed by a cobalt complex bearing a cyclopropane-based diphosphine ligand. The reaction proceeds under mild conditions, demonstrates broad substrate scope and excellent functional group tolerance, and is generally applicable for the synthesis of alkenylsilanes. Notably, the reaction displays a unique additive effect, where the regioselectivity reverses depending on the additive used. Mechanistic studies revealed that different additives alter the spin state of the catalyst during the reaction, leading to divergent regioselectivities. This study provides new insights into the rational application of additives in catalysis.

Monocyte-derived alveolar macrophages, or Mo-AMs, have been identified as key drivers of lung fibrosis disease, but the mechanisms of their pro-fibrotic behavior and survival in the lungs remained unclear. Researchers now show that TREM2, a cell surface receptor protein on Mo-AM cells, is a key mediator in this pathology and a valuable target for developing strategies to neutralize the pro-fibrotic effect of these macrophages.