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RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 26 November 2025 Soft fibres that adapt their form and mechanical properties reversibly and rapidly under a magnetic field that is safe for human health have been developed and used to make yarns and fabrics. These programmable fibrous assemblies could be applied in soft robotics and wearable technologies.
General Control enters Novo Nordisk’s Co-Creation Greenhouse to advance multiplex epigenetic editing for complex chronic disease. General Control, a previously quiet biotech start-up focused on gene expression therapeutics, has emerged from stealth with a significant validation: a collaboration with pharma giant Novo Nordisk through its Co-Creation Greenhouse program. The partnership aims to advance General Control’s programmable epigenetic activation platform, a technology designed to switch genes on or off with precision, durability and reversibility. Novo Nordisk’s fantastic opportunity lasts for 6 to 12 months, designed to help small startups with novel ideas really take off. In this case, General Control is…
The update to CRN’s Vitamin and Mineral Safety, 4th Edition replaces a single UL (upper limit) value for vitamin K, encompassing vitamin K1 and vitamin K2. “CRN’s updated MK-7 chapter reflects our commitment to providing rigorous, transparent safety evaluations grounded in the totality of evidence,” said Andrea Wong, senior vice president, scientific and regulatory affairs at CRN, in a press release. “Establishing a HOI for Vitamin K2 (MK-7) represents a major step forward for scientific understanding and responsible product development across the dietary supplement category.”Vitamin KK1 is found in green leafy vegetables such as lettuce, broccoli and spinach and makes…
U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), the independent organization that helps develop quality standards for pharmaceuticals, has launched new standards for viral vectors that they hope will help the rapidly developing field of cell and gene therapy. The newest standards, which are due to be discussed during a session at Bioprocessing Summit Europe in March, aim to support manufacturers and regulators in maintaining the quality and consistency of advanced therapies. “The field is moving very fast with lots of innovation, more therapies, and new companies jumping into the space,” explains Diane McCarthy, PhD, vice president of biologics at USP. “There’s a need for…
Vibration plates may boost bone density, muscle strength and balance.They may also reduce post-workout muscle soreness, especially for beginners.Be sure to consult a health care professional before using vibration plates. Picture this: You’re wandering around the gym trying to figure out what exercise to do next when you spot someone standing on a platform while their body visibly vibrates. You stop and wonder: What the heck is that? That odd-looking platform is a vibrating plate, also called a whole-body vibration (WBV) machine. It’s been causing quite a buzz on social media lately and may have appeared recently at your local…
Hundreds of thousands of children are set to be lifted out of poverty, as the UK government has announced that it will end the limit restricting universal credit support to two children per family.The announcement—part of the autumn budget that was leaked by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) ahead of a speech by the chancellor of the exchequer, Rachel Reeves—said that the two child benefit cap would be lifted from April 2026. Its removal would cost £2.3bn in 2026-27 and £3bn in 2029-30, said the OBR.This comes after a year and a half of political infighting within the Labour…
Biotech pet nutrition specialist Akston has spearheaded new clinical research at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, US, to assess its once-weekly GLP-1 protein designed to help cats regulate their appetite for better weight management. The trial will assess the next-generation therapy over roughly three months in domestic cats affected by excess weight. Akston is also advancing an analogous GLP-1 program for dogs, which is approximately six months behind the feline program.The therapy was designed using the company’s proprietary Fc-fusion protein platform, which designs, synthesizes, and tests therapies “more quickly and cost-effectively, while precisely tailoring immune system interactions to achieve…
Summer’s ending, but your sex life is heating up.
To understand how organisms are related, researchers use molecular information to construct phylogenetic trees. Most of the time, scientists use thousands of protein-coding sequences to determine these relationships. However, when organisms evolve rapidly, acquire the same characteristics independently, or lose traits, accurately assigning a species a place on the tree of life becomes difficult. In response to this, researchers are on the hunt for new genomic markers to help them resolve species’ lineages. Transposable elements, non-coding regions of DNA that can replicate themselves in the genome, present one potential option for acquiring more phylogenetic information. When researchers first considered these…
Afrodi sat on the very edge of her seat. They were here, they were finally here. Like the rest of her team, her eyes were glued to the full-wall screen. Venus: the final frontier.Not that the public thought that, of course: completely uninhabitable was completely uninteresting. Afrodi couldn’t disagree more. She’d been enamoured with Venus ever since childhood, staring up at it through her mum’s telescope. A perfect, rose-tinted disk. She’d loved the constellations, loved the other planets, but none had captured her like Venus. She felt drawn to it.As a teen, Afrodi had observed the public’s obsession with Mars.…