General science & research news
A team of researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has shown, through high-resolution molecular dynamics simulations, that a DNA double helix rotating inside a carbon nanotube can transport water and ions against a concentration gradient, a molecular-scale version of the Archimedes screw, one of humanity’s oldest pumping mechanisms. The study, posted as a preprint […]
For more than four centuries, one of the great conspiracy theories of the Renaissance held that Grand Duke Francesco I de’ Medici was poisoned by his own brother, Cardinal Ferdinando. New ancient DNA evidence published in iScience (Cell Press) puts that theory to rest: Francesco died of malaria. A team led by Yale University researchers […]
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed a rule that would fundamentally restructure how the federal government funds science, and critics say the historical precedent is a warning from the Soviet Union’s darkest scientific era. Under the proposed rule, political appointees would gain authority to decide how federal research dollars are distributed, […]
A Comment published in The Lancet argues that the United States’ withdrawal from the World Health Organization and sweeping cuts to global health funding are directly compromising the response to the ongoing Bundibugyo ebolavirus (BDBV) outbreak, with implications that extend far beyond the current crisis. The Comment, authored by Krutika Kuppalli (UT Southwestern Medical Center), […]
Researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center have identified a molecular gatekeeper essential for the earliest stages of pregnancy, an epigenetic enzyme called PRMT1 that governs the self-renewal and differentiation of trophoblast cells, the precursors of the placenta. The study, published in Nature Communications by Purbasa Dasgupta, Soumen Paul, and colleagues, shows that PRMT1 […]
This is a follow-up to 1ban.news’s coverage of Super Typhoon Bavi’s landfall on Guam on July 6, 2026. Four days after slamming Guam as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon, Bavi has transformed into a different kind of threat. The storm has weakened substantially, sustained winds have dropped from 285 km/h to approximately 140 km/h, and […]
A single Dutch sperm donor is estimated to have fathered between 550 and 600 children. A Danish sperm bank unknowingly used a donor carrying a cancer-risk mutation in at least 197 children, some of whom developed cancer, some of whom died. In the United Kingdom, more than half of all sperm used in fertility treatments […]
The editorial does not offer a radically new prescription. It calls for the fundamentals: renewed political commitment, restored and increased funding, removal of legal and social barriers to care for key populations, and a focus on the regions and communities where the epidemic continues to accelerate. What is new is the urgency, a recognition that […]
In 218 BCE, Hannibal Barca led an estimated 46,000 soldiers, 37 war elephants, and thousands of horses across the Alps in 15 days. By the time they reached the Italian plain, roughly half the men were dead. What remained of the army went on to defeat Rome at the Battle of the Trebia, but the […]
