Briefing

The Expedition 73 and Axiom Mission 4 crews spent their first of two weeks together conducting science aboard the International Space Station.

Both stations are hubs of scientific research.

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It’s another step on the road to one day discovering what dark matter could be.

Scientists have discovered that the bacteria behind Lyme disease and anaplasmosis have a sneaky way of surviving inside ticks—they hijack the tick’s own cell functions to steal cholesterol they need to grow. By tapping into a built-in protein pathway, the bacteria keep themselves alive until they can infect a new host. The research opens the door to new methods of stopping these diseases before ticks ever get the chance to bite. A new web tool also reveals that this trick might be used by other blood-feeding bugs too.

A promising path to fighting COVID and other coronaviruses may have been based on a serious mistake. Scientists had zeroed in on a part of the virus called the NiRAN domain, believed to be a powerful target for new antiviral drugs. But when a Rockefeller team revisited a highly cited 2022 study, they found the evidence didn’t hold up. Key molecules shown in the original virus model were actually missing. Their discovery could help prevent wasted time and resources in the race to develop better treatments—and highlights how even one bad blueprint can throw off years of research.

Scientists have discovered that starving and then refeeding worms can reveal surprising secrets about aging. When a specific gene (called TFEB) is missing, these worms don’t bounce back from fasting—they instead enter a state that looks a lot like aging in humans, with signs of stress and cell damage. This research gives scientists a simple but powerful way to study how aging begins—and how it might be stopped. Even more intriguing, the same process might help explain how some cancer cells survive treatment by going into a kind of sleep mode.

Researchers from Sweden have discovered that the human brain continues to grow new cells in the memory region—called the hippocampus—even into old age. Using advanced tools to examine brain samples from people of all ages, the team identified the early-stage cells that eventually become neurons. These findings confirm that our brains remain more adaptable than previously believed, opening the door to potential treatments for memory loss and brain-related disorders.

Smarter people don’t just crunch numbers better—they actually see the future more clearly. Examining thousands of over-50s, Bath researchers found the brightest minds made life-expectancy forecasts more than twice as accurate as those with the lowest IQs. By tying cognitive tests and genetic markers to real-world predictions, the study shows how sharp probability skills translate into wiser decisions about everything from crossing the road to planning retirement—and hints that clearer risk information could help everyone close the gap.

Mice taught to link smells with tastes, and later fear, revealed how the amygdala teams up with cortical regions to let the brain draw powerful indirect connections. Disabling this circuit erased the links, hinting that similar pathways in humans could underlie disorders like PTSD and psychosis, and might be tuned with future brain-modulation therapies.