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🧬 Scientists Just Found a Hidden Layer of the Mammalian Genome Our genes may be considerably more combinatorial than we realized. Researchers have discovered that mammalian cells can take pieces of RNA copied from completely different genes — sometimes located on different chromosomes — and splice them together into a single messenger RNA. That hybrid RNA can then be used to manufacture a new protein containing parts encoded by both genes. Using direct RNA sequencing, the team detected more than 30,000 candidate chimeric RNAs in mouse immune cells and more than 900 in human macrophages. Crucially, they then showed that at least one of these strange hybrids is not biological noise. In mice, an inflammatory response causes two genes called Gsdmd and Tmem106a to combine into a chimeric RNA. Its resulting hybrid protein helps accelerate pyroptosis — the dramatic process in which infected immune cells rupture and release inflammatory signals. When researchers specifically blocked the hybrid protein, the mice became worse at controlling Salmonella infection. But they were also dramatically more resistant to lethal inflammation in a sepsis model. Even stranger, inflammation appears to physically reorganize the genome: normally distant chromosome regions move closer together inside the nucleus, helping their RNA transcripts combine. There is a major caveat. The detailed functional experiments were performed in mice. Similar chimeric RNAs exist in human immune cells, but scientists have not yet established what most of them do. The researchers themselves say it could take years to map their biological importance. Still, if the phenomenon is widespread, our current catalogue of proteins may be missing an entire class of molecules hiding in combinations of genes we already thought we understood. We finished sequencing the human genome more than two decades ago. Apparently, reading the instruction manual was another problem entirely. #Genetics #Biology #RNA #Genome #Immunology #Biotechnology #Science https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10982-x

🪐 Saturn Has Grown a Giant 10-Sided Storm Pattern Saturn has been famous for decades for the enormous hexagon circling its north pole. Now Hubble has discovered something even stranger at the opposite end of the planet: a vast decagon — a 10-sided atmospheric wave — surrounding Saturn’s south pole. The structure sits roughly between 58° and 63° south latitude inside a jet stream moving at about 400 km/h. The decagon itself drifts much more slowly around the planet, at about 10 km/h, while its corners oscillate back and forth over periods of roughly a month. Multiwavelength Hubble observations show that the pattern extends through several atmospheric levels rather than existing as a superficial cloud shape. What makes the discovery particularly intriguing is that it seems to be new. Cassini saw no comparable structure before its mission ended in 2017. Hubble data reveal faint hints beginning in 2023, with the ten-sided shape becoming increasingly distinct in 2024 and 2025. Astronomers may therefore be watching a giant planetary wave form almost in real time. Scientists do not yet know why Saturn produces geometric atmospheric structures at all. Models suggest the decagon may be a huge wave trapped inside the jet stream, possibly triggered by an instability or a nearby vortex. But why the north settled on six sides and the south apparently chose ten remains unexplained. Earth gets hurricanes. Saturn apparently prefers geometry. #Saturn #Hubble #Astronomy #PlanetaryScience #Space #Science https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aee4251

🌍 The US Was the Only Country to Vote Against the UN's New World Map On Friday, the UN voted to adopt the Equal Earth map projection. 164 member states voted in favour of the resolution to change the map, 6 abstained — and only the United States voted against. ⚡️ The breakthrough in a nutshell: The Equal Earth projection aims to "provide a fair representation of the real sizes of the world's regions, in particular Africa." 🔬 Key findings: • The world — including Google Maps — still mostly uses the Mercator projection, created in 1569. • Mercator is great for navigation: north–south lines keep constant true bearings relative to the equator. But it distorts country sizes: regions farther from the equator look disproportionately bigger than those closer to it. • On a Mercator map, Greenland looks about the size of Africa. In reality, Africa is roughly 14 times larger than Greenland. Equal Earth is designed to fix that. 💼 Why it matters: Critics of the most popular projection have long noted it isn't abandoned partly because it "enlarges and centres" Europe and North America. The UN resolution states that "the Mercator projection, due to its distortion, perpetuates an unbalanced representation of the world." The first image shows the Equal Earth projection; the second shows the Mercator projection. #Maps #Cartography #Geography #UN #Science @science