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Did you know that a woman's heartbeat changes in subtle ways during her menstrual cycle? These rhythmic changes, triggered by hormonal fluctuations, offer a unique insight into the complex interactions between the female brain and heart. In a new paper published in Science Advances, Max Planck researchers Jellina Prinsen, Julia Sacher and Arno Villringer explain how these naturally occurring fluctuations could affect stress, mood and long-term cardiovascular and neurological health.

Nerves and muscles must work together perfectly for us to move. Researchers at the University of Basel have identified a large number of genes in mice that help maintain the connection between muscle and nerve cells. The study, published in "Nature Communications", also provides valuable insights for the treatment of currently incurable neuromuscular diseases.

Circuits in the brain that are crucially involved in implementing decisions by directing between perseverance, exploration and disengagement have been identified by a UCL-led research team, in a new study in mice. The neural circuits found in the brainstem may help to further understand a number of neuropsychiatric conditions including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), autism and major depressive disorder.

Team led by plant physiologists Iris Finkemeier and Guillaume Née at the University of Münster discovers molecular basis for balance between seed dormancy and stress resistance To germinate or not to germinate? With plants, the right time to start their life cycle determines their chances of growth.

Scientists have identified previously unknown neural modules in the brain that control movement and adapt during skill learning. Their findings challenge long-held ideas about how the brain organizes movement. For nearly a century, scientists have known that different parts of the human brain's cortex control different body movements.

Egg cells need stamina: They are formed in a women-s body before birth and have to be on standby for decades to possibly be fertilized one day. But as they age, they accumulate more and more DNA damage. Until now, it has been unclear why the cell-s repair mechanisms do not fix the damage. Researchers led by Melina Schuh and Ninadini Sharma at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Multidisciplinary Sciences have now shown in experiments with mice that aged egg cells repair their DNA less efficiently than young ones, and that repair becomes more error-prone with advancing maternal age.

ISTA scientists revise our knowledge about the auxin signaling mechanism in plants According to Karl Popper, a theory or hypothesis can never be definitely proven, but it can be falsified. This implies that it should be rigorously tested for its validity. Scientific progress often involves revisiting and revising established textbook knowledge.

Some bacteria deploy tiny spearguns to retaliate against rival attacks. Researchers at the University of Basel mimicked attacks by poking bacteria with an ultra-sharp tip. Using this approach, they have uncovered that bacteria assemble their nanoweapons in response to cell envelope damage and rapidly strike back with high precision.

For the first time, researchers have been able to observe how the pupils react during sleep over a period of several hours. A look under the eyelids showed them that more happens in the brain during sleep than was previously assumed. Our eyes are typically closed when we sleep.

A study published in BMC Biology reveals how tiny changes in the expression of a single gene can lead to big differences in eye size. The study was carried out in two closely related fruit fly species, Drosophila mauritiana and Drosophila simulans , which are model organisms for studies on evolutionary developmental biology.

Everything is poison, nothing is poison: it's the dose that makes the poison! A team of scientists from the University of Freiburg has described the mechanisms that lead our cells to naturally produce hydrogen cyanide. This gas, toxic in excessive doses, plays a major role in the proper functioning of our bodies.

The study, now featured on the cover of Science , provides a ground-breaking perspective on the evolutionary history of molluscs. An international team of experts has resolved long-standing questions about the evolutionary history of molluscs, one of the most diverse zoological groups on the planet. The study, now featured on the cover of Science , reconstructs the family tree of molluscs and provides a ground-breaking perspective on their evolutionary history.

On Rare Disease Day 2025, the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg illuminates once again its building in blue, green, pink, and purple, joining buildings across Luxembourg and around the world. This show of solidarity, organised in partnership with ALAN, the Luxembourg association for rare diseases , pays tribute to the 300 million people diagnosed worldwide with one of the more than 6000 known rare diseases, including 30,000 in Luxembourg.

This protein plays an important role in maintaining the integrity of the barrier that controls exchanges between the blood and the brain When faced with chronic stress, some people develop anxiety and depressive symptoms, while others show great resilience. How can such differences be explained? It could be attributable, at least in part, to a protein that acts as a cannabinoid receptor and is present in the structure that controls exchanges between the bloodstream and the brain, suggests a study just published in Nature Neuroscience .

For the first time, an international collaboration has demonstrated that synthetic carbon assimilation can operate more efficiently in a living system than its natural counterpart. Researchers in Tobias Erb-s lab at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology engineered a synthetic metabolic pathway into a bacterium and showed in a direct comparison that it can generate significantly more biomass from the one-carbon compound formic acid and CO2 than the natural bacterial strain.

Researchers reveal new insights into the how the matrix layer of HIV-1 becomes mature Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry have discovered the mechanism behind an important step in the life cycle of HIV. Working together with teams at Heidelberg and Yale Universities, they found that the enigmatic -spacer peptide 2-, one of the virus components, plays a key role in converting immature HIV-1 particles into infectious particles.

Classical models of collective behavior fail to explain the mechanisms driving desert locust swarms Desert locust swarms affect millions of lives worldwide.

Our organs age at different rates, and a blood test determining how much they've each aged could predict the risk of conditions like lung cancer and heart disease decades later, finds a new study led by UCL researchers. The findings, published in The Lancet Digital Health , show how accelerated ageing in specific organs can predict not only diseases affecting that organ, but diseases across the rest of the body as well.

The symptoms of schizophrenia vary greatly from person to person. A new study shows how these differences manifest themselves in the structure of the brain. Schizophrenia is a complex mental health condition that affects perception, thought and emotions. This complexity is reflected in the individual manifestations of the disease: for some patients, perceptual disturbances are the main problem, while for others, cognitive impairments are more prevalent.

Mouse macrophages visualized using confocal microscopy, showing the nuclei (blue) and the actin network (orange). Mónica Fernández Monreal, Bordeaux Imaging Center Macrophages, key cells of the immune system, play a central role in cleaning the body by ingesting and destroying pathogens (bacteria, viruses, etc.) and damaged cells.