Populations in the Southern Caucasus have maintained remarkably consistent genetic ancestry for over 5,000 years, even through periods of significant cultural transformation. Recent research conducted by an international team from Germany, Georgia, Armenia, and Norway indicates that, although there were some genetic inputs from the Eurasian Steppe and Anatolia throughout the Bronze Age, the fundamental local gene pool remained stable across millennia. A Landmark Archaeogenetic Study Researchers at the Max Planck-Harvard Research Centre for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean…

The linguistic abilities of contemporary artificial intelligence systems are remarkable. We can now participate in genuine dialogues with systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and others, exhibiting a fluency nearly akin to that of a human. Nevertheless, our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms within these networks that yield such extraordinary outcomes remains limited. A recent study published in the Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (JSTAT) elucidates a component of this enigma. It indicates that when less data is utilised…

The idea seems futuristic: At ETH Zurich, various disciplines are working together to combine conventional materials with bacteria, algae and fungi. The common goal: to create living materials that acquire useful properties thanks to the metabolism of microorganisms – “such as the ability to bind CO2 from the air by means of photosynthesis,” says Mark Tibbitt, Professor of Macromolecular Engineering at ETH Zurich. An interdisciplinary research team led by Tibbitt has now turned this vision into reality: it has stably…

About 100 cells divide every second in our body. A key protein in cell division is a protein kinase termed Plk1, because it activates other proteins involved in this process. Plk1 is also overexpressed in many types of cancer. This makes it a promising target for cancer therapies. However, drugs that inhibit Plk1 have often proven ineffective. New findings by researchers led by Peter Lenart and Monica Gobran may help to improve therapeutic approaches. They discovered a previously unknown function…