Scientists at UC San Diego have moved one step closer to unlocking a superpower held by some of nature’s greatest “masters of disguise.”

Octopuses, squids, cuttlefish and other animals in the cephalopod family are well known for their ability to camouflage, changing the color of their skin to blend in with the environment. This remarkable display of mimicry is made possible by complex biological processes involving xanthommatin, a natural pigment.

Because of its color-shifting capabilities, xanthommatin has long intrigued scientists and even the military, but has proven difficult to produce and research in the lab — until now.

In a new study, a team led by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography describes a major breakthrough in understanding nature’s ability to camouflage, as they successfully developed a new way to produce large amounts of xanthommatin pigment.

Their nature-inspired method massively over-produced the pigmented material for the first time in a bacterium, opening new possibilities for the pigment’s use in a wide range of materials and cosmetics — from photoelectronic devices and thermal coatings to dyes and UV protectants. The new approach produces up to 1,000 times more material than traditional methods.

“We’ve developed a new technique that has sped up our capabilities to make a material, in this case xanthommatin, in a bacterium for the first time,” said Bradley Moore, the study’s senior author and a marine chemist with joint appointments at Scripps Oceanography and UC San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “This natural pigment is what gives an octopus or a squid its ability to camouflage — a fantastic superpower — and our achievement to advance production of this material is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Published Nov. 3 in Nature Biotechnology, the study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

The study authors said their discovery is significant, not just for understanding this unique pigment — which sheds light into the biology and chemistry of the animal kingdom — but also because the technique they used could be applied to many other chemicals, potentially helping industries move away from fossil fuel-based materials toward nature-based alternatives.

A promising pigment

Beyond cephalopods, xanthommatin is also found in insects within the arthropod group, contributing to the brilliant orange and yellow hues of monarch butterfly wings and the bright reds seen in dragonfly bodies and fly eyes.

Despite xanthommatin’s fantastic color properties, it is poorly understood due to a persistent supply challenge. Harvesting the pigment from animals isn’t scalable or efficient, and traditional lab methods are labor intensive, reliant on chemical synthesis that is low yielding.

Researchers in the Moore Lab at Scripps Oceanography sought to change that, working with colleagues across UC San Diego and at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability in Denmark to design a solution, a sort of growth feedback loop they call “growth coupled biosynthesis.”

The way in which they bioengineered the octopus pigment, a chemical, in a bacterium represents a novel departure from typical biotechnological approaches. Their approach intimately connected the production of the pigment with the survival of the bacterium that made it.

“We needed a whole new approach to address this problem,” said Leah Bushin, lead author of the study, now a faculty member at Stanford University and formerly a postdoctoral researcher in the Moore Lab at Scripps Oceanography, where her work was conducted. “Essentially, we came up with a way to trick the bacteria into making more of the material that we needed.”

Typically, when researchers try to get a microbe to produce a foreign compound, it creates a major metabolic burden. Without significant genetic manipulation, the microbe resists diverting its essential resources to produce something unfamiliar.

By linking the cell’s survival to the production of their target compound, the team was able to trick the microbe into creating xanthommatin. To do this, they started with a genetically engineered “sick” cell, one that could only survive if it produced both the desired pigment, along with a second chemical called formic acid. For every molecule of pigment generated, the cell also produced one molecule of formic acid. The formic acid, in turn, provides fuel for the cell’s growth, creating a self-sustaining loop that drives pigment production.

“We made it such that activity through this pathway, of making the compound of interest, is absolutely essential for life. If the organism doesn’t make xanthommatin, it won’t grow,” said Bushin.

To further enhance the cells’ ability to produce the pigment, the team used robots to evolve and optimize the engineered microbes through two high-throughput adaptive laboratory evolution campaigns, which were developed by the lab of study co-author Adam Feist, professor in the Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and senior scientist at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability. The team also applied custom bioinformatics tools from the Feist Lab to identify key genetic mutations that boosted efficiency and enabled the bacteria to make the pigment directly from a single nutrient source.

“This project gives a glimpse into a future where biology enables the sustainable production of valuable compounds and materials through advanced automation, data integration and computationally driven design,” said Feist. “Here, we show how we can accelerate innovation in biomanufacturing by bringing together engineers, biologists and chemists using some of the most advanced strain-engineering techniques to develop and optimize a novel product in a relatively short time.”

Traditional approaches yield around five milligrams of pigment per liter “if you’re lucky,” said Bushin, while the new method yields between one to three grams per liter.

Getting from the planning stages to the actual experimentation in the lab took several years of dedicated work, but once the plan was put into motion, the results were almost immediate.

“It was one of my best days in the lab,” Bushin recalled of the first successful experiment. “I’d set up the experiment and left it overnight. When I came in the next morning and realized it worked and it was producing a lot of pigment, I was thrilled. Moments like that are why I do science.”

Next steps

Moore anticipates that this new biotech methodology, which is fully nature-inspired and non-invasive, will transform the way in which biochemicals are produced.

“We’ve really disrupted the way that people think about how you engineer a cell,” he said. “Our innovative technological approach sparked a huge leap in production capability. This new method solves a supply challenge and could now make this biomaterial much more broadly available.”

While some applications for this material are far-out, the authors noted active interest from the U.S. Department of Defense and cosmetics companies. According to the researchers, collaborators are interested in exploring the material’s natural camouflage capabilities, while skincare companies are interested in using it in natural sunscreens. Other industries see potential uses ranging from color-changing household paints to environmental sensors.

“As we look to the future, humans will want to rethink how we make materials to support our synthetic lifestyle of 8 billion people on Earth,” said Moore. “Thanks to federal funding, we’ve unlocked a promising new pathway for designing nature-inspired materials that are better for people and the planet.”

Additional study authors are Tobias Alter, María Alván-Vargas, Daniel Volke, Òscar Puiggené and Pablo Nikel from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability; Elina Olson from UC San Diego’s Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering; Lara Dürr and Mariah Avila from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego; and Taehwan Kim and Leila Deravi from Northeastern University.

Original Publication
Authors: Leah B. Bushin, Tobias B. Alter, María V. G. Alván-Vargas, Lara Dürr, Elina C. Olson, Mariah J. Avila, Daniel C. Volke, Òscar Puiggené, Taehwan Kim, Leila F. Deravi, Adam M. Feist, Pablo I. Nikel and Bradley S. Moore.
Journal: Nature Biotechnology
DOI: 10.1038/s41587-025-02867-7
Method of Research: Experimental study
Subject of Research: Animals
Article Title: Growth-coupled microbial biosynthesis of the animal pigment xanthommatin
Article Publication Date: 3-Nov-2025

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“Our flexible artificial tongue holds tremendous potential in spicy sensation estimation for portable taste-monitoring devices, movable humanoid robots, or patients with sensory impairments like ageusia, for example,” says Weijun Deng, the study’s lead author.

Currently, measuring flavor compounds in foods requires taste testers and complex laboratory methods.  As an alternative, scientists are developing artificial tongues, which can measure tastes including sweet and umami, among others. However, capsaicin in chili peppers, piperine in black pepper, and allicin in garlic produce stinging, tingling or burning sensations that are hard to replicate and measure with synthetic materials. Jing Hu and colleagues noted that the heat of peppers, for example, can be neutralized when their capsaicin is bound by casein proteins in milk. So, the team wanted to create an artificial tongue by adding casein to an electrochemical gel material and measuring spiciness through an electrical current change that occurs when casein binds to capsaicin.

The researchers created a tongue-shaped film by combining acrylic acid, choline chloride and skim milk powder, and then they exposed the solution to UV light. The resulting flexible and opaque gel conducted an electrical current. Ten seconds after the researchers added capsaicin on top of the film, the current decreased, showing its potential as an artificial, spice-detecting tongue. Initial tests showed that the milk-containing material responded to capsaicin concentrations ranging from below human detection to beyond levels perceived as painful (called the oral pain threshold). Additionally, the material detected other pungent-flavored compounds found in common hot sauce ingredients: ginger, black pepper, horseradish, garlic and onion.

As a proof-of-concept, the researchers tested eight pepper types and eight spicy foods (including several hot sauces) on the artificial tongue and measured how spicy they were by changes in electrical current. A panel of taste testers rated the spiciness of the same items. Results from the artificial tongue and the tasting panel matched well. Therefore, the researchers say that the casein-containing artificial tongue could be used to quickly test a food’s spiciness level — without putting one’s taste buds at risk.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Fund of Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Leather Green Design and Manufacture.

The paper’s abstract will be available on Oct.29 at 8 a.m. Eastern time here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acssensors.5c01329

###

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Original Publication
Authors: Weijun Deng, Jinzhi Yang, Huitao Wen and Jing Hu.
Journal: ACS Sensors
DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.5c01329
Article Title: A Soft and Flexible Artificial Tongue for Pungency Perception
Article Publication Date: 29-Oct-2025

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Most living things have some sort of excretory system — after all, what goes in must come out. In humans, excess nitrogen in the form of urea, uric acid and ammonia are flushed out in the urine. But many reptiles and birds package up some of those same nitrogen-containing chemicals into solids, or “urates,” that the animals eliminate through their cloacae. Scientists believe that this process may have evolved as a way to conserve water.

While forming crystals in pee is a potential evolutionary advantage for reptiles, it is a serious issue for humans. When too much uric acid is present in the human body, it can solidify into painful shards in the joints, causing gout, or in the urinary tract as kidney stones. Jennifer Swift and colleagues investigated how reptiles excrete crystalline waste safely, studying urates from more than 20 reptile species.

“This research was really inspired by a desire to understand the ways reptiles are able to excrete this material safely, in the hopes it might inspire new approaches to disease prevention and treatment,” explains Swift, the corresponding author on the study.

Microscope images revealed that three species (ball pythons, Angolan pythons and Madagascan tree boas) produced urates consisting of tiny textured microspheres varying from 1 to 10 micrometers wide. X-ray studies showed that the spheres consist of even smaller nanocrystals of uric acid and water.  Additionally, they discovered that uric acid plays an important role in converting ammonia into a less toxic, solid form. They speculate that uric acid may actually play a similar protective role in humans. Though further studies are needed, this work’s insights into snake pee could one day have important implications for human health.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Science Foundation, Georgetown University, the International Centre for Diffraction Data, and the Chiricahua Desert Museum.

The paper’s abstract will be available on Oct. 22 at 8 a.m. Eastern time here: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.5c10139

###

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Registered journalists can subscribe to the ACS journalist news portal on EurekAlert! to access embargoed and public science press releases. For media inquiries, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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CAMBRIDGE, MA — Before cells can divide, they first need to replicate all of their chromosomes, so that each of the daughter cells can receive a full set of genetic material. Until now, scientists had believed that as division occurs, the genome loses the distinctive 3D internal structure that it typically forms.

Once division is complete, it was thought, the genome gradually regains that complex, globular structure, which plays an essential role in controlling which genes are turned on in a given cell.

However, a new study from MIT shows that in fact, this picture is not fully accurate. Using a higher-resolution genome mapping technique, the research team discovered that small 3D loops connecting regulatory elements and genes persist in the genome during cell division, or mitosis.

“This study really helps to clarify how we should think about mitosis. In the past, mitosis was thought of as a blank slate, with no transcription and no structure related to gene activity. And we now know that that’s not quite the case,” says Anders Sejr Hansen, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT. “What we see is that there’s always structure. It never goes away.”

The researchers also discovered that these regulatory loops appear to strengthen when chromosomes become more compact in preparation for cell division. This compaction brings genetic regulatory elements closer together and encourages them to stick together. This may help cells “remember” interactions present in one cell cycle and carry it to the next one.

“The findings help to bridge the structure of the genome to its function in managing how genes are turned on and off, which has been an outstanding challenge in the field for decades,” says Viraat Goel PhD ’25, the lead author of the study.

Hansen and Edward Banigan, a research scientist in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, are the senior authors of the paper, which appears today in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. Leonid Mirny, a professor in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the Department of Physics, and Gerd Blobel, a professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, are also authors of the study.

A surprising finding

Over the past 20 years, scientists have discovered that inside the cell nucleus, DNA organizes itself into 3D loops. While many loops enable interactions between genes and regulatory regions that may be millions of base pairs away from each other, others are formed during cell division to compact chromosomes. Much of the mapping of these 3D structures has been done using a technique called Hi-C, originally developed by a team that included MIT researchers and was led by Job Dekker at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. To perform Hi-C, researchers use enzymes to chop the genome into many small pieces and biochemically link pieces that are near each other in 3D space within the cell’s nucleus. They then determine the identities of the interacting pieces by sequencing them.

However, that technique doesn’t have high enough resolution to pick out all specific interactions between genes and regulatory elements such as enhancers. Enhancers are short sequences of DNA that can help to activate the transcription of a gene by binding to the gene’s promoter — the site where transcription begins.

In 2023, Hansen and others developed a new technique that allows them to analyze 3D genome structures with 100 to 1,000 times greater resolution than was previously possible. This technique, known as Region-Capture Micro-C (RC-MC), uses a different enzyme that cuts the genome into small fragments of similar size. It also focuses on a smaller segment of the genome, allowing for high-resolution 3-D mapping of a targeted genome region.

Using this technique, the researchers were able to identify a new kind of genome structure that hadn’t been seen before, which they called “microcompartments.” These are tiny highly connected loops that form when enhancers and promoters located near each other stick together.

In that paper, experiments revealed that these loops were not formed by the same mechanisms that form other genome structures, but the researchers were unable to determine exactly how they do form. In hopes of answering that question, the team set out to study cells as they undergo cell division. During mitosis, chromosomes become much more compact, so that they can be duplicated, sorted, and divvied up between two daughter cells. As this happens, larger genome structures called A/B compartments and topologically associating domains (TADs) disappear completely.

The researchers believed that the microcompartments they had discovered would also disappear during mitosis. By tracking cells through the entire cell division process, they hoped to learn how the microcompartments appear after mitosis is completed.

“During mitosis, it has been thought that almost all gene transcription is shut off. And before our paper, it was also thought that all 3D structure related to gene regulation was lost and replaced by compaction. It’s a complete reset every cell cycle,” Hansen says.

However, to their surprise, the researchers found that microcompartments could still be seen during mitosis, and in fact they become more prominent as the cell goes through cell division.

“We went into this study thinking, well, the one thing we know for sure is that there’s no regulatory structure in mitosis, and then we accidentally found structure in mitosis,” Hansen says.

Using their technique, the researchers also confirmed that larger structures such as A/B compartments and TADs do disappear during mitosis, as had been seen before.

“This study leverages the unprecedented genomic resolution of the RC-MC assay to reveal new and surprising aspects of mitotic chromatin organization, which we have overlooked in the past using traditional 3C-based assays. The authors reveal that, contrary to the well-described dramatic loss of TADs and compartmentalization during mitosis, fine-scale “microcompartments” — nested interactions between active regulatory elements — are maintained or even transiently strengthened,” says Effie Apostolou, an associate professor of molecular biology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

A spike in transcription

The findings may offer an explanation for a spike in gene transcription that usually occurs near the end of mitosis, the researchers say. Since the 1960s, it had been thought that transcription ceased completely during mitosis, but in 2016 and 2017, a few studies showed that cells undergo a brief spike of transcription, which is quickly suppressed until the cell finishes dividing.

In their new study, the MIT team found that during mitosis, microcompartments are more likely to be found near the genes that spike during cell division. They also discovered that these loops appear to form as a result of the genome compaction that occurs during mitosis. This compaction brings enhancers and promoters closer together, allowing them to stick together to form microcompartments.

Once formed, the loops that constitute microcompartments may activate gene transcription somewhat by accident, which is then shut off by the cell. When the cell finishes dividing, entering a state known as G1, many of these small loops become weaker or disappear.

“It almost seems like this transcriptional spiking in mitosis is an undesirable accident that arises from generating a uniquely favorable environment for microcompartments to form during mitosis,” Hansen says. “Then, the cell quickly prunes and filters many of those loops out when it enters G1.”

Because chromosome compaction can also be influenced by a cell’s size and shape, the researchers are now exploring how variations in those features affect the structure of the genome and in turn, gene regulation.

“We are thinking about some natural biological settings where cells change shape and size, and whether we can perhaps explain some 3D genome changes that previously lack an explanation,” Hansen says. “Another key question is how does the cell then pick what are the microcompartments to keep and what are the microcompartments to remove when you enter G1, to ensure fidelity of gene expression?”

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The research was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Gene Regulation Observatory of the Broad Institute, a Pew-Steward Scholar Award for Cancer Research, the Mathers Foundation, the MIT Westaway Fund, the Bridge Project of the Koch Institute and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, and the Koch Institute Support (core) Grant from the National Cancer Institute.

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Scientists have long been interested in Saturn’s largest, orange-coloured moon as its evolution can teach us more about our own planet and the earliest chemical steps towards life. Titan’s cold environment, and its thick nitrogen and methane-filled atmosphere, has many similarities to the conditions thought to have existed on the young Earth billions of years ago. By studying Titan, researchers therefore hope to find clues about the origin of life.

Martin Rahm, Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers, has been working for a long time to understand more about what is happening on Titan. He now hopes that the research group’s surprising discovery, that certain polar and nonpolar substances* can combine, will inform future studies of Titan.

“These are very exciting findings that can help us understand something on a very large scale, a moon as big as the planet Mercury,” he says.

New insights into the building blocks of life in extreme environments

The researchers’ paper, which has been published in the scientific journal PNAS, shows that methane, ethane and hydrogen cyanide – which exist in large quantities in the atmosphere and on the surface of Titan – can interact in a manner that was not previously considered possible. That hydrogen cyanide, an exceptionally polar molecule, can form crystals with completely nonpolar substances such as methane and ethane is surprising because such substances normally remain strictly separate, much like oil and water.

“The discovery of the unexpected interaction between these substances could affect how we understand the Titan’s geology and its strange landscapes of lakes, seas and sand dunes. In addition, hydrogen cyanide is likely to play an important role in the abiotic creation of several of life’s building blocks, for example amino acids, which are used for the construction of proteins, and nucleobases, which are needed for the genetic code. So our work also contributes insights into chemistry before the emergence of life, and how it might proceed in extreme, inhospitable environments,” says Martin Rahm, who led the study.

An unanswered question led to NASA collaboration

The background to the Chalmers study is an unanswered question about Titan: What happens to hydrogen cyanide after it is created in Titan’s atmosphere? Are there metres of it deposited on the surface or has it interacted or reacted with its surroundings in some way? To seek the answer, a group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California began conducting experiments in which they mixed hydrogen cyanide with methane and ethane at temperatures as low as 90 Kelvin (about -180 degrees Celsius). At these temperatures, hydrogen cyanide is a crystal, and methane and ethane are liquids.

When they studied such mixtures using laser spectroscopy, a method for examining materials and molecules at the atomic level, they found that the molecules were intact, but that something had still happened. To understand what, they contacted Martin Rahm’s research group at Chalmers, which had conducted extensive research into hydrogen cyanide.

“This led to an exciting theoretical and experimental collaboration between Chalmers and NASA. The question we asked ourselves was a bit crazy: Can the measurements be explained by a crystal structure in which methane or ethane is mixed with hydrogen cyanide? This contradicts a rule in chemistry, ‘like dissolves like’, which basically means that it should not be possible to combine these polar and nonpolar substances,” says Martin Rahm.

Expanding the boundaries of chemistry

The Chalmers researchers used large scale computer simulations to test thousands of different ways of organising the molecules in the solid state, in search of answers. In their analysis, they found that hydrocarbons had penetrated the crystal lattice of hydrogen cyanide and formed stable new structures known as co-crystals.

“This can happen at very low temperatures, like those on Titan. Our calculations predicted not only that the unexpected mixtures are stable under Titan’s conditions, but also spectra of light that coincide well with NASA’s measurements,” he says.

The discovery challenges one of the best-known rules of chemistry, but Martin Rahm does not think it is time to rewrite the chemistry books.

“I see it as a nice example of when boundaries are moved in chemistry and a universally accepted rule does not always apply,” he says.

In 2034, NASA’s space probe Dragonfly is expected to reach Titan, with the aim of investigating what is on its surface. Until then, Martin Rahm and his colleagues plan to continue exploring hydrogen cyanide chemistry, partly in collaboration with NASA.

“Hydrogen cyanide is found in many places in the Universe, for example in large dust clouds, in planetary atmospheres and in comets. The findings of our study may help us understand what happens in other cold environments in space. And we may be able to find out if other nonpolar molecules can also enter the hydrogen cyanide crystals and, if so, what this might mean for the chemistry preceding the emergence of life,” he says.

More about the research

The scientific article Hydrogen cyanide and hydrocarbons mix on Titan has been published in the journal PNAS. It was written by Fernando Izquierdo Ruiz, Morgan L. Cable, Robert Hodyss, Tuan H. Vu, Hilda Sandström, Alvaro Lobato Fernandez and Martin Rahm. The researchers are based at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA, and Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain.

The research at Chalmers was funded by the Swedish Research Council.

More on Titan and Dragonfly

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is among the Solar System’s most unusual worlds – and it may share features with Earth’s early evolution. Titan is surrounded by a thick atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and methane, a composition that could resemble the atmosphere on Earth billions of years ago, before life emerged. Sunlight and other radiation from space cause these molecules to react with each other, which is why the moon is shrouded in a chemically complex, orange-coloured haze of organic (i.e. carbon-rich) compounds. One of the main substances created in this way is hydrogen cyanide.

Titan’s extremely cold surface is home to lakes and rivers of liquid methane and ethane. It is the only other known place in our solar system, apart from Earth, where liquids form lakes on the surface. Titan has weather and seasons. There is wind, clouds form and it rains, albeit in the form of methane instead of water. Measurements also show that there is likely a large sea of liquid water many kilometres below the cold surface which, in principle, might harbour life.

In 2028, the US space agency NASA plans to launch the Dragonfly space probe, which is expected to reach Titan in 2034. The aim is to study prebiotic chemistry, the chemistry that precedes life, and to look for signs of life.

* About polar and nonpolar substances

Polar substances consist of molecules with an asymmetrical charge distribution (a positive side and a negative side), while nonpolar materials have a symmetrical charge distribution. Polar and nonpolar molecules rarely mix, because polar molecules preferentially attract one another via electrostatic interactions.

Original Publication
Authors: Fernando Izquierdo-Ruiz, Morgan L. Cable, Robert Hodyss, Tuan H. Vu, Hilda Sandström, Alvaro Lobato and Martin Rahm.
Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2507522122
Method of Research: Experimental study
Subject of Research: Not applicable
Article Title: Hydrogen cyanide and hydrocarbons mix on Titan
Article Publication Date: 23-Jul-2025
COI Statement: The authors declare no competing interest.

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Scientists from Nagoya University, Japan, have discovered that zebrafish possess enlarged areas in their spinal cords, previously believed to exist only in four-limbed vertebrates (tetrapods). The finding challenges long-standing assumptions about the evolution of spinal anatomy and its relationship to limb development.

Background: A Feature Once Thought Exclusive to Tetrapods

In tetrapods, the spinal cord has two enlarged regions corresponding to the forelimbs and hind limbs. These expansions are thought to have evolved to accommodate the complex muscle control and sensory input associated with limb movement.

Until now, scientists believed fish lacked such spinal enlargements, as they do not have true limbs.

Discovery: Subtle Enlargements in Zebrafish Spinal Cords

A research team led by Professor Naoyuki Yamamoto from the Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences at Nagoya University has now found that zebrafish do, in fact, possess spinal enlargements—although they are not visible to the naked eye.

“We thought that fish also have spinal enlargements because they have paired pectoral and pelvic fins, which correspond to forelimbs and hind limbs in tetrapods, respectively,” said Naoyuki Yamamoto, lead author of the study published in the journal Brain, Behavior and Evolution.

Methods: Mapping Fin-Related Spinal Regions

To test their hypothesis, the researchers examined which parts of the zebrafish spinal cord control the various paired and unpaired fins—the pectoral, pelvic, dorsal, caudal, and anal fins.

While previous studies had already identified the nerve connections for the pectoral, dorsal, and caudal fins, this research focused on the pelvic and anal fins.

The team used immunohistochemistry, a staining technique that highlights neurons, combined with a modified CUBIC (clear, unobstructed brain imaging cocktails) method. This approach allowed them to visualize deep spinal nerves that innervate the fins.

They then created serial tissue sections along the spinal cord to measure changes in the cross-sectional areas of both the spinal cord and the gray matter, correlating them with fin innervation levels.

Findings: Enlargements Detected Across All Fins

The analyses revealed that both the spinal cord and gray matter expanded in regions supplying nerves not only to paired fins (pectoral and pelvic) but also to unpaired fins (dorsal, anal, and caudal).

“We showed the presence of spinal enlargements in zebrafish, although they are modest and can only be detected through histological analysis,” Yamamoto stated. “Furthermore, we demonstrated that these enlargements are found in all fins—that is, both paired and unpaired fins.”

Evolutionary Implications: Rethinking the Origin of Limbs

The discovery suggests that spinal cord enlargements predate the evolution of limbs and were already present in the aquatic ancestors of tetrapods.

According to the researchers, when early fish evolved into land-dwelling tetrapods, only the paired fins—which were specialised for locomotion—transformed into limbs, while the unpaired fins disappeared.

This finding opens up new avenues for understanding how neural circuits adapted during the evolutionary transition from aquatic to terrestrial life.

Summary

• Zebrafish were found to have spinal enlargements, a feature once thought exclusive to four-limbed animals.
• Enlargements were detected in spinal regions connected to both paired and unpaired fins.
• The discovery was made using immunohistochemical staining and tissue section analysis.
• Findings suggest spinal enlargements evolved before limbs, during early vertebrate evolution.
• Research provides new insight into the neural and anatomical origins of limb control in vertebrates.
  

Original Publication
Authors: Ryo Takaoka, Hanako Hagio and Naoyuki Yamamoto.
Journal: Brain Behavior and Evolution
DOI: 10.1159/000548184
Method of Research: Experimental study
Subject of Research: Animals
Article Title: Identification of “spinal enlargements” correlating with paired and unpaired fins in zebrafish
Article Publication Date: 29-Aug-2025

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