Anthraquinones are a class of naturally occurring compounds prized for their medicinal properties, as well as for other applications, including ecologically friendly dyes. Despite wide interest, the mechanism by which plants produce them has remained shrouded in mystery until now. New work reveals a gene responsible for anthraquinone synthesis in plants. Their findings could help scientists cultivate a plant-based mechanism for harvesting these useful compounds in bulk quantities.

Researchers used a variety of advanced drug screening techniques to test out more than 10,000 compounds in search of a cure. To their surprise, they found that the widely used antibiotic methacycline was effective at preventing brain infections and reducing neurological problems associated with the virus in mice.

Even though people tend to remember fewer details about past events as time goes by, the details they do remember are retained with remarkable fidelity, according to a new study. This finding holds true regardless of the age of the person or the amount of time that elapsed since the event took place.

Metabolic robustness, the ability of a metabolic system to buffer changes in its environment, is not always a welcome feature for microbiologists: it interferes with metabolic engineering or prevents that antibiotics kill bacteria. Therefore it is important to understand the mechanisms that enable metabolic robustness. A massively parallel CRISPRi screen demonstrated that E. colimetabolism is very robust against knockdowns of enzymes, and multi-omics data revealed the mechanisms behind it. In the future, the researchers want to apply this knowledge to build better models of metabolism, which enable rational-design of industrial microbes.

Research finds a new relationship between memory and the ability to incorporate changes into one's understanding of the world.