During a heart attack, the heart stops getting enough blood. That naturally strains the organ, which causes the body to release a hormone called ANP that reduces heart stress. But since the body only produces a small quantity of ANP, a team of researchers set out to bolster the body’s ANP production, reducing the harmful tissue scarring that occurs in the window after a heart attack.

Researchers turned to a kind of genetic material called self-amplifying RNA (saRNA). The benefits of saRNA were twofold: It contained the genetic instructions to produce ANP, and the instructions for the RNA to copy itself, meaning the shot dose could be small but the effects could persist. When delivered via an injection to the skeletal muscles of mice and pigs, the saRNA boosted ANP levels and reduced heart inflammation for 4 weeks.

Previous research on bolstering heart-healing hormones required chest-opening surgery, so a simple shot is a giant step toward eventual human trials. “We’re trying to give patients a treatment that works with the body rather than against it,” said author Ke Huang in a statement. “If we can ease that early stress and support repair, we may be able to change the trajectory of recovery for patients.”

Usually, when such distantly related species have highly similar proteins, it’s assumed that they’re homologous: that the protein evolved long, long ago, in the common ancestor of all the species that possess versions of it. Certainly, that’s true of the bradykinins that help vertebrates heal wounds, so researchers long believed the bradykininlike peptides in wasp venoms and frog secretions were simply their versions of an ancient protein. But when researchers dug into the genomics of their toxins, they discovered that peptides extraordinarily similar to bradykinin arose over and over again in both groups. “ They are evolutionary doppelgängers—molecules that look the same but evolved independently,” explained lead author Sam Robininson in a statement. “The findings overturn decades of assumptions about the origins of these peptides.”

In fact, “bradykinin evolved independently at least four times in wasps and ants—and probably even more times in frogs,” Robinson wrote for The Conversation . As he explained, having one doppelgänger could be a fluke—but having several is a pattern. “Convergent evolution demonstrates that life is not a random, unpredictable muddle of improbable outcomes but is in fact progressing in an ordered, constrained, predictable, perhaps even inevitable, way,” he said. And this idea could be applied to other fields, such as predicting herbicide resistance in weeds or drug resistance in pathogens.

In a study published in Science, researchers analyzed whole-genome sequences from 418 koalas across 27 populations to examine how that bottleneck shaped the species’ genetics. Their analyses showed that effective population size in Victorian koalas fell by more than 90% before expanding rapidly in the following decades.

To see how the crash affected genetic diversity, the team grouped variants across the genome by how common they were—rare, low-frequency, or widespread—and compared their distribution among populations. Rare variants, which are most likely to disappear when populations shrink, appeared at higher frequencies in populations that had expanded.

Computer simulations suggested that as populations grew, the animals were able to rebuild variation even when overall diversity remained low. “Recombination reshuffles the genetic variation,” study co-author and biologist Collin Ahrens told Scientific American. “That’s really important and something that’s been really difficult to measure.”

The results suggest that population rebounds themselves may help restore evolutionary resilience, an effect that could be replicated in other endangered populations.

“I share your passion for science,” Matthew Anderson, Trump’s choice to be deputy NASA administrator, told Senator Andy Kim (D–NJ) after Kim sought his commitment to protect research aboard the International Space Station and across the agency. “And we also share the same county [in New Jersey] where I graduated from high school,” added Anderson, a retired Air Force colonel and decorated pilot.

“You’re trying to butter me up, I get it,” Kim responded.

“Is it working?” Anderson asked. “If you follow it up with a commitment to continue investing in science,” Kim replied, “then yes, it’s working.”

Senator Gary Peters (D–MI) had less luck in extracting a promise from Arvind Raman, Trump’s choice to lead the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to reverse NIST’s decision last summer to freeze funding for its Manufacturing Extension Program (MEP) that helps small and midsized companies commercialize new technologies.

“Will you commit to spending the $175 million that Congress appropriated for MEP [last month in a final spending bill for FY2026],” Peters asked. “I will follow the law,” replied Raman, dean of engineering at Purdue University, choosing his words carefully because of the administration’s long opposition to the program.

“Appropriations are the law of the land … you don’t get to second-guess them,” Peters shot back. “I want to hear the words.”

“Yes, I will follow the law,” Raman repeated.

With contributions from Hannah Richter and Ana Georgescu

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