| 13 April 2026 |
| In today’s Visualized, Science Photography Managing Editor Emily Petersen showcases a photo that truly caught her eye. But first, catch up on the latest science news, including new insights into how the mind’s eye sees and the risk of moving wildlife around the world. |
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| Artificial Intelligence | Science |
| Even AI is obsessed with protein |
| Over billions of years, proteins—the drivers of nearly every biological process—have evolved into an uncountable number of shapes and roles throughout the biosphere. Speeding up that evolution to mere years has been a focus for biomedical engineers, who seek to design better therapeutics and new materials on human timescales. And artificial intelligence might shrink the process even further, to days.
In a review, researchers looked at the growing field of protein engineering . There are two main branches, they say: one where a known, existing protein gets tweaked, and one where pure biophysical modeling is used. AI could be especially useful to both routes, thanks to its ability to wade through the mind-bending number of possible amino acid sequences to predict and find proteins far faster than humans can. One small protein with 100 amino acids has a number of possible sequences that’s more than one thousand time larger than the number of atoms in the universe!
Though AI is promising, the authors cautioned, “Even the most sophisticated machine learning models described, trained on large corpuses of data, are not so accurate that we can simply take a single output and be done.” In other words, even encouraging sequences may turn out to be duds, since only laboratory testing can confirm if they are stable, foldable, and functional. |
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| Disease Ecology | Science |
| Trading with our lives |
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| Selling live animals, even legally, is a risky business. Dan Bennett Via WIKIMEDIA COMMONS | CC BY |
| HIV. SARS. Ebola. There is a litany of viruses that humans have contracted from wildlife. It seems obvious to say, then, that increased contact with animals increases the odds of a pathogen jumping into people. Now, thanks to 40 years’ worth of data on the international wildlife trade, a team of researchers has quantified that risk on the global scale, and their findings are sobering.
Out of 2079 traded mammal species, 41% share at least one pathogen with humans , while only 6.4% of nontraded species do. And the longer a species has been traded and shipped, the more likely it is to carry pathogens that can infect us. “On average, a wild mammal species shares one additional pathogen with humans for every 10 years it is present in the global wildlife trade,” the team wrote. Furthermore, those that are sold alive are more likely to share pathogens with us. “It is important to understand that the probability of being infected by playing a piano with ivory keys or wearing fur is almost nonexistent,” explained the study’s lead author, Jérôme Gilpert, in a statement. “The problem lies at the beginning of the chain: Someone had to hunt the animal, skin it, transport it.”
The data suggest it’s not just about stopping illegal trade—while illegally traded species were more likely to host a potential human pathogen, numerous viruses with pandemic potential reside inside legally marketed species. “Cross-species pathogen transmission is an inherent consequence of diverse uses of wildlife by humans,” the team wrote, adding that the findings “underscore the need to strengthen biosurveillance and integrate zoonotic risk considerations into wildlife trade regulations to help prevent future pandemics.” |
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| Neuroscience | Science |
| The mind’s eye sees, thanks to déjà view |
| Trying to remember an object we’ve previously been shown can feel like running through a mental archive, searching for the right memory to piece an image back together and “see” it again. A new study published in Science suggests that this feeling might reflect a real neurological process, as the brain reactivates the same neural areas during recall that were used to see that image in the first place.
To measure this, researchers recorded the activity of over 700 neurons in the visual temporal cortex (VTC), a region involved in recognizing complex features and categorizing images, across 16 patients with previously implanted electrodes for epilepsy monitoring. The team tracked how individual brain cells responded as participants viewed a series of images of plants, animals, objects, and faces, and then later reconstructed them from memory.
Many of the same neurons were activated in both cases, with recall engaging 40% of the same visually responsive neurons active when an object was initially perceived. Based on this preserved structure, researchers were able to reconstruct which images patients were recalling from patterns of neural activity. In some cases, the reconstruction captured enough detail to distinguish general categories, like animals or faces. Still, the two processes were not identical, with recall producing less precise representations.
Exactly how these signals are generated and coordinated is still unclear, with authors noting that although the same regions of the brain are involved in both perception and recall, it’s not yet clear how the brain reactivates these patterns; current methods cannot fully distinguish which neurons are involved in each process. |
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| Danaher combines AI-driven discovery with a proven strategic framework to expand what’s possible for the future of healthcare. |
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| Visualized |
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| Successful metastases are rarely lone voyagers. Martin Oeggerli, supported by School of Life Sciences FHNW |
| Zooming in on cancer |
| Emily Petersen, Photography Managing Editor, Science |
| As a photo editor, it’s rare to come across an exact storytelling moment in one image, especially when it’s about work that has already been documented, and even more so when it’s on a subject that is generally too small to see. So, it was a genuine surprise when the lead researcher said he had the exact work already commissioned by a renowned photographer who specializes in cell microscopy.
To illustrate this week’s news feature, I worked with photographer and artist Martin Oeggerli . He collaborates with Nicola Aceto of ETH Zurich, who uses microfluidic devices to study how circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters clump together and interact. Aceto was familiar with Oeggerli’s work and commissioned him to create images of his cell cancer research. Oeggerli uses a scanning electron microscope (SEM) like a camera. He hunts for the right group of cells and frames his shot with purpose. Then he spends hours intricately coloring the fine detail of the cell surfaces to create a stunning scene of the microscopic world.
“The coolest thing about being a scientist is that you are at the forefront of new discoveries. However, they are often invisibly small,” Oeggerli explained to me for ScienceAdviser. “Luckily, we found a way to look inside a microfluidic device that allows Nicola and his team to identify CTC clusters—and to share pictures from exactly where it happens in this very important area of research.”
After loading the microfluidic device with a blood sample from a breast cancer patient, they cracked it open and prepared it for the SEM. The triangular structure of the device traps the cells, and the smooth surfaces allow for them to be closely identified and examined. In a cancer patient, once metastasis has started, the number of circulating tumor cells continues to increase. As many as a billion cells may be shed by a tumor each day.
The ability to examine these rogue cell clusters up close is providing new insights into how metastases successfully create tumors away from the primary cancer—and hopefully, will lead to better ways to prevent them from doing so. It’s a beautiful example of what happens when artists and scientists work together: their visual presence expands. |
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| Anglerfishes’ alluring feature |
| Anglerfishes are so named for the wriggly lures on the ends of stalks that sit atop their heads. In the deep sea, females’ lures light up—but a study suggests this glow isn’t simply better bait. Instead, the light may act as a beacon for their miniscule mates. “The evolution of this group may be driven because of the sexual attraction of the lures,” explained one of the researchers behind the work. “That’s the fun, weird part about all this.” |
| Ichthyology & Herpetology Paper | Read more at News from Science |
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| On a supermassive collision course |
| A distant galaxy seems to be firing off two beams of radiation from its center at different angles—a sign that a pair of supermassive black holes lurks at its heart. In as little as 100 years, the black holes should collide, shaking spacetime itself in a titanic burst of gravitational waves. That final burst “would be a really fantastic gravitational wave signal,” said one astronomer. |
| Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Paper | Read more at News from Science |
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| Variance in manufacturing |
| Ribosomes construct proteins, and until recently, it was thought that they were all basically the same in individuals of a single species. But data from UK Biobank suggest that small differences between these molecular factories influence traits like height and weight—and could play underappreciated roles in health and disease. “It’s really exciting to think about this variation in the human population,” one expert said. |
| Cell Genomics Paper | Read more at News from Science |
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| Passing along employees who have committed misconduct to other institutions, in silence, violates accountability and does nothing to solve the problem. |
| EDITORIAL | 9 April 2026 | Michael Lauer and Mark Barnes |
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| Last but not least |
| Welcome back, crew of Artemis II! So glad you landed safely. |
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| Christie Wilcox, Editor, ScienceAdviser
With contributions from Hannah Richter and Ana Georgescu
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