Powerful tools are revealing the ‘control knobs’ of the genome

Rogue planets sound like rare travelers among the stars, freed from the gravitational constraints of a host system, left to forever wander the interstellar void. But modern models suggest these free floating planets (FFPs) as they are technically known, are actually very common—19 times more common than planets beyond the "snow line," which is the distance from the central star where it becomes cold enough that hydrogen compounds like water, ammonia, and methane can condense into ice.

Around the world, millions of camels are farmed for milk and meat while others are used in leisure activities like racing and riding. Yet the treatment of these animals as livestock can be harsh, especially during transport. New international research, led by Southern Cross University animal welfare expert Associate Professor Barbara Padalino and published in the journal Animals, shows that more humane camel transportation is possible by using food as an incentive in place of physical punishment

In 2026, the Arctic winter sea-ice extent (annual maximum extent) reached the lowest value since satellite observations began in 1979, following the previous record low in March 2025. As part of the Arctic Challenge for Sustainability III (ArCS III), the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) maintain a long-term dataset spanning more than 40 years.

Millions of tons of plastic waste accumulate in landfills and oceans every year. One promising response is to engineer microbes to break the plastic down into useful chemical building blocks. However, teaching a bacterium to digest plastic efficiently demands fine-tuning not just one gene, but entire clusters of genes working in concert, like upgrading every machine on a factory assembly line rather than swapping out a single part.