Google DeepMind has been at the forefront of using AI for protein design for the last decade. DeepMind's AlphaFold model set new milestones in protein design and its been widely adopted by the research community. Beyond the structure of proteins, one key area of research is their interactions patterns which are essential to understanding functions required in drug development. To address this challenge, scientists have created proteins that 'bind' to specific molecules streamlining that manipulation process. DeepMind doubled down in this area with the recent publication of AlphaProteo, an AI model poised to transform protein binder design. Proteins, the workhorses of biology, interact in a delicate dance, dictating countless cellular processes. The ability to design proteins that bind specific targets, termed 'protein binders,' opens doors in research, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Imagine blocking a disease-causing protein interaction or directing an enzyme to a specific cellular location ' the possibilities are vast....

Leaders flourish when they have dedicated space to learn. Building networks that convene leaders from across global organizations not only develops individuals' talent and expertise, but also supercharges that network and its impact. As we learned in the Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 'When there is collective leadership, there is power to make changes.' The Rockefeller Foundation employed this philosophy for change leadership by investing in two custom leadership development programs over the past three years: one for emerging leaders and the other for executives. Our evaluations revealed three key insights for how to carry out thought-leadership development that can be applied at any organization. Our internal Organizational Development and Learning team was challenged with creating a learning environment where authenticity was welcomed and expected. The ambition was to invest not only in the leadership of our own talent at The Rockefeller Foundation, but to expand and deepen our impact by bringing along partners from key organizations within our network. We believed an inter-organizational learning approach would stretch our colleagues beyond their comfortable ways of working and enable critical reflection and creativity. So that participants could have the most organic interactions possible within a meticulously designed itinerary, we needed to find ways to rapidly establish trust....

The bionic limb uses a computer interface that amplifies nerve signals from muscles in the remaining part of the leg and allows the wearer to move the prosthesis with their own thoughts and natural reflexes. In a clinical trial involving 14 people, participants with this interface were able to walk 41% faster than were those with standard robotic legs. They also had better balance and ability to change their speed, climb stairs and step over obstacles. The results were published today in Nature Medicine1. 'This is the first study that demonstrates natural gait patterns with a full neural modulation where the person's brain is 100% in command of the bionic prosthesis, not a robotic algorithm,' said study co-author Hugh Herr, a biophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, at a press conference announcing the findings. Herr had both of his legs amputated after being caught in a blizzard while ice climbing on New Hampshire's Mount Washington in 1982. He says he would consider using the interface devices for his limbs in future....

This resculpting actually makes the Milky Way 'less weird', says Gail Zasowski, an astronomer at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The stars and other components of the Milky Way seemed more compact than those of galaxies similar to ours that scientists have been able to see and measure directly. The measurements made our Galaxy look 'cute and small' in comparison, Zasowski says, 'but you get a little suspicious' about why it is different. Zasowski and her colleagues made their Galactic revision by measuring the locations and distances of almost a quarter of a million red giants ' massive old stars ' using survey data from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). Normally, light from celestial bodies such as red giants can be obscured from the view of telescopes on Earth by interstellar dust, but the Apache observatory, in Sunspot, New Mexico, can detect near-infrared wavelengths, which pass through the dust. The researchers reported their findings on 27 June in Nature Astronomy1....