Daily briefing: Is a cure for psoriasis on the horizon?

"Iberian harvester ants ( Messor ibericus) rely on hardy workers that are hybrids of their own species and another one, Messor structor. But the queens don't bother keeping any M. structor males around: they make their own. M. ibericus queens can lay eggs that contain only M. structor DNA in their nuclei. They then mate with those M. structor ants to produce the hybrid workers. In effect, M. ibericus has domesticated M. structor and its genome, says evolutionary biologist Jonathan Romiguier, who co-authoured the research."

"The planet's capacity to store carbon-dioxide emissions deep underground is much smaller than previous estimates suggest. A new estimate suggests that geologic carbon-storage space could run out as early as 2200, so we can't rely on it too much to meet the desperate need to slow climate change. Then there's the question of where: some of the places with the most storage potential, such as Indonesia, Brazil and some countries in Africa, could end up holding the bag for a problem they didn't create. Russia, the United States and Canada have both the space and the money to more easily step up to the plate. But the real solution, it will not surprise you to hear, is to slash fossil-fuel emissions now, write the researchers."

"A highly lethal type of brain tumour, glioblastoma, often steals key nutrients to aid its aggressive growth - a habit that can be exploited to slow the cancer's spread. Researchers fed mice with certain kinds of glioblastoma a diet that lacked serine - a crucial amino acid - and found that the rodents' tumours grew more slowly."

Some people who stop lifelong psoriasis treatment remain free of symptoms for extended periods. Iberian harvester ant queens (Messor ibericus) produce eggs with only Messor structor nuclei and mate with M. structor males to generate hybrid worker ants, effectively domesticating that species' genome. Global geologic carbon-storage capacity is substantially smaller than earlier estimates, and usable storage could be exhausted by around 2200, limiting reliance on underground CO2 sequestration; regions with high storage potential include Indonesia, Brazil and parts of Africa, while Russia, the United States and Canada hold greater combined space and resources. Removing dietary serine slowed growth of certain glioblastoma tumours in mice.

Read at Nature