Study suggests life on Earth has around 1.8 billion years left — but the biosphere might evolve to survive even longer - Live Science

Pasadena, CA—Biophysicist and microbiologist Mohamed “Moh” El-Naggar—who investigates how microbes exchange energy and electrons with their environments—will lead Carnegie Science’s Biosphere Sciences and Engineering division, which just completed a major milestone in its relocation to Southern California, where biologists are in the process of setting up new labs on the Caltech campus. This move represents the final stage of Carnegie’s long-planned consolidation of its biology division in Pasadena and evolution of its research partnership with Caltech. First announced in 2020 and finalized in 2023, the expanded alliance between Carnegie Science and Caltech was conceived to strengthen the two institutions’ historical collaborations in astronomy and the physical sciences, advance bold new directions in the life sciences, and burnish the greater Los Angeles area’s reputation as a hub for high-impact research.

Cells constantly recycle proteins and other cellular components. But how do they ensure that the right cargo ends up in the right recycling vesicle—one of the cell's transport carriers? A team at the University of Basel has identified a molecular switch that controls this process. The small protein ARF-1 ensures that recyclable cargo is efficiently loaded into transport vesicles and returned to the cell's surface.