“We have run out of the estradiol we need so much to function daily and nothing is being done,” lamented Pino Bethencourt recently on LinkedIn. This coach explained, with fear and also rage, some of the effects she could suffer if she did not obtain the hormonal treatment she had been prescribed to treat the numerous and debilitating symptoms she was suffering linked to menopause.

There are mathematical problems that persist for decades after being formulated and challenge generations of brilliant minds around the world. The Yano conjecture was one of them. Proposed in 1982, it suggested how to classify and compare singularities of curves, that is, points where a curve stops behaving in the usual way, as happens with black holes, places where the rules we know from physics stop working the way they do in the rest of space.

Some people look for their roots to try to understand who they are. Carles Lalueza-Fox (Barcelona, 1965) looks for them to decipher where we come from and better understand our past as a species. For more than two decades, this paleogeneticist from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE-CSIC-UPF) and current director of the Barcelona Museum of Natural Sciences has been reading the history of humanity in ancient DNA and is one of the world's leading experts. He has contributed to demonstrating that modern humans carry Neanderthal DNA and has reconstructed migrations and interbreeding of prehistoric populations. He has just published Identidad (Crítica), where he delves into a murky terrain: what DNA can explain about who we are and what it cannot.

To the already known list of beneficial health effects of semaglutide medications, such as Ozempic or Wegovy, associated with weight loss and improved glucose control, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley (United States) have now added another: they could contribute to increasing longevity and, above all, quality of life. In a study with aging female mice that received semaglutide for three months, the researchers observed that the animals improved their physical, metabolic, and cognitive function and, furthermore, lived longer than those that did not receive this drug.

It's barely been three months since she arrived in Barcelona and Mónica Bettencourt-Dias (Lisbon, 1972) is already fumbling with Catalan. She has a private tutor and has enrolled her daughters in a summer camp to immerse them in the language. All this shows the intentions of this cellular biologist, who confesses herself to be in love with the city and its culture, and who has just taken over as director of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona. She is the first woman to head this flagship of biomedical research in Europe, and will lead nearly 500 scientists from 47 different nationalities.

During the summer, thousands of people go out to enjoy nature, from walks in forests or along a river to excursions in some of the country's natural parks. And yet, although many, being prepared, might put a small first-aid kit with mosquito repellent, disinfectant, or gauze in our backpack to deal with small unforeseen events, few think about the much less obvious risk that lies behind such a common and seemingly harmless gesture as picking a bunch of wildflowers or tasting some berries, which in some cases can end up in the emergency room.

Catalonia –and Europe– is experiencing an unprecedented summer, with extreme temperatures that have exceeded 45 degrees in some parts of the country and a historic record of heat-related deaths has been reached. According to data from the Daily Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo), only in the month of June, 218 deaths attributable to extreme heat were recorded, a 300% increase in cases compared to the same period last year. And although these official data do not publish a breakdown by gender, previous epidemiological studies indicate that women die more than men from this cause.

Even in the middle of the morning, the activity at the Blanes fishermen's guild is frantic: a coming and going of boxes full of anchovies and sardines, and mullets and other fish, arriving at this Girona fish market for auction. Unaware of this hustle and bustle and sheltered under the jetties, about forty individuals rest, impassive, in enormous water tanks. Some have only been here a short while and are recovering, waiting for their moment to come. Others are already prepared and will return to the sea soon.

In the laboratory of Tomàs Marquès Bonet coexist all kinds of monkeys and primates. Some are human; others are made of Lego pieces, origami, wood, crochet, plastic, and hang among shelves and computers full of the code that contains the essence of life. From a corner, Floquet de Neu, a unique accident in nature, observes the scene, attentive, and concentrates, better than any scientific article, the story of its owner, this Icrea researcher, professor, and chair at Pompeu Fabra University.

Little could they imagine that their research on the role of freshwater ecosystems in the climate crisis would end up becoming an epic and risky adventure into the unknown. In 2022, a small group of Catalan researchers embarked on an expedition in the purest Shackleton style to the heart of the Aral Sea. What decades ago had been the fourth largest freshwater lake in the world and one of the main climatic regulators of Central Asia, is today a desolate desert of sand and salt, a vestige of one of the greatest environmental disasters caused by human action. 

Hormones have often been used to explain any discomfort in women. But, according to psychiatrist Gemma Parramon Puig, head of the psychiatry section at Vall d'Hebron Hospital, this perspective has hidden another reality for decades: a medicine built by taking the male body as the standard and biases that have delayed diagnoses, medicalized social problems, and made women's health invisible. In "It must be the hormones (Vergara), argues that incorporating the perspective of sex and gender is essential for better medicine.

The Josep Carreras Research Institute (IJC) suffered "significant deficiencies" that "have led or may lead to irregularities" in the financial management of 2023, under the direction of cancer researcher Manel Esteller. This is the conclusion of theFinal financial control report made by the Generalitat after ARA revealed the transfers of money and impersonations at the research institute during Esteller's tenure.

It is called Mycoplasma pneumoniae and, despite being very simple, this small bacterium with only 680 genes could play a key role in fighting lung cancer, the type of tumor that causes the most deaths each year worldwide: nearly two million. I'researcher Luis Serrano and its team, at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona (CRG), have spent years studying this microorganism and genetically modifying it to strip it of its ability to cause disease. Now they want to turn it into a kind of Trojan horse capable of releasing drugs against tumor cells only in the lung.

On June 26, 2000, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton appeared before cameras worldwide to announce a historic milestone: humanity had just obtained the first draft of the human genome, "the most wonderful and important map ever produced by humankind." Beside him were his British counterpart, Tony Blair, a handful of scientists, and representatives from Celera Genomics, the private company headed by geneticist Craig Venter that had competed to sequence our DNA before anyone else.geneticist Craig Venter who had competed to sequence our DNA before anyone else.

The fact that her uncle contracted HIV and died from the complications of the infection when she was still studying biology at university finally pushed Gemma Moncunill (Barcelona, 1981) to want to dedicate herself to research on the immune system and infectious diseases. “I had always been fascinated by the complexity with which the body was capable of defending itself, or how vaccines could train defense cells”, recalls this researcher, with a generous smile and sparkling eyes.

For years, research on the human microbiome has focused almost exclusively on the gut. But there are also millions of microorganisms – especially bacteria, but also fungi and viruses, and yeasts – lining the vagina. Although they have not been studied until recently and, therefore, little is known about them, recent studies are beginning to shed light on how this ecosystem is key to women's health and can affect conditions such as endometriosis.

When Meg Lowman (New York, 1953) began climbing trees in the 1980s, hardly anyone studied forest canopies. That world suspended among the branches was, in large part, an unknown territory. Forty-five years later, this American ecologist is considered one of the pioneers in forest canopy research.

That you, reader, are now reading this article or that, while you read it, there are beings as fantastic as whales crossing the Mediterranean or tritons splashing in streams of Montseny surrounded by beeches, firs, holm oaks and oaks is thanks to a history of microbial promiscuity forged over millions of years, including viral infections.

It's not even 9 AM and in the classrooms of many schools in Catalonia, thermometers are already climbing above 27 degrees, despite being in a week of relative climate respite. This is the case at Institut La Sedeta, located in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona, where since mid-May they systematically exceed 30 ºCin most areas of the center every day. During heat peaks, they have even reached 35 and 36 ºC, and the high humidity of the Catalan capital further exacerbates the feeling of suffocation experienced by students and teachers in the building.

It is one of the most iconic animals on a European scale and surely one of the most representative and studied amphibians in the world. And yet, until now it was unknown that common salamanders (Salamandra salamandra) have a very special property, not at all common in nature and invisible to the human eye: under ultraviolet light they are fluorescent.