Scientists found the gene that makes muscles age. Exercise turns it off

Happy Friday. Today's lead story is about a gene called DEAF1 that rises in aging muscles and quietly disrupts their ability to repair themselves. Scientists at Duke-NUS figured out what it does and, more importantly, how exercise turns it off.

We also have Oregon's five-year streak of zero pesticide-related bee deaths, the Colorado school buses that power neighborhood homes after the kids get dropped off, and a crew of renovation workers who started washing a ceiling arch in Minneapolis and found gold underneath.

Have a great weekend.

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—Stephanie S

Starting in middle age, muscles gradually lose the ability to repair themselves. A new study from Singapore General Hospital and Cardiff University identifies the culprit: a gene called DEAF1. As we age, DEAF1 rises in muscle cells, causing a key growth pathway to become overactive, building new proteins while neglecting to clear out damaged ones. The damage accumulates. Muscles weaken.

DEAF1 is normally kept in check by proteins called FOXOs, but FOXO activity declines with age, releasing DEAF1 from control. Exercise reverses this. "Lowering DEAF1 helps older muscles regain strength and balance, almost like hitting the rewind button," said first author Priscillia Choy Sze Mun of Duke-NUS.

In experiments on fruit flies and older mice, raising DEAF1 weakened muscles faster while lowering it restored strength and protein balance. The study is published in PNAS. In some older muscles where DEAF1 is very elevated, exercise alone may not be enough, pointing toward a potential drug target.

That drug target could matter well beyond aging. The researchers suggest that targeting DEAF1 could reproduce the beneficial effects of exercise at the molecular level for people recovering from surgery, illness, or cancer. Read the full story.

It started with a disaster. In 2013, a mass bee mortality event in an Oregon parking lot prompted the state legislature to establish a Task Force on Pollinator Health. Oregon State University was brought in to develop educational materials for the landscapers, farmers, and pest control professionals who work with pesticides every day. Then in 2018, the Oregon Bee Project expanded that work statewide, training 12,000 people on how to minimize pesticide risks to bees.

The university also built the Oregon Bee Atlas, the most comprehensive bee species inventory of any US state, cataloguing all 567 species found in Oregon and translating survey data into county-level habitat guidance for gardeners and land managers. A commemorative license plate raised $800,000 for the project.

Since 2021, no bees in Oregon have been known to die from pesticide exposure. Five straight years. "Oregon has built one of the strongest bee survey and education networks in the country," said Andony Melathopoulos, pollinator expert at OSU's Extension Service. "The public value is that we can now give people better information for protecting bees, improving habitat, and making informed decisions in every part of the state." Read the full story.

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Cherry Creek School District in Colorado has six new electric school buses that do something conventional buses cannot: after the last drop-off of the day, they return to their depot and start giving electricity back to the grid. A bi-directional charging system designed by Highland Electric Fleets allows the buses to release their remaining battery charge during peak demand hours, typically the late afternoon and evening when households return home and power use spikes. They recharge overnight, when demand is lowest, and are ready for the morning run.

The math is simple and compelling. Two dozen of these buses could support the peak power needs of 100 homes. A couple hundred could support over a thousand. With diesel prices elevated by the global energy situation, electric buses also deliver long-term savings on fuel and maintenance, since electric vehicles have roughly 95% fewer moving parts than diesel equivalents.

The six buses and their depot were funded by a $2.4 million federal rebate collected by Highland Electric Fleets. Cherry Creek School District paid nothing. "This partnership works to support our environmental goals while delivering long-term operational savings," said Jennifer Perry, the district's interim superintendent. Read the full story.

St. Mary's Basilica in Minneapolis, finished in 1914, is undergoing its second renovation in over a century, a $50 million project with a hard deadline of Easter Sunday next year. To reach the ornate ceiling of the nave, workers erected 15 floors of scaffolding. While washing a broad arch near the altar, they discovered something nobody expected: gold stencilwork, hidden under flat paint, covering the entire archway. Nobody knows when it was painted over or why.

Medallion panels set in the corners of the ceiling design held a second surprise: ultramarine blue fields decorated with gold fleur-de-lis, also hidden for decades. Project leader Johan van Parys, the basilica's managing director of ministries and director of liturgy and sacred art, said there was no record of the original artwork in any of the building's documentation. "When we came to this arch we had no idea we'd discover this," he told CBS affiliate WCCO.

The gold stenciling will be fully restored before Easter. "It was a supremely emotional moment because that which had been hidden for 75 years now could be revealed again," van Parys said. "The people from 1914 who came here for the first Mass, this is what they saw, and that is what we will see again." Watch the video and see the photos.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 UK: An England fan who spent his life savings to take his granddad to the World Cup woke up to find strangers had collectively gifted the money back after his story went viral, in a moment that captured the best of the tournament spirit.

🔬 USA: Scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine have developed tiny silica nanoparticles that destroy aggressive prostate tumors while waking up the immune system to fight cancer, producing complete remissions in multiple mice when combined with immunotherapy.

🧬 USA: Harvard researchers have turned a silicon chip into a machine that writes 64 distinct DNA sequences simultaneously using water-based enzymes and electricity, opening a cleaner, faster path to DNA manufacturing for medicine, diagnostics, and data storage.

💉 Global: Two people with a rare and devastating autoimmune disease have been in complete remission for more than 15 years after a stem cell transplant that rebuilt their immune systems from scratch, in results scientists say warrant a larger clinical trial.

🦠 Global: Researchers at the University of Warwick and Monash University have cracked the code behind how bacteria naturally create multiple versions of powerful anti-cancer compounds, opening the door to engineering improved cancer treatments inspired by nature, including better versions of the clinically approved blood cancer drug romidepsin.

On July 10, 2018, the last of the 12 members of the Wild Boars youth football team and their coach were rescued from Tham Luang Cave in northern Thailand, ending 18 days that had gripped the entire world. The team had entered the cave after practice when monsoon rains flooded the tunnels behind them. For nine days they were completely unreachable, surviving on rainwater dripping from the cave walls. When British divers found them alive, the relief was overwhelming. Getting them out would be harder.

The rescue operation involved 10,000 people, more than 100 divers from dozens of countries, 900 police officers, 2,000 soldiers, and the pumping of over a billion liters of water from the cave system. Because the route out required navigating submerged passages too dangerous to teach to untrained children, each boy was sedated and guided through the water by experienced cave divers. All 13 survived. Former Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan, 37, lost his life delivering air tanks to a submerged chamber during the operation. A monument at the cave entrance depicts him leading small pigs with a flashlight, a tribute to the Wild Boars and the man who gave his life for them.

Other notable July 10 events:

1875: Mary McLeod Bethune was born to former slaves in South Carolina, 151 years ago today. With $1.50 and elderberry ink she opened a school for Black girls in Daytona, Florida, went on to found Bethune-Cookman College, became a close adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt, and was the only Black woman present at the founding of the United Nations.

1973: The Bahamas became a fully independent nation after 344 years of British colonial rule, 53 years ago today, and has maintained one of the highest standards of living in the Caribbean since independence through tourism and offshore investment.

1856: Nikola Tesla was born in what is now Serbia, 170 years ago today. His theories and work on alternating current, wireless broadcast, and the use of electricity laid the foundation for much of the modern world.

1985: Coca-Cola bowed to overwhelming consumer pressure and canceled New Coke, 41 years ago today, just 79 days after launching what became one of the most famous product failures in business history.

— Harriet Tubman

Every day brings amazing advances and uplifting moments that remind us just how wonderful the world can be. Here are five reasons why today is the best time ever to be alive:

🔬 AI Is Designing New Antibiotics: Machine learning models trained on bacterial biology are designing novel antibiotic compounds that kill drug-resistant bacteria in ways evolution hasn't encountered before, with several AI-designed antibiotics already in clinical trials.

🌱 Farming Without Plowing: No-till farming practices now adopted across millions of acres in the US, Brazil, and Australia are measurably rebuilding soil health, cutting erosion, and reducing agricultural carbon emissions while maintaining or improving crop yields.

🐘 African Elephants Are Coming Back: Long-term monitoring programs are documenting genuine population recoveries in African elephant populations across protected reserves in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, driven by coordinated anti-poaching and community-based conservation giving locals economic stakes in wildlife survival.

🌊 Kelp Forests Are Returning: Targeted restoration programs in California, Tasmania, and Norway are successfully reestablishing kelp forest ecosystems wiped out by warming water and sea urchin explosions, with restored beds showing rapid and measurable biodiversity recovery.

🩺 Electronics You Can Print on Skin: Researchers have developed bioelectronic inks that print directly onto skin to monitor heart rate, blood oxygen, hydration, and glucose in real time, creating wearable health monitors that conform perfectly to the body without rigid devices.

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