J. Craig Venter, the genomicist whose work redrew the architecture of modern biology, died on 29 April 2026 in San Diego at the age of 79, following complications from treatment of a recently diagnosed cancer. Brain Health, a new peer-reviewed journal launched today by Genomic Press, publishes in its inaugural issue a scientific tribute by Dr. Julio Licinio that foregrounds a part of Venter’s legacy that other obituaries have understandably treated as background: his earliest major methodological breakthrough emerged at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, where he pioneered the expressed sequence tag as a route to rapidly identifying brain-expressed genes. The tribute traces an arc from that neuroscience starting point through the first complete bacterial genome, the parallel pursuit of the human sequence, large-scale ocean metagenomics, and the construction of the first cell controlled by a chemically synthesized genome.

Even the giant wings of the albatross are not ‘optimally’ shaped for their extraordinary long-distance migrations, according to new University of Bristol research. 

The study, published in Nature Communications, reveals that many bird species possess wing shapes surprisingly ill-suited to their flight performance. In contrast, penguins and hummingbirds stand out as exceptions, having evolved wing shapes closely matched to their specialised style of movement.

Brain Health, a new peer-reviewed journal from Genomic Press, launches today with an inaugural issue anchored by an interview with neuroscientist Luísa Pinto of the University of Minho, whose two-decade pursuit of newborn astrocytes has reshaped how the field understands recovery from depression. The journal, edited by Ma-Li Wong, is designed to convene the fields of cognitive reserve, longevity, sleep science, aging biology, nutritional psychiatry, behavioral intervention, neuroimaging, normative data, and the social sciences and humanities around a shared question: how do human brains remain resilient, recover when injured, and stay functional across the longest possible arc of a life?

This study has revealed the pro-apoptotic effect of GADD45B in intestinal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), explored its downstream pathways and targets, and further confirmed the crucial role and molecular mechanism of epigenetics in intestinal I/R, which is helpful for deepening the understanding of intestinal I/R injury and providing important theoretical basis and key targets for the treatment of I/R injury.