Daily briefing: Sperm whales have different dialects

You have full access to this article via your institution. Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here . High-resolution images can be produced by increasing the size of a nerve cell before fluorescence-microscopy imaging. Credit: Arthur Chien/SPL Researchers have mapped the position of individual amino acids in proteins using a conventional light microscope. The team used an improved version of a technique called expansion microscopy, which enlarges biological samples by carefully pulling them in every direction. The upgrade expands protein samples up to one billion times their original size — 1,000-fold larger in each dimension. The stretch pulls protein molecules apart to a point that they can be visualized without costly and complicated techniques such as cryogenic electron microscopy. “This is the democratization of structural biology,” says neuroscientist and study co-author Silvio Rizzoli. Nature | 6 min read Reference: bioRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed) Extreme heat is disrupting lives across Europe, with yesterday the hottest day ever recorded in France . “We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that heat wave events such as this have been made more likely and more severe due to climate change,” said Peter Thorne, the director of the ICARUS Climate Research Centre in Ireland. …