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In 2013, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization identified insects as a promising solution for sustainably feeding the world’s growing population. However, despite a decade of development and innovation, the insect industry has yet to fully realize its environmental and economic potential. This review takes an evidence-based approach to addressing key challenges in the sector, including integrating circular production systems within existing regulatory frameworks in the Global North, ensuring product safety in circular systems, assessing allergen risks associated with insect-based products, mitigating biosecurity risks linked to non-native insect species, evaluating the environmental safety of insect by-products, and promoting animal welfare in insect production. While significant challenges remain, the evidence presented highlights how further research can help unlock opportunities for the industry to achieve its full potential globally. Ultimately, we argue that overcoming challenges – ‘working out the bugs’ – is a fundamental step in the evolution of any emerging industry. Furthermore, greater support for the transition to circular economies will accelerate the sector’s ability to generate meaningful environmental, ethical, and economic benefits. 

Abstract The AAA protease FtsH associates with HflK/C subunits to form a megadalton-size complex that spans the inner membrane and extends into the periplasm ofE. coli. How this bacterial complex and homologous assemblies in eukaryotic organelles recruit, extract, and degrade membrane-embedded substrates is unclear. Following the overproduction of protein components, recent cryo-EM structures showed symmetric HflK/C cages surrounding FtsH in a manner proposed to inhibit the degradation of membrane-embedded substrates. Here, we present structures of native protein complexes, in which HflK/C instead forms an asymmetric nautilus-shaped assembly with an entryway for membrane-embedded substrates to reach and be engaged by FtsH. Consistent with this nautilus-like structure, proteomic assays suggest that HflK/C enhances FtsH degradation of certain membrane-embedded substrates. Membrane curvature in our FtsH•HflK/C complexes is opposite that of surrounding membrane regions, a property that correlates with lipid scramblase activity and possibly with FtsH’s function in the degradation of membrane-embedded proteins. 

CryoDRGN is a machine learning system for heterogenous cryo-EM reconstruction of proteins and protein complexes from single particle cryo-EM data. Central to this approach is a deep generative model for heterogeneous cryo-EM density maps, which we empirically find effectively models both discrete and continuous forms of structural variability. Once trained, cryoDRGN is capable of generating an arbitrary number of 3D density maps, and thus interpreting the resulting ensemble is a challenge. Here, we showcase interactive and automated processing approaches for analyzing cryoDRGN results. Specifically, we detail a step-by-step protocol for analysis of the assembling 50S ribosome dataset (Davis et al., EMPIAR-10076), including preparation of inputs, network training, and visualization of the resulting ensemble of density maps. Additionally, we describe and implement methods to comprehensively analyze and interpret the distribution of volumes with the assistance of an associated atomic model. This protocol is appropriate for structural biologists familiar with processing single particle cryo-EM datasets and with moderate experience navigating Python and Jupyter notebooks. It requires 3-4 days to complete. 

We report the first observation of the radiative decay $D_{s0}^{*}(2317{)}^{+}\to D_s^{*+}\gamma$with a statistical significance exceeding 10 standard deviations. The signal is observed in the continuum $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to c\overline{c}$process, using combined data samples of $980.4{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$from Belle and $427.9{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$from Belle II, collected at the KEKB and SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy $e^{+}{e}^{-}$colliders, respectively. The branching fraction ratio $\mathcal{B}\left[D_{s0}^{*}\right(2317{)}^{+}\to D_s^{*+}\gamma ]/\mathcal{B}[D_{s0}^{*}(2317{)}^{+}\to D_s^{+}{\pi }^0]$is measured to be $[7.13\pm 0.70(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.26(\mathrm{syst}\left)\right]\%$. This result provides crucial discrimination between theoretical models of the $D_{s0}^{*}(2317{)}^{+}$structure. 

Using a data sample of $427.9{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$collected by the Belle II detector at or near the $\mathrm{\Upsilon }\left(4S\right)$and $\mathrm{\Upsilon }\left(10753\right)$resonances, the cross sections for $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to h^{+}{h}^{-}J/\psi (h=\pi /K/p)$at center-of-mass energies ranging from 3.8 GeV or the production threshold to $5.5/6.0/7.0\mathrm{GeV}$have been measured via initial-state radiation. The cross sections for the processes $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}J/\psi$and $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to K^{+}{K}^{-}J/\psi$are consistent with previously published results. The cross sections for these channels obtained by combining with previous Belle results are also given. The process $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to p\overline{p}J/\psi$is investigated for the first time. The yields are small and no significant structure is observed in the cross section versus energy. Searches for vector charmoniumlike states in the $h^{+}{h}^{-}J/\psi$systems, and for associated intermediate states in the $h^{\pm }J/\psi$systems, are also presented. 

We report a measurement of the branching fraction for the leptonic decay $B^{+}\to {\mu }^{+}{\nu }_{\mu }$. This work presents the first $B^{+}\to {\mu }^{+}{\nu }_{\mu }$result using Belle II data, an updated Belle measurement that supersedes the previous result, and their combination, which yields the most precise search to date. The analysis is based on $1076{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$of $e^{+}{e}^{-}$collision data collected at a center-of-mass energy of 10.58 GeV with the Belle and Belle II detectors at the KEKB and SuperKEKB colliders, respectively. We measure $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to {\mu }^{+}{\nu }_{\mu })=(4.4\pm 1.9\pm 1.0)\times {10}^{-7}$, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The observed significance relative to the background-only hypothesis is 2.4 standard deviations. We set a 90% confidence level upper limit of $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to {\mu }^{+}{\nu }_{\mu })<6.7\times {10}^{-7}$using a frequentist approach and a 90% credibility level upper limit of $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to {\mu }^{+}{\nu }_{\mu })<7.2\times {10}^{-7}$using a Bayesian approach. These are the most stringent limits to date. The result is interpreted as an exclusion region in the parameter space of type II and type III two-Higgs-doublet models. We search for stable sterile neutrinos with masses $m_N\in [0,1.5]\mathrm{GeV}$. No signal is observed, and the resulting exclusion on the squared mixing parameter $|U_{\mu N}{|}^2$provides improvement over previous limits. We report a measurement of the partial branching fraction of semileptonic $B\to X_u\ell {\nu }_{\ell }$decays with $p_{\mu }^B>2.2\mathrm{GeV}$, obtaining $\mathrm{\Delta }\mathcal{B}(B\to X_u\ell {\nu }_{\ell })=(2.72\pm 0.05\pm 0.29)\times {10}^{-4}$. We present a model-dependent study of weak annihilation decays using the muon momentum spectrum. We observe a signal of 2.4 standard deviations above the background-only hypothesis in regions where the distribution resembles that of $B\to X_u\ell {\nu }_{\ell }$decays.