Researchers discover how caffeine could slow cellular ageing

Queen Mary University of London research out today shows how it works

Queen Mary University of London

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Fission yeast cells in which the glucose transporter Ght5 is fluorescently labelled with Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP). 

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Credit: Olga Xintarakou, Queen Mary University of London

A new study from the Cellular Ageing and Senescence laboratory (www.rallislab.org) at Queen Mary University of London’s Cenfre for Molecular Cell Biology, reveals how caffeine—the world’s most popular neuroactive compound—might do more than just wake you up. The study in the journal Microbial Cell shows how caffeine could play a role in slowing down the ageing process at a cellular level.

Caffeine has long been linked to potential health benefits, including reduced risk of age-related diseases. But how it works inside our cells, and what exactly are its connections with nutrient and stress responsive gene and protein networks has remained a mystery—until now.

In new research published by scientists studying fission yeast—a single-celled organism surprisingly similar to human cells—researchers found that caffeine affects ageing by tapping into an ancient cellular energy system.

A few years ago, the same research team found that caffeine helps cells live longer by acting on a growth regulator called TOR (Target of Rapamycin). TOR is a biological switch that tells cells when to grow, based on how much food and energy is available. This switch has been controlling energy and stress responses in living things for over 500 million years.

But in their latest study, the scientists made a surprising discovery: caffeine doesn’t act on this growth switch directly. Instead, it works by activating another important system called AMPK, a cellular fuel gauge that is evolutionarily conserved in yeast and humans.

“When your cells are low on energy, AMPK kicks in to help them cope,” explains Dr Charalampos (Babis) Rallis, Reader in Genetics, Genomics and Fundamental Cell Biology at Queen Mary University of London, the study’s senior author. “And our results show that caffeine helps flip that switch.”

Interestingly, AMPK is also the target of metformin, a common diabetes drug that’s being studied for its potential to extend human lifespan together with rapamycin.

Using their yeast model, the researchers showed that caffeine's effect on AMPK influences how cells grow, repair their DNA, and respond to stress—all of which are tied to ageing and disease.

“These findings help explain why caffeine might be beneficial for health and longevity,” said Dr John-Patrick Alao the postdoctoral research scientist leading this study. “And they open up exciting possibilities for future research into how we might trigger these effects more directly—with diet, lifestyle, or new medicines.”

So, the next time you reach for your coffee, you might be doing more than just boosting your focus—you could also be giving your cells a helping hand.

Notes to editors:

1. AMPK (AMP-activated protein kinase), is a cellular energy sensor that plays a vital role in maintaining metabolic balance. Indirect inhibition of AMPK, through the widely used anti-diabetic drug metformin, has already attracted attention for its beneficial effects.
2. Fission yeast is also known as “mini-human” due to its similarities with human cells.
3. The paper,  "Dissecting the cell cycle regulation, DNA damage sensitivity and lifespan effects of caffeine in fission yeast" (manuscript ID: MIC0274E152) is published in Microbial Cell and available online.   URL: https://microbialcell.com/researcharticles/2025a-alao-microbial-cell/
4. The DOI is:  10.15698/mic2025.06.852

Contact Lucia Graves to interview the authors l.graves@qmul.ac.uk or press@qmul.ac.uk

Caffeine Mechanism (IMAGE)

Queen Mary University of London

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How caffeine affects cells

Credit

Queen Mary University of London

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Journal

Microbial Cell

DOI

10.15698/mic2025.06.852 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Dissecting the cell cycle regulation, DNA damage sensitivity and lifespan effects of caffeine in fission yeast

Article Publication Date

24-Jun-2025

 

Rethinking the demographic race: What is the future economic potential of India and China?

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

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In 2023, India surpassed China as the most populous country in the world, and is likely to retain this status for the remainder of this century. In a recent study, IIASA researchers explored whether India could also surpass China in terms of broader socio-economic potential, given the country’s rapid economic growth in recent decades.

The demographic dynamics in India and China have major impacts on global economic development. Seeking to reassess the demographic race between the two countries with a focus on human capital and labor force quality instead of population size or age structure, researchers looked at the productivity-weighted labor force (PWLF), which takes into account both the educational structure of the population and the quality of the educational system.

The findings of their study, published in Population Research and Policy Review, suggest that China will likely maintain an economic lead for most of the next half-century due to its more educated and higher-participating labor force despite India surpassing China in total population. These findings challenge the common narrative that rapid population ageing in China and India’s younger and larger population will automatically translate into economic dominance.

“It’s not about how many people you have, it’s about what they can do,” explains IIASA researcher and study co-author Guillaume Marois. “Governments should focus less on the number of people — for example by promoting policies that encourage women into having more children — but rather on ensuring everyone is given the opportunity to meet their own full potential and contribute to society.”

The authors highlight that although India's continuing population growth and enormous youth population could eventually become an economic advantage, this can only be the case if the country makes substantial investments in education and reduces gender inequality in the labor force participation. Research shows that if India’s female labor force participation and education do not improve, in terms of PWLF, it may not catch up to China before the end of the century.

The results suggest that for India, policies to expand education, especially for women, and remove barriers to female workforce participation are critical if the country hopes to realize its demographic dividend. For China, maintaining high education quality and adapting to an aging workforce through automation, raising retirement ages, and boosting productivity will be key to sustaining economic strength.

“The demographic race between giants will be determined more by human capital development than total population size,” concludes Marois. “Investing in health, education, income protection, poverty reduction, and promoting a productive, inclusive labor market providing decent employment are critical to future economic development in China, in India, and all over the globe.”

This study is the result of a collaboration between researchers from IIASA, the Asian Demographic Research Institute (Shanghai University), and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Reference:

Marois, G., Gietel-Basten, S. & Lutz, W. (2025) The Demographic Race between India and China. Population Research and Policy Review, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-025-09966-

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Journal

Population Research and Policy Review

DOI

10.1007/s11113-025-09966-y 

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Demographic Race between India and China

Article Publication Date

24-Jun-2025

New study reveals bias in AI text detection tools impacts academic publishing fairness

PeerJ

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A study published in PeerJ Computer Science reveals significant accuracy-bias trade-offs in artificial intelligence text detection tools that could disproportionately impact non-native English speakers and certain academic disciplines in scholarly publishing.

The peer-reviewed research paper, "The Accuracy-Bias Trade-Offs in AI Text Detection Tools and Their Impact on Fairness in Scholarly Publication", examines how tools designed to identify AI-generated content may inadvertently create new barriers in academic publishing.

Key Findings

• Popular AI detection tools (GPTZero, ZeroGPT, and DetectGPT) demonstrate inconsistent accuracy when distinguishing between human-written and AI-generated academic abstracts
• AI-assisted writing, where human text is enhanced by language models for improved readability, presents particular challenges for detection systems
• High accuracy in AI text detection tools doesn't mean fairness. Ironically, the most accurate tool in this study showed the strongest bias against certain groups of authors and academic disciplines.
• Non-native English speakers face higher rates of false positives, with their work more frequently misclassified as entirely AI-generated.

"This study highlights the limitations of detection-focused approaches and urges a shift toward ethical, responsible, and transparent use of LLMs in scholarly publication," noted the research team.

The research was conducted as part of ongoing efforts to understand how AI tools affect academic integrity while ensuring equitable access to publishing opportunities across diverse author backgrounds.

 

Read the full open access article https://peerj.com/articles/cs-2953/

About PeerJ Computer Science

High-quality, developmental peer review, coupled with industry-leading customer service and an award-winning submission system, means PeerJ Computer Science is the optimal choice for your computer science research.

 

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Journal

PeerJ Computer Science

DOI

10.7717/peerj-cs.2953 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

The accuracy-bias trade-offs in AI text detection tools and their impact on fairness in scholarly publication

Article Publication Date

23-Jun-2025

 

Ancient temple ruins discovered in Andes shed light on lost society

Penn State

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José Capriles, Penn State associate professor of anthropology, was a lead author on a study about the temple discovery.  

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Credit: Patrick Mansell / Penn State

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — An ancient society near the southern shores of Lake Titicaca in modern-day Bolivia was once one of the continent’s most powerful civilizations. Known as Tiwanaku, the ancient society is widely considered by archaeologists to be one of the earliest examples of civilization in the Andes and a precursor of the Inca empire, but it mysteriously disappeared about a thousand years ago. Now, a team led by scientists at Penn State and in Bolivia have discovered a Tiwanaku temple, shedding new light on what the society looked like in its prime.

Much about the Tiwanaku civilization remains unknown, explained José Capriles, Penn State associate professor of anthropology and lead author on a study about the temple discovery published today (June 24) in the journal Antiquity.

“Their society collapsed sometime around 1000 CE and was a ruin by the time the Incas conquered the Andes in the 15th century,” Capriles said. CE refers to the common era of the current calendar. “At its peak, it boasted a highly organized societal structure, leaving behind remnants of architectural monuments like pyramids, terraced temples and monoliths, most of which are distributed in sites around Lake Titicaca and, while we know Tiwanaku’s control and influence extended much further, scholars debate how much actual control over distant places it had.”

The newly discovered temple complex is located roughly 130 miles south of Tiwanaku’s established historical site, on top of a hill that was known to local Indigenous farmers but was never explored in depth by researchers due to its unassuming location. However, the position of the site is actually very strategic, Capriles explained.

At the time of Tiwanaku, the spot connected three main trade routes for three vastly different ecosystems: the productive highlands around Lake Titicaca to the north, the arid Altiplano ideal for herding llamas to the west and the agriculturally productive eastern Andean valleys of Cochabamba to the east.

As such, the researchers said they understood that the site must have held some importance for connecting people. Capriles explained that people moved, traded and built monuments in places of significance throughout the arid mountain landscape. After noticing an unmapped quadrangular plot of land, the researchers used various techniques to visualize the area.

“Because the features are very faint, we blended various satellite images together,” Capriles said. “We also conducted a series of UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle, flights to acquire better pictures. By means of photogrammetry, a technique that uses photos to construct a 3D approximation, we got a more detailed rendering of the structure and its topography.”

Stone alignments revealed an ancient temple, called Palaspata after the native name for the area. The temple complex is approximately 125 meters long by 145 meters wide — about the size of a city block — and includes 15 quadrangular enclosures arranged around a rectangular inner courtyard. Its layout seems aligned to perform rituals following the solar equinox, the moment when the sun is directly above the equator, Capriles said. Using data they collected, the researchers developed a reconstruction to reveal what the ancient temple might have looked like.

The surface of the temple contained numerous fragments of keru cups. The cups were used for drinking chicha, a traditional maize beer, during agricultural feasts and celebrations and point to the temple's function as a central hub for trade, Capriles said. The fact that maize was not locally grown but cultivated in the Cochabamba valleys versus the high-altitude temple site underscores the temple's importance in facilitating access to various goods, including food, and connecting different culinary traditions, he added.

Capriles said the temple likely served a religious purpose, evidenced by the designated ritual areas as well as by its physical connection mediating trade and harvest distribution.

“Most economic and political transactions had to be mediated through divinity, because that would be a common language that would facilitate various individuals cooperating,” he said, as religion was often the common ground that connected different groups.

The discovery was a surprise even to the local inhabitants, explained Justo Ventura Guarayo, mayor of the municipality of Caracollo where the site is located.

“The archaeological findings at Palaspata are significant because they highlight a crucial aspect of our local heritage that had been completely overlooked,” Ventura Guarayo said. “This discovery is vital for our community, and we believe its documentation will be invaluable for promoting tourism and showcasing our region's rich history.”

He added that the city is working with state and national authorities to ensure proper protection and preservation of the site, following guidance from archaeology experts like Capriles.

“With more insight into the past of this ancient site, we get a window into how people managed cooperation, and how we can materially see evidence of political and economic control,” Capriles added. “There's still so much to discover that we don't know about, and that could be hiding in plain sight. It just requires opening your eyes to see what's out there.”

The researchers worked with the Bolivian Ministry of Cultures, Decolonization, and Depatriarchalization to export samples, which were dated at the Penn State’s Institute of Energy and the Environment Radiocarbon Dating Lab.

This paper was co-authored with Sergio Calla Maldonado, a Bolivian graduate student at Universidad de Granada; Juan Pablo Calero, a Bolivian architect; and Christophe Delaere, a Belgium research associate at Université libre de Bruxelles. The U.S. National Science Foundation funded this research in part via grants BCS-2015924 and DEB-2208411.

At Penn State, researchers are solving real problems that impact the health, safety and quality of life of people across the commonwealth, the nation and around the world.

For decades, federal support for research has fueled innovation that makes our country safer, our industries more competitive and our economy stronger. Recent federal funding cuts threaten this progress.

Learn more about the implications of federal funding cuts to our future at Research or Regress.

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Journal

Antiquity

DOI

10.15184/aqy.2025.59 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Gateway to the east: the Palaspata temple and the south-eastern expansion of the Tiwanaku state

Article Publication Date

24-Jun-2025

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The surface of the temple contained numerous fragments of keru cups. The cups were used for drinking chicha, a traditional maize beer, during agricultural feasts and celebrations and point to the temple's function as a central hub for trade.



The newly discovered temple complex is located roughly 130 miles south of Tiwanaku’s established historical site, on top of a hill that was never explored in depth by researchers due to its unassuming location.

The temple's layout seems aligned to perform rituals following the solar equinox, the moment when the sun is directly above the equator. Using data they collected, the researchers developed a reconstruction to reveal what the ancient temple might have looked like.



Stone alignments revealed an ancient temple, called Palaspata after the native name for the area. The temple complex is approximately 125 meters long by 145 meters wide — about the size of a city block — and includes 15 quadrangular enclosures arranged around a rectangular inner courtyard. This is a digital reconstruction of the temple.



Credit

José Capriles / Penn State

Drive to survive: The seemingly impossible reproduction of dogroses hinges on a centromere trick

How centromeres enable a special form of reproduction

Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research

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Pentaploid Rosa canina’s flower reveals its unique sexual reproduction: asymmetric meiosis creates haploid pollen (anthers) transmitting only bivalent-forming chromosomes, while ovaries inherit both bivalents and univalents creating tetraploid eggs. This mixed inheritance maintains pentaploidy—a rare strategy among eukaryotes. 

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Credit: André Marques

An international research team led by Dr. André Marques from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Prof. Dr. Christiane Ritz from the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Görlitz and Dr. Aleš Kovařík from the Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences has achieved a significant breakthrough in research into the reproduction of dogrose. The study, which has now been published in the renowned journal "Nature", shows how differences in the size of the centromeres - the central docking sites for chromosomes - play a decisive role in the extraordinary chromosome inheritance of these plants. In the long term, the results could open up new avenues for the development of more robust crops.

The dogrose’s secret

The dogrose (Rosa canina) is by far the most common wild rose in Central Europe. Its fruits, known as "rose hips", are used in a variety of ways - from fruit tea blends to the production of "itching powder". "The plant is not only pretty to look at and can be used for all kinds of purposes, but has also developed a special form of reproduction," explains Prof. Dr. Christiane Ritz from the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Görlitz and continues: "While most plants and animals each have two sets of chromosomes, the dogrose has five. This makes their reproduction more complicated. An odd number of chromosome sets even often leads to infertility in many plants because the chromosomes cannot be evenly paired and distributed during meiosis - the formation of egg and sperm cells."

However, in the course of their evolution, the dogrose has developed an ingenious solution that still enables the plant to reproduce sexually. In the so-called Canina meiosis or balanced heterogamy, only two of the plant's five chromosome sets mate regularly and are passed on via egg cells and pollen. The other three sets remain unpaired, so-called univalents, and are passed on exclusively via the egg cell - without being changed. "In this way, the plant combines sexual and clonal reproduction," explains Dr. André Marques from the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne and continues: "Although this reproductive system has been known for over 100 years, little was known about the mechanisms of this method. The role of the centromeres - the central chromosome regions that are important for distribution during cell division - was also unclear. In our study, we examined genomes of pentaploid dogroses - plants with five complete chromosome sets - in high resolution down to the level of individual chromosome sets and their origin."

The power of centromeres

The researchers' aim was to find out what enables dogroses to transport their unpaired chromosomes into the egg cell in a targeted manner - a process that was not fully understood until now. The scientists found the answer in the structure of the centromeres, the DNA segments to which the spindle fibers attach during cell division. Spindle fibers are part of a spindle apparatus that moves chromosomes during mitosis and meiosis to ensure an even distribution of chromosomes between the daughter cells.

"Our analysis of the three different pentaploid dog rose species showed that the univalent chromosomes have strikingly large centromeres with multiple repetitions of a rose-specific DNA sequence. These larger centromeres also increasingly bind the protein CENH3, which plays a key role in binding the spindle," says Dr. Aleš Kovařík from the Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences. This means that the centromere size could be a decisive factor in ensuring that certain chromosomes are retained during asymmetric cell divisions. "By tweaking their centromere size and strength, these plants can literally bias which chromosomes get inherited", adds Marques.

Why it matters

"The simultaneous coexistence of sexual and clonal reproduction in the same genome - controlled by differences in the centromere structure - is a fascinating biological mechanism. However, the discovery not only provides new insights into the fascinating world of plant genetics, but also has practical significance for breeding", says Ritz. Many cultivated plants have more than two sets of chromosomes. This makes their reproduction susceptible to errors, but can also bring advantages such as greater resistance. A better understanding of dog rose reproduction could help to make targeted use of these advantages and stabilize the fertility of polyploid plant species. Marques concludes: "In the long term, our findings could open up new avenues for the development of more robust crops."

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-09171-z 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Bimodal centromeres in pentaploid dogroses shed light on their unique meiosis

Article Publication Date

18-Jun-2025