Striking new moth species, hidden for a century, named to honor 42 years of marriage

Pensoft Publishers

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Adult female of Ingrid-Maria's carcina.

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Credit: P. Huemer/Ferdinandeum

A beautiful, colourful moth, previously mistaken for over a century, has been revealed as a new species by entomologist Dr Peter Huemer of the Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck, Austria. 

Described in the open-access journal Alpine Entomology, the new species, now officially named Carcina ingridmariae, had long been overlooked due to its close resemblance to the widespread oak carcina (Carcina quercana), a moth familiar across Europe and first described in 1775.

Despite its vibrant pink and yellow hues, Carcina ingridmariae escaped detection until advances in DNA barcoding revealed significant genetic differences of more than 6% from its lookalike relative. Subsequent analysis of the insects’ sexual organs confirmed the molecular findings, leading to the revelation that two distinct species have been hiding in plain sight.

The new species has a wingspan of about 2 cm, and is found across the eastern Mediterranean, from Croatia and Greece to Cyprus and Turkey. Its larvae likely feed on various oak species, similar to its counterpart. However, dedicated studies on its biology and distribution remain ongoing.

In recognition of enduring support throughout his career, Dr Huemer dedicated the discovery to his wife, Ingrid Maria, naming the moth after her on their 42nd wedding anniversary. 

Huemer,  who has described more than 200 species from Europe over 35 years said: “It is without doubt the prettiest species I have encountered in my long scientific career, even though it is still unnamed.” It was therefore “obvious” to Huemer that the new species should be given his wife’s name.

Original source

Huemer P (2025) The supposedly unmistakable mistaken: Carcina ingridmariae sp. nov., a surprising example of overlooked diversity from Europe and the Near East (Lepidoptera, Peleopodidae). Alpine Entomology 9: 51-63. https://doi.org/10.3897/alpento.9.158239

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Journal

Alpine Entomology

DOI

10.3897/alpento.9.158239 

Article Title

The supposedly unmistakable mistaken: Carcina ingridmariae sp. nov., a surprising example of overlooked diversity from Europe and the Near East (Lepidoptera, Peleopodidae)

Habitat of Ingrid Maria´s carcina (Kantara Catsle, Pentadactylos Mts., North Cyprus).

Male of Ingrid Maria´s carcina.

Credit

P. Huemer/Ferdinandeum.

 

Bee and frog proteins: nature’s double defense against farm superbugs

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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The figure illustrates a key strategy to prevent the evolution of antimicrobial resistance. When bacteria are treated with a single antimicrobial peptide (AMP)—from a source like a honeybee (top) or a frog (bottom)—they can rapidly evolve resistance, which renders the treatment ineffective. However, when the bacteria are treated with a combination of different AMPs, they are effectively killed (center), and their ability to evolve resistance is significantly hindered. This approach makes peptide combinations a promising strategy for developing more durable, 'resistance-proof' therapies.

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Credit: Bar Maron, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the figure created with Biorender.com

A new study reveals that combining natural antimicrobial peptides can significantly slow the development of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria. The research shows that using two peptides together prevents harmful bacteria from mutating as quickly, offering a promising alternative to traditional antibiotics. These findings could lead to safer, more sustainable disease control in livestock and agricultural settings.

Antibiotic resistance isn’t just a hospital problem—it’s a growing threat on the farm, too. From poultry barns to dairy sheds, the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture has given rise to “superbugs” that endanger animals, crops, and even human health. But what if the solution has been buzzing and hopping around us all along?

In a new study led by Bar Maron, a joint PhD student, in collaboration with Prof. Jonathan Friedman and Prof. Zvi Hayouka from the Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, scientists have discovered that antimicrobial peptides (AMPs)—tiny proteins that are part of the immune system of almost all organisms—can work together to block the development of bacterial resistance.

“Bacteria are smart. When you hit them with one weapon, they often find a way around it,” says Prof. Hayouka. “But when we used two peptides at once, it was like closing all the escape routes.”

The research, published in iScience, focused on Staphylococcus aureus, a significant pathogen responsible for persistent infections in animals and humans alike. Using three AMPs—melittin (from bees), temporin (from frogs), and pexiganan (a synthetic peptide inspired by nature)—the team watched how bacteria evolved over time. The results were significant: when bacteria were exposed to a single peptide, they quickly developed resistance through genetic mutations. But when two peptides were combined? The bacteria were stumped, mutating less and staying vulnerable.

This could be an important advancement for agriculture, where antibiotic resistance has already begun to affect livestock health and farmer livelihoods. By reducing reliance on synthetic antibiotics and turning to natural peptide combinations, the industry could move toward safer, more sustainable ways of managing disease.

“These peptides are part of nature’s own defense system. Animals have been using them for millions of years,” says Prof. Friedman. “By borrowing from nature and using them wisely, we can tip the scales back in our favor.”

The findings could pave the way for new feed additives or topical treatments that keep infections in check without triggering resistance. It also offers hope for maintaining herd health without contributing to the global AMR (antimicrobial resistance) crisis.

Of course, more research is needed before these peptides make their way into farm protocols. But the message is clear: when it comes to fighting superbugs, sometimes two peptides are better than one.

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Journal

iScience

DOI

10.1016/j.isci.2025.112671 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Uncovering the genetic basis of Staphylococcus aureus resistance to single antimicrobial peptides and their combinations

DETENTE

GBiDC-PEST: A novel lightweight model for real-time multiclass tiny pest detection and mobile platform deployment

Team of researchers from China and the United States developed GBiDC-PEST

KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.

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Deep learning-based intelligent recognition algorithms are increasingly recognized for their potential to address the labor-intensive challenge of manual pest detection. However, their deployment on mobile devices has been constrained by high computational demands.

To that end, a team of researchers from China and the United States developed GBiDC-PEST, a mobile application that incorporates an improved, lightweight detection algorithm based on the You Only Look Once (YOLO) series single-stage architecture for real-time detection of four tiny pests (wheat mites, sugarcane aphids, wheat aphids, and rice planthoppers).

“Insect pests significantly threaten global food security, resulting in substantial economic losses, particularly in major food-producing countries such as China and the United States” explains the study’s senior author, Qiong Su, a professor at Clemson University, United States.

“Deep learning techniques offer unique advantages in pest detection by automatically learning, however, most deep learning-based pest detection studies were conducted in controlled environments with stable lighting and uniform backgrounds,” says first author Weiyue Xu, a researcher at Changzhou University, China. “Optimizing these algorithms for accurate detection in complex, natural environments remain a significant challenge, particularly for tiny objects.”

The GBiDC-PEST model specifically addresses the practical needs of modern agricultural production of three major crops—sorghum, wheat, and rice—which are critical for global food security. The model targets four significant pests (sugarcane aphid, wheat mite, wheat aphid, and rice planthopper) that cause substantial damage to these crops.

“GBiDC-PEST incorporates several innovative modules, including GhostNet for lightweight feature extraction and architecture optimization by reconstructing the backbone, the Bi-directional Feature Pyramid Network (BiFPN) for enhanced multiscale feature fusion, Depthwise convolution (DWConv) layers to reduce computational load, and the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) to enable precise feature focus,” shares Xu.

The GBiDC-PEST algorithm achieves a balanced, lightweight design while maintaining high detection accuracy (mAP=80.1%) and a fast-processing speed (FPS=161.3).

GBiDC-PEST was successfully deployed as an Android application for real-time pest detection in the field.

“The optimization and App deployment approach of the GBiDC-PEST algorithm proposed in this study enhances the applicability of mobile devices for the automatic detection of multiple pests in complex field environments,” adds Su.

The team's findings, published in KeAi’s Journal of Integrative Agriculture, offer a robust technical framework for the rapid, onsite identification and localization of tiny pests. This advancement provides valuable insights for effective pest monitoring, counting, and control in various agricultural settings.

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Contact the author: Weiyue Xu, E-mail: wyxu@cczu.edu.cn; #Correspondence Qiong Su, E-mail: qsu@clemson.edu

The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 200 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).

 

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Journal

Journal of Integrative Agriculture

DOI

10.1016/j.jia.2024.12.017 

Method of Research

Imaging analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

GBiDC-PEST: A novel lightweight model for real-time multiclass tiny pest detection and mobile platform deployment

D.E.I. POST AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Universities that eliminated admission test requirements saw gains in student body diversity

Results vary depending on institutional values, needs

University of California - Davis

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Universities that have eliminated standardized test requirements for admissions in recent years generally experienced gains in diversity in their student bodies, according to research by the University of California, Davis. However, if the universities also faced recent financial shortfalls or enrollment declines, or continued to prioritize quantitative academic criteria such as test scores and class rank, these gains in diversity diminished or disappeared.

The paper, “Same Policy, No Standardized Outcome: How Admissions Values and Institutional Priorities Shape the Effect of Test-Optional Policies on Campus Diversity,” was published in the American Sociological Review on Aug. 11.

“Although test-optional admissions policies are often adopted with the assumption that they will broaden access to underrepresented minority groups, the effectiveness of these policies in increasing student diversity appears to depend on existing admissions values and institutional priorities at the university,” said Greta Hsu, co-author of the paper. Hsu is a UC Davis professor in the Graduate School of Management who studies organizational behavior.

This paper was co-authored with Amanda Sharkey of the University of Notre Dame.

Data from 16 years

Researchers analyzed a broad sample of data from more than 1,500 public and private four-year, degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States between 2003 and 2019. During that time, more than 200 of those universities eliminated standardized test requirements.

Some universities, such as University of California, are currently “test-blind” and do not consider test scores at all, while others make them optional. Students have control over whether tests are sent or not, and students must contemplate whether it helps or hurts them to include test scores in their application where tests are optional, Hsu said.

COVID years eliminated from study

The data does not include the period after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, in which more colleges eliminated testing requirements and altered enrollment processes in myriad ways because of changes in high school educational attainment, lack of test centers and other issues.

Campus populations changed

During the years analyzed, demographics on college campuses changed. Students identifying as white decreased, overall, from 68% to 53% while those identifying as an underrepresented population (Black, Hispanic or Native American) increased from 19% to 28% percent of students attending college.  Those identifying as Asian or Asian American increased slightly from 6% to 8%.

Testing and inequities

Standardized tests have been broadly used to assess college readiness since the 1950s. But concerns have risen over the years — beginning in the 1980s and especially more recently — that the testing is flawed, exhibiting racial and income-based inequities. Further, critics argue that access to test preparation tutors and materials favors those who can afford and access those resources.

Colleges that give much weight to test scores — while not requiring them — show no significant increase in enrolling underrepresented students for three years following a change in testing policy. In contrast, colleges that give less weight to test scores show a slight 2% increase in enrollment of underrepresented students in the same period. Researchers said additional recruitment and individual university efforts to strengthen student body diversity could affect those numbers but were not studied.

In addition to examining the metrics colleges report valuing when making admissions decisions, the researchers looked at whether colleges were facing institutional pressures, such as from financial or enrollment shortfalls, when they went test optional.  They found that colleges facing financial or enrollment-related pressures were less likely to see a significant increase in minority student representation when they went test optional.

“It is important to recognize that college and university environments, like most complex organizations, face multiple competing pressures,” Hsu said.  “Actions and policies aimed at responding to each of these pressures can, at times, work at cross-purposes with one another."

 

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DOI

10.1177/00031224251352432 

Playtime a mostly mutual activity between dolphins and whales

Griffith University

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A suction camera tag deployed by Dr Olaf Meynecke captures the depths dolphins will sometimes accompany whales to - in this case, even to the sea floor.

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Credit: Olaf Meynecke

A new study has investigated hundreds of videos and images taken by the public, tourism operators and scientists to better understand a rarely studied behaviour among whales and dolphins – do they actually “play” together, or is it more of a one-sided relationship?

Led by Griffith University’s Whales & Climate Program lead, Dr Olaf Meynecke, the study analysed instances of baleen whale and dolphin interactions involving 19 species in 199 separate and unrelated interactions, documented by photographs and videos from 17 locations around the world.

Published in Discover Animals, Dr Meynecke said the findings demonstrated a quarter of these interactions can be defined as a mutual interaction.

“And in particular for humpback whales, we found that for one-third of the events the behavioural responses towards the dolphins appear positive.

“The humpback whales were rolling from side to side, undertaking belly presentation and other behaviours that are associated with courtship or friendly socialising.

“Whales also strategically moved slowly in the direction of the dolphins with their head and rostrum.

“The vast majority of the observed interactions did not show avoidance behaviour.

“We were in particular interested to document the whales’ reactions and responses toward the dolphins’ as commonly dolphins are described to harass and annoy the whales.”

Co-author and Masters graduate Olivia Crawley said: “When you’re out on the water, you often see whales and dolphins interacting and as a scientist, you can’t help but wonder why.

“Having the opportunity to document these observations and observe some of the behavioural patterns like bow riding by dolphins and close touches was intriguing.

“I hope that this study can serve as a foundation for future studies.”

Within each interaction, the authors noted the species of the whale and dolphin, the date and time of the interaction, the location, the number of animals involved, the age class, and the relative position of the dolphins in relation to the whale´s main body parts (rostrum or the ‘beak’, flank, and fluke or tail).

The most common whale-dolphin interaction involved dolphins swimming near the whale’s rostrum, akin to bow riding, which could indicate an energy-efficient mode of locomotion and a form of one-sided play by dolphins.

In total the documented interactions included 425 baleen whales from six different species, with humpback whales dominating (68%) then grey whales (16%) and fin whales (7%).

An estimated 1570 dolphins were observed, with bottlenose dolphins (51%), common dolphin (17%) and pacific wide-sided dolphins (15%) dominating.

Adults formed the largest number of documented interactions, however a whale calf was present in 44 events, and dolphin calf in 53 events. Both whale and dolphin calves were present in 21 occasions.

The whale species responded differently to the dolphin behaviour; humpback whales moved their pectoral fin toward the dolphins (172 counts) while grey whales were often rolling (56 counts) and southern right whales displayed pectoral slaps (5 counts out of 10 separate events).

Physical percussive behaviours that could indicate aggressive responses toward dolphins such as tail slaps (18 counts) or head slaps (none) were least observed for humpback whales.

Two videos from suction camera tags on humpback whales also showed bottlenose dolphins following humpback whales not only on the surface but also to the ocean floor where they continued engaging in close approaches including possible touching and social play.

“While social play is cooperative and reciprocal, there is also one-sided play or interaction, with only one participant perceiving the interaction as playful, as seen in cases of teasing or harassment by dolphins during feeding events,” Dr Meynecke said.

“Behavioural studies of marine mammals such as these provide insight into their complex social structures, play a crucial role in enhancing our understanding of marine ecosystems and the interactions among marine species.”

The study ‘Assessing social behaviour between baleen whales (Mysticeti) and dolphins (Delphinidae)’ has been published in Discover Animals.

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Journal

Discover Animals

DOI

10.1007/s44338-025-00099-2 

 

Mediterranean climate’s future: a swing between droughts and downpours

Data-driven approach offers region-specific forecasts and supports long-term water planning

Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research (OLAR)

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From its olive groves to its coastal cities, the Mediterranean depends on a delicate balance of rain and sun, but climate change is tipping the scales.

 

Using a new and relatively simple data-driven model, a study published June 3 in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research forecasts repeating drought and rain cycles in the central Mediterranean, offering a sharper picture of the region’s shifting water patterns. The findings pave the way for smarter, more adaptive strategies for facing growing climate volatility.

Long known for its sunny skies and temperate climate, the Mediterranean is now on the frontlines of climate change. The region is experiencing more frequent and intense climatic extremes, from droughts to downpours, prompting scientists to ramp up efforts to forecast future shifts in this culturally rich, agriculturally critical zone.

 

“While conventional Global Circulation Models have greatly advanced our understanding of climate dynamics, they don’t always capture key regional details, especially temperature variations that influence local rainfall patterns,” said Gianni Bellocchi, senior scientist at Université Clermont Auvergne in France and corresponding author of this study.

 

The team therefore aimed for a rather local lens into wetting and drying cycles in the central Mediterranean.

 

“We integrated climate forcings with historical data using a data-driven model with exogenous data, or DDMX,” said Nazzareno Diodato, first author and fellow scientist at the Met European Research Observatory - International Affiliates’ Program of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

 

The researchers analyzed more than a century’s worth of historical weather data, dating back to 1884, with a focus on the Standardized Precipitation Index, a key indicator that tracks unusual wet or dry conditions over six-month intervals. Their DDMX model combines large-scale climate drivers with regional sea-level pressure data to improve predictive accuracy.

 

When validated against observations from 1993 to 2022, the model showed strong performance, with a correlation coefficient of 0.58 and a root mean square error of 0.621, confirming its reliability.

 

“Our DDMX approach offers a simpler methodology and complementary alternative to conventional Global Circulation Models for understanding and forecasting climate-related phenomena,” said Rajib Maity, co-author and researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

 

The model projects a decade-long drying period from 2045 to 2054, followed by a wetter phase —capturing the alternating wet–dry cycles that are emerging as a dominant signature of climate change in the region. These findings assist with water resource planning, agriculture, and infrastructure investment.

 

The trio plans to further refine and expand the DDMX model across different Mediterranean sub-regions and hydroclimate scenarios. They also aim to integrate more diverse datasets, explore new machine learning architectures, and quantify the uncertainty in forecasts more rigorously.

 

“Ultimately, we hope that our work will lead to more effective resilience planning and sustainable water management strategies in regions such as the Mediterranean that are particularly vulnerable to evolving climate patterns,” Bellocchi said.

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Journal

Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research

DOI

10.34133/olar.0093 

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial