The European roots of Africa's giant predatory dinosaurs

Staatliche Naturwissenschaftliche Sammlungen Bayerns

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Site where Camarillasaurus cirugedae was found in the central Spanish province of Teruel.

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Credit: Oliver Rauhut, SNSB-BSPG

Tyrannosaurus is perhaps the best-known bipedal predatory dinosaur – but not the largest known representative of this group: Spinosaurus occurred in Africa in the early Late Cretaceous period (around 95 million years ago) and was even larger, measuring up to 18 meters in length. In collaboration with Spanish colleagues, SNSB paleontologist Oliver Rauhut has now found new evidence that the gigantic spinosaurs had their roots in Europe. New finds and the re-examination of previously collected remains of the little-known predatory dinosaur Camarillasaurus cirugedae from the Lower Cretaceous period (about 128 million years ago) in Spain show that this species was a close relative of the giant North African spinosaurs.

Camarillasaurus was found in the central Spanish province of Teruel. The fossil was originally classified as a ceratosaur – a group of predatory dinosaurs little known in Europe and whose occurrence in the Lower Cretaceous of Spain would represent a find “outside of space and time,” as stated in the original publication. This interpretation was based on a few fragmentary remains described more than ten years ago. During a new excavation campaign at the original fossil site, Oliver Rauhut and his colleagues from the University of Zaragoza have now found further remains of the dinosaur, including fragments of the jaw, tail vertebra and tooth as well as a thigh bone and a foot claw. The new finds allow for the now published reinterpretation of the Spanish predatory dinosaur's family relationships. For example, the paleontologists found common features between Camarillasaurus and other spinosaurs in the lower jawbone.

Oliver Rauhut, dinosaur expert at the Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology and Geology (SNSB-BSPG), goes one step further: "Our phylogenetic analyses indicate that various other representatives of the spinosaurids of the Iberian Peninsula are also on the evolutionary lineage leading to the North African spinosaurids. We suspect that the giant predatory dinosaurs of Africa originated in Europe."

Remains of various spinosaurs, mostly teeth, are common on the Iberian Peninsula, most of them embedded in continental deposits, including Camarillasaurus cirugedae. Researchers therefore assume that the animals lived and hunted in a terrestrial environment. The North African Spinosaurus, on the other hand, is more recently interpreted as a fish eater that spent most of its time in the water, based on its anatomy. There are no finds from Spain to support this thesis as yet.

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Journal

Palaeontologia Electronica

DOI

10.26879/1543 

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Revision of the theropod dinosaur Camarillasaurus cirugedae from the Early Cretaceous (Barremian) of Teruel province, Spain

Article Publication Date

18-Sep-2025

The 128-million-year-old, complete femur of Camarillasaurus cirugedae before it was recovered from the sediment.

Credit

Oliver Rauhut, SNSB-BSPG

Reconstruction of Camarillasaurus cirugedae

Credit

Palaeoartist: Joschua Knüppe

SNSB paleontologist Oliver Rauhut exposing the femur of Camarillasaurus cirugedae

Spanish paleontologist Manuel Gasca with a foot claw from Camarillasaurus cirugedae

Credit

Oliver Rauhut, SNSB-BSPG

 

Age limits for social media and restrictions on addictive functions: Leopoldina discussion paper recommends better protection for children and adolescents

Leopoldina

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Social media use has long been part of the everyday lives of most children and adolescents. Many of them exhibit risky, and in some cases even addictive, behaviour. While social media use can certainly have positive effects for young people, intensive use can negatively impact mental, emotional, and social well-being, leading to symptoms such as depression and anxiety, impaired attention, and sleep problems. In a discussion paper published by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the researchers involved therefore recommend applying the precautionary principle. In the paper “Social Media and the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents”, they give policy recommendations to protect children and adolescents from the negative effects of social media, for example by setting a minimum age for access or by restricting certain functions. The paper was published on 13 August 2025 and an English translation is now available. The discussion paper provides insight into current research on the influence of social media on the mental health of children and adolescents. Most of the available evidence is correlative and of a non-causal nature. Cross-sectional studies show an association between social media use and increased mental health burdens. Some longitudinal studies also suggest that intensive social media use can be the cause of these burdens. The authors therefore advocate using the precautionary principle, according to which preventive measures should be undertaken when there are indications of potentially negative effects, even if the magnitude of the actual risk has not yet been scientifically established. The authors claim that policies are needed to protect children and adolescents, because intensive social media use poses considerable risks. The researchers involved in the paper set out specific recommendations for action in order to protect children and adolescents from the risks posed by social media use, while simultaneously enabling them to engage with social media in a reflective and competent manner. They recommend that children under 13 should not be permitted to open social media accounts. 13- to 15-year-olds should only be allowed to use social media in accordance with legally required parental permission. In addition, social media for 13- to 17-year-olds should function in an age-appropriate way, for example with respect to algorithmic content suggestions, a ban on personalised advertising, and the prohibition of addictive functions such as push messages or infinite scrolling. The researchers also recommend banning smartphone use in daycare centres and schools up to and including grade 10. The discussion paper also explains how age limits and age-appropriate restrictions could be implemented on social media, with regulation at the EU level being a key option. They recommend that the German government advocate for such regulation at the EU level. One highly promising approach is the already planned introduction of the “EUDI wallet”, which will enable a digital proof of age in line with data protection regulations. To promote an informed approach to social media, the authors suggest embedding a digital education curriculum in daycare centres and schools to prepare children and adolescents for challenges related to digital life. Teaching and childcare staff should be trained to recognise and address risky or addictive behaviour at an early stage. In addition, low-threshold public health campaigns should inform families about the impact of social media on mental health and possibilities to positively shape social media use. Further research is needed to better understand social media use among this age group and to evaluate the effectiveness of protective measures. The discussion paper “Social Media and the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents” is published on the Leopoldina website: https://www.leopoldina.org/en/socialmedia-children Publications in the “Leopoldina Discussion” series are contributions by the authors named. With its discussion papers, the Academy offers researchers the opportunity to provide thought-provoking impulses, stimulate discourse, and formulate recommendations flexibly and without a formal working group process. The theses and recommendations contained in discussion papers thus do not reflect the official positions of the Leopoldina. As suggested by the Leopoldina Focus Group Digitalisation, the discussion paper was prepared by an interdisciplinary working group. More on the Focus Group Digitalisation: https://www.leopoldina.org/en/policy-advice/focus-groups/digitalisation/  The Leopoldina on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/leopoldina.org     The Leopoldina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nationale-akademie-der-wissenschaften-leopoldina  The Leopoldina on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nationalakademieleopoldina  The Leopoldina on X: https://www.twitter.com/leopoldina  About the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina  As the German National Academy of Sciences, the Leopoldina provides independent science-based policy advice on matters relevant to society. To this end, the Academy develops interdisciplinary statements based on scientific findings. In these publications, options for action are outlined; making decisions, however, is the responsibility of democratically legitimized politicians. The experts who prepare the statements work in a voluntary and unbiased manner. The Leopoldina represents the German scientific community in the international academy dialogue. This includes advising the annual summits of Heads of State and Government of the G7 and G20 countries. With around 1,700 members from more than 30 countries, the Leopoldina combines expertise from almost all research areas. Founded in 1652, it was appointed the National Academy of Sciences of Germany in 2008. The Leopoldina is committed to the common good.

 

How to develop trans people-inclusive medical AI: the objective of a study by UPF, the BSC, the URV and PRISMA

This ground breaking study in Spain is the result of a collaboration between Pompeu Fabra University, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Rovira i Virgili University and the PRISMA association, which protects the rights of LGBTQIA+ people

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona

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In the field of health, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) may mean major breakthroughs in personalizing diagnoses and treatments, but there is a need to promote bias-free AI with a more diverse and inclusive vision so that everyone can benefit from it. With this study, Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) and Rovira i Virgili University (URV) have moved towards the development of medical AI applications that overcome binary logics and include the needs of trans people. The study was carried out in collaboration with the PRISMA association, which protects the rights of LGBTQIA+ people in the field of science and innovation.

Inclusive medical AI could benefit trans people in several ways, such as the greater personalization of masculinizing or feminizing hormonal treatments according to the physiological characteristics of each individual. Another example is the design of voice apps that take the needs of trans people into account. Many of them use them to help with their process of voice change and it causes them emotional discomfort when the app recognizes them as being of a gender with which they do not identify.

This pioneering study in Spain was recently published in an article in the scientific Journal of Medical Internet Research. The main researcher of the study is Nataly Buslon Valdez, of the Social and Responsible Computing research  group of the UPF Department of Engineering. The study co-authors are Davide Cirillo, head of the Machine Learning for Biomedical Research unit at the BSC and co-leader of the research line on sex and gender bias in AI of the BSC’s Bioinfo4Women initiative; Oriol Rios (URV Department of Pedagogy and member of PRISMA); and Simón Perera del Rosario (UPF Department of Medicine and Life Sciences and PRISMA member).

Buslon had spent several years researching health and gender examining the medical and technological biases that harm women. “We saw the need to overcome the binary vision and see the problems faced by communities such as trans people in order to achieve a more inclusive, diverse and equitable approach”, she explains. On the basis of this idea, which arose from the Bioinfo4Women initiative of the BSC-CNS, she contacted the PRISMA association, which for years has denounced the gaps suffered by the LGBTQIA+ collective in relation to science and innovation for years. PRISMA helped the research team to get in contact with trans people. In addition, it enjoyed the support of representatives of TRÀNSIT, the Health Care and Promotion Service for Trans and Non-Binary People of the Catalan Health Institute (ICS).

The research is grounded in communicative methodology, which requires the active participation of the study population and of different social groups involved in the field of research. A representative cohort of 18 trans people participated in three telematic focus groups to express their views on the topic and were involved in designing the research. PRISMA representatives collaborated in overseeing the focus groups to ensure that the research was ethical and respectful towards trans people. The study sought to analyse two issues, principally: on the one hand the challenges that must be overcome to adapt the design of AI applications in health to the needs of trans people and, on the other, the potential solutions. “The key is to promote more diverse and inclusive AI both in the field of health and globally”, Buslon concludes.

The focus groups have enabled finding “that in many instances, AI replicates the biases of its creators and can increase the invisibility of trans people”, explains Simón Perera del Rosario (UPF). He exemplifies this with the existing apps to help with the voice-changing process of trans people. “These digital systems are designed in a binary way. If someone uses an app that helps them change their voice and identifies them as a man, when they are a trans woman, this will cause them discomfort”. For Buslon (UPF), the constant discrimination of this group, also by technology, “can affect their mental health, self-esteem and quality of life”.

 

How can trans people benefit from the medical potential of AI?

“The study recommends developing inclusive AI applications that enable personalized treatments tailored to the specific needs of each trans person”, Davide Cirillo (BSC) explains. This would allow, for example, adjusting the doses of masculinizing or feminizing hormone therapies to the physiological characteristics of each individual. In addition, AI tools could help detect and correct incompatibilities between hormone therapy and other drugs. 

In the focus groups, the trans people also expressed the need to make appropriate use of their personal data for health purposes. For example, only for medical purposes, health professionals should know if they are dealing with a trans or a cis woman, because, for the treatment of certain diseases, doses could differ in each case. In fact, in the focus groups, the trans people warned that binary models of data management and new technological developments in the medical field may lead to errors in diagnoses and treatments.

 

Strengthening trans people’s trust in the health system

In addition, the study stresses the need to reverse trans people’s distrust towards health institutions, due to their historical discrimination in this field. It should be remembered that the WHO did not remove transsexuality from the International Classification of Diseases until June 2019. To do so, “it is advisable to improve health professionals’ training and awareness of the needs of the trans community”, Oriol Rios (URV) adds. In addition, the study aims to carry out more scientific studies on the subject, which are very scarce to date, focusing on data management and AI with a diverse and inclusive vision. Finally, it recommends promoting solidarity networks and spaces for the exchange of knowledge between trans people and health professionals.

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Journal

Journal of Medical Internet Research

DOI

10.2196/72325 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Exploring Gender Bias in AI for Personalized Medicine: Focus Group Study With Trans Community Members

 

Millisecond windows of time may be key to how we hear, study finds

University of Rochester Medical Center

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You have 20 minutes of spare time, but the new episode of your favorite podcast is a few minutes longer. No problem; you can increase the listening speed and fit in those extra minutes.

Phew.

What happens when you listen to speech at a different speed? Neuroscientists thought that your brain may turn up its processing speed as well. But it turns out that at least the auditory part of the brain keeps “listening” or clocking in at a fixed time. That is the key finding of new research out today in Nature Neuroscience. The research was led by Sam Norman-Haignere, PhD, assistant professor of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Biomedical Engineering, and Neuroscience at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester, in collaboration with researchers at Columbia University, including Principal Investigator Nima Mesgarani, PhD, of the Zuckerman Institute, and Menoua Keshishian, who completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering in his lab.

“This was surprising. It turns out that when you slow down a word, the auditory cortex doesn't change the time window it is processing. It's like the auditory cortex is integrating across this fixed time scale,” said Norman-Haignere, the study's first author, who started the study as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia. “One of the key goals of this kind of research is to build better computational models of how the brain processes information in speech, which will increase our set of scientific tools and ultimately help us understand what goes awry when someone has difficulty understanding speech and language processing.”

The Complexities of Understanding and Modeling Speech

The auditory cortex, which consists of several layers and regions, is the brain area responsible for processing and interpreting sounds. Researchers know there are multiple regions in the brain that process speech—the primary auditory cortex, the secondary auditory cortex, and language areas beyond the auditory cortex. A fundamental understanding of how each region works and the hierarchy between and within these different regions is not well understood.

Understanding the complexities of the brain has been assisted by the development of computational models. These computer models use mathematical formulas or algorithms to understand sound and predict neural responses and human behavior.

The authors of this study used computer models to test whether their research method would distinguish between their two hypotheses: does the auditory cortex integrate information across speech structures—for example, words—or time? It turned out that some of the computer models learned to integrate across speech structures, unlike the auditory cortex. This finding was helpful in part because it helped to validate the methods the authors were using to study structure and time.

Accessing the Human Brain

Neuroscientists are typically limited in the types of neural data they can record from the human brain.  Electroencephalograms or EEGs provide researchers with the brain’s electrical activity read from the scalp, which is far away from the actual cells that produce this activity. Functional MRIs measure blood flow in the brain, which is an indirect measure of brain activity. Both tools have transformed our understanding of human brain function and disease; however, neither method is able to record spatially and temporally precise neural activity.

The researchers worked with epilepsy patients at NYU Langone Medical Center, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and University of Rochester Medical Center to measure precise neural activity from inside the human brain. They worked with patients who were admitted to the hospital for epilepsy monitoring. As part of their monitoring, electrodes were temporarily implanted inside their brains so medical doctors could better determine the area of the brain where their seizures came from. These electrodes measure electrical responses right next to where neurons are active, providing much higher precision than standard methods such as EEG and fMRI.

The recruited participants were tasked with listening to a passage from an audiobook at normal speed, and then they were played the same passage at a slower speed. The researchers thought they might see a change in the neural time window that varied with the speed of speech. However, the differences they observed were none to minimal, indicating the fundamental unit of processing is physical time—for example, 100 milliseconds—and not speech structures such as words.

"This finding challenges the intuitive idea that our brain's processing should be yoked to the speech structures we hear, like syllables or words,” said Mesgarani, a senior author of the study and an associate professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia. “Instead, we've shown that the auditory cortex operates on a fixed, internal timescale, independent of the sound's structure. This provides a consistently timed stream of information that higher-order brain regions must then interpret to derive linguistic meaning.”

“The better we understand speech processing, the better we think we'll be able to understand what is causing deficits in speech processing,” said Norman-Haignere. “One thing that is exciting about this line of work is that there are many people who have been studying hearing, and many people who have been studying language, but your brain needs to somehow transform the sounds that reach your ear into words, phrases, and sentences. So, figuring out how the brain goes from something more sound-based to something more language-based, and how to model this transformation, is an exciting space that we're working in.”

Other researchers include Guy McKhann, and Catherine Schevon of Columbia University, and Orrin Devinsku, Werner Doyle, and Adeen Flinker, NYU Langone Medical Center. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and a Marie-Josee and Henry R. Kravis grant.

 

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DOI

10.1038/s41593-025-02060-8 

Article Publication Date

18-Sep-2025

 

The economic cost of climate change for Europe’s Forests — Need for strategic adjustments

Technical University of Munich (TUM)

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Forests dominated by conifers are often considered more profitable than structured diverse mixed forests. However, their lower susceptibility to disruption could compensate for this in the context of climate change.

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Credit: Rupert Seidl / TUM

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• TUM researchers calculated how the value of Europe’s forests could change under different climate scenarios.
• While Northern Europe may benefit from faster tree growth, Central and Southern Europe face significant losses.
• Additional disturbances may emerge, so the researchers recommend adapting forest management.

Wildfires, storms, and bark beetle are putting increasing pressure on Europe’s forests. Beyond their ecological toll, these events also carry major economic consequences. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now quantified the potential financial losses climate change could cause for European forestry. Their findings reveal significant regional differences: while Northern Europe may even benefit, Central and Southern Europe will need to adapt quickly.

Forest disturbances regularly cause damages worth millions. The wood price then decreases rapidly due to large amounts of damaged timber or the wood is so badly damaged that it cannot be sold at all. Timber may suddenly flood the market in large volumes or be so badly damaged it can no longer be sold. For the first time, a team led by Rupert Seidl, Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management, Thomas Knoke, Professor of Forest Management, and PhD-Student Johannes Sonnweber Mohr has calculated how climate change could affect the economic value of Europe’s forests.

The study, recently published in Nature Climate Change, examines the expected climate scenarios for the end of the century. Using computer models, the team simulated how Europe’s forests might grow under different climate conditions and how wildfires, storms, and bark beetle could shape forest development and timber harvests.

Gains in Northern Europe, losses in Central and Southern Europe

The study shows that global warming will bring varied—and sometimes opposing—effects. “With ongoing climate change, large-scale disturbances will become more frequent, and costs for forest owners will rise,” says Rupert Seidl. “While damages across Europe amounted to around €115 billion during the reference period from 1981 to 2005, all our scenarios show an significant increase. Under 4.8 degrees of warming, costs could climb as high as €247 billion.”

At the same time, longer growing seasons, higher temperatures, and rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations could accelerate tree growth in some regions, putting timber on the market more quickly. The result: not only higher costs from disturbances but also higher revenues at the European level overall.

However, these gains are unevenly distributed. In Southern Europe, damages exceed additional revenues under every scenario. In Central Europe—including Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic—the value of forests declines sharply even at moderate warming of 2.6 degrees, leaving possible increased production barely able to offset losses. In contrast, Scandinavian forests are less often hit by disturbances and benefit the most from changing conditions. There, productivity gains could even outweigh the costs.

“Forestry can no longer follow a one-size-fits-all approach”

“Modeling always focuses on selected aspects,” explains first author Johannes Sonnweber Mohr, a researcher at the Chair of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management. “We concentrated on the three most common disturbance types today, but new ones may emerge. What we see overall is that uncertainties for the future are rising sharply. Forestry can no longer follow a one-size-fits-all approach—it’s becoming less and less predictable. Using these insights to adapt forest management to climate change could reduce economic losses while fostering more climate-resilient forests with high ecological value.”

According to the researchers, careful economic evaluation is key to effective adaptation. “By comparing simulations with and without disturbances, we can directly quantify their financial impact on forest owners,” says Thomas Knoke. “This also highlights the advantages of structurally diverse mixed forests. While they are often seen as less profitable than conifer-dominated forests, their lower susceptibility to disturbances could make them much more valuable in the future than they might appear today.”

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Journal

Nature Climate Change

DOI

10.1038/s41558-025-02408-9 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Publication Date

18-Sep-2025