It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Alternate wetting and moderate drying irrigation improves rice cooking and eating quality
Alternate wetting and drying irrigation (AWD) significantly influence the cooking and eating quality of rice (Oryza sativa L.); however, the mechanisms by which AWD affects these qualities remain unclear.
To that end, a team of researchers from China investigated the relationship between lipid and free fatty acid biosynthesis in grains and the cooking and eating quality of rice. They reported their results in the Journal of Integrative Agriculture.
“We examined Yangdao 6 (YD6, a conventional taste indica inbred) and Nanjing 9108 (NJ9108, a superior taste japonica inbred) cultivated under conventional irrigation (CI), alternate wetting and moderate drying irrigation (AWMD), and alternate wetting and severe drying irrigation (AWSD) from 10 days after transplanting to maturity,” shares corresponding author Jianchang Yang, a professor at Yangzhou University. “Compared to CI treatment, AWMD significantly enhanced the contents of lipid, total free fatty acids (TFFAs), free unsaturated fatty acids (FUFAs), linoleic acid, and oleic acid in milled rice by increasing activities of enzymes associated with lipid synthesis, while AWSD produced opposite effects.”
Correlation analysis revealed that elevated levels of lipid, TFFAs, FUFAs, linoleic acid, and oleic acid contribute to improved rice cooking and eating quality.
“Our findings demonstrate that AWMD enhances cooking and eating quality of milled rice through optimization of lipid and fatty acid synthesis in rice grains.” adds Yang.
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).
The research, supported by Flinders University and the University of Wollongong, shows that South Australia’s koala population in the Mount Lofty Ranges, currently numbers around 10% of Australia's total population, which is threatening its long-term survival. Without intervention, this number could grow by a further 17–25% over the next 25 years, impacting food supply, vegetation and native habitats.
"Koalas are in steep decline across much of eastern Australia, but in South Australia's Mount Lofty Ranges, the opposite problem is happening: a booming koala population. This should be good news, but these numbers are concerning.
Using advanced spatial modelling and data from thousands of citizen science observations, researchers found koala densities in many areas are above what is considered sustainable.
“We are faced with a difficult conservation dilemma, because traditional methods of population management, like culling or relocation, either raise ethical concerns from the public or are not appropriate for such an iconic native animal. How do we manage a species that is now threatened by its own abundance, and do so in a way that protects both animal welfare and long-term ecosystem health?" Dr Katharina Peters, co-author of the study at the University of Wollongong said.
As climate change continues to reshape habitats and species distributions, the researchers say such evidence-based and anticipatory approaches will become increasingly essential for managing high-profile species where public values and ecological needs collide.
This research builds on the previous work carried out at the Australian Museum in sequencing the approximately 20,000 genes in the koala to open up opportunities for medical treatments, provide knowledge about how koalas evolved, and indicate how best to conserve the species.
Kyoto, Japan -- Japanese macaques, colloquially referred to as snow monkeys, famously soak in steaming hot springs during winter. It's easy to see that this helps them stay warm in cold temperatures, but a team of researchers at Kyoto University recently discovered that this iconic behavior does more than keep the monkeys warm.
"Hot spring bathing is one of the most unusual behaviors seen in nonhuman primates," says first author Abdullah Langgeng. The researchers suspected that bathing may play a significant role in influencing the macaques' associated parasites and microbial communities.
To investigate, the team headed to Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park in Nagano prefecture. Across two winters, the researchers followed a group of female macaques, comparing individuals that regularly bathed in hot springs with those that did not. By combining behavioral observations, parasite monitoring, and gut microbiome sequencing, the team tested whether bathing influences the macaque holobiont, an integrated biological system consisting of the host and its associated microbes and parasites.
The results revealed that hot spring bathing subtly reshapes the monkeys' relationships with parasites and gut microbes. Macaques that bathe showed altered lice distributions and gut bacteria, suggesting that soaking may disrupt louse activity or egg placement.
The team also observed subtle shifts in gut microbes. Overall microbiome diversity was similar between bathers and non-bathers, but several bacterial genera were more abundant in non-bathing individuals. And despite concerns that shared hot springs might increase exposure to intestinal parasites, bathing macaques did not show higher parasite infection rates or intensities.
Altogether, this study demonstrates how behavior can shape the animal holobiont and act as an important driver of animal health. It also underscores the complexity of behavior-health links in wild animals, suggesting that hot spring bathing influences some host-organism relationships while leaving others unchanged.
"Behavior is often treated as a response to the environment," says Langgeng, "but our results show that this behavior doesn’t just affect thermoregulation or stress: it also alters how macaques interact with parasites and microbes that live on and inside them."
This study is among the first to link a natural animal behavior to changes in both ectoparasites and the gut microbiome in a wild primate. By showing that behavior can selectively shape components of the holobiont, the research has implications for understanding the evolution of animal behaviors that influence health, and for interpreting microbiome variation in social animals.
Beyond that, this study draws parallels to how human cultural practices such as bathing affect microbial exposure, and thus also challenges the assumption that shared water sources necessarily increase disease risk, at least under natural conditions.
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The paper "Of hot springs and holobionts: Linking hot spring bathing behavior, parasitism, and gut microbiome in Japanese macaques" appeared on 19 January 2026 in Primates, with doi: 10.1007/s10329-025-01234-z
About Kyoto University
Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at undergraduate and graduate levels complements several research centers, facilities, and offices around Japan and the world. For more information, please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en
Credit: Photo taken by Lisa Barry with permission from NOAA Fisheries
Belugas are even harder to study than most whales: it’s difficult to observe a species that vanishes under the Arctic ice. But now DNA analysis has given scientists a precious glimpse into the social life of a beluga population living in Bristol Bay, Alaska. They found that males and females mate with many different partners over the years, which could be keeping this small, isolated population genetically viable.
“We still know very little about beluga whales, despite their immense popularity,” said Dr Greg O’Corry-Crowe of Florida Atlantic University, lead author of the paper in Frontiers in Marine Science. “The primary reason for this is the difficulty of studying a species that lives beneath the waves in the cold and often frozen north. But this is the challenge that makes discovery, when it happens, more exciting.”
Secrets of the ice
Over 13 years, a team — which included scientists from Florida Atlantic University and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and Alaska Native subsistence hunters from Bristol Bay — collected small tissue samples from 623 whales. Without much existing information about wild belugas’ mating strategies to go on, researchers used evolutionary theory and facts about belugas’ biology to make predictions they could test against this real-life data. For instance, males are significantly larger than females, and females can only have one calf every few years.
“We predicted that beluga whales had a polygynous mating system where a few of the most competitive and possibly largest males secure most of the matings within a season or even across a few seasons, and that they provide little or no parental care,” said O’Corry-Crowe.
However, belugas live in large social groupings which split up and reform over time, which could increase females’ access to different potential mates. So the scientists also predicted that females might mate with many different males across breeding seasons.
Playing the long game?
When the scientists looked at the results, they found that both male and female belugas had calves with different mates over the years. If calves had siblings, they usually only shared one parent. All belugas had a small number of calves, but there was more variation in males’ reproductive success: some males fathered slightly more calves.
“Beluga males were indeed polygynous, but, surprisingly, only moderately so,” said O’Corry-Crowe. “The three-dimensional aquatic environment likely limits a male’s ability to successfully court or corral multiple females. However, a long life may also be key. Belugas can live 90 years, possibly more. Male beluga whales may, therefore, play a long game of securing a few matings each year over a very long reproductive life!
“The female story is just as fascinating. The genetic profiling revealed that female belugas regularly switch mates across breeding seasons, also over a long reproductive life. This could be a bet-hedging strategy to limit the risk of mating with low-quality males.”
Surprising resilience
The scientists also found unexpectedly high genetic diversity and low levels of inbreeding, despite a small population of just 2,000 individuals. Comparing the results to other populations and historical samples from Bristol Bay indicates that this population’s genetic diversity is roughly equivalent to larger populations and has remained stable over time.
“A leading concern for small populations is that they tend to lose genetic diversity faster than large populations and the risks of inbreeding are higher,” explained O’Corry-Crowe. “We expected to find low diversity and high inbreeding, but we found something quite different. The mating system may explain this surprising finding. Frequent mate switching limits the number of highly related offspring in the population. This in turn reduces the risk of highly related individuals mating and producing highly inbred offspring. It also minimizes the risk of diversity loss. We cannot afford to be complacent, but we can be optimistic that beluga whale mating strategies provide evidence of nature’s resilience.”
The scientists warn that other populations could behave differently. Sexual dimorphism is comparatively low in Bristol Bay, which may indicate that mating depends less on competition between these males than it does elsewhere.
“To me, the differences in sexual dimorphism among populations of beluga whales could indicate that mating systems also vary, and this is something we are currently working on,” said O’Corry-Crowe. “We also can’t determine if females mate with multiple males within a season using genetics, as a female only produces one calf from one lucky male. But we are working on this, using drones at other locations to determine if we can observe mating behaviors in the wild. More on that soon…”
