A new class of fungi named after the King of Sweden

Uppsala University

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Figure 2 The images show Semicentenialea rex both as a colony and under the microscope. After eight weeks of growth, the fungus forms a small colony on the culture plate. The microscopic images reveal a network of hyphae with so-called clamp connections – structures that connect adjacent cells in the hyphae of basidiomycete fungi. To follow fungal development, the researchers stained the nuclei pink and the cell walls blue. Three types of swollen cells can be observed within the hyphae: basidium-like cells, teliospore- or probasidium-like cells, and intercalary swellings. These structures are examined in greater detail in the following figures.

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Credit: Anna Rosling/Uppsala University

Researchers at Uppsala University have discovered a completely new fungal species, which they chose to name after the King of Sweden. The species has been given the Latin name Semicentenialea rex, which means fifty-year anniversary of the King. It is the first known representative of a new class of fungi that will be called Semicentenialomycetes. 

The new fungus was isolated from roots in the ground in Jädraås in the province of Gästrikland, and represents a new lineage among what are primarily rust fungi. Rust fungi are a type of fungi that causes diseases in plants, usually by infecting the leaves. Based on DNA sequencing from soil samples, the researchers know that the class occurs in soil and roots from different ecosystems across almost the entire world, but rarely at high abundance.

“There are probably at least two other species in the class, but they do not appear to be as common as Semicentenialea rex. Since it only seems to live deep down in the ground, we are curious about what life strategy it has. We are going to study how it affects the roots of plants in the soil and how it propagates,” says Anna Rosling, professor at Uppsala University and one of the researchers behind the study.

 

Several million species of fungi

The species diversity in kingdom Fungi is largely unexplored. Based on sequencing of environmental DNA, it is estimated that there are several million species of fungi across the globe. But because most live concealed in the soil, wood or insects for example, it has only been possible to describe and name a small proportion of them. Without names, it is difficult to communicate about these species, genera, classes and even phyla of hitherto unknown fungi.

It was during a study root fungal diversity, when the researchers were culturing fungi from pine tree roots collected from mineral soil at Ivantjärnheden field station near Jädraås that the researchers identified a new fungal species that turned out to represent a new class of fungi.

 

Exciting with a root-associated fungus

Veera Tuovinen-Nogerius and Anna Rosling, both of Uppsala University, have led an international team of researchers in the work of characterising the morphology of the new species and its phylogenetic placement. The results have now been published in the International Mycology Association’s journal IMA Fungus.

“A new class is exciting enough but in this case, it’s especially exciting because we have a root-associated fungus that evolutionarily speaking sits among the rust fungi in Puccinomycotina. Rust fungi are obligate parasites that infect plants and cause diseases above ground,” says Anna.

 

Suitable named after King of Sweden

Finding names for new species is a pleasant challenge for all researchers doing this type of research. This particular one was named Semicentenialea rex to pay tribute to King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden when he celebrated 50 years on the throne in 2023.

“During his reign, the King has worked tirelessly for biodiversity conservation and the sustainable use of our natural resources. What could be better than to have a previously undescribed fungus named after you,” says Anna Rosling, who in connection with the official celebration of the King’s golden jubilee presented a picture and a description of the species to him.

Now that the species has a new name, it will facilitate future communication and studies of the role of Semicentenialea rex in the ecosystem.

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Journal

IMA Fungus

DOI

10.3897/imafungus.17.189848 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Another dark taxon comes to light: Semicentenialomycetes, a new class within the Pucciniomycotina (Basidiomycota), and its first described representative, Semicentenialea rex

Article Publication Date

15 -Jul-2026

 

Figure 3 This figure illustrates the considerable diversity of the basidium-like cells. They occur in a range of shapes and developmental stages and are often associated with clamp connections. In some cases, they produce lateral cells, while others contain multiple nuclei or appear to be connected to neighbouring hyphae. The researchers also observed yeast-like cells budding from the hyphae, suggesting that the fungus may be capable of switching between different modes of growth. Together, the images provide insight into the formation and development of these distinctive cellular structures.

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Figure 3. Variation in the morphology of the basidium-like cells (BLC) in Semicentenialea rex sp. nov. G–L 3D volume render­ings of z-stacks, nuclei stained with propidium iodine (magenta) and cell walls and septa with calcofluor white (cyan). A–F BLCs with basal clamp connections (arrows). C A lateral cell arising from the BLC stalk (arrowhead). G BLCs with lateral cells with one nucleus (arrows), one BLC with a ring of strong calcofluor white staining in the obovoid cell and one nucleus in each department. Clamp connection forming (arrowhead), and yeast cells budding from hyphae indicated with strong calcofluor white staining at the base (asterisk). H BLC formed from a thick-walled probasidial-like swelling (TLC) (arrowhead), forming a second BLC with two nuclei in the obovoid cell and one in the lateral cell (arrow). Rotating 3D rendering of H as Suppl. material 4: movie S3. I Two globose BLCs in a string. J Lateral cell of a BLC anastomosing to the generative hypha (arrow), three nuclei in the obovoid cell. K BLC with a basal clamp connection (arrow). L Possible early stage of a BLC with four nuclei. Isolate HU4107 (A, C–F); JH144 (B), HU4064, type (G–L). Scale bars 10 μm (A–G); 4 μm (H–I, K); 5 μm (J); 3 μm (L).

 

Figure 4 This figure presents additional structures that are likely to play a role in the fungal life cycle. Among them are intercalary swellings and teliospore-like cells, which contain spore-like structures with one or more nuclei. The researchers documented several stages of development, ranging from young swellings and spore formation to germination and the emergence of new hyphae. Some structures produce thick promycelium-like hyphae, while others release small yeast-like cells through budding. These observations suggest that Semicentenialea rex has a complex life cycle involving several different cell types and spore forms. This resembles rust fungi within the Pucciniomycotina, which are known for producing multiple types of spores.

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FIgure 4: Intercalary and probasidium/teliospore-like (TLC) swellings and promycelium-like hyphae in Semicentenialea rex sp. nov. Nuclei stained with propidium iodine (magenta) and cell walls and septa with calcofluor white (cyan). 3D volume rendering of z-stacks in B–C, G–I, K–M. Maximum intensity projection in Q. A An intercalary swelling separated by two septa, with a potential cell budding of close to one of them (arrow). Short terminal cell at the end of the same hypha (arrowhead). B A budding cell close to an intercalary swelling with one nucleus (arrow). C An intercalary swelling separated by septa on both sides. A budding cell (arrow) from the adjacent cell to the intercalary swelling. D Intercalary swelling with clamps forming on both sides (arrowheads). E A thick-walled, sessile probasidium/teliospore-like swelling. F–G Detached TLC with a spore-like cell forming inside (asterisk), with two nuclei in G. H TLC with a spore-like cell with three nuclei. I TLC attached to the genera­tive hypha with budding cell with one nucleus, and two nuclei inside the spore-like cell. J One optical section of I showing the binucleate spore-like cell inside the TLC. K Binucleate spore-like cells released from TLCs. L TLCs in different developmental stages, with the spore-like cells more visible in some cells (asterisk). M Possibly early developmental stages of TLCs with two spots staining strongly with calcofluor white, hypothetical initial stages of the cell-wall of the spore-like cell. Rotating 3D ren­dering of M as Suppl. material 6: movie S5. N Detached TLC starting to germinate (arrow) and a released spore (arrowhead) O TLC germinating and forming a thick promycelium-like hypha, with possible conidial cells at one end (arrow). P Promycelium and thin, septate hypha (arrow). Q Terminal TLC and dikaryotic hyphae. R–S Knobbly promycelium with possible small yeasts budding of (arrow). T Promycelium with clamp connection (c) and budding cell (arrow). A single cell germinating (arrowhead). U Yeast cell (arrowhead) budding of from a knobbly promycelium. Isolate HU4064, type (A–D, G–L, T); HU4107 (E–F, N–P); HU4147 (M, Q); JH144 (R–S, U). Scale bars: 10 μm (A, C–F, K, M–P, Q–U); 5 μm (B, G, J, L), 4 μm (H), 3 μm (I).

 

The researchers analysed hundreds of genes to determine where the newly discovered fungus Semicentenialea rex belongs in the fungal tree of life. The results show that S. rex, previously known as GS25, forms a distinct lineage within the Pucciniomycotina. To confirm its placement, genes from both closely related and more distantly related fungi were compared, including species from both the Basidiomycota and the Ascomycota.

Figure 1. Phylogenetic placement of HU4064. Best maximum likelihood (ML) tree from a concatenated alignment of 287 BUSCO genes shared among at least 12 taxa. The numbers on the branches indicate bootstrap support (BS) from the ML analysis, local posterior probabilities (LPP) and quartet scores from the ASTRAL analysis (BS/LPP/quartet score). Missing values indicate no support for that relationship in the ASTRAL analysis. The tree includes 16 taxa of Pucciniomycotina, Semicentenialea rex sp. nov. (HU4064) previously known as GS25, as well as eight outgroup taxa representing the subphyla Ustilaginomycotina (Basidiomycota; Tilletiaria anomola, Violaceomyces palustris, Jaminaea rosea), Agaricomycotina (Basid­iomycota; Wallemia sebi, Guyanagaster necrorhizus), Saccharomycotina (Ascomycota; Saccharomyces cerevisiae), Taphrino­mycotina (Ascomycota; Taphrina deformans), and Pezizomycotina (Ascomycota; Penicillium chrysogenum).

Credit

Anna Rosling

Trinh, Ryu receive DOW funding for fungal biotechnology research

University of Tennessee at Knoxville

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University of Tennessee, Knoxville Ferguson Faculty Fellow in Chemical Engineering Cong Trinh and his co-principal investigator, Research Assistant Professor Seunghyun Ryu work in his lab.

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Credit: University of Tennessee

Fungi are extremely important in our daily lives, helping create the medicines we use, the food we produce, and the materials we manufacture. They can also cause diseases, spoil food, and degrade important objects.

Nonetheless, fungal genetics are surprisingly poorly understood. Scientists know the function of less than half of the genes in only the most-investigated fungi—knowledge that has trickled in over the last few decades through laborious assessments of one or two genes at a time.

This spring, the United States Department of War (DOW, formerly the Department of Defense) funded a research proposal by University of Tennessee, Knoxville Ferguson Faculty Fellow in Chemical Engineering Cong Trinh and his co-principal investigator, Research Assistant Professor Seunghyun Ryu, to develop new tools permitting high-throughput (very efficient) analysis of fungal genes.

The grant focuses on fungal species in the genus Candida, which can contaminate and sometimes cause operational issues in DOW systems like aircraft fuel systems, vehicles, and electronics.

“Receiving this federal support is both humbling and exciting,” said Trinh, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “This award will enable us to close critical knowledge gaps in fungal genetics, biology, biotechnology, and biomanufacturing.”

Reducing Damage to Army Equipment

Fungi are an important part of the life cycle, degrading many materials that other organisms can’t break down. Unfortunately, that also creates an expensive problem for the U.S. Army, since fungi can also colonize and degrade materials used in the electronics, vehicles, fuel systems, coatings, and other materials that the DOW relies on.

Thanks to the high genetic variation in fungi—some of which can have several versions of each gene, which is known as polyploidy—they are very stress-tolerant and adapt quickly to fungicides and other control methods.

Under the DOW grant, Trinh and Ryu will develop synthetic biology tools to rapidly characterize large numbers of fungal genes. They will specifically target genes that have a role in mitochondrial function; as a cell’s source of energy, mitochondria are critical for stress regulation and resistance to new chemicals.

“We are excited to pursue this project because it combines fungal biology with real-world impact,” Trinh said. “We hope that the insights we gain into the relationships between genetic variation and fungal stress resistance will lead to new approaches for mitigating fungal contamination in Army-relevant environments and provide broadly useful tools that advance fungal biology, biotechnology, and biomanufacturing.”

 

Upending decades of debate, scientists discover most neurons are jacks-of-all-trades

Findings that neurons in mice are mostly generalists, instead of specialized for specific functions, has scientific community abuzz

The Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University

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NEW YORK, NY — What scientific findings proved so compelling that more than 11,000 preliminary copies of them have been downloaded before they finally appeared in today's Nature?

The new research focuses on a mystery as old as neuroscience. Is each neuron in the brain a specialist devoted to a limited task, like a hammer or a saw, or do they tend to be generalists, jacks-of-all-trades like Swiss Army Knives?

By combing through a trove of recordings from an international collaboration that analyzed the brains of mice, researchers at Columbia's Zuckerman Institute reveal that specialist neurons certainly do exist, but the majority appear to be generalists.

"We have to move away from this image of the brain as a machine made of gears, with every gear having an exact purpose that we can attach a label to," said Stefano Fusi, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, a member of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science and the paper’s co-senior author. "The brain doesn't work like that. Instead, most neurons can display a huge diversity of responses, and this can help the brain solve a huge number of different tasks."

These new findings shed light on how the brain may ultimately prove capable of performing complex tasks. In doing so, they may help reveal what happens when something goes wrong in the brain, and how those processes might be steered to go right again.

Whether neurons are specialists or generalists "is an old, important question, and one which researchers have really strong opinions on," said Lorenzo Posani, PhD, the study’s co-lead author and a principal investigator at the Paris Brain Institute and France's CNRS, who conducted this work while at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute. Previous research found the brain is organized into modules devoted to vision and smell and other processes; so perhaps such specialization might extend all the way down to the level of neurons. On the other hand, the brain is an incredibly powerful general-purpose computer that can respond in an extraordinary number of ways to a huge variety of situations, so maybe its neurons are similarly generalist in nature.

The problem with answering this question was that scientists often each tackled it with different approaches — for instance, they looked at different types of animals or brain regions or had the animals perform different tasks, Dr. Posani said. This often led to conflicting results — in some studies, some neurons were clearly specialized, while others appeared not to be.

To help resolve the debate, in the new study, the researchers developed a strategy where they looked only at mice, across many brain areas at once as the rodents all performed the same type of activity. This involved analyzing datasets much larger than typically studied, recordings of lots of neurons from the International Brain Laboratory consortium of activity in 43 regions across the mouse cortex on the level of single neurons. 

In primary sensory areas, such as the brain region devoted to vision, neurons behaved in specialized ways. However, elsewhere, neurons generated far more diverse responses. In other words, when it comes to the question of whether neurons are typically specialists or generalists, these new findings suggest the latter holds true.

"We're not saying that there are no specialized neurons," said Dr. Fusi, also a professor of neuroscience at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a member of Columbia’s Center for Theoretical Neuroscience. "We're saying they are the exceptions. They're not the rule."

The scientists did find that based on a neuron's pattern of responses to a given task, they could pinpoint with surprising accuracy which specific module in the brain it belonged to. However, these neurons still generally display generalist behavior. 

"For example, compare this to maps of voter opinions," Dr. Posani said. "There are clear clusters where people generally vote the same way. But when you zoom in, you see mixes of opinions."

In addition, not only are most neurons generalists, but they rarely duplicate the behavior of one another. “Each is versatile in its own way,” says study co-lead author Shuqi Wang, a doctoral student at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. This helps enable the brain’s flexibility and computational power, she explained.

All in all, the researchers suggest the multi-purpose nature of most neurons lets each of them encode information about multiple variables, such as whether a shape is red or black, or a circle or square. In turn, neurons collectively encode "high-dimensional" representations, which combine several different variables at the same time, such as, say, a red circle or black square. Such high-dimensional representations let populations of neurons behave flexibly in terms of what input they receive and output they generate. "You can reuse these high-dimensional representations for lots of different tasks," Dr. Fusi said.

A key implication of these findings is that while each neuron generally encodes multiple variables, it is difficult to decode what any of these variables are from an individual neuron. It is only upon examining populations of neurons, like the brain does, that variables can be decoded. This is a major shift in thinking for the neuroscience community, “which for decades focused on one neuron at a time, discarding all neurons whose responses could not be understood,” Dr. Fusi said.

The scientists are now working with Ueli Rutishauser's group at Caltech ​​to investigate whether similar results are seen in humans, Dr. Fusi said. They also would like to see if neurons behaved more as generalists or specialists depending on what tasks a brain is asked to perform, he added. "There is still a lot to discover," he said.

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The paper, “Rarely categorical and highly separable: how neural representations change along the cortical hierarchy,” was published in Nature on July 15, 2026.

The full list of authors includes Lorenzo Posani, Shuqi Wang, Samuel P. Muscinelli, Liam Paninski and Stefano Fusi.

This work was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health (RF1AG080818, U19NS123716), the Simons Foundation, the Kavli Foundation, the Gatsby Foundation (GAT3708), and the Swartz Foundation. This work is also supported by the funds provided by the National Science Foundation and by the DoD Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (R&E) under Cooperative Agreement PHY-2229929 (the NSF AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence). Dr. Posani was also supported by the NIH 1K99MH135166-01 grant.

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-026-10668-4 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Rarely categorical, highly separable representations along the cortical hierarchy

Article Publication Date

15-Jul-2026

 

Traffic accidents increase the day after a US mass shooting

Harvard Medical School

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At a glance:

• Researchers looked at the 10 deadliest U.S. mass shootings between 2008 and 2023 and traffic fatalities the following day.
• Using data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the team found traffic fatalities increased by 14.3 percent.
• The accidents were consistent across drivers’ age and sex, as well as other potential factors like location and weather.
• The increase coincided with public internet search interest, suggesting a significant number of people were exposed to the news of the mass shootings with fatalities.

Mass shootings cause distress nationwide. Examining national data and internet search trends, Harvard Medical School researchers have discovered the disruption also manifests on the roadway.

Anupam Jena, the Joseph P. Newhouse Professor of Health Care Policy in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS and HMS professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and team examined the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the United States between 2008 and 2023.

Incidents on public holidays were excluded, as traffic patterns would have already been disrupted. The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, occurred on a Valentine’s Day and was not included in this study.

Researchers began the study period in 2008 to account for widespread smartphone and social media use, which quickens the spread of news. They analyzed internet search patterns using Google Trends and identified that public internet search peaked the day following each shooting.

The research, published July 15 in JAMA Psychiatry, used data from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), a nationwide registry of fatal traffic accidents. Looking at the 10 days before and after a mass shooting, the researchers showed that traffic fatalities increased by 14.3 percent the day after the mass shooting, amounting to nearly 20 additional deaths — a pattern that was consistent across the country.

There was no increase following active shooter events where there were no fatalities.

The researchers believe the acute psychological stress can impair attention and judgment, although the study does not distinguish between psychological distress and media distraction. The findings add to the growing evidence base surrounding the potential impacts of driver distraction on motor vehicle collisions.

Authorship, funding, disclosures

Jena is senior author of the paper. Additional authors are Vishal R. Patel, Christopher M. Worsham, and Michael Liu.

There was no funding for this study.

Jena reports receiving (in the last 36 months) consulting fees unrelated to this work from Analysis Group; income unrelated to this work from hosting the podcast Freakonomics, M.D.; authorship income from The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal; book rights to Doubleday Books; and speaking fees from the Harry Walker Agency. Jena is also an unpaid board member of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS). Worsham reports receiving (in the last 36 months) consulting fees unrelated to this work from Alosa Health, Analysis Group, Berkshire Hathaway Home Companies, Chronius, FVC Health, NuvoAir, Simbo, Substack, Tell Health, Time, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and FVC Health and income unrelated to this study from book rights to Doubleday Books and speaking fees from the Harry Walker Agency.

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Journal

JAMA Psychiatry

Article Publication Date

15-Jul-2026