Climate change causes the Western Pacific Subtropical High stronger and more extreme

Science China Press

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This study develops a novel method to define the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) by using the joint probability distribution of geopotential height and vertical velocity, rather than relying on a fixed geopotential-height contour. The present method defines the WPSH boundary by using characteristic subsidence, thereby underscoring the dynamically active, weather-relevant body of the WPSH system.

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Credit: ©Science China Press

Researchers from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and the National University of Defense Technology have made new progress in understanding the response of the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) to anthropogenic climate change.

The WPSH is a vital component of the East Asian summer monsoon system. Variations in its intensity, coverage and position strongly modulate summer rainfall and temperature over East Asia. In recent years, a growing number of extreme precipitation and heatwave events have been linked to anomalous WPSH activities.

However, substantial uncertainty remains in previous studies assessing long-term changes in the WPSH under global warming. The canonical WPSH is defined using a fixed geopotential-height metric, which is widely used in operational practice and research but may produce a spurious strengthening trend of WPSH because warming tends to thicken the troposphere column. To solve the limitations of the canonical definition, various studies have developed alternative WPSH metrics, either thermodynamic or dynamic. They often yield inconsistent trends and spatial coverages of WPSH under climate change, without a consensus on the WPSH response to warming.

To address this issue, this study develops a new WPSH definition based on thermodynamic–dynamic synergy. The method uses the joint probability distribution frequency (JPDF) of geopotential height and vertical velocity to identify a dynamically constrained geopotential-height threshold. By linking the WPSH boundary to its characteristic descent motion, the new JPDF metric gets rid of the warming-induced mean increase in geopotential height while retaining the physical connection of the WPSH with weather anomalies. In essence, the JPDF metric does not simply track a high-pressure region or an anticyclonic circulation; instead, it identifies the WPSH’s main body characterized by organized subsidence that is physically tied to East Asian summer rainfall and temperature anomalies.

The results show that the JPDF metric captures the linkage of the WPSH to East Asian weather anomalies, including upward motion associated with rainbands, as well as subsidence associated with  high-temperature anomalies. Various WPSH indices derived from JPDF, including those describing its covering area, intensity, western ridge point, northwestward extension and land-area coverage, all show stronger correlations with East Asian precipitation and temperature anomalies.

Using CMIP6 projection experiments, the study projects robust increases in WPSH’s area and intensity under future warming, accompanied by a northwestward extension of the WPSH boundary and increased coverage over East Asian land areas. These changes appear robust since they are supported by strong inter-model consensus, especially under medium- and high-emission scenarios.

Furthermore, the present study projects that record-breaking WPSH events will become more frequent, stronger and longer-lasting on the synoptic scales. Strong WPSH cases may extend farther toward inland East Asia, and become more likely to combine with large-scale high-pressure systems over Eurasia, increasing the risk of record persistent heatwaves and intense monsoon rainfall.

This work yields a physically consistent framework for diagnosing WPSH-related weather anomalies and assessing long-term WPSH changes under anthropogenic warming, thereby providing important evidence for future extreme-weather attribution, climate-model evaluation and climate-risk assessment in East Asia.

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Journal

National Science Review

DOI

10.1093/nsr/nwag497 

Compared with previous definitions, the JPDF-defined Western Pacific Subtropical High shows a closer spatial relationship with vertical motion, as well as temperature anomalies and precipitation anomalies over East Asia, indicating a stronger physical link with weather and climate impacts.

Credit

© Science China Press / National Science Review

Under future warming scenarios, anomalously strong Western Pacific Subtropical High events are projected to expand spatially, occur more often, last longer and become stronger, especially under high-emission conditions.

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© Science China Press

 

New species of egg-eating snake described from Harenna Forest in Ethiopia

Pensoft Publishers

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Male Dasypeltis albigularis sp. nov. from Manyate village, Harenna Forest, Ethiopia. 

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Credit: Arthur Tiutenko et al., 2026.

A new species of snake that feeds exclusively on birds’ eggs has been described from the Harenna Forest in Ethiopia, one of the last substantial tracts of natural forest left in the Horn of Africa.

Named Dasypeltis albigularis, or the ‘White-throated Egg-eater’, the species belongs to a remarkable group of harmless African snakes that survive entirely on a diet of eggs, using specially adapted vertebrae in the throat to crack the shell before swallowing. It joins around 20 other known species in the genus Dasypeltis, most of which are notoriously difficult to tell apart, since many are uniformly black, brown or grey with few obvious external differences.

The research, published in the open-access journal Herpetozoa, was led by Arthur Tiutenko of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, together with colleagues at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich and South Africa's National Museum in Bloemfontein. The new species is superficially similar to the so-called Montane Egg-eater, Dasypeltis atra, a black-coloured snake found in forests across East Africa, but genetic analysis of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA showed the two are as distinct from one another.

The investigation began when Dr Tiutenko acquired a juvenile female snake from a local collaborator in the Harenna Forest. “I received a juvenile female of an egg-eater that appeared to me to be an already known species, and I started looking for a male to breed it,” he explained. “As she grew to adult size, I noticed morphological differences.”

To test whether those differences reflected a genuine biological distinction, Dr Tiutenko paired the female with a male of the closely related species she resembled. “I crossed them nevertheless, to see how the offspring would turn out and how her characteristics would be inherited,” he said.

The resulting hybrid offspring displayed a mix of traits from both parents, providing early evidence that the Harenna Forest snake was something new. Confirming the discovery with a formal description ultimately took seven years, drawing on morphological comparisons, DNA sequencing and captive breeding observations.

Dasypeltis albigularis can be distinguished from its relatives by the pale, sometimes bluish-tinged skin visible between its scales and a distinctive white throat and belly - a feature reflected in its scientific name, which means “white-throated” in Latin. Unlike some of its relatives, it also appears to lack the ability to produce the rasping, hissing sound that many egg-eating snakes use to fend off predators by rubbing their scales together. Females of the new species reach up to 92 cm in length, somewhat smaller than D. atra and its other closest relatives.

The snake lives in dense forest between 1,500 and 1,700 metres above sea level, in an area whose undergrowth includes wild coffee plants, and feeds on the eggs of tree-nesting birds.

The description of Dasypeltis albigularis adds to a long list of species Dr Tiutenko has helped bring to scientific attention. “This is my 20th taxon that I have named and described,” he noted, adding that several more await formal publication: “I now have five or six species, and one subgenus, in the queue.”

A brown morph of Dasypeltis albigularis sp. nov. photographed in Manyate village, Harenna Forest, Ethiopia. 

Credit

Abdulkadir M. Hussein

Dasypeltis albigularis sp. nov. 

Credit

Arthur Tiutenko et al., 2026

Dasypeltis albigularis sp. nov. 

Credit

Arthur Tiutenko et al., 2026

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Journal

Herpetozoa

DOI

10.3897/herpetozoa.39.e205043

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

A new species of ‘black’ egg-eating snake of the genus Dasypeltis Wagler (Squamata, Colubridae, Colubrinae, Boigini)

 

Scientists are one step closer to healing tendon disease in people and animals

Study reveals how specialized tendon cells respond to changes in their physical environment, opening new possibilities for future research into tendon health and repair

Queen Mary University of London

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Tendon cells

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Credit: Queen Mary University of London

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London are now closer to understanding tendinopathy, a common condition that can cause persistent pain and impaired movement in people and many animals.  

In recent research, published in Advanced Science, scientists identified a population of tendon cells that is particularly sensitive to changes in the physical environment around them, providing new insight into how tendon tissue may respond to the changes associated with ageing or injury. 

Tendons are not made up of one uniform population of cells, instead they contain different regions with distinct physical environments. The researchers focused on cells within the interfascicular matrix (IFM) – the softer tissue that connects the collagen bundles, or fascicles, that make up a tendon. 

The team successfully isolated and maintained populations of IFM cells and fascicular matrix (FM) cells, allowing them to compare how the two cell populations respond to changes in mechanical stiffness. While the prior were highly sensitive to their surroundings, the latter remained largely unchanged.  

When exposed to stiff substrates, the IFM cells changed their internal structure, rapidly altered the expression of genes associated with tendon function and the extracellular matrix production, and showed a decline in their ability to proliferate. Importantly, when IFM cells were returned to softer, IFM-like substrates, their morphology and ability to proliferate recovered, while some of the changes in gene expression were also restored. 

“Our findings show that different tendon cells can respond very differently to changes in their mechanical environment. This is important because tendons can undergo changes in their structure and stiffness during disease, and we need to understand how individual cell populations respond to those changes.” says Dr Simon Grossemy, the lead researcher from Queen Mary University of London. 

The Principal Investigator, Professor Hazel Screen added “The recovery we observed when IFM cells were returned to a softer environment was particularly interesting. It highlights how the physical environment is an important factor in maintaining the behaviour and characteristics of these cells.” 

For people living with tendon conditions, the research provides a new perspective on how tissue changes may affect the resident cells and maintain tissue health or drive disease. Tendinopathy can be difficult to treat, partly because the biological processes underlying tendon degeneration are still not fully understood. By identifying a highly mechanosensitive cell population, the research gives scientists a new way to investigate how changes in the tendon environment could influence cellular behaviour. 

They could also support research into tendon health in animals. Tendon injuries are an important concern in horses, whose tendons experience substantial mechanical forces during movement and athletic activity. A better understanding of how tendon cells respond to their physical surroundings could help researchers investigate the biological processes involved in tendon injury and recovery across species. 

Even though the study does not establish that IFM cells directly cause tendinopathy or provide a new treatment, it provides an exciting new experimental framework that enables researchers to investigate these questions. 

The team has also developed a defined laboratory culture framework that helps maintain important characteristics of IFM cells in vitro. This is significant because cells can change their behaviour when removed from their natural tissue environment. 

The researchers hope that their findings will contribute to a more detailed understanding of tendon biology and support future work towards more targeted approaches to preventing, managing and repairing tendon damage in people and animals. 

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Journal

Advanced Science

DOI

10.1002/advs.77391

Article Title

Unravelling the Distinct Phenotype and Mechanosensitive Properties of Different Tendon Cell Populations

 

Virtual reality helps English teachers strengthen the social side of language

ECNU Review of Education

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A rendered first-person view of the VR scenarios developed for the socio-culturally responsive VR intervention described in the study.

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Credit: Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani

Knowing English involves more than knowing the right words and grammar. Effective communication also requires understanding how language changes according to the people involved, the situation, and the cultural context. A new study suggests that immersive virtual reality (VR) can help English teachers develop this often-overlooked dimension of language use.

The study, Socio-Culturally Responsive VR Training for Enhancing English Teachers' Pragmatic Competence, found that teachers who participated in a 108-hour immersive VR training program showed statistically significant improvements in pragmatic competence, including both their ability to use appropriate linguistic forms and their ability to respond appropriately to social and cultural expectations.

The research, conducted by Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani, was first published online on August 27, 2026, in ECNU Review of Education.

Pragmatic competence is the ability to use language appropriately in real-world situations. A request, refusal, apology, or complaint, for example, can be expressed in many grammatically correct ways, but the most appropriate choice depends on factors such as social relationships, power, distance, and cultural expectations.

For teachers in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts, developing this competence can be challenging because opportunities for authentic interaction may be limited. While classroom instruction can explain pragmatic rules, providing repeated opportunities to practice context-sensitive communication in realistic situations is more difficult.

To investigate whether immersive technology could help address this challenge, the researchers employed a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design involving 122 randomly selected EFL teachers. Participants completed verbal discourse completion tasks (DCTs) before and after the training, allowing the researchers to assess changes in pragmatic competence. Focus group interviews were then used to explore participants' experiences and help explain the quantitative findings.

The 108-hour intervention used fully immersive VR simulations featuring artificial intelligence (AI)-driven avatars. The simulations incorporated diverse sociocultural scenarios as well as different speech acts, power relations, and levels of social distance. The intervention followed a human-on-the-loop (HOTL) approach, maintaining human involvement in the AI-supported learning process.

Following the training, participants demonstrated statistically significant improvements in pragmatic competence. The gains were evident in two key dimensions: pragmalinguistic accuracy, or the ability to select and use appropriate linguistic forms, and sociopragmatic appropriateness, or the ability to respond appropriately to the social and cultural expectations of a situation.

The qualitative findings provided further insight into these improvements. Participants identified immersive engagement, real-time adaptive feedback, increased communicative confidence, greater metapragmatic awareness, and reflective practice as important aspects of the VR experience.

These findings suggest that the value of the VR intervention was not simply that teachers were practicing English in a virtual environment. Rather, the simulations created opportunities for participants to make communicative choices within sociocultural situations, receive adaptive feedback, and reflect on why particular choices were appropriate in context.

“Pragmatic competence is not simply a matter of knowing what a particular expression means,” claim Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani. “Teachers also need to understand how their linguistic choices interact with social relationships, cultural expectations, and the context of an interaction. Our findings suggest that immersive VR can create meaningful opportunities to practice these context-sensitive choices through interaction, feedback, and reflection.”

A distinctive feature of the study is its integration of AI-driven interaction with a socio-culturally responsive approach. Rather than using VR solely to reproduce conventional language exercises, the intervention incorporated sociocultural dimensions of communication, including speech acts, power relations, and social distance.

The researchers emphasize that VR is not a replacement for human interaction or conventional teacher education. Instead, immersive technology may provide an additional environment for professional learning, particularly in EFL contexts where opportunities for authentic interaction may be constrained.

Further research is needed to determine whether improvements in pragmatic competence are sustained over time and how effectively skills developed in immersive simulations transfer to teachers’ real-world professional and classroom interactions.

The findings contribute to research on technology-enhanced language teacher education by demonstrating the potential of immersive, AI-supported environments to support the development of English teachers’ pragmatic competence. They also highlight the importance of combining technological innovation with sociocultural awareness, adaptive feedback, and reflective practice when designing professional learning experiences.

A rendered third-person view of the VR scenarios developed for the socio-culturally responsive VR intervention described in the study.

Credit

Mohsen Mahmoudi-Dehaki and Nasim Nasr-Esfahani

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Journal

ECNU Review of Education

DOI

10.1177/20965311261472506

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Socio-Culturally Responsive VR Training for Enhancing English Teachers’ Pragmatic Competence

 

Identity-first language (eg "autistic person") versus person-first language (eg "person with autism") ebb and flow in popularity

PLOS

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Preferred terminology over time

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Credit: Kang et al., 2026, PLOS Mental Health, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Identity-first language (eg "autistic person") versus person-first language (eg "person with autism") ebb and flow in popularity: though person-first language has seen an increase in popularity in books and online news from 1980 onward, this trend is counteracted by a more recent swing toward identity-first language.

 

Article URL: https://plos.io/46gmnsE

Article Title: Who you are or what you have: Historical trends in identity-first and person-first language in books and news media 

Author Countries: Australia

Funding: The work reported in this paper was supported by Australian Research Council grant DP250102690 to NH (https://www.arc.gov.au/). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Journal

PLOS Mental Health

DOI

10.1371/journal.pmen.0000684

Article Publication Date

16-Sep-2026