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)
Stomata are microscopic pores on the surface of the lead through which plants take in carbon dioxide and release water. Their function depends on two guard cells that open and close in response to environmental signals. The research team in Bochum discovered that GELP80 becomes activated in an early stage of development and selectively reshapes the cuticular lipid structure surrounding the created pores. This gives the guard cells their mechanical flexibility required for later regulation of the pore opening.
Unusual shape and stiffer guard cell walls
Plants lacking both GELP80 and GELP100 developed abnormally shaped stomata with structurally defective cuticular ledges and stiffer guard cell walls. As a result, the stomata were restricted in their mobility. At the same time, however, the plants continued to react normally to abscisic acid (ABA), confirming that the cause of the defects does not lie in disrupted signal transmission, but rather in altered mechanical characteristics of the cell wall and cuticle.
Limited mobility is an advantage
Surprisingly, the limited mobility of the stomata under drought-induced stress proved advantageous: The mutant plants lost less water and survived longer drought periods much more often than wild type plants. After 14 days without water, their survival rate was at about 80 percent, whereas nearly all of the comparison plants died.
The team also established a new model for stomata development in which GELP80 orchestrates early cuticle organization while the guard cells are in their early development. Later, the related enzyme OSP1 enables final pore opening, revealing a precisely timed sequence of lipid-remodeling events required for functional stomata formation.
“GELP80 acts like a molecular sculptor at the stomatal pore—it remodels the cuticular lipids early in guard cell development to give the stomata the precise mechanical flexibility they need to function,” says Dr. Khushbu Kumari, first author of the study. “When that sculpting is lost, the pore architecture becomes rigid and disorganized, and the plant simply cannot open and close its stomata efficiently.”
For the first time, the findings reveal a direct link between lipid metabolism, cell wall mechanics, and stomatal physiology. As we are faced with increasing drought and water scarcity, this insight could aid in optimizing crops for better water management and greater resilience to drought.
Climate warming is intensifying terrestrial water scarcity and drought risks worldwide. Meanwhile, rising atmospheric CO2 reduces plant stomatal conductance— the openness of leaf pores that governs both CO₂ intake and water loss — and improves water-use efficiency, which has been widely considered capable of alleviating land surface drying. However, a recent study reveals that this perceived benefit may have been optimistically overestimated.
On June 24, the team led by Prof. Xing Yuan published a paper in PNAS, uncovering a critical indirect impact that substantially limits the water-saving potential of vegetation under elevated CO2, originating from atmospheric feedbacks.
Based on simulations from Earth system models participating in CMIP6-C4MIP (the carbon-cycle climate intercomparison project within the global CMIP6 modeling framework), the research team isolated the indirect impacts of vegetation changes on evapotranspiration through atmospheric feedbacks, and found that vegetation responses to rising CO2 (including increased leaf area and reduced stomatal conductance) can alter surface energy balance, leading to warming and enhanced atmospheric evaporative demand, which ultimately drives greater surface water loss, undermining the water savings they were expected to deliver.
This previously overlooked indirect impact offsets 54% of the vegetation water-saving effect in northern mid-to-high latitudes under current climate conditions, and this ratio is projected to increase to 68% under a future 4×CO2 scenario. Most concerning, at high latitudes, the net CO2 physiological effect on evapotranspiration becomes statistically insignificant, meaning the anticipated water-saving benefit essentially disappears.
The indirect impacts of vegetation changes exhibit strong latitudinal differences, with particularly pronounced effects in northern mid-to-high latitudes. In these regions, sustained water loss associated with atmospheric feedbacks can undermine the potential benefits of vegetation in mitigating land surface water scarcity, covering major agricultural regions such as the U.S. Corn Belt, European plains, and rice-growing regions of China.
As droughts become more frequent under climate change, vegetation’s role in regulating land surface water availability is becoming increasingly critical for agricultural production and water resource management. However, “the study warns against overreliance on CO2 physiological effects as a natural solution to drought,” said the corresponding author, Prof. Xing Yuan.
Meanwhile, in low-latitude regions, the first author Yi Hao noted that “although CO2 physiological effects may partially alleviate soil moisture drought, increasing compound heat and atmospheric drought stress are more likely to threaten ecosystem sustainability.”
The findings highlight that vegetation's CO₂ response alone cannot secure water resources or ecosystem stability under future climate change, underscoring the need for proactive adaptation strategies — including improved irrigation efficiency, drought-resilient crop breeding, and sustainable water resource planning.
Although electrified versions of vans, buses and semis cost more upfront on average than their diesel-powered counterparts, the overall calculus behind adopting greener vehicles is currently in flux.
The cost of diesel fuel is skyrocketing. California, where the new Tesla Semi is establishing a toehold, has also unveiled a rebate program to help companies purchase electric medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Plus, even as the federal U.S. government embraces fossil fuels, some companies remain committed to their sustainability goals, as evidenced by Amazon's ever-growing fleet of electric delivery vehicles.
Now, research from the University of Michigan shows just how big a difference switching from diesel to fuel cells or batteries can make when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. If a medium- or heavy-duty battery electric vehicle were to be powered completely by renewable energy, it would offer around a 90% reduction in lifetime greenhouse gas emissions compared to its diesel equivalent.
The research team, led by Maxwell Woody and Greg Keoleian, published its results in the journal Nature Energy and was supported by the Ford-University of Michigan Alliance Program.
"There's an urgency for climate action and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector," said Keoleian, a professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability, or SEAS. "There's a disproportionate amount of emissions from these heavy- and medium-duty vehicles compared to the rest of the vehicles on the road."
Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles account for nearly 30% of road vehicle emissions despite making up just about 5% of traffic on U.S. roadways, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
"Moving to battery electric vehicles and even hydrogen fuel cell vehicles provides a significant reduction in emissions," said Keoleian, who is also co-director of U-M's Center for Sustainable Systems, or CSS.
This study, focusing on larger vehicles, follows a comprehensive study from the team that showed electrified sedans, SUVs and light-duty pickups reduced lifetime emissions from noncommercial vehicles across the U.S. In the new study, the team performed life cycle analyses for Class 3 vehicles, weighing between 10,001 and 14,000 pounds, up to Class 8 vehicles that can weigh up to 80,000 pounds.
They modeled different powertrains, including internal combustion engines, hybrids, battery-powered EVs and fuel cell electric vehicles, accounting for a variety of other factors. That included variables like how a vehicle was driven—for example, with the frequent starts and stops of urban delivery up to the long-haul drives of trucks with sleeper cabs. The researchers also examined how hydrogen and electrons for fuel cells and batteries, respectively, were sourced, comparing established methods to newer, greener options.
In the case of fuel cells, this meant analyzing sourcing hydrogen from the standard process known as steam methane reforming versus greener hydrogen from the electrolysis of water powered by renewables. For battery electric vehicles, the standard is simply plugging into the current grid versus charging from renewables alone.
Though there were variations due to these factors, a clear takeaway emerged: Hydrogen fuel cells and battery electric powertrains offered the largest lifetime emissions reductions compared with diesel-powered vehicles.
Battery electric vehicles cut emissions by 72%-82% using the current grid and by 87%-92% using renewables only.
Fuel cells offered 12%-51% reductions using steam methane reforming and 44%-68% reductions with electrolysis powered by renewables.
"Basically, we see across all the different vehicle sizes the same general pattern of the conventional diesel having the highest emissions, then the hybrid, then the fuel cell with conventional hydrogen production, then the battery electric with grid electricity, then fuel cell with green hydrogen, and then the battery electric vehicle with renewable electricity," said Woody, a postdoctoral researcher with CSS. "That pattern held across everything that we investigated, from the Class 3 van to the Class 8 truck."
SEAS doctoral student Spencer Checkoway also contributed to the research, as did Robert De Kleine, Hyung Chul Kim and James Anderson at Ford Motor Co.
Old oak trees and semi-natural grasslands are very important for a large number of species that risk disappearing as habitats decline. In a new study, researchers at Linköping University in Sweden present their findings on the habitat amount needed. The results can help nature conservation agencies set scientifically based goals and take more precise action to ensure long term survival of threatened species.
No less than 1,800 species are associated with the oak. This makes the oak the most biodiversity-rich tree in Sweden. Together with semi-natural grasslands, oak landscapes play an important role in enabling species to form viable populations that survive in the long term. But how much of these types of habitat is needed?
It would be practically impossible for researchers to physically count every animal and plant at each site. Instead, they used a combination of private databases, various species projects and the digital reporting system Artportalen, a platform for open public reporting of species sightings. The researchers behind the study combined millions of reported species data with data on habitat distribution, such as inventories of large oaks made by county administrative boards, and other openly available geodata on grasslands. By combining data on species found with habitat data, the researchers were able to search for patterns.
The researchers show that the amount of habitat is linked to whether different species occur at a given location. They were also able to identify thresholds for how much habitat is needed for a species to persist.
“A sensitive species is more likely to be found in an oak-rich landscape than in a place where there are very few oaks. We’ve been able to calculate threshold values for different species. We can with relatively high confidence provide a target for how much habitat is needed,” says Karl-Olof Bergman, senior associate professor at Linköping University, who led the study published in the journal Landscape Ecology.
One of the most discerning species, which needs many old oaks in its vicinity, is the orange polypore Aurantiporus croceus; a globally endangered fungus species that is critically endangered in Sweden. In their study, the researchers identified how much habitat is required for the species to be found in a particular location. And if the orange polyporecan grow there, the requirements are also met for all other species dependent on old oaks. The results provide conservationists with concrete, science-based data to prioritise cost-effective interventions where they are most useful.
“It’s particularly important that we can identify areas where endangered species occur today, but where habitats are too small or fragmented for the species to survive long-term. Species richness in these places exists on borrowed time. We have a time window now when we can act and restore these environments to save species that will otherwise disappear from there,” says Karl-Olof Bergman.
But why does it matter if we lose species such as the orange polypore? The answer lies in how deeply interwoven biodiversity is with our own everyday lives. Functional, species-rich ecosystems are a prerequisite for the existence of clean water, clean air and productive soils. Some fruits and vegetables are highly dependent on pollination by various insects to provide good harvests. Many pharmaceuticals are based on substances found in plants and animals, and even today new discoveries are being made that may come to benefit humans in the future.
“The utility perspective is important, but everything in nature has an intrinsic value. What right do we have to eradicate species that have millions of years of evolution behind them? The species that disappear during our lifetime are also lost for all future generations,” says Karl-Olof Bergman.
The study was conducted in collaboration with the Pro Natura enterprise foundation and was funded by WWF Sweden and Formas.
On 1 April 2026, the polar expedition cruise ship MV Hondius sailed from Argentina on a transatlantic voyage. By the middle of the month, passengers developed fever and breathing difficulties. The World Health Organization confirmed 11 hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) cases, including three deaths (27% fatality). Genomic sequencing identified Andes virus — the only hantavirus known to spread via limited human‑to‑human transmission.
No rodents were found aboard. The confined vessel, carrying 147 people from 23 countries, became an unexpected amplifier of person‑to‑person transmission. The ship had stopped at remote ecological hotspots including the Antarctic Peninsula and Tristan da Cunha. This is not an isolated incident — it is a clear ecological alert: global travel and environmental change are reshaping how zoonotic viruses emerge.
Microbiome and biodiversity matter
A recent study shows that hantavirus infection alters the lung microbiome of rodent reservoirs (Xiong et al., Microorganisms, 2026). Such changes could serve as early‑warning indicators of spillover risk. Meanwhile, long‑term evidence from Shaanxi, China, reveals that land consolidation reduced rodent diversity by 53%, creating a "one‑species monopoly" of the dominant hantavirus host. This dramatically accelerated viral transmission to humans — a powerful illustration of how land‑use change drives disease risk.
Four urgent actions
Professor Lu proposes four initiatives aligned with Microbiome and One Health:
1. Multi‑sectoral One Health coordination — integrating human, animal, environmental and climate expertise.
2. Microbiome surveillance — using reservoir host microbiota as early warning indicators.
3. Multi‑factor early warning systems — combining biodiversity, climate and travel data.
4. Ecologically informed travel health regulations — targeting cruise ships and ecotourism.
Concluding remarks
As this commentary went to press, WHO declared a new Ebola PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern). Ebola and hantavirus share strikingly similar ecological drivers: deforestation, climate anomalies and global travel networks. The 2026 Ebola PHEIC and the hantavirus cruise cluster are two fractures on the same One Health crisis map. The boundaries between human, animal and ecosystem health have effectively vanished.
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Contact the author:
Jiahai Lu
Institute of One Health, School of Laboratory Medicine and Life Sciences, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325035, P.R. China
lujiahai@wmu.edu.cn
The publisher KeAiwas 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 European Parliament has given its final approval in Brussels to a new legal framework for plants produced using new breeding techniques (new genomic techniques, NGTs). At second reading, Parliament adopted the regulation that were the subject of trilogue negotiations with the Member States and the European Commission in December 2025. The Council gave its final approval to the regulation in April 2026. The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) welcomes this step, having actively advocated at European level for a reform of legislation governing genetic engineering in recent years.
The adopted regulation provides for simplified rules concerning so-called NGT-1 plants that could also have been produced using conventional breeding methods. These plants will no longer have to comply with the strict authorisation and labelling requirements that will continue to apply to other plants produced using new breeding techniques (NGT-2). In future, the EU will assess plants more based on their characteristics than on the breeding method used.
“Following the initial political breakthrough in December 2025, when the Council and Parliament arrived at a provisional agreement, we hoped for swift approval by the EU institutions in the interests of science,” said DFG President Prof. Dr. Katja Becker. “I’m delighted that this has now been achieved without further amendments. From mid-2028, when the regulation comes into force, researchers will now be able to conduct field trials much more easily, for example to improve plants’ resilience to climate change and resistance to pests. This will mean that new breeding techniques can become one of the tools for securing stable and increasing yields while reducing the use of pesticides.”
“In this way we can help safeguard food security, sustainability and adaptation to climate change in Europe,” added Prof. Dr. Axel Brakhage, Chair of the DFG Senate Commission on Genetic Research. He reiterated: “From a scientific perspective, genome-edited plants whose genetic modifications could also have arisen naturally or through conventional breeding techniques do not pose any specific risks. In our view, they can be treated in the same way as conventionally bred varieties.”
The classification of NGT-1 plants as adopted in the regulation reflects this scientific assessment, thereby overcoming the strictly process-based regulatory approach that has significantly restricted research and innovation to date. The newly adopted legal framework provides researchers and breeders in Germany and Europe with reliable prospects. It facilitates field trials, strengthens competitiveness and establishes the conditions for developing more robust, sustainably produced crops that can contribute to the objectives of the EU’s Vision for Agriculture and Food.
Further Information
Media contact: DFG Press and Public Relations, Tel. +49 228 885-2109, presse@dfg.de
For further information on the DFG Permanent Senate Commission on Genetic Research and its publications, see: www.dfg.de/sc_genetic_research
Three-decade analysis reveals persistent sepsis burden in China
The study found that infections remain the leading cause of sepsis mortality, while aging and chronic disease increasingly shape national risk patterns
Credit: Professor Hao Wang from Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, China Image Source Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jointm.2026.04.004
Sepsis, a life-threatening condition caused by the body’s dysregulated response to infection, remains one of the leading causes of preventable death worldwide. Although advances in infection control, intensive care, and antimicrobial therapy have improved survival in many countries, sepsis continues to place enormous pressure on healthcare systems because it can develop rapidly and disproportionately affects vulnerable populations. In China, the burden of sepsis has been difficult to fully characterize because sepsis is frequently recorded as an intermediate complication rather than the primary cause of death, limiting the availability of consistent long-term national statistics.
The research was led by Professor Hao Wang from the Department of Critical Care Medicine at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, China. Using publicly available Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 outputs together with China-specific anchor values, the researchers reconstructed annual sepsis incidence and mortality trends in China from 1990 to 2021. The study combined national incidence and mortality estimates with analyses of sex, age, and broad underlying disease categories, including infections, injuries, and non-communicable diseases. The researchers also performed sensitivity analyses using multiple interpolation approaches to ensure the robustness of the reconstructed national trends. Their findings were made available online in the Journal of Intensive Medicine on May 6, 2026.
The analysis estimated that China experienced approximately 6.77 million incident sepsis cases and 2.48 million sepsis-related deaths in 2021 alone. Although age-standardized incidence and mortality declined substantially between 1990 and 2021, while the absolute number of sepsis cases continued to rise alongside population aging and demographic change. The study also found that infection-attributed sepsis remained the largest contributor to mortality, while non-communicable disease-related sepsis became increasingly important over time.
“Males and older adults consistently carried the highest burden across most categories of sepsis,” explained Prof. Wang. “This suggests that demographic aging, chronic disease accumulation, and delayed healthcare access remain major drivers of severe infection outcomes in China.”
The findings revealed striking age-related differences in sepsis burden. Infection-related sepsis deaths remained substantial among children and older adults, while non-communicable disease-attributed sepsis deaths increased sharply with age and peaked among individuals aged 80–84 years. In contrast, injury-related sepsis accounted for only a relatively small fraction of total mortality across all age groups. The researchers noted that these patterns reflect China’s broader epidemiological transition, in which chronic illnesses such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, and malignancy increasingly amplify vulnerability to severe infection and organ failure.
The study also highlighted persistent sex disparities. Across infection-, injury-, and chronic disease-related sepsis, males consistently showed higher age-standardized incidence and mortality than females. The researchers suggest that smoking exposure, occupational hazards, chronic cardiometabolic disease, delayed healthcare-seeking behavior, and biological differences in immune responses may all contribute to this imbalance.
“Our results show that reducing sepsis deaths will require more than better infection treatment alone,” said Prof. Wang. “Future prevention strategies must integrate chronic disease management, healthy aging programs, vaccination, infection surveillance, and early recognition of clinical deterioration.”
Beyond its immediate public health implications, the study may influence future collaborations between critical care specialists, infectious disease researchers, epidemiologists, geriatricians, and chronic disease experts. In the short term, the findings could help policymakers prioritize high-risk populations for vaccination campaigns, antimicrobial stewardship programs, and rapid sepsis recognition pathways. Over the longer term, the data may support the development of more integrated healthcare systems capable of managing the combined pressures of aging populations, multimorbidity, and severe infection. The researchers also emphasized that future studies incorporating hospital-level datasets, provincial analyses, and pathogen resistance trends could further refine the understanding of China’s evolving sepsis burden.
In summary, the study provides one of the most comprehensive reconstructions of China’s sepsis burden from 1990 to 2021 within the GBD framework. While age-standardized incidence and mortality have declined, the overall burden remains extremely large, with infections continuing to dominate mortality and chronic diseases increasingly shaping risk. The findings underscore the urgent need for integrated prevention, earlier recognition, and targeted care strategies to reduce future sepsis-related deaths in China.
About Professor Hao Wang from Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, China Dr. Hao Wang is a professor and physician at Department of Critical Care Medicine, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, China. His clinical and research interests include sepsis, septic shock, organ dysfunction, antimicrobial resistance, and organ-support therapies in critically ill patients. He previously served as visiting scholar at Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored more than 50 publications with more than 1,600 citations and serves as reviewer for international medical journals. His research has been supported by national and provincial funding agencies in China, and he has received awards for excellence in critical care research and education.
A nationwide analysis based on Global Burden of Disease 2021 data found that China experienced an estimated 6.77 million sepsis cases and 2.48 million sepsis-related deaths in 2021. Although age-standardized incidence and mortality declined substantially since 1990, the absolute burden remained high, particularly among older adults and males. Infection-attributed sepsis remained the leading contributor to mortality, while chronic diseases increasingly shaped sepsis risk over time.
Credit
norfolkdistrict from Openverse Image Source Link: https://openverse.org/image/86850cac-a6ce-4f5c-8998-388c49b15ac4?q=patient+intensive+care&p=14
