Face of earliest human seen for first time

Sarah Knapton
Tue, September 29, 2026 



Dress him in modern clothes and he'd fit right in today, said one of the researchers - MDPI.com/Heritage journal


The face of the earliest human ever found has been reconstructed after 300,000 years.

In the 1960s, a human-like fossilised skull was discovered during mineral extraction in Jebel Irhoud, western Morocco, and archaeologists initially thought it belonged to a Neanderthal.

But a reappraisal in 2017 showed it was the earliest Homo sapiens ever recorded, dating to around 315,000 years ago - a time before humans had ventured out of Africa.

Now experts have recreated the facial features of the man, and he looked surprisingly similar to modern humans.


Cicero Moraes, a world leader in forensic facial reconstruction, who led the research, said: "If he were dressed in modern clothes in the middle of a crowd, he would likely pass unnoticed at first glance."

Only a closer look would reveal slight deviations, he said, including a more "robust" brow and greater facial projection.

The skull used in the recreation is one of a select few found at a site in Morocco - MDPI.com/Heritage journal

How face was recreated...

To recreate the face, a global group of experts used a 3D digital reconstruction of the Jebel Irhoud skull produced by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

They added soft tissue and anatomical details based on datasets of people from Africa.

The team found subtle differences in face shape compared to modern humans, including a more prominent chin, a wider nose and a larger head circumference.

Two versions of the face were produced in the research, one in greyscale to highlight the underlying anatomy and a full-colour bust, complete with dark skin and hair.

Although the skull reveals no evidence of skin tone, hair or eye colour, the team added in dark hair and a beard. These were considered "plausible traits" for someone from North Africa around 315,000 years ago, based on previous studies of archaic and modern humans.

A greyscale version of the face, without hair and beard, was produced - MDPI.com/Heritage journal

...and how it compares to modern men

The team also calculated brain volume and found a value of 1,230 cm3 - very close to the average for modern adult males, which is 1,234 cm3.

It suggested brain size has barely changed in 300,000 years.


Prof Francesco Galassi, an anatomist from Italy's University of Pavia and one of the authors of the study, said: "It is always a fantastic experience to see the completed face and observe how much it resembles – and yet differs from – today's population.

"It is impossible not to wonder what his daily life was like, how he solved his problems, and what went through his mind."

Researchers warned there are no known remains of soft-tissue from Homo sapiens of the time, so it is possible the muscle configurations were different from modern humans, leading to an altered appearance.

However they argue the skull imposes constraints on musculature and tissue, so the man's face is unlikely to have looked significantly different from the reconstruction.

To date, excavations have uncovered 22 hominid fossil bones at Jebel Irhoud, representing at least five individual Homo sapiens, comprising three adults, an adolescent and a child.

Stone tools, including scrapers, flakes and piercers were also found, as well as evidence the group used fire.

Animal bones near the fossils showed signs of butchery, suggesting the humans ate large and small game including wildebeest, gazelles, zebra, and ostrich eggs.

The research was published in the journal Heritage.

 

Researchers push toward improved care for women with dangerous pregnancy condition

Oregon State University

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

image: 

Graphic depicts a magnetic hyperthermia nanomedicine approach for diagnosing and treating ectopic pregnancy. Credit: Parinaz Ghanbari.

view more 

Credit: Credit: Parinaz Ghanbari.

PORTLAND, Ore. – A research team led by an Oregon State University scientist has demonstrated in a mouse model a potentially better way of caring for women facing the life-threatening condition of ectopic pregnancy.

An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants somewhere other than the lining of the uterus. Such pregnancies are non-viable and a leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester.

The study, primarily funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, was published in the journal Biomaterials.

The research is important because 2% of all pregnancies in the United States, and between 1% and 2% worldwide, are ectopic, the authors note. In the U.S. alone that translates to approximately 100,000 ectopic pregnancies annually; over the past six years, about 30 women have died annually from ectopic pregnancies.

About 98% of ectopic implantations happen in the fallopian tubes, putting women at risk of hemorrhage and death. Complicating matters are a 10% misdiagnosis rate for the standard diagnostic tool, transvaginal ultrasound, and an even higher failure rate for the primary drug, methotrexate, used to end an ectopic pregnancy.

“Current strategies – attempted diagnosis via ultrasound, treatment with methotrexate, and surgery if necessary – are associated with the risk of tubal rupture and reduced fertility,” said Olena Taratula of the OSU College of Pharmacy. “Also, there’s an increased risk of another ectopic pregnancy – a woman who has had one ectopic pregnancy is 10% more likely to have a second one.”

Even when methotrexate – a drug that ends ectopic pregnancy by causing embryonic cells to stop dividing – is effective, it comes with a range of potential side effects, Taratula said: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, elevated liver enzymes, kidney damage and lung disease.

As a possible alternative, Taratula, postdoctoral scholar Karthickraja Duraisamy and collaborators at Oregon State and Oregon Health & Science University came up with a novel nanomedicine approach. The scientists developed and tested in pregnant mice a new magnetic nanoparticle with both diagnostic and therapeutic functions.

Nanoparticles are tiny pieces of matter, as small as one-billionth of a meter. Administered intravenously, the specially engineered cobalt-doped soft ferromagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles accumulated in the mice’s placenta, which nourishes and maintains the fetus through the umbilical cord.

“Effective detection of the growing placenta greatly improves the accuracy and timeliness of ectopic pregnancy identification,” Olena Taratula said.

Once the nanoparticles were concentrated in the placenta, the organ could be seen through magnetic resonance imaging.

In a human patient, that means it would quickly be clear whether the placenta is where it’s supposed to be. If it is, the patient would know she did not have an ectopic pregnancy, and the embryo is unaffected by the particles as they do not cross the placental barrier.

But if the placenta is in a fallopian tube or other incorrect location, the pregnancy could be ended via non-invasive exposure to an alternating magnetic field, which causes the nanoparticles to rise in temperature and irreparably disrupt placental function via heat.

“We developed an MRI-guided magnetic nanoplatform for localized hyperthermia, less than or equal to 45 degrees Celsius, of pregnancy-associated tissue,” Duraisamy said. “In pregnant mice, it selectively disrupted gestational sacs while preserving surrounding uterine tissue and fertility, supporting its potential as a minimally invasive treatment for ectopic pregnancy.”

“Our main goal in this study was to evaluate our nanoparticle’s ability to identify and visualize the developing placenta and demonstrate its magnetic hyperthermia capabilities,” Taratula added. “These results are highly promising; now in the coming years we need to validate the findings in other animal models to further advance the application of this technology.”

Oleh Taratula, Prem Singh, Akshay Vyawahare, Ana Paula Mesquita Souza and Kongbrailatpam Shitaljit Sharma of Oregon State contributed the research, which was supported by the College of Pharmacy, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the OHSU School of Medicine.

---

Journal

Biomaterials

DOI

10.1016/j.biomaterials.2026.124639

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Nanoparticle-mediated magnetic hyperthermia for ectopic pregnancy treatment

Article Publication Date

21-Sep-2026

COI Statement

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal re- lationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Kentaro Yamada and Khashayar Farsad reports financial support was provided by Dotter Department of Interventional Radiology, Oregon Health & Science University, 3181 S W. Sam Jackson Park Road, Port- land, Oregon, 97,239, USA. Kentaro Yamada reports grants and consulting fees from Kaneka Medical America, GE Healthcare, outside the submitted work. Khashayar Farsad reports grants from Guerbet, LLC, W.L. Gore, and AstraZeneca; consulting fees from BD and W.L. Gore; founder of and equity in Auxetics, Inc, outside the submitted work. All other authors declare no conflict of interest. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

 

High-dose vitamin D may improve cognition among those at risk of dementia, Emory study finds

Emory Health Sciences

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsApp\Email

image: 

Victoria Pak, associate professor in the School of Nursing and senior author of the study.

view more 

Credit: Emory University

With more than 7 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s dementia — a number projected to reach nearly 13 million by 2050 — new Emory University research suggests that higher vitamin D supplement intake may be associated with better cognitive function in adults with an elevated risk of dementia.

In a study of 54 adults with sleep disturbances and mild cognitive impairments (MCI), two hallmarks of early dementia, participants taking at least 5,000 IU of vitamin D daily showed better cognitive function compared to those who didn’t.

The study, recently published in Sleep Medicine, found that participants who reported taking 5,000 IU or more of vitamin D daily scored more than 13% higher on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) than those who didn’t, even after accounting for other factors. A screening tool to detect risk of developing dementia, MoCA is widely used to assess memory and thinking skills. In this study, lower daily doses of vitamin D were not associated with higher cognitive scores.

The study also emphasizes the significance of timing. MCI is an intermediate stage between normal cognitive aging and dementia. 

“In older adults experiencing both sleep disturbance and mild cognitive impairment, this may represent a critical window for intervention, when cognitive changes are emerging, but opportunities to support brain health may remain,” says Victoria Pak, senior author of the study.

“Identifying accessible and modifiable factors, such as vitamin D supplement intake, during the earlier stages of cognitive decline may become increasingly important, particularly as rates of Alzheimer’s disease continue to rise,” adds Pak, associate professor at Emory University’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

In addition to the timing of the intervention, the study also found that cognitive performance did not differ based on the form of vitamin D — D2, typically derived from plants or fungi, or D3, produced after sun exposure or consuming animal-based foods.

Vitamin D, an essential nutrient, is not only necessary for muscle and nerve function, but also influences sleep quality and sleep-wake cycles. Additionally, 50% of those with moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease report having sleep disturbances, indicating a bidirectional relationship between sleep deprivation and cognitive decline. 

While vitamin D deficiencies have been implicated in sleep disorders, such as insomnia and more nighttime awakenings, this preliminary study is the first to assess the relationship between vitamin D supplement intake and cognitive function in a high-risk population with both MCI and sleep disturbances. 

This study was funded by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, R01AG097853-01 and R61AG080606.

Other Emory co-authors also include Sirui Zhou, Paul Sudeshna, Lynn Marie Trotti and Donald Bliwise. 

---

Journal

Sleep Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.sleep.2026.108960 

 

WSU study finds community-led dog vaccination could save children's lives

Washington State University

Facebook

WeChat

PULLMAN, Wash. – A community-based approach to vaccinating dogs against rabies could help protect countless children in Africa and other areas from one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases, according to a new study led by Washington State University.

Conducted over three years in rural Tanzania, the National Institutes of Health-funded study found that community-based rabies vaccination programs kept significantly more dogs protected against the disease than traditional annual vaccination campaigns, which are typically led by teams of vaccinators who come from outside of the communities they serve. The new approach also maintained more consistent vaccination coverage throughout the year, reducing the risk that protection would fall below the level needed to prevent transmission. The findings of the study were published in the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

“The biggest finding from this study is that community-based approaches to disease control are effective and cost effective,” said Felix Lankester, a professor in the WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Health, director of the Rabies Free Africa Program, and senior author on the study. “Involving the community in implementing campaigns is a really effective way to achieve your disease control goals. With approaches like this, we have the tools to eliminate human rabies, however, it will take funding commitments and political will.”

Rabies is estimated to kill up to 160,000 people each year, primarily in Africa and Asia. More than 99% of human cases – most of which occur in children – are caused by bites from infected domestic dogs, making widespread dog vaccination one of the most effective tools for preventing human infections.

The study compared the standard model of rabies control with a new community-based system.

Traditional programs rely on vaccination teams traveling from village to village once a year, administering vaccines that must be stored under refrigeration and transported from centralized locations.

The new approach grew out of earlier research led by WSU showing that a commonly used rabies vaccine remains effective for up to three months when stored at 30°C (86°F) in specially designed clay pots known as zeepots. This allows communities to be able to store and administer vaccines year-round rather than waiting for annual vaccination campaigns.

The study found the community-based approach led to more dogs being vaccinated, maintained higher vaccination coverage throughout the year and reduced the cost per dog vaccinated. On the opposite side, traditional annual campaigns result in a spike in vaccination coverage immediately after dogs are vaccinated, followed by a steady decline as vaccinated dogs die, move away and new unvaccinated puppies are born.

The decline often causes coverage to fall below the 40% threshold needed to maintain herd immunity against rabies. The researchers found the probability of vaccination coverage dropping below that critical level was 60% using the traditional team-based approach, compared with just 18% under the community-based system.

“With the traditional approach, you get this waxing and waning of the vaccination coverage, which tends to lead to vaccination coverage dipping below the critical vaccination threshold,” Lankester said. “With the new approach, the risk of it dipping below the critical vaccination coverage was much lower, which meant that herd immunity would be maintained.”

The program began in Tanzania's Mara region and has since expanded into other parts of northern Tanzania. Lankester said the community-based approach could be successful in other regions, but funding is an obstacle.

Lankester is advocating for rabies control to be considered a public health issue and not simply an animal health issue. Although dogs are vaccinated, the goal is protecting people, particularly children.

“It's about childhood health. It's about public health,” Lankester said. "The benefits to dogs are clear, but that is a secondary benefit. The primary goal is to protect children from rabies.”

---

Journal

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases

DOI

10.1371/journal.pntd.0014091

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Implementing mass dog rabies vaccination through a community-based continuous approach: A socio-anthropological process evaluation

Reading 30 years of Otsego Lake history, one zooplankton at a time

Research is part of a $400,000 NSF grant led by SUNY Cobleskill Ag & Tech to expand undergraduate research opportunities.

SUNY Cobleskill

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

image: 

Miele (left) and Dr. Meehan

view more 

Credit: SUNY Cobleskill

Tiffany Miele (Hawthorne, N.Y.), a second-year Environmental Management major, spent her summer internship looking through a microscope at organisms smaller than a grain of rice, using them to help answer much larger questions about the long-term health of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, the source of the 444-mile Susquehanna River.

Miele, an undergraduate research intern, worked with Dr. Mairi Meehan, Assistant Professor of Biology, on a project that sought to interpret 30 years of zooplankton monitoring data to identify and describe ecosystem change in the lake.

Zooplankton are tiny, free-floating animals near the base of the aquatic food chain. These organisms respond quickly to shifts in nutrients, invasive species, and water quality, making three decades of monitoring data a detailed record of how the lake has changed over time.

Miele took that record from the archive to the public. She developed and delivered a 12-minute research presentation to SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station faculty, staff, and interns, covering the project’s background, methods, preliminary results, and ecological implications.

She and Dr. Meehan then translated the completed findings into a scientific poster, “Long-Term Zooplankton Species Turnover in Otsego Lake: Archival Evidence of Contemporary Ecological Pressures,” which Miele presented to a public and stakeholder audience at the Otsego Lake Association Annual Meeting, held August 8 at the Otsego Lake Sailing Club. The project’s results were also included in the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station’s annual report.

Comparing archived samples from 2012 to those collected in 2026, Miele found a shift in the lake’s dominant copepod groups. The 2012 samples showed greater abundance and diversity among cyclopoid copepod species, while the 2026 samples were dominated by calanoid copepods. Miele and Dr. Meehan attribute the shift to changing environmental conditions, including predation, competition, and the effects of climate change, all of which can influence zooplankton community composition and abundance over time.

In the lab, Miele worked with a Sedgwick-Rafter counting cell, a stereomicroscope, Image-Pro imaging software, and dichotomous keys to identify and measure roughly 450 individual organisms. In the field, she deployed zooplankton nets and flow meters, collected and preserved samples, and recorded water-quality readings. She then organized and cleaned the resulting data and interpreted it scientifically, carrying the project from raw counts, through analysis, to conclusions.

“Tiffany has been heavily involved in this project and eager to learn,” said Dr. Meehan. “She’s picked up nearly every tool and method we use to sample, identify, and analyze zooplankton, from imaging and identification work in the lab to net, flow-meter, and water-quality sampling in the field. She even became a certified New York State boat operator along the way, which shows the level of independence she has a researcher and the skills she can take on in the name of gathering data.”

“One of the most memorable parts of the whole experience has been learning to drive a boat,” Miele said. “I’d never driven one before.” 

An additional 24-hour diel vertical migration (DVM) study built on her work and drew in other undergraduate students, who helped prepare and run the round-the-clock sampling, collected complementary biological and water-quality measurements, and troubleshot problems in the field.

“Dr. Meehan and I ran our first DVM survey this past July, basically tracking how zooplankton move up and down through the water column, and now we’re hoping to expand it into a year-round study to see how those migration patterns change with the seasons,” Miele said.

The research is part of Dr. Meehan’s work as one of the College’s inaugural National Science Foundation EPIIC Fellows, conducted in partnership with the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station.

The research is funded through a $400,000 NSF grant program, Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity, or EPIIIC. The College serves as lead institution for the A-SPARK (Agriculture and Science Practice and Access for Research-Driven Knowledge) team, a three-year collaborative project running through September 2028 that also includes Louisiana State University Eunice and Modesto Junior College in California.

Miele’s research interests span saltwater ecosystems as well. As part of her coursework, she and fellow student Keaton Muller (Sparrowbush, N.Y.) completed a literature review under Dr. Meehan’s mentorship, titled “Clownfish–Anemone Symbiosis: Evolutionary and Physiological Mechanisms of Mucus-Based Sting Tolerance.”

“I came in as an Animal Science major, but working on the clownfish project changed everything,” Miele said. “I realized I wanted a career centered on ecology and studying ecosystems. When Dr. Meehan told me about this grant, I applied right away.”

The project takes on a long-standing question in marine biology: How do clownfish live unharmed among the stinging tentacles of sea anemones, which injure most other fish? Drawing on published studies, Miele and Muller examined the makeup of clownfish mucus, how the trait may have evolved, and how clownfish differ from closely related damselfish that do not share the trait.

The review points to distinct biochemical features of clownfish mucus, including lower levels of certain sugars that can trigger anemone stings and differences in lipid makeup. It also identifies open questions about the evolutionary and biochemical processes behind the adaptation.

“Throughout my research so far, one thing I’ve learned is that it’s okay to not know exactly what you’re doing at first,” Miele said. “I was nervous when I started, worried I wasn’t where I was supposed to be out in the field. But it all comes together quickly. You figure out why you’re there and what you’re doing. The people I’ve met and the relationships I’ve built have made this one of the most memorable experiences of my time here.” 

Miele drives research boat on Otsego Lake

Credit

SUNY Cobleskill

 

Experimental mRNA therapy dramatically extends treatment window for acetaminophen overdose in preclinical models

University of Pittsburgh

 

PITTSBURGH – When a patient arrives at the hospital with an acetaminophen overdose, it’s often a race against the clock. The only FDA-approved antidote for overdose-related liver injury, N‑acetylcysteine, must be administered within hours to be effective.

 

But in a new study published today in PNAS, researchers used a novel approach in an animal model that could eventually help buy more time for these patients. A team of University of Pittsburgh researchers identified a previously unrecognized liver-protection pathway—and harnessed it with an experimental mRNA therapy that reduced liver injury in mice, even when given at a much later point in time than the currently available antidote.

 

Acetaminophen, the generic form of Tylenol, is among the most widely used medications to manage pain and fever. While safe when taken as directed, it becomes dangerous when misused, such as when people accidentally take multiple over-the-counter medications that contain this drug.

 

“Acetaminophen overdose is a very common cause of emergency room visits for liver failure,” said Wen Xie, M.D., Ph.D., Joseph Koslow Endowed Chair and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Pitt School of Pharmacy and senior author of the study. “It’s a serious clinical problem.”

 

Because acetaminophen overdose damages the liver through intense oxidative stress, the researchers focused on SRXN1, a protein that’s known to help cells reverse oxidative damage. Although SRXN1 had been studied in other diseases, its role in acetaminophen-induced liver injury had never been explored.

 

The researchers analyzed liver samples from patients who had died of acetaminophen overdose and found that SRXN1 levels increased during the injury process. To understand whether the protein was merely associated with liver damage or actively protecting against it, they genetically engineered two strains of mice, one lacking SRXN1 and another boosting it. When exposed to overdose, the mice who lacked the protein experienced significantly more severe liver injury—while the mice with elevated SRXN1 were protected.

 

Using advanced protein-mapping techniques, the team discovered that SRXN1 protects another protein, called USP7, which in turn stabilizes HO-1, a well-known antioxidant-defense molecule. Together, this SRXN1-USP7-HO-1 pathway comprises a newly identified protective mechanism that helps liver cells survive acetaminophen-induced oxidative stress.

 

To harness this mechanism and advance the treatment of acetaminophen overdose, the researchers used lipid nanoparticles—the same delivery technology that helped make mRNA COVID-19 vaccines possible—to package SRXN1 mRNA, and administered them in mouse models of acetaminophen overdose.

 

In these experiments, the treatment remained effective when administered to the mice six hours after an overdose. By comparison, the currently available antidote provides complete protection when given one hour after overdose in mice, partial protection at two hours and no protection beyond that point.

 

Xie stresses that, though the work is in its preclinical stages—and human application is many steps beyond—the findings represent the first step in a promising new direction.

 

“What really gets me excited is the therapeutic potential. To my knowledge, this is the first study showing that we can dramatically extend the therapeutic window through lipid nanoparticle delivery of mRNA coding for a protective protein,” he said.

 

“We learned from the COVID vaccines that mRNA can act very quickly, and that's exactly what we need for an acute event like overdose.”

 

Other authors on the study were Mengyun Ke, Jong-Won Kim, Meishu Xu, Jingyuan Wang, Lingyi Liu, Syamprasad NP, Bin Yang, Xiaofei Wang, Huatian Li, Songrong Ren and Song Li, all of Pitt; and Kate S. Carroll, of Florida Atlantic University.

 

This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (DK135538, ES030429 and DK145468).

Human liver samples were acquired through the Cells Tissues & Models Core of the Pittsburgh Liver Research Center, supported by NIH grant 1P30DK120531.

 

 

#  #  #

 

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy

The University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy has been developing leaders who have been driving the future of pharmacy for over 135 years. We investigate, discover and create ways to improve patient health and, through partnerships, change practice and improve efficiency of care. Pitt Pharmacy ranks in the top 10 in NIH-funded research and in the top 15 in U.S. News and World Report among schools of pharmacy. The School of Pharmacy leads the way in education, personalizing education and getting students to expert faster. Chartered in 1878, the School of Pharmacy is among the oldest pharmacy schools in the country.  

 

www.upmc.com/media

---

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2620180123

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Desulfinylation of the deubiquitinase USP7 by SRXN1 attenuates oxidative acute liver injury

Article Publication Date

28-Sep-2026

Bioaccumulation of heavy metals in hot pepper grown in biochar and animal manure-amended soil

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsApp

image: 

Soil treatments

view more 

Credit: Basanta Neupane, et al.

Heavy metals are non-biodegradable and persist in the environment longer, contaminating the food chain. Phytoremediation has emerged as a reliable, eco-friendly, cost-effective and sustainable approach that utilizes plants to remediate soil or water contaminants.

A study published in Environmental Pollution and Management assessed the ability of hot pepper (Capsicum annuum cv. Georgia Flame) grown under seven soil amendments: vermicompost, inorganic fertilizer, sewage sludge, organic fertilizer, chicken manure, horse manure and biochar on heavy metals remediation. The research was conducted in an RCBD split-plot design and heavy metal concentrations were analyzed using an inductively coupled plasma-optical emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES).

The results revealed that the average concentration of K (105.69 mgKg−1) and Mg (12.8 mgKg−1) were the highest in hot pepper fruits. However, Zn (0.16 mgKg−1) was found in the maximum amount among all heavy metals, whereas Cr (0.002 mgKg−1) was found in the minimum amount.

Notably, biochar with amendments enhanced the bioaccumulation of heavy metals, suggesting that it is an essential amendment for heavy metal remediation. The average bioaccumulation factor (BAF) of Pb (0.72), Mn (0.07) and Cr (0.16) were less than 1, indicating no effect on soil metal remediation.

Conversely, Cd (5.69), Mg (22.76), Zn (10.07), Ni (117.2) and Cu (46.37) exhibited a BAF value exceeding 1, suggesting that hot peppers have the potential to remediate these particular soil metals. Nonetheless, although Cd, Ni, Mg, Cu and Zn showed a BAF value greater than 1, their accumulation in the fruits remained within the permissible limit. Hence, the authors noted that hot pepper is a potential crop for remediating heavy metals.

###

Contact the author:

Basanta Neupane

School of Agriculture and Natural Resources, College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources, Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY 40601, USA

Email: basanta.neupane@kysu.edu

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 300 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).

---

Journal

Environmental Pollution and Management

DOI

10.1016/j.epm.2025.09.006

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Bioaccumulation of heavy metals in hot pepper grown in biochar and animal manure-amended soil