Pigs and grizzlies, not monkeys, hold clues to youthful human skin

Washington State University

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PULLMAN, Wash. — The secret to youthful appearance and repairing scars may lie in a microscopic skin structure humans share with pigs and grizzly bears — but, surprisingly, not monkeys.

While it had been thought these ridge and valley-like skin microstructures — called rete ridges — form during fetal growth, researchers at Washington State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine found they actually develop shortly after birth and identified a key molecular signal that drives their development.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, could lead to new therapies designed to reverse or slow skin aging and improve wound and scar repair.

“These structures degrade as we age; now we know how they form and have a blueprint to guide future work on restoring them,” said Ryan Driskell, an associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine’s School of Molecular Biosciences and senior author on the paper. “Most scientists assumed these skin ridges formed during early embryonic development, which explains why no one really understood their origin.”

Rete ridges act like biological “Velcro,” Driskell said, anchoring the outer layer of skin, or epidermis, to the dermal layer beneath while helping to maintain elasticity and strength. As these ridges flatten with age, skin becomes thinner and more prone to sagging and damage.

Despite their importance, research has been stalled for decades by a major hurdle: the wrong animal models.

“When most people look at the skin of different animals, they see differences in fur. Rete ridges lie under the surface of skin, however, so it wasn’t until we looked closer that we discovered that animals with thicker skin, like pigs, grizzly bears and dolphins, have rete ridges like we do,” said Sean Thompson, a doctoral student in Driskell’s lab who served as first author on the study. “In contrast, common biomedical models for humans like mice and non-human primates are furry and lack rete ridges.”

While the grizzly bear provided evolutionary data that suggests body size dictates skin structure, the bear’s unique biology made it impossible to track day-by-day development of rete ridges. This led the team to the pig, which has a developmental timeline that researchers could precisely monitor.

Partnering with local farmers, the team collected skin tissue samples from pigs at various developmental stages and ultimately showed that rete ridges form after birth.

“We expected this structure to be established before birth, so seeing it emerge afterward was a surprise,” Driskell said. “That timing changes how we think skin architecture is built and why it may be possible to influence it later in life.”

Using advanced genetic mapping techniques, the team also identified a key biological pathway — bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling — that activates to form these structures. This pathway serves as a set of molecular instructions, guiding how cells communicate and organize into complex tissue. Since rete ridges disappear with age, reactivating BMP signaling could help restore youthful skin and improve scar repair, in addition to possibly leading to new treatments for conditions like psoriasis.

“That BMP signaling drives rete ridges is exciting as it holds significant translational potential,” said Maksim Plikus, a professor at the University of California, Irvine and co-author on the paper. “Use of BMP proteins has already been FDA-approved for orthodontic applications, mapping the way for their use in aged skin and scars.”

The discovery also has the potential to help improve livestock health and adaptability to different climates. By understanding how these features form, researchers can explore ways to breed pigs and other livestock with skin traits suited for different conditions.

Driskell has filed a provisional patent related to his team’s discoveries.

The study involved WSU’s Bear Research, Education and Conservation Center and partnerships with local farmers and producers, with additional contributions from the University of Washington Birth Defects Research Laboratory and clinical collaborators at Spokane Dermatology. It was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the USDA Agricultural Research Service through the Resilient Livestock Initiative.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-10055-5 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Article Publication Date

4-Feb-2026

 

The Great Bear Rainforest nature writing retreat

Unique 2026 opportunity for combined writing workshop and ecotour. Register by Feb 1, 2026.

Nature Writing in the Great Bear Rainforest

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View from Great Bear Lodge, host accommodation for the 2026 Nature Writing Retreat and Workshop. 

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Credit: Photo: Lesley Evans Ogden

Great Bear Rainforest, BC. The Great Bear Lodge on the Central Coast of British Columbia is collaborating with internationally acclaimed science journalist Lesley Evans Ogden to host a nature writing retreat from May 31 - June 4, 2026.

Located in the remote and beautiful Smith Inlet, on the traditional lands of the Gwa’sala-‘Nakwaxda’xw Nation, aspiring nature writers will enjoy the comforts of the exclusive and remote lodge while enjoying a unique opportunity to hone their writing skills in a spectacular wild environment. 

Situated at the heart of one of the world’s most intact habitats for grizzly bears, the floating lodge is the perfect location to inspire ideas and let creativity flow. The cozy, timber-clad lodge will provide a comfortable base for guests with gourmet meals and dawn and dusk wildlife tours.

Lesley Evans Ogden will lead daily writing, coaching and feedback sessions. A small group size of no more than nine people will ensure that each participant benefits from individual focus and support, allowing for skill development to be tailored to the needs of a range of abilities from aspiring and hobbyist writers to experienced storytellers, scientists and communicators wishing to deepen and expand their craft. Participants can also sign up for optional post-workshop one-on-one coaching with the instructor. 

Lesley’s nature writing, photography and documentary work has been published and broadcast by outlets including the New York Times, CBC, BBC, Arte, Scientific American, New Scientist, Science, National Geographic, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, New Scientist and Nature.

The award-winning writer is also an experienced workshop facilitator and has previously designed and led a number of highly regarded workshops for educational institutions and professional organizations across Canada, the US and most recently South Africa.

The Nature Writing Workshop, which runs from May 31 - June 4, 2026, costs $5,000 (CAN). The price includes daily instruction plus three nights at the Great Bear Lodge with ensuite accommodation, gourmet meals and beverages, wildlife tours, all weather gear, seaplane flights, plus one overnight hotel stay in Port Hardy.

For full details, go to: www.lesleyevansogden.com/naturewritinggbr

Or contact: lesley@oggies.net / WhatsApp: +1-604-788-3523.

Registration deadline: February 1, 2026 (by noon Pacific Time)

Boat-based nature viewing at Great Bear Lodge. [VIDEO] 

A young female grizzly bear munches sedge, one of the main spring food sources for bears in the estuary of Smith Inlet, BC, Canada, near Great Bear Lodge. 

Great Bear Lodge in Smith Inlet on British Columbia's Central Coast. Accommodation during the 2026 nature writing workshop and retreat. 

Trees laden with moss and lichen in Smith Inlet, near Great Bear Lodge in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest, one of the most intact habitats on earth for grizzly bears. 

Credit

Lesley Evans Ogden

Alliance Stops Secret Plans to Clearcut Yellowstone’s Western Flank  

Steve Kelly

 January 13, 2026

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Gallatin Range. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The U.S. Forest Service and logging companies are frantically attempting to privatize public forests.

Know Your Enemy

Their multiple political and psychological tactics include:

1) Prohibit meaningful public participation,

2) limit full public disclosure of adverse ecological effects,

3) gaslight and push false narratives (propaganda), and

4) deny constitutionally protected rights to judicial review of massive, destructive clearcutting and roadbuilding programs and projects that continue to plunder, fragment and domesticate our wild, public national forests.

A growing number of people are fighting back against deregulation, deforestation and desertification.  Clearly, the federal government’s reaction grows increasingly secretive and paranoid – and hyper-violent against Nature’s many gifts.

Government “yes men” posing as forest experts spew perennial lies as a sign of their unwavering servitude and loyalty to America’s feudal oligarchy. These useful tools have long suffered from mental disorders best characterized as systematized delusions of pretentious grandiosity and infallibility.

Even diehard timber beasts are sensing the socio-political shift away from unregulated fascist expropriation toward greater freedom and liberty for all living organisms and the ecosystems upon which all sentient beings depend. The ‘old guard’ should be frightened.

Another One Bites the Dust

Fortunately, in Missoula, Montana, U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy delivered a glimmer of hope and welcome relief as we enter 2026, by ruling against the Custer-Gallatin National Forest’s massive clearcut logging project.

For now, peace and solitude are restored to this incredibly valuable wildlife connecting corridor in the rugged backcountry between the Continental Divide and Yellowstone National Park.

Many thanks go out to the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Gallatin Wildlife Association, Native Ecosystems Council, Council for Wildlife and Fish, WildEarth Guardians, and lawyers at Western Environmental Law Center and Center for Biological Diversity  for standing up – and winning – against this gathering collaborative assault by faux-green groups, government “experts” and industry “sawdust merchants.”

Successfully defending essential wildlife and fisheries habitat in the Yellowstone Ecosystem is a huge victory for grizzly bears, wild buffalo, native trout, wolverine, lynx, moose, deer, migratory and local birds, and other wildlife.

The Court shut down the 40,000-acre “South Plateau Landscape Area Treatment Project,” designed and approved by the U.S. Forest Service and U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sun Mountain Lumber, with mills operating in Deer Lodge and Livingston, Montana, purchased the “stumpage” (trees standing on the stump). Although 16,500 acres of primarily lodgepole forest would be killed, and 56 miles of new logging roads would be bulldozed (permanent linear clearcuts), the feds declared there would be “no significant impact” on the Yellowstone Ecosystem, or any wildlife species inhabiting the semi-arid project area.

What the Court discovered to be beyond belief was the fact that no details could be found in the record disclosing on a map, or anywhere in the hundreds of pages of vague, double-talk, as to the precise time or location of where death and destruction would occur.

Promoting their ‘Big, Secret Lies’ in Court, lawyers for the Defendants (neo-colonialist USFS-USDA plantation managers and their lackies) yammered on and on about how clearcuts would increase “resilience,” promote “forest health” and reduce wildfire risk – whatever that is supposed to mean.

Clearcutting mature lodgepole pine forests in these remote, undeveloped landscapes is a crime against Nature.  Lodgepole pine is a dominant forest habitat type in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which has evolved for millennia with stand-replacing fires.  Clearcuts often cause deforestation and desertification in similar harsh conditions.

Judge Molloy wisely halted the Forest Service’s logging plans, ruling that vague, undisclosed moving targets fail to meet the legal standards required by the Endangered Species Act when critical habitat occupied by wolverine, grizzlies and lynx is threatened.

Stayin’ Alive

If the government doesn’t obey the law, why should anyone else?

People must unite, stand together, and fight this gang of imperial outlaws trying to seize public forests.  Small cash contributions are the lifeblood of grassroots, public interest organizations like the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and CounterPunch.

Each one of us must understand that ecological devastation is foundational to our collective descent deeper and deeper into American Dystopia.  I respect and honor the resistance and courage of Renee Goodman, Palestinians, and many, many others, and endangered wildlife as we fight individually, and in small groups, against the tyranny of American Empire. It’s now, or never.

Steve Kelly is a an artist and environmental activist. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.