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Monday, April 06, 2026

Secret night operations between moths and colored-nectar flowers

Nocturnal hawkmoths found to pollinate flowers that produce colored nectar for the first time

School of Science, The University of Tokyo

The hawkmoth and the flower — image:
A nocturnal hawkmoth visiting the flowers of *Jasminanthes mucronata*, a plant species native to Japan that produces black nectar
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Credit: Chiyoda et al, 2026

Researchers Soma Chiyoda, Ko Mochizuki, and Atsushi Kawakita from the University of Tokyo have discovered that nocturnal hawkmoths are the main pollinators of Jasminanthes mucronata, a plant species native to Japan that produces black nectar. This is the first time that a colored-nectar flower is confirmed to be mainly pollinated by nocturnal insects. The discovery thus promotes further research into this so far unexplored ecology. The findings were published in the journal Ecology.

In ancient Greek mythology, nectar was the drink of the gods, the key to their immortality. Real-life nectar might not confer immortality to its consumers, but it certainly helps many a creature stay alive by providing them with rich nutrition. The creatures feeding on these plants then unwittingly carry their pollen across the landscape. To draw a map of this complex web of co-existence, we must discern species interact with one another. As nectar is generally transparent, flowers that produce colored nectar have garnered particular attention in the research community. However, due to the visual nature of colored nectar, researchers have focused mostly on daytime animals as potential pollinators.

“I have always liked moths,” says Chiyoda, the first author, “and I have been especially interested in their little-known ecology, as many species are active at night. When I learned about the white, fragrant flowers of J. mucronata, I immediately thought this species seemed perfectly suited to attract moths. However, I needed to test the hypothesis.”

Chiyoda and his colleagues conducted a total of 75 hours of direct observations of floral visitors, both during the day and at night, at multiple sites in southern Japan. Although they could frequently observe hawkmoths visiting the flowers, they needed to collect them to determine whether the insects actually carried pollen from the flowers. Initial attempts using insect nets failed as hawkmoths proved to be too adept fliers.

“After repeated unsuccessful attempts,” Chiyoda remembers, “we finally captured a hawkmoth using light trapping. It was carrying pollen on its proboscis, an elongated mouthpart. We shared the success of this first of a kind experience in the mountains under the night sky.”

The study found several moth species pollinating J. mucronata and is the first to highlight the potential importance of colored nectar in nocturnal pollination systems. The results suggest that remarkable pollination biology may still be waiting to be discovered, even in familiar plants, hidden in the dark of night. Speaking of which… J. mucronata has not revealed all its secrets, either.

“This study did not clarify why the plant produces black nectar. In the future, we aim to use J. mucronata as a model to explore the adaptive role of colored nectar at night. This may help deepen our understanding of how colored nectar evolved, a topic that has previously been discussed mainly in relation to daytime pollinators,” says Chiyoda looking to the future.

Journal

Ecology

DOI

10.1002/ecy.70370

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Black juice in the dark: pollination of dark-nectared Jasminanthes mucronata (Apocynaceae) by nocturnal hawkmoths

Article Publication Date

3-Apr-2026

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Deborah Baker Revisits Allen Ginsberg’s India Years at Exide Kolkata Literary Meet

At the Exide Kolkata Literary Meet, American biographer Deborah Baker spoke to Outlook on Allen Ginsberg’s relevance and what he took to the US from India

Sreemanti Sengupta
Updated on: 26 January 2026

THE OUTLOOK INDIA

Deborah Baker Photo: Sandipan Chatterjee

Summary of this article

Deborah Baker discussed her book on Allen Ginsberg’s travels and experiences in India at the Exide Kolkata Literary Meet.

Ginsberg formed lasting ties with poets in Kolkata, shaping his connection with India.

His visit during the Bangladesh Liberation War inspired the poem September on Jessore Road, later recorded with Bob Dylan.

Q

The western world has always had a stereotypical view about India, as a land of snake charmers, elephants and sadhus. In what way do you think Ginsberg changed how the West looks at the East?

A

I don't think America thought much about India. India was not as pleasant as the UK. India’s image was mainly painted by the English. How many American poets had come to India before Ginsberg? Very few. India was not in their imagination. That came much later and, maybe, Ginsberg had a part to play with that. In the 60’s the Beatles came, and that really opened up ideas about India. Martin Luther King was deeply engaged with India on how they got their freedom, especially the Gandhian ideologies. With Ginsberg, I think a lot of Indian literature came to America.

Q

Do you think his diaries and notes go beyond the superficial images that western media has about India?
A

There's not much India in this India Diaries. He is not writing about what he's seeing, he's writing about what he's dreaming…and he is dreaming about his friends in New York.
Q

What kind of legacy does he leave behind in American and Indian literature?
A

People don't study him in colleges, they find him on their own. And I think it is important to know that…because it's part of his appeal, that he is not fed to them via their professors. Allen was anxious about this, he wanted to be praised by the academic world. Kerouac and Burroughs were outsiders, too. And it is important for young people to discover them on their own. It was also how I discovered Kerouac.

Exide Kolkata Literary Meet: Feminism, the Banu Mushtaq Way

Into The World of Words And Ideas: Exide Kolkata Literary Meet Lights Up The City of Joy

Q

How do you see the relevance of Ginsberg’s work in the world today?
A

I don't think he had the ambition to be an enduring influence. He was a poet who had a great honesty about himself. He had a great sense of humour. He had a lot of pain, anxiety, and fear, but he was never afraid to own the fact that he was gay. He thought marijuana should be legalised, he was also always trying to figure out what the ‘soma’ (intoxicant names in Vedic texts) was. He had this long correspondence with the mythologist R. Gordon Wassom where he thought he could obtain information about mushrooms. There are many sides to him.

Q

Ginsberg had an extended tryst with spirituality. He claimed to have seen God in 1948. Was there anything other than spirituality and drugs that drove him to this extended India tour?
A

He wanted love. He wanted a Godman he could love…a guru where there would be real love.
Q

What insights did your research reveal about Kolkata poets’ mutual influence on Ginsberg's development?
A

They were very secular…communists or socialists. Allen was very keen to talk politics…his father was a communist. He wanted to know about their lives, their struggles. I think they were like a Bengali version of who he had been while at Columbia University.

Q

He was not in good health during his travels. You mentioned his kidney condition, which caused frequent urination. He was also staying in remote places with very limited facilities. How do you think these experiences affected him?
A

It's interesting. As a Beat poet, he kept himself well maintained. He always went to the barber, carried a pocket handkerchief, and wore a suit. The Beats were very different from the hippies. He came to India and he absorbed the aesthetics of jhola bags, sandals, beads, salwar kameez…and that became the form of the hippies. He came to India and had a physical transformation…he grew out his hair, he started losing hair, he almost looked like a sadhu.

It is also important to say that he spent time with the Gandhians… he was in India when the Indo-China war (1962) broke out. He spent some time on the road, marching with (the Vinoba Bhave-led) Gandhians in a planned journey from Delhi to Beijing (which ended after the Chinese government refused the marchers entry). The idea that politics could be a performance was very impactful for him.

When he returned to America, the country was involved in the Vietnam War, he brought back the power to lead and organise anti-war protest events like the “levitation of Pentagon”. He brought flowers for soldier’s rifles, and he chanted OM in the middle of a riot. So, his takeaway from India included his pro-peace politics.

Q

Hope Savage is a very present and absent character in your book. She is like the archetypal muse… for Corso and Ginsberg. Though Ginsberg wasn’t directly misogynist, he did not seem interested in women and did not write for them or promote them…
A

I don't think it was his job to do that. He was a poet; he must go where his heart pulls him. His heart led him to Kolkata, he was invested in it, and did what he could for the Kolkata poets. I think it's a mistake to expect everything from a man. He didn't do much for the blacks either, though the poet Amiri Baraka was a close friend of his, he was not directly involved with the civil rights movement.

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BY Shinie Antony

Q

I am saying this from the perspective of the general beat attitude towards women - objectifying them or not treating them as equal poets.
A

Yes, in that sense, he was very much a product of that time.
Q

How did you decide the style of writing ‘A Blue Hand’?
A

My sources were mainly his letters and diaries. He was not a great prose stylist; he was not interested in prose. If you see his journals, you will see how he skipped around… just observing and writing down details. Jessore road is basically one detail after another Also, it's not really a poem; he wrote it as a song. So, I tried to make it as coherent as possible for readers to understand Ginsberg through my writing.
Q

How did you balance the non-fiction narrative and the fictional storytelling style so that people are transported to the 60s with you, in a real way.
A

Non-fiction can do a lot of storytelling. In India, you may not be as exposed to creative non-fiction. The academic non-fiction is more about ideas, my books are more about people.
Q

Do you think if Howl was published today with its heavily obscene content, would it make the same impact?
A

I don't know. I think it might be pulled off the shelves today.

Q

What do you think Ginsberg would say about the right wing-ruled India today?
A

(Laughs) So, you want to get me into trouble? I think he would be very discouraged. The same way he felt when India went all militant against China. Overnight he saw the peaceful, spiritual Indians become raging anti-China demonstrators. He was disillusioned.
Q

What about Ginsberg in America today? I imagine to be a poet like him in this climate of global rise of the right wing would be suffocation.
A

He would have found a way. I wish we had someone like him now.

Sreemanti Sengupta is a poet and freelance writer

December 17, 1971

On Jessore Road

By ALLEN GINSBERG

Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road-long bamboo huts
Noplace to s--- but sand channel ruts

Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go

Millions of Souls nineteen seventy-one
homeless on Jessore under grey sun
A million are dead, the millions who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan

Wet processions Families walk
Stunted boys big heads don't talk
Look bony skulls & silent round eyes
Starving black angels in human disguise

Mother squats weeping and points to her sons
Standing thin legged like elderly nuns
small bodied hands to their mouths in prayer
Five months small food since they settled there

On one floor mat with a small empty pot
Father lifts up his hands at their lot
Tears come to their mother's eye
Pain makes mother Maya cry

On Jessore road Mother wept at my knees
Bengali tongue cried mister Please
Identity cards torn up on the floor
Husband still waits at camp office door

Baby at play I was watching the flood
Now they won't give us any more food
The pieces are here in my celluloid purse
Innocent baby play our death curse

Breaking the line and jumping in front
Into the circle sneaks one skinny runt
Two brothers dance forward to Play hungry Tricks
The guards blow big whistles & wave bamboo sticks

The man in the bread door Cries & comes out
Thousands of boys & girls Take up his shout
Is it joy? is it prayer? "No more bread today"
Thousands of Children at once scream Hooray!

Border trucks flooded, food can't get past,
American Angel machine please come fast!
Where is Ambassador Bunker today?
Are his Helios machinegunning children at play?

Where are the helicopters of U.S. AID?
Smuggling dope in Bangkok's green shade.
Where is America's Air Force of Light?
Bombing North Laos all day and all night?

Where are the President's Armies of Gold?
Billionaire Navies merciful Bold?
Bringing us medicine food and relief?
Napalming North Viet Nam and causing more grief?

Where are our tears? Who weeps for this pain?
Where can these families go in the rain?
Jessore Road's children close their big eyes
Where will we sleep when Our Father dies?

Whom shall we pray to for rice and for care?
Who can bring bread to this s--- flood foul'd lair?
Millions of children alone in the rain!
Millions of children weeping in pain!

Ring O ye tongues of the world for their woe
Ring out ye voices for love we don't know
Ring out ye bells of electrical pain
Ring in the conscious American brain

How many children are we who are lost
Whose are these daughters we see turn to ghost?
What are our souls that we have lost care
Ring out ye musics and weep if you dare-

Cries in the mud by the thatch'd house sand drain
Sleeps in huge pipes in the wet s--- field rain
waits by the pump well, Woe to the world!
whose children still starve in their mother's arms curled.

Is this what I did to myself in the past?
What shall I do Sunil Poet I asked?
Move on and leave them without any coins?
What should I care for the love of my loins?

How many souls walk through Maya in pain
How many babes in illusory rain?
How many families hollow eyed lost?
How many grandmothers turning to ghost?

How many fathers in woe
How many sons nowhere to go?
How many daughters nothing to eat
How many uncles with swollen sick feet

Millions of babies in pain
Millions of mothers in rain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of children nowhere to go

This is half the poem "September on Jessore Road" written by Allen Ginsberg after visiting West Bengal refugee camps.

Saturday, October 04, 2025

Psilocybin targets brain circuits to relieve chronic pain, depression

Penn researchers offer new insights into psilocybin’s ability to break the pain-depression cycle

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

PHILADELPHIA— Researchers at Penn Medicine have identified specific brain circuits that are impacted by psilocybin—the active compound found in some psychedelic mushrooms—which could lead to new paths forward for pain and mental health management options. Chronic pain affects more than 1.5 billion people worldwide and is often deeply entangled with depression and anxiety, creating a vicious cycle that amplifies suffering and impairs quality of life. The study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania- published today in Nature Neuroscience- offers new insight into ways to disrupt this cycle.

“As an anesthesiologist, I frequently care for people undergoing surgery who suffer from both chronic pain and depression. In many cases, they’re not sure which condition came first, but often, one makes the other worse,” said Joseph Cichon, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at Penn and senior author of the study. “This new study offers hope. These findings open the door to developing new, non-opioid, non-addictive therapies as psilocybin and related psychedelics are not considered addictive.”

Targeting the Brain’s Pain and Mood Hub

In studies using mice with chronic nerve injury and inflammatory pain, researchers found that a single dose of psilocybin reduced both pain and pain-induced anxiety and depression-like behaviors, with those benefits lasting almost two weeks. Psilocybin acts by gently activating specific brain signals, called serotonin receptors (5-HT2A and 5-HT1A). “Unlike other drugs that fully turn these signals on or off, psilocybin acts more like a dimmer switch, turning it to just the right level,” said Cichon.

To pinpoint where the effects originated, researchers injected psilocin—the active substance into which the body converts psilocybin—into different regions of the central nervous system. The team used advanced fluorescent microscopy, a technique that uses glowing dyes to see and capture neuronal activity, to see chronic pain neurons spontaneously firing. When psilocin was injected directly into the prefrontal cortex of the brain, specifically the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a part of the brain that processes pain and emotions, it provided the same pain relief and mood improvements as when psilocybin was given to the whole body.

Researchers also injected psilocin into the spinal cord, but it didn’t have the same calming effect. “Psilocybin may offer meaningful relief for patients by bypassing the site of injury altogether and instead modulating brain circuits that process pain, while lifting the ones that help you feel better, giving you relief from both pain and low mood at the same time,” said Cichon.

Results Can Drive Future Psilocybin Research

Researchers believe the findings from this study could also inform therapies for other conditions involving dysregulated brain circuits, such as addiction or post-traumatic stress disorder. Cichon adds that more research is needed to determine the effectiveness of psilocybin. “In my anesthesiology practice, I often see that both pain and mood symptoms can worsen following surgery due to the physiological and psychological stress imposed by the procedure. While psilocybin shows promise as a treatment for both pain and depression, it remains uncertain whether such therapies would be safe, effective, or feasible in the context of surgery and anesthesia,” adds Cichon. The Penn team plans to investigate optimal dosing strategies, long-term effects, and the ability of the brain to re-wire itself in sustaining these benefits in rodent models. “While these findings are encouraging, we don’t know how long-lived psilocybin’s effects are or how multiple doses might be needed to adjust brain pathways involved in chronic pain for a longer lasting solution,” adds Stephen Wisser, co-author and a Penn Neuroscience PhD student in Cichon’s lab.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (R35GM151160-01) and the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA) Chronic Pain Medicine Research Award.

###

Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.

The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $580 million awarded in the 2023 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts,” Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries that have shaped modern medicine, including CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System cares for patients in facilities and their homes stretching from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. UPHS facilities include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Doylestown Health, Lancaster General Health, Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, chartered in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Penn Medicine at Home, GSPP Rehabilitation, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.

Penn Medicine is an $11.9 billion enterprise powered by nearly 49,000 talented faculty and staff.

Archive.orgarchive.org/download/ost-english-brave_new_world_aldous_huxley/Brave_New_World_Aldous_Huxley.pdf

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Aldous Huxley. (1894-1963). Page 2. Chapter One. A SQUAT grey building of only ... always soma, delicious soma, half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme ...

Thursday, September 25, 2025

Leaving a mark: New research shows how longevity is inherited across generations

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Histone — image:
A tulip-shaped image of a worm shows the intestine on the left and the germline on the right. Green highlights histone H3 lysine 79 dimethylation, while magenta marks cell nuclei stained with DAPI.
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Credit: Meng Wang

New research in the roundworm C. elegans shows how changes in the parent’s lysosomes that promote longevity are transferred to its offspring.
The work describes a new link between lysosomes—cellular organelles once thought to be the cell’s recycling center—and the epigenome—a set of chemical marks that modify gene expression. The study also details a new way that epigenetic information is transmitted from cells in the body to reproductive cells, allowing changes to be inherited without affecting the genetic code.
These insights show how epigenetic modifications that help organisms cope with environmental stress can be conferred from parents to their offspring.

In the Wang Lab, it’s not unusual for worms to live for a long time.

HHMI Janelia Research Campus Senior Group Leader Meng Wang and her team study longevity. They’ve shown that by overexpressing an enzyme in the lysosomes of the roundworm C. elegans, they can extend the worm’s life by up to 60 percent.

But surprisingly, the team found the worms’ progeny without this genetic modification were still living longer than normal. When they crossed their long-lived worms with “wild-type” worms that weren’t overexpressing the enzyme—a routine lab procedure used to wipe clean any genetic manipulations—they saw that the offspring also lived longer than normal worms. Somehow, the longevity markers were being transferred from generation to generation, even four generations later.

In new research, Wang and her team uncover how changes in the worm’s lysosomes that promote longevity are transferred from cells in its body to its reproductive cells through histones—proteins that play a key role in organizing and regulating DNA. In reproductive cells, these histone messengers cause modifications in the worm’s epigenome—a collection of chemical tags that regulate gene expression—enabling the lysosomal changes to be passed from generation to generation without changing the underlying DNA.

The findings have repercussions well beyond longevity. Epigenetic modifications can help organisms cope with many different types of environmental stressors—from diet changes to pollutant exposure to psychological stress—and the new work shows how these advantages could be conferred from parents to their offspring.

“You always think that your inheritance is in the nucleus, within the cell, but now we show that the histone can go from one place to another place, and if that histone carries any modification, that means you are going to transfer the epigenetic information from one cell to another,” Wang says. “It really provides a mechanism for understanding the transgenerational effect.”

Uncovering inheritance

The researchers found that one type of histone modification—a type of epigenetic change—was elevated in long-lived worms compared to those with normal lifespans. They wanted to see how this modification related to lysosomal changes that promote longevity.

Using a combination of genetic tools, transcriptomics, and imaging, they found that changes in lysosomal metabolism affecting the worms’ longevity activate a series of processes inside the cell. These actions trigger an increase in a specific histone variant, which is transported from the worm’s somatic or body tissues to its germline or reproductive cells through proteins that deliver nutrients to developing eggs. In the germline, the histone is modified, allowing the information from the lysosome to enter the germline and be passed from parent to child.

The researchers show that this pathway is activated during fasting, which causes a change in lysosomal metabolism—providing a link from the physiological phenomenon to the changes in the germline.

The new work adds to a growing body of evidence that lysosomes, once thought to only act as the cell’s recycling centers, also function as a signaling hub to control different processes in the cell and now are shown to affect generations.

The new research also unveils a new mechanism for transporting information from somatic to germline cells through histones, which could help explain how other types of inherited information are passed from parent to offspring.

By providing a mechanism for understanding how environmental changes to somatic cells are passed through the germline, the new work could help researchers better understand transgenerational effects that have been previously observed, like the malnutrition of a parent affecting its offspring.

“We now show that the soma and the germline can be connected by the histone and can carry memorable genetic information for generations,” Wang says.