New study reveals widespread and overlooked flooding across NC

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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View from a helicopter showing flooded area along the banks of the Tar River in the wake of Hurricane Floyd, Sept. 1999. 

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Credit: UNC-Chapel Hill University Communications

A new study from UNC-Chapel Hill reveals that repetitive flooding in North Carolina is far more common and more widespread than previously recognized, with over 20,000 buildings flooding multiple times between 1996 and 2020. The study, which mapped 78 flood events across roughly three-quarters of the state, fills a major gap in understanding the full impacts of flooding on communities well beyond the state’s coastal floodplains. 

Until now, detailed flood maps have existed for only a handful of past events. The research team created high-resolution maps for more than 70 previously unmapped floods, linking them to the exact locations of buildings. Their findings show that over 90,000 buildings flooded in at least one event, with 43% of them located outside of FEMA’s designated 100-year floodplains, areas officially recognized as high-risk. 

“We found that flooding in North Carolina, especially repetitive flooding,  is more widespread and frequent than we previously knew, and it is often happening outside of places we currently consider as high-risk,” said Helena Garcia, lead author of the study and a PhD candidate in the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. 

While previous studies and government data have focused on large, headline-grabbing storms like Hurricane Florence or only on insured properties, this study breaks new ground by capturing a much broader and more nuanced view. FEMA’s records count roughly 13,000 repetitively flooded properties in the entire state since the 1970s. In contrast, the Carolina team identified more than 20,000 repeatedly flooded buildings from just 1996 to 2020 in a portion of the state where many of these buildings were not covered by flood insurance, meaning they would not have been tracked by insurance records at all. 

“We’ve always known flooding is a threat to NC, but the focus has been on only the biggest events. With this study, we’re painting a much more complete picture. There are lots of floods that go under the radar and don’t make the headlines, but they are just as damaging and disruptive to the families that are impacted,” said Antonia Sebastian, lead advisor and assistant professor in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program and Department of Earth, Marine, and Environmental Sciences. 

The implications of the research are both practical and urgent. By identifying where repetitive flooding has already occurred, the data can help guide smarter, more equitable resilience investments, whether that means strengthening infrastructure, updating emergency planning, or offering better support to affected communities. 

“These findings can help guide more effective resilience investments by identifying communities that have been hit hard by flooding but may be currently overlooked by government programs and policies,” said Miyuki Hino, co-author and assistant professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and the Environment, Ecology, and Energy Program. 

Their work is already laying the groundwork for further studies on how flooding affects residents over time, from financial strain to health outcomes to migration patterns. 

With North Carolina developing a statewide flood resilience strategy, the researchers hope this comprehensive dataset will be used to direct resources where they’re needed most, especially in the often-overlooked areas that flood repeatedly but lack visibility or federal aid. 

The study is available online in the journal Earth’s Future at: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025EF006026  

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Journal

Earth's Future

DOI

10.1029/2025EF006026 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Reconstructing repetitive flood exposure across 78 events from 1996-2020 in North Carolina, USA

Article Publication Date

14-Jul-2025

 

The heat survival code of plants: The hidden mechanism of RNA splicing uncovered

World’s first discovery of a novel gene regulation mechanism that helps plants survive heat stress

National Research Council of Science & Technology

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Schematic diagram of RNA splicing regulation by PP2A B′η under heat stress conditions

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Credit: Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB)

While humans can escape the heat by seeking shade or shedding layers, plants remain rooted in place. So how do they survive extreme heat? It’s a question many have wondered—and now, science has an answer.

A research team led by Dr. Hye sun Cho at the Plant Systems Engineering Research Center of the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology(KRIBB) has uncovered, for the first time at the molecular level, the mechanism by which plants adapt and survive under heat stress. The breakthrough is expected to greatly advance the development of climate-resilient crop varieties and next-generation gene regulation technologies.

All living organisms store genetic information in DNA, which is transcribed into RNA. However, this RNA contains both essential and non-essential segments. To produce functional proteins, the unnecessary parts must be precisely removed in a process known as RNA splicing.

This splicing process is carried out by a molecular machine called the spliceosome—a complex that acts like a tailor, trimming RNA with precision so that plants can produce the right proteins at the right time.

The KRIBB research team has now identified a key regulatory protein in this process, called PP2A B′η (B-prime-eta). They found that under heat stress, this protein activates the spliceosome, enabling plants to edit RNA appropriately and rapidly synthesize proteins necessary for heat tolerance. This discovery marks the first time such a heat-responsive splicing mechanism has been revealed in plants.

To further validate its role, the researchers manipulated the expression of PP2A B′η in plants. Plants lacking this protein failed to germinate or survive under high temperatures, while those overexpressing it thrived and demonstrated higher survival rates.

Additionally, the study uncovered the molecular basis behind this phenomenon: without PP2A B′η, numerous genes fail to undergo proper RNA splicing, leading to the breakdown of essential protein production and heightened vulnerability to heat stress.

“This discovery is especially timely,” said Dr. Hye sun Cho, lead author of the study. “As climate change intensifies, the demand for heat-tolerant crops will only grow. Our findings on PP2A B′η open up new avenues for developing climate-adaptive crop varieties and precision gene regulation strategies.”

Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) is a leading national research institute in South Korea dedicated to cutting-edge research in biotechnology and life sciences. Established in 1985, KRIBB focuses on advancing scientific knowledge in areas such as molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics, synthetic biology, and aging-related studies. As a government-funded institute, KRIBB plays a pivotal role in driving innovation, supporting national R&D strategies, and collaborating with academic and industrial partners both domestically and internationally.

This research was supported by tthe Mid-Career Research Program of the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Convergence Research Program of the National Research Council of Science and Technology (NST), the KRIBB Research Initiative Program, and the Next-Generation Crop Breeding Technology Development Program of the Rural Development Administration.

The study was published online on May 13, 2025, in The Plant Cell (Impact Factor: 11.6) under the title: "PROTEIN PHOSPHATASE 2A B′η drives spliceosome subunit dephosphorylation to mediate alternative splicing following heat stress,"

(Corresponding Authors: [KRIBB] Dr. Hye Sun Cho)

(First Authors: [KRIBB] Dr. Seung Hee Jo)

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Journal

The Plant Cell

DOI

10.1093/plcell/koaf117 

Article Title

ROTEIN PHOSPHATASE 2A B′η drives spliceosome subunit dephosphorylation to mediate alternative splicing following heat stress

 

Fossilized oysters hold the key to mass extinction

University of Birmingham

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In the first and only reconstruction of ocean pH ever carried out, new research from the University of St Andrews and the University of Birmingham has discovered that a rapid acidification of oceans, due to a massive and sudden rise in atmospheric CO2, caused a mass extinction event 201 million years ago. 

Published today in Nature Communications it is the first true confirmation that ocean acidification occurred at this event. 

The event occurred between the Triassic – Jurassic boundary. In the ocean, the first modern corals had recently evolved as had the plesiosaurs. Other marine life included ichthyosaurs, various fish, and molluscs such as ammonites and bivalves.  

Coral reefs disappeared leading to a ‘reef gap’ which took hundreds of thousands of years to begin to re-appear in the geological record. 

Whilst researchers had long suspected acidification, they were surprised by the sheer scale of the pH drop - the biggest ever recorded in the geological record. 

The St Andrews team, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham, studied oyster fossils from this period to piece together the clearest picture yet of how dramatic CO2 change impacted ocean acidification and biodiversity loss.  

The researchers found that the rapid rise in CO2 levels were caused by continental scale volcanic activity, thought to be related to the early stages of the supercontinent Pangaea rifting apart. The team was able to chemically 'fingerprint' the source of the carbon that caused the acidification, which they found to be predominantly carbon that came from the solid Earth. 

Before this event, the ocean pH level was akin to the average pH in the ocean today, which sits at 8.2. However, researchers now believe that the pH drop was at least 0.3 and most likely >0.4 pH units, which is the equivalent of at least a doubling in atmospheric CO2. 

For marine life, the scale and pace of change is as important as the pH level itself.  

Dr James Rae, Reader in the School of Earth and Environmental Studies and co-author of the study said “the geological record tells us that major CO2 release transforms the face of our planet, acidifying the ocean, and causing mass extinction.  We have to act fast to avoid these outcomes in our future”.  

These new important findings make a direct and clear link between geologically rapid carbon release, ocean acidification, major ecological disturbance and in this case, mass extinction.  

In addition, ocean acidification has now been shown for three of the 'Big Five' mass extinctions in Earth's history. The size of the pH drop is commensurate with worst case expectations for the future ocean, although anthropogenic carbon release is a lot faster. 

Dr Sarah Greene, Associate Professor of Palaeoclimates at the University of Birmingham and co-author of the study, said: “The mass extinction event during the Triassic-Jurassic period was over a much longer timeframe, whereas modern ocean acidification is happening at a much quicker rate. This warning from the past should give us fresh cause to step up efforts to reduce human greenhouse gas emissions that could otherwise see acidification reach or exceed levels seen during these mass extinction events.” 

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-61344-6 

Article Title

Pulses of ocean acidification at the Triassic–Jurassic boundary

Article Publication Date

14-Jul-2025

This wrist’s twist is its link between dinosaurs and birds

Yale University

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New Haven, Conn. — The evolutionary path from dinosaurs to birds included the development of a tiny wrist bone that ultimately proved crucial for stabilizing wings in flight. A new study suggests that the bone appeared in bird ancestors millions of years earlier than first thought.

Paleontologists at Yale and Stony Brook University led a research team that made the discovery after examining fossils from two species of bird-like dinosaurs — an unnamed troodontid and a Citipati from the Late Cretaceous period 66 to 100 million years ago — found in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The findings were published in the journal Nature.

“We were fortunate to have two immaculately preserved theropod wrists for this,” said Alex Ruebenstahl, a student in Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and member of the lab of Yale paleontologist Bhart-Anjan Bhullar. Both Ruebenstahl and Bhullar, as well as Norell, are co-authors of the new study.

 “Wrist bones are small and even when they are preserved, they are not in the positions they would occupy in life, having shifted during decay and preservation,” Ruebenstahl said. “Seeing this little bone in the right position cracked it wide open and helped us interpret the wrists of fossils we had on hand and other fossils described in the past.”

The evolution of theropod dinosaurs into birds included significant anatomical modifications, such as the enlargement of the brain, changes in the pelvis and its surrounding musculature — and a transformation of the dinosaur forelimbs.

One of the key changes in the forelimb transformation was the replacement of a particular dinosaur wrist bone — the ulnare — with a bone called the pisiform in birds. In the fossil record, pisiform bones appeared in very early theropods, then disappeared, only to return in birds.

“The pisiform, in living birds, is an unusual wrist bone in that it initially forms within a muscle tendon, as do bones like your kneecap — but it comes to occupy the position of a ‘normal’ wrist bone called the ulnare,” said Bhullar, associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “Because it is so intimately associated with arm musculature, its incorporation into the wrist ties the muscular flight machinery to wrist motion. This integration is particularly important for stabilizing the wing during flight.”

“This discovery pulls back the origin of the integrated pisiform on the bird evolutionary lineage by tens of millions of years,” he added.

Ruebenstahl had been studying the forelimb of the unnamed troodontid specimen — which was discovered in the Gobi Desert by a team led by Yale alumnus Mark Norell, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History — simply to gain a better understanding of the overall specimen. He was conducting three-dimensional visualizations of bones, based on scans performed by Bhullar, with a technique called computed tomography. When he got to the specimen’s wrists, however, he became confused.

“There was this bone that wasn’t supposed to be there and was not present in the literature for these groups,” he recalled.

After contacting his friend James Napoli, a paleontologist at Stony Brook University, he learned that Napoli had already noticed a similar wrist bone articulation in a different Mongolian dinosaur, a Citipati (also discovered by a Norell-led team).

“It was evident we had an exciting discovery on our hands … or wrists,” Ruebenstahl said.

Further analysis, including CT visualizations of the Citipati wrist, showed the unidentified bones were pisiform bones. The researchers then expanded their efforts to re-identify wrist bones in other dinosaurs — bones originally thought to be ulnares — as pisiforms.

“It shows that the integrated pisiform evolved prior to modern avian flight,” Bhullar said. “It was diminutive in these near-bird dinosaurs, which is consistent with our emerging understanding of their flight capabilities as being somewhat limited, lacking the power and maneuverability that modern birds enjoy. 

“In my lab’s earlier paper in Science on inner ear evolution in the bird line, we drew similar conclusions,” Bhullar added. “There we found that a primitive sort of flight might have appeared near the common ancestor of troodontids and birds specifically.”

Bhullar’s lab also studied the development of some of the flight muscles associated with the pisiform in a 2022 Nature Ecology & Evolution paper.

Napoli, of Stony Brook, is the new study’s lead author. Co-authors of the study, along with Ruebenstahl and Bhullar, are former Bhullar Lab member Matteo Fabbri, who is now at Johns Hopkins University, Jimgmai O’Connor, of the Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago, and Norell.

Additionally, the research continues a rich Yale research tradition of advancing human understanding of the evolution of birds from dinosaurs. In the 1960s, Yale paleontologist John Ostrom identified another wrist bone — the semilunate carpal — found in both meat-eating dinosaurs and modern birds. In the 1980s, Yale paleontologist Jacques Gauthier was first to definitively show that this wrist bone was a feature linking dinosaurs to birds.

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-025-09232-3 

Article Title

Reorganization of the theropod wrist preceded the origin of avian flight

Article Publication Date

9-Jul-2025

 

AI finds hundreds of potential antibiotics in snake and spider venom

Penn research on AI-powered screen of global venom libraries uncovers dozens of promising drug candidates

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

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PHILADELPHIA – Snake, scorpion, and spider venom are most frequently associated with poisonous bites, but with the help of artificial intelligence, they might be able to help fight antibiotic resistance, which contributes to more than one million deaths worldwide each year.  

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania used a deep-learning system called APEX to sift through a database of more than 40 million venom encrypted peptides (VEPs), tiny proteins evolved by animals for attack or as a defense mechanism. In a matter of hours, the algorithm flagged 386 compounds with the molecular hallmarks of next-generation antibiotics. 

“Venoms are evolutionary masterpieces, yet their antimicrobial potential has barely been explored,” said senior author César de la Fuente, PhD, a Presidential Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Microbiology, Bioengineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Chemistry. “APEX lets us scan an immense chemical space in just hours and identify peptides with exceptional potential to fight the world’s most stubborn pathogens.” 

Combining emerging tech with established methods 

From the AI-selected shortlist, the team synthesized 58 venom peptides for laboratory testing. 53 killed drug-resistant bacteria—including Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus—at doses that were harmless to human red blood cells. 

“By pairing computational triage with traditional lab experimentation, we delivered one of the most comprehensive investigations of venom derived antibiotics to date,” added co-author Marcelo Torres, PhD, a research associate at Penn. Changge Guan, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the De la Fuente Lab and co-author, noted that the platform mapped more than 2,000 entirely new antibacterial motifs—short, specific sequences of amino acids within a protein or peptide responsible for their ability to kill or inhibit bacterial growth.  

The team is now taking the top peptide candidates which could lead to new antibiotics and improving them through medicinal-chemistry tweaks. 

Support included funding from the Procter & Gamble Company, United Therapeutics, a BBRF Young Investigator Grant, the Nemirovsky Prize, Penn Health-Tech Accelerator Award, Defense Threat Reduction Agency grants HDTRA11810041 and HDTRA1-23-1-0001, and the Dean’s Innovation Fund from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Langer Prize (AIChE Foundation), the NIH R35GM138201, and DTRA HDTRA1-21-1-0014. 

Cesar de la Fuente provides consulting services to Invaio Sciences and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Nowture S.L. and Phare Bio. The de la Fuente Lab has received research funding or in-kind donations from United Therapeutics, Strata Manufacturing PJSC, and Procter & Gamble, none of which were used in support of this work. An invention disclosure associated with this work has been filed. 

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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 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” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines. 

The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Doylestown Health, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others. 

Penn Medicine is an $11.9 billion enterprise powered by more than 48,000 talented faculty and staff. 

 

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Journal

Nature Communications

Article Title

Computational exploration of global venoms for antimicrobial discovery with Venomics artificial intelligence

Article Publication Date

12-Jul-2025

Novel open-source diagnostic tool offers affordable, reliable pathogen detection for resource-limited settings

New RT-LAMP assay, developed with non-proprietary ingredients, proves highly effective even without cold storage

Rockefeller University Press

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Researchers have developed an open-source reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay that is lyophilized for heat stability and uses non-proprietary components, making it an affordable tool for pathogen detection in diverse settings. 

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Credit: ©2025 Matl et al. Originally published in Life Science Alliance. https://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.202403167?PR

A bottleneck in ensuring access to widespread molecular diagnostics, especially in low- and middle-income countries, has been the high cost and logistical complexities associated with rapid, point-of-care tests. Now, a collaborative research effort outlined in a Life Science Alliance (LSA) study to be published July 14, 2025 has addressed these challenges by developing a lyophilized (freeze-dried) open-source reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay for pathogen detection. This method, successfully applied to COVID-19, aims to make the diagnostics more accessible and affordable globally.

In the new study, “A lyophilized open-source RT-LAMP assay for molecular diagnostics in resource-limited settings,” scientists at the Vienna BioCenter in Vienna, Austria, and the West African Center for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) at the University of Ghana in Legon, Ghana, detail an RT-LAMP assay built entirely from non-proprietary enzymes including reverse transcriptase, DNA polymerase, and uracil DNA glycosylase. The choice of ingredients was made to reduce the reliance on expensive commercial solutions that can be difficult to access in many parts of the world.

“By making reliable pathogen detection both affordable and independent of complex logistics like cold chains, our protocols empower laboratories and public health institutions worldwide to take control of their diagnostic capabilities, especially during outbreaks,” says co-first author Martin Matl, PhD student at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA), Vienna BioCenter.

A remarkable feature of the new assay is its heat stability and robustness, even when stored at ambient or elevated temperatures. This bypasses the need for a cold chain during transport and storage, a major logistical and financial hurdle for deploying diagnostic tools in remote or resource-limited settings. As a proof of concept, the lyophilized RT-LAMP reaction mixes were shipped to WACCBIP in Ghana, and demonstrated performance comparable to results obtained in Vienna, where the assay was developed.

The colorimetric assay provides a flexible and scalable point-of-care test that can be adapted for rapid detection of various pathogens. It also features a sample lysis/processing solution for direct testing that is on par with commercial formulations, and handles both swab and gargle samples with high sensitivity. The open-source nature means the enzyme mixture for RT-LAMP can be self-produced, offering sensitivity comparable to commercially available kits. The system also incorporates measures to protect against contamination, a significant consideration for non-laboratory environments.

“To support real-world adoption, we envision several implementation models, ranging from centralized production and distribution of lyophilized reagents to decentralized in-lab preparation by regional facilities,” says co-corresponding author Gordon A. Awandare, Director of WACCBIP at the University of Ghana. “By validating the system’s performance across diverse sample types and international settings, we demonstrate that the platform is both robust and suitable for field implementation.”

The team has deposited E. coli expression vectors for the His-tagged versions of the three wild-type enzymes with Addgene (www.addgene.org) and provides standard protocols for protein expression and purification on their website (rtlamp.org) to further facilitate widespread adoption.

Matl et al. 2025. Life Science Alliance https://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.202403167?PR

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About Life Science Alliance

Life Science Alliance (LSA) is a global, open-access, editorially independent, and peer-reviewed journal launched in 2018 by an alliance of EMBO Press, Rockefeller University Press, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. LSA is committed to rapid, fair, and transparent publication of valuable research from across all areas in the life sciences. For more information, visit lsajournal.org.

Visit the Rockefeller University Press Newsroom, and sign up for a weekly preview of articles to be published. Embargoed media alerts are for journalists only.

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Journal

Life Science Alliance

DOI

10.26508/lsa.202403167 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Human tissue samples

Article Title

A lyophilized open-1 source RT-LAMP assay for molecular diagnostics in resource-limited settings

Article Publication Date

14-Jul-2025