It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Restored mangrove forests could act as important carbon stores, per study examining Vietnamese mangrove carbon since 1900, but they might not have “normal” ecological function
In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Sustainability and Transformation:https://plos.io/3HPdSfr
Article title: Land use change drives decadal-scale persistence of sediment organic carbon storage of restored mangrove
Author countries: Sweden, China, Vietnam, United Kingdom
Funding: This work was supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund to HLB; and Swedish Research Council (#2023-05759) to HLB and NTKC. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Roughly half of all FDA-approved drugs from 2000 onward rely on publications funded by grants that would have been cut assuming a 40% reduction in U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in past decades, say authors of a new Policy Forum. In this piece, Pierre Azoulay and colleagues present an analysis of a hypothetical alternative history. “Assuming that the near term resembles the recent past,” they say, “our analysis indicates that substantial NIH budget cuts – including those implemented at the funding margin – could curtail research linked to a large share of potential drug approvals.” The NIH, historically one of the world’s most consistently supported biomedical research funders, faces unprecedented uncertainty. In 2025, the agency began canceling existing grants and delaying new ones, with funding for competitive grants falling more than 40% below the previous year’s levels. What’s more, the Trump administration’s proposed FY2026 budget calls for a nearly 40% cut in spending.
To explore potential impacts of such cuts, Azoulay and colleagues performed a “what-if” scenario analysis to determine how these cuts would impact downstream drug development. Azoulay et al. focused on “at-risk” grants – those that would have likely been cut in a 40% smaller budget from the years 1980 to 2007 – for small-molecule drugs. The authors found that among 557 drugs approved between 2000 and 2023, 40 had at least one patent directly acknowledging NIH extramural funding, and 14 of these were supported by at-risk grants. And, when considering research citations, 331 cite at least one NIH-supported publication, and 286 reference research funded by grants that would have been cut under a hypothetical 40% budget reduction. These findings suggest that a large portion of modern pharmaceuticals rely on publicly funded science, often through indirect pathways that provide critical background knowledge, methods, or foundational research. Moreover, the authors show that the drugs linked to at-risk research are often highly valuable, demonstrating that NIH funding not only underpins a substantial share of medical innovation but also supports drugs that are clinically and economically important.
Some termites form symbiotic relationships with fungus. When harmful fungi invade their carefully cultivated crops, these fungus-farming termites fight back with the precision of skilled gardeners, a new study reveals, smothering them in soil clumps enriched with microbial allies that inhibit fungal growth. Fungus-farming termites, like Odontotermes obesus, maintain a vital symbiotic relationship with the fungus Termitomyces, cultivating it in specialized nutritional substrates called combs that provide both a reliable food source for the termites and an ideal habitat for the fungus. However, these nutrient-rich combs also attract invasive fungal weeds, particularly the fast-growing Pseudoxylaria, which can quickly overtake the crop if left unchecked. While Pseudoxylaria is typically suppressed in healthy combs under termite care, it rapidly spreads when termites are removed, suggesting a critical role of termite activity in maintaining their fungal gardens. While It’s thought that termites use microbial agents to manage these fungal weeds, while sparing their cultivated crop, the precise behavioral mechanism by which they achieve such selective control remains unknown. Through experiments exposing O. obesus to varying severities of Pseudoxylaria outbreaks, Aanchal Panchal and colleagues found that the termites employ a flexible set of behaviors to suppress weeds, adjusting their tactics depending on the severity of the invasion.
When faced with small infections, termites actively remove Pseudoxylaria from contaminated comb and bury it under soil clumps (boluses), which effectively isolates the harmful fungus in an oxygen-deficient soil environment, suppressing further growth. In the case of severe outbreaks, termites fully isolate infected portions from healthy combs and, if necessary, smother entire sections in soil boluses to contain the threat. Notably, the authors found that the soil boluses the insects use are not just barriers – they contain a diverse community of microbes, including termite-derived bacteria with fungistatic properties. Termites deploy these fungistatic boluses only when weeds threaten their gardens, not on healthy fungal combs. According to Panchal et al., this indicates that O. obesus has evolved a highly targeted defense strategy, enlisting microbial allies to selectively combat harmful fungi while sparing their beneficial crop. “The findings of Panchal et al. elucidate how microbial symbionts can be used as part of a multifaceted pest management strategy,” write Aryel Goes and Rachelle Adams in a related Perspective. “Efforts to understand the molecules involved, and their relationship to host fitness, may reveal beneficial microbes that lead to natural product discovery for medicine, agriculture, and bioremediation.”
A human skull unearthed in central China and dated to around 1mn years ago could overturn prevailing assumptions about the origins of Homo sapiens and the timeline of human evolution the BBC reports.
The fossil, known as Yunxian 2, was originally thought to belong to Homo erectus, the first species of humans to develop larger brains. Fresh analysis by Chinese authorities, however, indicates it is closer to Homo longi, a sister lineage of both Neanderthals and modern humans.
If correct, this would place the emergence of Homo sapiens at least 500,000 years earlier than the current consensus, extending the period of co-existence between major human species.
Questions are bound to be raised though, and with China having in recent years made at least half a dozen claims on much more recent historical 'events' that have little to no archaeological evidence to back them, this will in some circles be seen as Beijing looking to compete with Africa as the traditional starting point of human civilisation.
The findings for now at least rely on a combination of morphological study and genetic modelling. Both approaches suggest that large-brained humans were diversifying far earlier than previously assumed. This interpretation would mean that early representatives of Homo sapiens including Neanderthals and Homo longi may have walked the Earth together almost 1mn years ago, potentially interacting and interbreeding over a prolonged span of evolutionary history.
Such a shift would, the BBC report adds, help explain the long-standing confusion over a number of fossils dated between 800,000 and 100,000 years ago that have thus far resisted clear classification into one camp or the other. As such, The re-dating of Yunxian 2 offers a framework in which these remains could be organised into branches of three closely related lineages, alongside their more primitive ancestors in Asia and Europe.
The work is based on three skulls excavated in Hubei Province in central China. The specimens had been crushed and distorted, complicating earlier assessments. Researchers, however, managed to reconstruct their original form using digital scanning and computer modelling, enabling a more accurate comparison with other hominin species.
If validated, the conclusions would imply that Homo sapiens did not arise solely in Africa 300,000 years ago, as has long been assumed, but had already begun to take shape much earlier and possibly across a wider geographical area. The Chinese findings mean that the presence of million-year-old fossils in both Africa and Europe leave the precise origin of those early humans unresolved.
Given other recent claims on as of yet unproven historical ‘facts’ by Beijing though, the study is only likely to add fuel to a debate in a field where disagreements are routine.
Digital reconstruction reveals Yunxian 2 crania as early member of Homo longi
Summary author: Walter Beckwith
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
A digital reconstruction of the nearly one-million-year-old Yunxian 2 cranium from China, which corrected previous distortions inherent in the fossil, suggests it belonged to the Asian Homo longi clade. This means the cranium represents an early branch of the sister lineage to modern humans that may have included the enigmatic Denisovans.
Fossil evidence shows that, during the Middle Pleistocene, multiple Homo lineages with diverse physical forms coexisted. Much of what is known about human evolution and archaic hominins relies on fossil skulls. Yet many specimens from this era are damaged and/or deformed, leading to uncertainties concerning species interpretations. For example, the Yunxian crania from China date back nearly a million years and exhibit a mosaic of primitive traits resembling Homo erectus alongside features suggestive of later species, such as Homo sapiens. However, because one of these skulls, Yunxian 2, was highly distorted, its evolutionary position has long been uncertain. Using advanced CT scanning and digital reconstruction techniques, Xiaobo Feng and colleagues corrected the compression and distortions in the Yunxian 2 crania. According to Feng et al., phylogenetic analyses incorporating the reconstructed Yunxian 2 crania revealed a mix of previously unknown primitive and derived traits, suggesting that the fossil belongs to the Asian H. longi clade – a sister group to Homo sapiens, which likely included the Denisovans. Individuals within the H. longi clade exhibit distinctive traits, including a larger braincase, narrower spacing between the eyes, a more pronounced glabellar depression, and a lower, elongated frontal bone, which are characteristics clearly visible in the Yunxian 2 fossil. The authors also show that Yunxian fossils are likely the oldest within the longi clade, though not the most basal. Given the fossil’s blend of primitive traits from earlier humans and more derived features shared with H. longi and H. sapiens, Feng et al. suggest that the Yunxian group may represent a transitional form, capturing an early phase of rapid diversification within these lineages.
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.
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.
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