Ancient alphabets, new insights: Researchers uncover hidden links among the letters

SDSU researchers used AI to compare writing systems across distant regions.

San Diego State University

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From left, characters in the Ethiopic (portions only), Armenian, Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets. 

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Credit: Daniel Zemene, Esatu Zemene, Atharv Sankpal, Eskinder Sahle, Vyshak Athreya Bellur Keshavamurthy, Samuel Kinde Kassegne, Machine learning techniques for exploring influence, commonalities, and shared origin of scripts: cases of Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, and Caucasian Albanian scripts, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 2026;, fqag029, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqag029

With artificial intelligence (AI) as an essential tool, San Diego State University researchers have discovered surprising similarities among ancient writing systems from Africa and the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Their study suggests the Armenian alphabet may be more closely related in structure to the ancient Ethiopic writing system than linguists and historians previously thought.

For many years, historians noticed some Armenian, Georgian and Caucasian Albanian letters look similar to letters from Ethiopic, also known as Ge’ez, a writing system developed in the Horn of Africa more than 1,600 years ago. 

Most of these early studies, however, relied on scholars’ own visual inspection of the letters to determine whether they appeared alike.

Researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering tested this idea using AI instead of human judgment. They trained a computer program to study more than 28,000 images of Ethiopic characters so it could learn the basic shapes and patterns in the writing system. The program learned to recognize curves, straight lines, angles and the overall structure of each letter.

Importantly, the computer had no data on history, religion, geography or culture. It only looked at shapes. After learning the Ethiopic characters, the program compared them to letters from the Armenian, Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets. It then calculated how similar the shapes were.

The results, published March 25 in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, were striking. 

Among the three alphabets tested, Armenian letters showed the strongest similarity to Ethiopic letters. Caucasian Albanian letters showed a moderate level of similarity, while Georgian letters showed some similarities but were less consistent. As a comparison, the researchers also tested the Latin alphabet — the one used in English — and found it showed much lower similarity.

“Our aim was to move beyond visual impressions that are difficult to test or replicate,” said Sam Kassegne, a professor of mechanical engineering and lead investigator. “By making our criteria explicit and mathematical, we introduced an objective computational approach that is easily reproducible. We believe that this reproducibility is the key contribution of our method.”

New findings

One of the most surprising findings was that the Armenian alphabet appeared almost as similar to Ethiopic as Ethiopic is to its own earlier version. That suggests the resemblance may not be accidental.

The Armenian alphabet was created around 405 CE. Around that same time, the Ethiopic writing system was expanding and becoming more widely used. Historical records show people from Ethiopia traveled to such places as Jerusalem, Egypt and Syria during this period. The creator of the Armenian alphabet, Mesrop Mashtots, also traveled through parts of the Middle East. While the study does not prove one writing system copied the other, it suggests cultural contact and influence between these regions may have been possible.

The study also shows how modern technology can help answer ancient questions. 

We are already familiar with AI being used for self-driving cars and medical imaging. In this case, it was used to study the shapes of letters from ages ago revealing some level of historical cultural interactions. By teaching a computer to carefully measure similarities, researchers were able to move beyond the limitations of visual impressions and provide numerical evidence.

Daniel Zemene, an SDSU graduate student and AI and machine learning researcher at SDSU’s NanoFAB Lab, emphasized the broader implications of the findings.

“What makes the research significant is that computational geometry and historical scholarship converge on the same scripts and time period,” said Zemene, the study’s first author. 

“The model had no access to historical records, yet it learned purely from visual and structural data and identified Armenian as the closest structural match to Ethiopic within the very timeframe historians have long debated. That convergence between computation and history is powerful.”

The researchers emphasize similarity does not automatically mean direct borrowing. However, the findings make it more reasonable to consider that these cultures may have influenced one another. Throughout history, societies have shared ideas, including systems of writing. Greek, Roman, Persian and Arabic civilizations all influenced one another in different ways.

This new research suggests Ethiopia’s ancient writing culture may also have played a meaningful role in the exchange of ideas across regions. It also shows AI is not just about modern technology, but a tool that can help us understand literary heritage with a new level of precision.
 

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Journal

Digital Scholarship in the Humanities

DOI

10.1093/llc/fqag029 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Machine learning techniques for exploring influence, commonalities, and shared origin of scripts: cases of Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, and Caucasian Albanian scripts

Article Publication Date

25-Mar-2026

 

New antibiotic alternative fights foodborne salmonella

American Society for Microbiology

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Key Points:

• Antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella poses severe challenges to global food safety and public health.
• Biofilms formed by Salmonella on food and food-processing equipment are difficult to eliminate with conventional disinfection methods.
• Researchers have discovered an alternative method using the bacteriophage W5, which specifically targets Salmonella, paving the way for novel phage-based disinfectants.

Washington, D.C.—Researchers from China have identified a novel bacteriophage that offers a highly promising “green” biocontrol solution against foodborne Salmonella. The study was published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

This study was conducted to address the severe challenges posed by antimicrobial-resistant Salmonella to global food safety and public health. Conventional disinfection methods often fail to effectively eliminate the stubborn biofilms formed by Salmonella on food and food-processing equipment surfaces, and the overuse of antibiotics has further accelerated the emergence of drug-resistant strains. There is an urgent need to develop novel, targeted and sustainable alternative antibacterial strategies. Bacteriophages, viruses capable of specifically lysing bacteria, offer a highly promising solution.

In the new study, the researchers isolated bacteriophages that target Salmonella from wastewater and selected the most effective one, phage W5, from multiple candidates. The researchers characterized W5's morphology, stability under various conditions, growth kinetics and genomic sequence to confirm its efficacy and safety. They also evaluated W5's ability to reduce Salmonella and disrupt biofilms on foods (milk, meat, eggs) and food-contact surfaces under realistic storage conditions.

“We discovered a safe and highly effective natural virus (bacteriophage W5) that functions like a precision-guided missile, capable of eliminating harmful Salmonella on various foods and packaging materials, showing great potential as a novel guardian for food safety,” said corresponding study author and professor Huitian Gou from the College of Veterinary Medicine, Gansu Agricultural University in Lanzhou, China. “The research demonstrates that W5 can efficiently lyse planktonic bacteria and eradicate biofilms with high specificity. Genomic analysis further confirms its safety profile, as it lacks virulence and antibiotic resistance genes.”

The researchers say the findings establish a solid foundation for developing novel phage-based disinfectants or preservatives, opening an innovative pathway to combat antibiotic resistance and enhance food safety. As a natural biological entity, phage W5 offers a "green" solution for decontamination, aligning with consumer demand for clean-label products and sustainable production methods. It leaves no harmful chemical residues on food or in the environment.

“We firmly believe that phage W5 holds immense potential for seamless integration across the entire from farm to fork supply chain. It can be incorporated into multiple critical stages—for instance, as a feed additive in livestock farming, a surface disinfectant in meat processing plants, or even a preservative spray for fresh produce at the consumption end,” Gou said. “We eagerly look forward to collaborating with industry partners to translate this effective green solution from the laboratory to the market, working together to safeguard food safety.”

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The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of over 38,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM's mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences.  

ASM advances the microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications, educational opportunities and advocacy efforts. It enhances laboratory capacity around the globe through training and resources. It provides a network for scientists in academia, industry and clinical settings. Additionally, ASM promotes a deeper understanding of the microbial sciences to all audiences.

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Journal

Applied and Environmental Microbiology

 

Use of controversial weedkiller inadvertently selects for drug-resistant bacteria that can spread to hospitals

Agricultural soils exposed to glyphosate may be unexpected breeding ground for hospital ‘superbugs’

Frontiers

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Each year, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is responsible for an estimated 1.1 to 1.4 million deaths worldwide. Now, scientists have found evidence that the spread of AMR isn’t always driven by bacteria evolving to resist the antibiotics themselves: rather, certain weedkillers can have the same effect.

“Here we show that the most common species of multidrug-resistant bacteria from hospitals are not only resistant to multiple antibiotic classes, but also to high concentrations of the weedkiller glyphosate,” said Dr Daniela Centrón, a researcher at the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology in Buenos Aires and the senior author of the study in Frontiers in Microbiology.

“These results suggest that weedkillers – which, unlike antibiotics, are widely applied in agricultural environments – may have the unintended side-effect of selecting for AMR among bacterial communities within the soil.”

Resistance is not futile

In 2018 and 2020, Centrón and colleagues had collected 68 bacterial strains from sediments in a nature reserve in the Paraná delta, a wetland of international importance located north of Buenos Aires. Glyphosate is frequently applied to nearby agricultural areas.

The scientists here tested each strain’s degree of resistance to 16 common antibiotics, such as ampicillin combined with sulbactam, meropenem, tetracycline, and vancomycin. They also measured the strains’ resistance to pure glyphosate and glyphosate-based herbicides – chosen because they are among the most frequently used herbicides around the world.

The scientists compared the results with those from 19 strains, including multidrug-resistant species, sampled from local hospitals. Another 15 strains had been isolated from feedlots and herbicide-impacted agricultural soils in the region.

As expected, the hospital strains were each resistant to between 1 and 16 of the antibiotics tested, confirming widespread AMR. Worryingly, 74% were resistant to carbapenems, broad-spectrum antibiotics commonly used as a treatment of last resort. Importantly, all hospital strains also proved highly resistant to glyphosate and glyphosate-based weedkillers.

“This means that if these bacteria enter the environment through untreated wastewater from hospitals, they could go on to thrive in agricultural areas where glyphosate is used,” said first author Dr Camila Knecht from Dr Centrón’s group.

Strains from the Paraná delta spanned 15 genera, including Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas, Exiguobacterium, and Chryseobacterium. Each had at least partial resistance to glyphosate and glyphosate-based weedkillers, even though these have never been used in the reserve itself. Enterobacter strains tolerated the highest concentrations of glyphosate, up to 80 milligram per milliliter. At the other extreme, Bacillus strains, usually found in soils, were particularly susceptible: their growth was already inhibited at a concentration of 2.5 milligram of glyphosate per milliliterAnd high resistance to glyphosate was also found in strains isolated from hospital infections with extreme drug resistance.

All in the family

When the scientists made a ‘family tree’ of all 102 bacterial strains, those most resistant against glyphosate tended to be close relatives, irrespective of their location of origin. For example, the same genera were found to be resistant against glyphosate across hospitals, agricultural areas, and the Paraná delta.

“In the environment, the use of glyphosate leads to the evolution of resistant bacteria in impacted soils, whereas the use of antibiotics favors their evolution in hospitals. Bacteria carrying antibiotic resistance genes can spread and breed between those two niches in both directions and in multiple ways, with the water cycle playing a key role in transmission,” concluded coauthor Dr Jochen A Müller, a group leader at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

The use of glyphosate is not without controversy: it is known to harm arthropods (in particular bees), while the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as a probable human carcinogen. For this reason, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands have banned glyphosate for household use, while Germany currently prohibits its use in public spaces.

“Policies for the use of any pesticide, as well as its metabolites, should stipulate the requirement for co-selection testing with antibiotics before marketing. Labels should include a warming that genes for antibiotic resistance can spread from glyphosate-contaminated soils to hospitals through untreated water,” counseled Centrón.

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Journal

Frontiers in Microbiology

DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2026.1740431 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Glyphosate resistance as a potential driver for the dissemination of multidrug-resistant clinical strains

Article Publication Date

24-Mar-2026

 

The food commodities driving deforestation globally

Chalmers University of Technology

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image: 

Martin Persson, researcher at Chalmers University of Technology. Photo: Chalmers University of Technology_Christian Löwhagen

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Credit: Chalmers University of Technology_Christian Löwhagen

Maize, rice and cassava drive more deforestation than major export-oriented crops like cocoa, coffee, and rubber. This has been shown by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, in the most comprehensive global survey of how different commodities are causing deforestation. The study confirms the major impact of meat production, but reveals several overlooked drivers of deforestation.

Food production is the main cause of deforestation in the world, but until now there has not been any detailed mapping of which crops affect deforestation in which countries.

Chandrakant Singh, researcher at Chalmers University of Technology, is the lead author of a new study that addresses this knowledge gap. He has developed the Deforestation Driver and Carbon Emissions (DeDuCE) model, together with his colleague Martin Persson, who has extensive experience researching which agricultural commodities drive deforestation. The model links agricultural products with data on deforestation globally.

“Deforestation’s links to food production have long been studied, but have often focused on some products, such as beef, soybeans and palm oil, which are well known in the context of deforestation; and some countries in the world, such as Brazil or Indonesia. In our study, we’ve combined extensive satellite data on land use with agriculture statistics in a way that gives us the most comprehensive and accurate picture yet of what is driving deforestation worldwide,” says Singh.

The model covers 179 countries and 184 commodities. It shows that a total of 122 million hectares of forest have disappeared due to agriculture-driven deforestation during the period 2001–2022, of which more than 80 per cent has been lost in the tropics. The study confirms what we previously knew about the main drivers of deforestation: clearing forests to create pasture for meat production, as well as producing major export commodities such as soybeans and palm oil. But the study also contributes some more unexpected results.

Staples a strong driver of deforestation

The mapping shows that locally produced and consumed staple crops have a greater impact on deforestation than many major export commodities. Staple crops such as maize, rice and cassava together are responsible for about 11 per cent of all agriculture-driven deforestation, while the figure for cocoa, coffee and rubber combined is less than 5 per cent.

Unlike many other commodities, such as palm oil in South-East Asia and soybeans in South America, deforestation linked to staple crops is not concentrated to specific regions, but is distributed across large parts of the globe.

“The debate on deforestation has circulated a lot around how people in rich countries like ours cause deforestation with our commodities imports, and this is absolutely important to get to grips with. But we mustn’t forget that a large proportion of deforestation is driven by agricultural production for domestic markets. So to really reduce deforestation, we must also take action in the producer countries,” says Martin Persson.

The researchers hope that their results can provide important decision support for government agencies and companies wanting to take action to reduce deforestation.

“Our data shows where the risks are and where initiatives are needed most. The goal is for the model to connect researchers, decision-makers, companies and civil society,” says Singh.

Emissions from deforestation lower than anticipated

The study also provides a detailed picture of the carbon dioxide emissions that deforestation associated with agricultural and forestry products causes. Farmers and cattle ranchers often clear forested land by burning it, which means that the carbon stored in the vegetation is emitted as carbon dioxide.

These emissions are estimated at around 41 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide between 2001 and 2022, or on average close to 2 billion tonnes per year. This is a much lower figure than in previous global compilations, where annual carbon dioxide emissions have been estimated at more than twice these figures. According to Dr. Singh, the difference can be explained by the fact that their study has used a finer-scale attribution method than those used in the previous calculations.

“But even if the figure is lower than previous estimates, agriculture-driven deforestation still causes around 5 per cent of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions,” he says.

Improving the model further the goal

The researchers estimate that the model will be expanded to include non-food commodities in the future.

“We see a need to broaden the analysis beyond food and agriculture. One example is the mining and energy sector, which is a major driver of both direct and indirect deforestation. By broadening the analysis, we can get a more complete picture of which economic activities are putting pressure on forests around the world,” says Singh.

 

More about global deforestation
The figures relate to agriculture-driven deforestation between 2001 and 2022

Commodities driving global deforestation

Beef (40 per cent)
Palm oil (9 per cent)
Soy beans (5 per cent)
Maize (4 per cent)
Rice (4 per cent)
Cassava (3 per cent)
Cocoa (2 per cent)
Coffee (1 per cent)
Rubber (1 per cent)

Countries responsible for the biggest shares of global deforestation

Brazil (32 per cent)
Indonesia (9 per cent)
China (6 per cent)
Democratic Republic of Congo (6 per cent)
USA (5 per cent)
Ivory Coast (3 per cent)

More about the research:
The study Global patterns of commodity-driven deforestation and associated carbon emissions has been published in Nature Food. The authors are Chandrakant Singh and Martin Persson, who are researchers active at Chalmers University of Technology. 

The study’s data and source code are free to use. More information can be found on the online deforestation footprint dashboard.

Further reading:
In connection with COP 30 in November 2025, the WWF published a report on deforestation in the Amazon, based on the study and its DeDuCE model. Read Chalmers’ press release about the report: Amazon rainforest is being deforested – and Swedes’ coffee-drinking plays a bigger role than our meat-eating

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Journal

Nature Food

DOI

10.1038/s43016-026-01305-4 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Global patterns of commodity-driven deforestation and associated carbon emissions