Arizona State University scientists are part of an international research team that discovered a simple, soil-based method to keep locusts from eating crops. To their knowledge, it’s the first study to test this method in real-world farming conditions. The team worked with 100 farmers in Senegal who experience outbreaks of the Senegalese grasshopper, which are consistently devastating for Senegalese farmers. Each farmer grew two plots of millet — one treated with nitrogen fertilizer and one untreated. Compared with the untreated plots, the treated plots showed three clear differences: fewer locusts, less crop damage, and a twofold increase in crop yield. This breakthrough represents an important step forward in the sustainable management of migratory pests.

A study led by IRB Barcelona and the IBMB-CSIC, reveals how the bacterium that causes cholera activates its virulence programme, uncovering a single amino acid as a critical contact point. The study opens new avenues for future therapies.

Using cryo-electron microscopy, researchers have solved five structures of the V. cholerae activation complex, revealing how virulence gene expression is triggered once the bacterium reaches the human intestine.

Researchers at IRB Barcelona and the IBMB-CSIC, in collaboration with EMBL Heidelberg and partners in the United States, mapped the infection process with unprecedented detail, unveiling how the cell’s transcription machinery is recruited to the DNA and virulence genes are transcribed.