Labour-intensive harvesting, complex processing: the macadamia is one of the most expensive nuts in the world. This makes it all the more important to protect the trees from pests. An international research team led by the University of Göttingen has now investigated how natural vegetation in and around macadamia plantations affects pest infestation, paying particular attention to bird and bat populations. The researchers were able to demonstrate that the higher the level of bat activity, the lower the incidence of pest infestation. At the same time, yields increased in landscapes with a higher proportion of natural vegetation. The findings were published in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment.

An IIT Gandhinagar-Indian Council of Agricultural Research-DRMR study has characterised the self-rejection genes in India’s commercial mustard varieties, toria and yellow sarson. Combining molecular genetics with Artificial Intelligence-based protein structure prediction, the team mapped the four genes that allow some mustard flowers to turn away their own pollen. The study sheds light on a natural mechanism breeders can harness to produce the high-yielding hybrids the country needs to cut its heavy reliance on imported edible oil. 

Scientists at HHMI's Janelia Research Campus and collaborators have completed a wiring diagram of the central nervous system of an adult male fruit fly, the culmination of nearly two decades of groundbreaking research.

Everything you eat passes one checkpoint before it enters your body: taste. In a fraction of a second, it decides what gets swallowed and what gets rejected, a judgment call critical to survival. Now, for the first time, researchers at the Champalimaud Foundation (CF) and their collaborators have mapped the complete neural wiring behind this process in an animal, tracing taste signals from sensory neurons across the body all the way to the motor neurons that drive feeding, and revealing neural pathways that could explain how taste triggers anticipatory insulin release before a single calorie is absorbed.

Wildfires in the Mediterranean region are becoming drastically more intense. The recent major fires in France, Spain and Greece show that firefighting efforts are reaching their limits. An international research team led by the Universities of Göttingen and Kassel is therefore calling for a fundamentally new approach to landscape design: in the journal iScience, the researchers demonstrate that wildfire prevention should be conceived and planned in conjunction with nature conservation, agriculture and rural development.

A recent study in the Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts describes a bio-based, multimetallic Fe-MOF nanoreactor designed to enhance chemodynamic and ferroptosis-based cancer therapy. The researchers used protocatechuic acid (PCA), a natural phenolic compound, as a redox-active ligand to construct a mixed-valence Fe-MOF framework. Ultrasmall Au nanoparticles and Cu ions were subsequently introduced to establish an Fe/Cu/Au redox-cycling network, while brazilin was incorporated as a natural therapeutic compound and a 4T1 breast cancer cell membrane was used for biomimetic surface coating. The resulting nanoreactor promoted H₂O₂ conversion, hydroxyl-radical generation and glutathione depletion, while increasing lipid peroxidation and disrupting ferroptosis-defense pathways. In 4T1 tumor-bearing mice, the optimized nanoreactor produced an approximately 80% tumor inhibition rate and also provided T1-weighted MRI contrast, demonstrating the potential of the platform for integrated therapeutic and imaging applications.

The European Research Council (ERC) is providing EUR 1.65 million in funding for his research project on autonomous systems that adapt during operation to cope with complex tasks and changing environments. The Starting Grant is considered a highly prestigious mark of excellence for early-career researchers in Europe.