Salk scientists identify two cellular programs linked to age-related dysfunction, ferroptosis and senescence, are mechanistically linked through the enzyme acid ceramidase. The team finds that senescent “zombie” cells are more vulnerable to regulated cell death through ferroptosis and that they can pass that sensitivity on to neighboring cells. The observations suggest acid ceramidase could be a powerful therapeutic target for supporting healthy aging and preventing age-related diseases and disorders such as arthritis, dementia, and cancer.

A new study -  which is the most comprehensive assessment to date of human influences on island biodiversity patterns - reveals that human activities have fundamentally reshaped biodiversity patterns on islands across the globe, providing important implications for how scientists understand ecology, evolution and conservation.

In mammals, males are usually stronger and more competitive than females. Males also show greater inequality in reproductive success – the number of offspring they produce – than females. In spotted hyenas, the opposite is true: reproductive inequality is greater in females than in males. The reason? Female spotted hyenas pass on their social rank and the associated privileges such as priority access to food to their offspring, whereas males do not. These are the findings of a new study on spotted hyenas spanning eight generations across eight clans in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, carried out by the Ngorongoro Hyena Project of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin (Leibniz-IZW) and the Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpellier (ISEM). The study is published in the journal “Science Advances” and may explain why females are the more competitive sex in some species.