Research from the Vakoc lab, published in Nature Communications and Cell Reports, provides new insights into the master regulators of two severe forms of lung and pancreatic cancer, which can morph in response to treatment. The discoveries could someday lead to safer therapies with fewer and less harmful side effects.

Diets of wild orangutans are “culturally-dependent”: adult Sumatran orangutans have knowledge of around 250 edible food items, which is more than any one individual can attain without learning from other individuals.

Developmental experiments “in silico”: using computer simulations based on 12 years of observations on wild orangutans, researchers show that orangutans fail to develop “adult-like” diets if deprived of key social interactions that facilitate learning.

Deep roots of cultural inheritance: adult orangutan’s diets are the product of information that many different individuals must have discovered and learnt from each other. Humans’ capacity to accumulate broad cultural repertoires – to breadths no individual could produce alone – is potentially a capacity that evolved at least 13 million years, in our common ancestor with great apes.

According to the results published in Nature Aging, ex vivo treatment of blood stem cells with the drug Rhosin leads to blood stem cell rejuvenation and helps produce healthier blood cells once transplanted back in the bone marrow.

Previously, Dr M. Carolina Florian and her team proved the central role of blood stem cells in the aging of the whole body, suggesting blood rejuvenation as an important biomedical strategy to extend healthspan and lifespan and prevent age-related diseases.

Biomedical rejuvenation strategies that target aging and its detrimental health effects will be essential in the future scenario of an aging population: by 2050, the population over 60 years of age will have doubled.

An international study published today in Communications Biology has used unique coral reefs in Papua New Guinea to determine the likely impact of ocean acidification on coral reefs in the face of climate change.

Oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and that acid will dissolve coral limestone. But it’s hard to predict what impact this will have on whole ecosystems from studies using aquariums and models.

The research team, led by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), studied entire coral reefs, locally enriched with CO₂ that is seeping from the sea floor, near some of Papua New Guinea’s remote shallow submarine volcanoes.

Dr. Katharina Fabricius, a coral researcher at AIMS in Townsville and senior author on the paper, says the research has revealed which species can thrive under lifelong exposure to elevated CO₂.

“These unique natural laboratories are like a time machine,” said Dr Fabricius.  

“The CO₂ seeps have allowed us to study the reefs’ tolerance limits and make predictions. How will coral reefs cope if emissions are in line with the Paris Agreement level emissions? How will they respond to higher CO₂ emissions scenarios?”