Researchers have discovered that smooth septate junction proteins regulate intestinal stem cell proliferation by removing aPKC from the apical cortex of differentiating progenitor cells in the Drosophila intestine. This process preserves the Kibra activity and prevents excessive growth-promoting signaling. The findings uncover an unexpected signaling function for cell-cell adhesion proteins in maintaining tissue homeostasis and provide new insights into mechanisms that may be relevant to tissue regeneration and cancer development in higher organisms.

Artificial intelligence could help transform how farms manage nitrogen by connecting crop production, livestock feeding, manure recycling, and environmental monitoring within a single decision-making system, according to a new perspective published in Nitrogen Cycling.

Female sweat bees need to make a pivotal life decision: remain in the nest to help their mother raise more offspring or leave to establish nests of their own. New research from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) found that queen pheromones help influence that choice, offering new insight into how cooperation evolved in insect societies.

Planetary scientists Brandon Johnson and Alexandria Johnson studied the asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago, killing most of the dinosaurs. They discovered the impact swathed the planet in an insulating dust cloud that caused planetwide spontaneous combustion, atmospheric contamination and population collapse in any species that couldn’t take shelter.

Researchers have developed a low-cost, semi-automated, AI-driven method that uses remote cameras to survey bumblebees and potentially other insects.

Published in the open-access journal ZooKeys, a team led by Kunto Wibowo of the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, part of Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), has formally described Tomiyamichthys oriens sp. nov., a small reef fish characterised by radiant orange blotches along its flanks and a pair of elegant filaments trailing from the first dorsal fin of males. Its name pays tribute to both its fiery colouration and birthplace.

A new study by the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research, University of Oxford, reveals that industrial poultry farming has led to more than 100-fold increase in the movement of Campylobacter, allowing strains that once circulated in wild birds to mix extensively in commercial poultry populations. The study analysed nearly 2,800 bacterial genomes collected from chickens and wild birds in 30 countries and found that the huge global expansion of chicken farming has created ideal conditions for Campylobacter to spread, mix and acquire new traits that help it survive.