Grassland Butterflies – Important Indicators of the State of Nature

Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas), a species for which the index shows a positive trend.
Photo Credit: Werner Messerschmid

With the Grassland Butterfly Index for Germany, UFZ scientists are providing important input for the implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation.

One of the goals of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, which came into force in 2024, is to halt species loss and preserve important ecosystem services provided by agricultural landscapes. Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), in collaboration with the Senckenberg German Entomological Institute (SDEI), have now calculated the Grassland Butterfly Index for Germany – an indicator of the state of biodiversity proposed in the EU regulation. The results, published in the journal Nature Conservation, show a negative trend, especially in recent years. For their calculations, the researchers were able to draw on 4 million observation data collected at the UFZ over the last 20 years as part of the ‘Butterfly Monitoring Germany’ program.

How mosquito-borne viruses breach the brain’s defenses

Stem cell-derived blood-brain barrier cells.
Image Credit: Pablo Alvarez/Li Lab 

Mosquito-borne viruses can cause more than fevers and joint pain. In severe cases, they invade the brain, leading to seizures, encephalitis, lasting memory loss and sometimes death. But thanks to a new UCLA study, researchers have uncovered how some of these viruses breach the brain’s defenses — and point toward ways of keeping them out.

The research, published in Cell Reports, focuses on Sindbis virus, a relatively mild pathogen that scientists use as a safe stand-in for more dangerous mosquito-borne viruses such as chikungunya. 

Using a stem cell-based model of the human blood-brain barrier, developed with collaborators from Florida State University, the UCLA team compared two closely related Sindbis strains — one brain-invading and one not — and found that small changes in viral surface proteins called glycoproteins dictate whether the virus can cross.

The team discovered that the invasive strain grips just one or two specific proteins on blood-brain barrier cells, turning those proteins into doorways that let the virus inside. By contrast, the non-invasive strain spreads its efforts across many receptors and is far less successful.

Innovative transistors for quantum chips

Walter Weber, Masiar Sistani and Andreas Fuchsberger
Photo Credit: Technische Universität Wien

The smaller electronic components become, the more complex their manufacture becomes. This has been a major problem for the chip industry for years. At TU Wien, researchers have now succeeded for the first time in manufacturing a silicon-germanium (SiGe) transistor using an alternative approach that will not only enable smaller dimensions in the future, but will also be faster, require less energy and function at extremely low temperatures, which is important for quantum chips.

The key trick lies in the oxide layer that insulates the semiconductor: it is doped and produces a long-range effect that extends into the semiconductor. The technology was developed by TU Wien (Vienna), JKU Linz and Bergakademie Freiberg.

Scientists visualize atomic structures in moiré materials

On the left is an artistic depiction of a twisted double layer forming a moiré pattern created by overlapping 2D sheets; each layer’s structure is shown separately on the right.
Image Credit: Sumner Harris/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Researchers with the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have created an innovative method to visualize and analyze atomic structures within specially designed, ultrathin bilayer 2D materials. When precisely aligned at an angle, these materials exhibit unique properties that could lead to advancements in quantum computing, superconductors and ultraefficient electronics.

These developments bolster U.S. leadership in materials innovation, energy technologies and secure communication, and they lay the groundwork for a future defined by leading-edge progress.

Solar fuel conundrum nears a solution

 

Transition-metal complexes are promising light harvesters. Petter Persson, Zehan Yao and Neus Allande Calvet are getting closer to a breakthrough
Photo Credit: Johan Joelsson

Solar energy stored in the form of fuel is something scientists hope could partially replace fossil fuels in the future. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden may have solved a long-standing problem that has hindered the development of sustainable solar fuels. If solar energy can be used more efficiently using iron-based systems, this could pave the way for cheaper solar fuels.

“We can now see previously hidden mechanisms that would allow iron-based molecules to transfer charge more efficiently to acceptor molecules. This could effectively remove one of the biggest obstacles to producing solar fuels using common metals,” says Petter Persson, a chemistry researcher at Lund University.

An intense search for new ways to produce environmentally friendly fuels is underway. These could help phase out the fossil fuels that currently dominate global energy. One promising strategy is to develop catalysts that utilize solar energy to produce fuels such as green hydrogen.

In recent years, significant progress has been made in this area, including the development of solar-powered catalysts based on iron and other common elements. Despite these achievements, the conversion of energy from solar to fuel has proved too inefficient in the iron-based systems.

Deaths Rose in Emergency Rooms After Hospitals Were Acquired by Private Equity

Researchers linked the increase in mortality to cuts in salary and staffing levels.
Photo Credit: Sungmin Cho

Patient death rates increased in the emergency departments of U.S. hospitals acquired by private equity firms compared to similar hospitals not acquired by private equity, according to a nationwide study of hundreds of hospitals conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Chicago.

The results, published Sept. 23 in Annals of Internal Medicine, offer more concrete evidence that this for-profit ownership model of health care has led to higher patient mortality.

The federally funded study also found that private equity hospitals experienced large cuts in staffing and salaries, which the researchers propose is the likely explanation for the increase in patient deaths.

“Staffing cuts are one of the common strategies used to generate financial returns for the firm and its investors,” said senior author Zirui Song, associate professor of health care policy in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS and HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, who has published extensively on the implications of private equity in health care.

Koala stress linked to disease threat

Many koalas in the study were successfully treated for Chlamydia before being released back into the wild.
Photo Credit: Currumbin Wildlife Hospital

Researchers have revealed a clear relationship between stress and increased disease risk in koalas in South East Queensland and on the New South Wales North Coast.

A study led by Dr Michaela Blyton at The University of Queensland measured and tracked the level of koala retrovirus (KoRV) in groups of captive and wild koalas.

“We wanted to see what happened to their KoRV loads over time and how it related to chlamydial infection and levels of the stress hormones cortisol and corticosterone in their feces,” Dr Blyton said.

“Virus load likely weakens the immune system, so those with a higher KoRV load are more at risk of diseases such as Chlamydia which can cause blindness, infertility and death.

“Poor quality or disappearing habitat may increase stress and the koalas with higher average cortisol levels had higher average KoRV loads.

Wildfire Smoke May Lead to Thousands More U.S Deaths

Mammoth Mountain in California’s Sierra Nevada Range on September 8, 2025. The photo reveals significant haze and smog, much of that the result of continual wildfires in the state.
Photo Credit: Marshall Burke.

A study led by Stony Brook University faculty and published in Nature projects that smoke exposure from wildfires in the coming decades toward 2050 could result in tens of thousands of excess deaths in the United States.

This projection, by a national team of investigators led by Stony Brook’s Minghao Qiu, is based on research that assesses wildfire activity in an increasingly dry and warming climate.

Wildfires have significantly increased in recent years, often in the western U.S. but also in other regions. Warmer, drier conditions are increasing the scope, damage, and exposures to people from wildfires. The study details the use of historical data from wildfires and smoke pollution, along with statistical models and machine learning tools to estimate deaths caused by exposure to smoke particulates in climate change scenarios.

Deaths from wildfire smoke result from inhaling a complex mix of chemicals. Wildfires can expose large numbers of people to these toxic pollutants for days or weeks at a time, contributing to deaths up to three years after the initial exposure, according to the study.

Rivers in the Sky, Arctic Warming, and What this Means for the Greenland Ice Sheet

Photo Credit: Beau Mori

 “Atmospheric rivers” are large-scale extreme weather systems that are making headlines more frequently. When viewed in satellite images, they appear just as described – like rivers in the sky. Though they are often reported in places like California, these weather systems have the potential to bring high heat and dump disastrous amounts of precipitation on areas throughout the mid and high latitudes.

A team of researchers, including UConn Department of Earth Sciences associate professor Clay Tabor and Ph.D. student Joseph Schnaubelt, looked at how atmospheric rivers impacted the Greenland Ice Sheet in the past to get a better understanding of how these weather systems may enhance melting in the Arctic as the climate continues to warm. Their results are published in AGU Advances.

An important question that paleoclimate scientists like Schnaubelt and Tabor are trying to answer is how the Arctic will respond to climate change, and for this they focused deep into the past on a time called the Last Interglacial, between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago.

“Earth goes through glacial cycles, and the Last Interglacial was the last time the Arctic was warmer than present day,” says Schnaubelt. “We know that that’s the direction we’re headed toward, and we wanted to see how atmospheric rivers impacted the Greenland Ice Sheet.”

New Diagnostic Tool Developed at Dana-Farber Revolutionizes Acute Leukemia Diagnosis

Volker Hovestadt, PhD
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School Independent Investigator/Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a groundbreaking diagnostic tool that could transform the way acute leukemia is identified and treated. The tool, called MARLIN (Methylation- and AI-guided Rapid Leukemia Subtype Inference), uses DNA methylation patterns and machine learning to classify acute leukemia with speed and accuracy. This tool has the potential to significantly improve patient care by allowing faster and more precise treatment decisions.

Acute leukemia is an aggressive blood cancer that requires accurate diagnosis to guide treatment. Current diagnostic methods, which rely on a combination of molecular and cytogenetic tests, often take days or even weeks to complete. MARLIN, however, can provide results in as little as two hours from the time of biopsy. By providing rapid and detailed insights into leukemia subtypes, MARLIN could enable clinicians to make treatment decisions sooner and with more complete information.