When ants battle bumble bees, nobody wins

Invasive Argentine ants prevent bees from eating
Photo Credit: David Rankin / University of California, Riverside

When bumble bees fight invasive Argentine ants for food, bees may win an individual skirmish but end up with less to feed the hive. 

Bumble bees are already under pressure from habitat loss, disease, and pesticides. Former UC Riverside entomology graduate student Michelle Miner wondered whether aggressive ants might be adding to that stress. 

“With how important bumble bees are as pollinators, it made sense to try and understand more about what’s going on in these tiny nectar wars, because they could have a big impact,” Miner said. 

Her research, newly published in the Journal of Insect Science, analyzed over 4,300 individual behaviors from more than 415 bumble bees. 

A cellular protein, FGD3, boosts breast cancer chemotherapy, immunotherapy

The research team included, front row, from left: graduate student Junyao Zhu, biochemistry professor David Shapiro, and senior researcher Chengiian Mao; back row, from left: graduate students Abigail Spaulding, Xinyi Dai and Qianjin Jiang.
Photo Credit: Fred Zwicky

A naturally occurring protein that tends to be expressed at higher levels in breast cancer cells boosts the effectiveness of some anticancer agents, including doxorubicin, one of the most widely used chemotherapies, and a preclinical drug known as ErSO, researchers report. The protein, FGD3, contributes to the rupture of cancer cells disrupted by these drugs, boosting their effectiveness and enhancing anticancer immunotherapies.

The new findings were the happy result of experiments involving ErSO, an experimental drug that killed 95-100% of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer cells in a mouse model of the disease. ErSO upregulates a cellular pathway that normally protects cancer cells from stress, said University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign biochemistry professor David Shapiro, who led the new work with Illinois graduate student Junyao Zhu. But when that protective pathway is ramped up, the system goes awry.

Fossil fuel CO2 emissions hit record high in 2025

Photo Credit: Chris LeBoutillier

Global carbon emissions from fossil fuels are projected to rise by 1.1% in 2025 – reaching a record high, according to new research by the Global Carbon Project. 

The 2025 Global Carbon Budget projects 38.1 billion tons of fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions this year. 

Decarbonization of energy systems is progressing in many countries – but this is not enough to offset the growth in global energy demand. 

With projected emissions from land-use change (such as deforestation) down to 4.1 billion tons in 2025, total CO2 emissions are projected to be slightly lower than last year. 

With the end of the 2023-24 El Niño weather pattern – which causes heat and drought in many regions – the land “sink” (absorption of CO2 by natural ecosystems) recovered this year to the pre-El Niño level.

Biomedical: In-Depth Description

Photo Credit: Navy Medicine

Biomedical science is the broad field of applied biology that focuses on understanding health and disease. Its primary goal is to use biological principles and scientific research to develop new therapies, diagnostic tools, and strategies for preventing and treating human illnesses.

Biology: In-Depth Description

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline / stock image

Biology is the natural science dedicated to the study of life and living organisms, encompassing their physical structure, chemical processes, molecular interactions, physiological mechanisms, development, and evolution. The primary goal of biology is to understand the structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, and distribution of living things.

Scientists move closer to better pancreatic cancer treatments

Tumor and peritoneal metastases are shown in yellow.
Image Credit: UCR/Pellecchia lab

Last year, researchers at the University of California, Riverside, developed a novel “molecular crowbar” strategy to degrade the oncogenic enzyme Pin1, a protein that is overexpressed in many tumors including pancreatic cancer. They designed compounds that bind to Pin1 and destabilize its structure, causing its cellular degradation. 

This approach not only targets cancer cells directly but also addresses tumor-supporting cells like cancer-associated fibroblasts and macrophages where Pin1 is active, potentially overcoming the treatment resistance posed by the fibrous tumor microenvironment in pancreatic cancer.  

The UCR team led by Maurizio Pellecchia, a distinguished professor of biomedical sciences in the School of Medicine, has now collaborated with a team of scientists led by Dr. Mustafa Raoof at City of Hope in Duarte, California, to further test these degraders in pancreatic and gastrointestinal cancers with the goal of developing a new class of therapeutics that can “remove” harmful proteins rather than just block them.

Lesser-known eating disorder just as severe as anorexia and bulimia

Photo Credit: Sehajpal Singh

A diagnosis often viewed as less serious than anorexia and bulimia – and the most common eating disorder worldwide – can cause just as much harm, a new study has found. 

Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder (OSFED) is diagnosed when a person’s symptoms don’t fit neatly into the classical categories but are still clinically significant. 

Researchers from McGill University and Douglas Research Centre compared clinical data from adults with OSFED to those with anorexia and bulimia. Across measures of depression, anxiety, well-being, and concerns about shape, weight and eating, they found people with OSFED were just as ill, and in some cases had more severe symptoms. 

Hawaiian monk seals are far more ‘talkative’ than previously known

Two adult Hawaiian monk seals interacting under water.
Photo Credit: Krista Jaspers

A new study by researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) has revealed that endangered Hawaiian monk seals have a hidden vocal repertoire, using a complex range of sounds to call underwater.

Previously, scientists believed monk seals had a simple repertoire, identifying only six different calls based on seals in human care. In this study, the scientists analyzed thousands of hours of passive acoustic data from the wild, they discovered 25 distinct vocalizations.

How chromosomes separate accurately

Representation how separase recognizes the cohesin subunit SCC1 before chromosome segregation occurs.
Illustration Credit: © Margot Riggi

Cell division is a process of remarkable precision: during each cycle, the genetic material must be evenly distributed between the two daughter cells. To achieve this, duplicated chromosomes, known as sister chromatids, are temporarily linked by cohesin – a ring-shaped protein complex that holds them together until separation. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), have uncovered the mechanism by which separase – the molecular ‘‘scissors’’ responsible for this cleavage – recognizes and cuts cohesin. Their findings, published in Science Advances, shed new light on chromosome segregation errors that can lead to certain forms of cancer. 

Variety of animals evolved similar genetics solutions to survive on land, study finds

Transition from water to land 
Image Credit: Dinghua Yang

Animals from completely different branches of the tree of life such as insects, worms and vertebrates independently evolved similar genetic solutions to survive on land, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Bristol and University of Barcelona. 

The research, published in Nature suggests that some adaptations are so essential that environmental challenges make evolution predictable.  

The researchers decoded the genetic basis of one of evolution’s more extraordinary innovations – the transition from water to land.