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Revealing the ultrastructure of live Candida albicans. C. albicans is a fungus that can cause serious infections. Resear...
14/11/2025

Revealing the ultrastructure of live Candida albicans. C. albicans is a fungus that can cause serious infections. Researchers used a powerful imaging technique called stimulated emission depletion microscopy to study live C. albicans with very fine detail. Traditional dyes used for imaging mammalian cells were ineffective, so the team developed a new method using Nile Red to visualise key structures inside the fungal cells. Their approach achieved much higher resolution than conventional microscopy, allowing them to track dynamic processes inside live cells over many hours. This work opens new possibilities for understanding fungal biology, infection mechanisms, and antifungal resistance.

Read the article in Open Biology:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsob.250031

“Being faced with an environment where you are expected not to excel can be demoralising and shake your confidence. I wo...
14/11/2025

“Being faced with an environment where you are expected not to excel can be demoralising and shake your confidence. I would advise anyone starting out to find a topic they love and an environment that is nurturing. Stand up for your values and strive to do the best work you can, as excellence will shine through.”
Prof. Jane Hillston FRS, Editor-in-Chief of Proceedings A, reflects on her career in computer science, discussing role models, representation, and the role journals play in achieving equity in science: https://royalsociety.org/.../women-in-stem-80-jane-hillston/

Termite mounds are natural marvels of climate control, maintaining stable temperature and ventilation without mechanical...
13/11/2025

Termite mounds are natural marvels of climate control, maintaining stable temperature and ventilation without mechanical systems. A new review explores the architecture of termite’s mounds and how recent advances in X-ray tomography and computational fluid simulations are revolutionising our understanding of these natural 'smart buildings'. By combining detailed 3D imaging with fluid flow modelling, researchers can now investigate how mound architecture regulates airflow, humidity, and heat. The review highlights the potential of this interdisciplinary approach to inform sustainable design in human architecture, while also addressing gaps in knowledge about termite behaviour, mound dynamics, and environmental adaptation.

Read the review article in Interface:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2025.0263

Cut first, ask questions later! Carpenter ants care for wounded nestmates by amputating the injured leg at 'shoulder' he...
12/11/2025

Cut first, ask questions later! Carpenter ants care for wounded nestmates by amputating the injured leg at 'shoulder' height, biting it clean off. This prophylactic strategy, applied regardless of infection status (sterile or infected) or wound age (fresh or old), more than doubled survival chances. Because infection becomes detectable only after amputations are no longer effective, ants cannot wait to diagnose. Unlike other ant species that tailor antimicrobial care to infections, carpenter ants rely on a 'better-safe-than-sorry' rule, revealing limits and trade-offs in social wound care.

Read the article in Proceedings B:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2025.1688

The shape of human heads and faces evolved unexpectedly fast compared to our closest relatives. The skulls of great apes...
11/11/2025

The shape of human heads and faces evolved unexpectedly fast compared to our closest relatives. The skulls of great apes and humans are much more diverse than those of their closest evolutionary relatives, the gibbons, although the timeline of diversification and the level of genetic differentiation are similar between both groups. Researchers compared the evolutionary rates at which humans, great apes and gibbons diversified over their evolutionary history, finding that most apes evolved at low rates, whereas humans evolved at substantially higher rates. The results show that the human braincase and face have evolved in an unexpectedly fast way, pointing to particularly strong selective pressures shaping the evolution of the human lineage.

Read the article in Proceedings B:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2025.1507

Accessing the internal lives of animals, how they perceive and respond to the world, is difficult because we cannot ask ...
10/11/2025

Accessing the internal lives of animals, how they perceive and respond to the world, is difficult because we cannot ask animals how they feel. New technologies can help. Thermal imaging can track facial temperature in humans and other animals in response to social events. Using this approach, researchers measured wild baboons in Namibia and found that baboons were relaxed when grooming, but had cooler noses (indicating stress) when more or higher-ranking individuals were nearby. Thermal imaging can detect subtle physiological changes linked to social behaviour, offering a promising, non-invasive way to study emotions, stress, and social dynamics in wildlife.

Read the article in Royal Society Open Science:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.251398

Inactive but awake behaviour as indicating a depression-like state in mice. Laboratory mice can display ‘inactive but aw...
09/11/2025

Inactive but awake behaviour as indicating a depression-like state in mice. Laboratory mice can display ‘inactive but awake’ behaviour in their home-cage, being spontaneously motionless with eyes open and not interacting with their surroundings. Greater inactive but awake behaviour is typically more common in conventional (barren) housing than comparatively enriched environments and is associated with some depression-like features in mice. Researchers explored this in two strains of mice and found as expected, that conventionally-housed mice displayed more inactive but awake behaviour than those in enriched cages. Adding enrichment reduced this behaviour, while removing enrichment increased it. Immature hippocampal neuron density was lower in conventional compared to enriched cages, although only in the ventral region investigated. Greater inactive but awake behaviour predicted reduced immature neuron density in the dorsal region and these results warrant further investigation.

Read the article in Royal Society Open Science:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.251069

Migratory songbirds have an internal genetic program that are thought to control the timing and extent of migratory flig...
08/11/2025

Migratory songbirds have an internal genetic program that are thought to control the timing and extent of migratory flight activity. Researchers used multi sensor data loggers to record the timing and duration of all migratory flights during the annual cycle of free-flying red-backed shrikes (Lanius collurio). Annual actograms unexpectedly revealed that the nocturnal migratory flights of the shrikes were organized in a highly structured way with flights aggregated into segments, showing low variability and thus high consistency between individuals. Potentially, this would mean that the internal or genetic program for control of bird migration is much more dynamic and complex than hereto assumed.

Read the article in Proceedings B:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2025.0958

Image credit: Chris Romeiks, vogelart

Most information on biodiversity changes is from the last few decades despite species responding to environmental change...
07/11/2025

Most information on biodiversity changes is from the last few decades despite species responding to environmental changes for centuries. Focussing on the swallowtail and satyrine butterflies, researchers integrated museum records with contemporary citizen science records to construct time series across 166 years (1857-2022) for three regions of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Rather than systematic declines in richness, they found evidence of reshuffling in community composition of all regions. They found long-term increases in some species, particularly those that are non-endemic or open-habitat tolerant, whilst endemic or forest-dependent species showed more mixed trends, either stable or declining. Shorter-term multi-decadal directional changes were not indicative of the long-term pattern, highlighting the difficulty for determining trends from short-term data.

Read the article in Proceedings B:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2025.1772

Image credit: CheongWeei Gan

The newest issue of Philosophical Transactions A explores the rising temperatures transforming cities worldwide, both ab...
07/11/2025

The newest issue of Philosophical Transactions A explores the rising temperatures transforming cities worldwide, both above and below ground. Showcasing innovative investigation methods, new scientific discoveries, and a curated set of knowledge gaps and research questions, this collection advances our understanding of urban climate physics and its implications for resilience and sustainability.

Read the issue: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rsta/2025/383/2308

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a common virus that often causes no obvious symptoms, but people who carry it appear to have hi...
06/11/2025

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a common virus that often causes no obvious symptoms, but people who carry it appear to have higher rates of a wide range of health problems, even when the virus itself is not directly damaging tissues. A new theme issue of Philosophical Transactions B brings together scientists, doctors, and researchers to share the latest findings on how CMV might influence other diseases and overall health.

Read the issue:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/2025/380/1938

Toads are found almost everywhere today, but their journey began in South America about 61 million years ago. Researcher...
06/11/2025

Toads are found almost everywhere today, but their journey began in South America about 61 million years ago. Researchers used macroevolutionary methods to show that toads spread across the globe by taking advantage of both Earth’s shifting landscapes and a key innovation: the evolution of toxic parotoid glands that helped them fend off predators. By analysing DNA data from 124 species representing all major clades of toads, they reveal how toads dispersed to Africa and Asia, diversified rapidly, and became one of the most successful amphibian groups worldwide. This work shows how Earth history and biological traits together shaped global biodiversity.

Read the coverage in Science:
https://www.science.org/content/article/poisonous-sacs-helped-toads-conquer-world

Read the research article in Proceedings B:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2025.1928

Photo credit: Xiaolong Liu

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Royal Society Publishing

We publish 10 journals across the life and physical sciences, plus the history of science, including the longest running journal in the world since 1665.