Kyoto, Japan -- A hallmark of Type 2 diabetes is the progressive loss of beta cell mass: cells in the pancreas that produce and release insulin.  The endoplasmic reticulum stress response, a cellular pathway that maintains protein homeostasis, plays a critical role in beta cell function and survival, and the protein ATF6α is one of the key regulators of this stress response. However, the significance of ATF6α signaling in the stress-adaptive regulation of beta cell mass has remained unclear, prompting a team of researchers at Kyoto University to investigate.

"Our previous single-cell RNA-sequencing data suggested transient ATF6α upregulation during adaptive beta-cell proliferation, which sparked our interest in its potential role," says first author Daisuke Otani.

The team generated mice lacking ATF6α, specifically in beta cells. They assessed beta cell mass, proliferation and apoptosis, or cell death, of the mice under chronic stress conditions, including high-fat diet and pregnancy. The team also performed complementary in vitro experiments using chronically stressed beta cell lines, and single-cell RNA sequencing using the high-fat diet model.

Kyoto, Japan -- Our childhood experiences create ripple effects across our lives and with those whom we encounter. Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, have been linked to depression and dementia, and even to perpetuating abuse. The intergenerational transmission of abuse is well- known to affect the children of victims, and recent evidence has also connected a high number of ACEs to an increased risk of abusing elders, indicating broad impacts on later-life relationships and violent behavior.

However, attention is also turning to positive childhood experiences -- PCEs -- which include supportive family relationships, school belonging, and community support. Previous research suggests more PCEs are associated with lower stress and depression along with better health in adulthood. However, their association with the perpetration of elder abuse and cumulative ACE exposure has not yet been explored. A team of researchers at Kyoto University resolved to investigate the association between these opposing factors.

"By distinguishing family and community-related PCEs, we aimed to capture childhood influences on elder abuse from multiple perspectives," says first author Chie Koga.

Kyoto, Japan -- The intrinsic information-seeking impulse we call curiosity is independent of extrinsic rewards, such as food or mating opportunities. Curiosity is purely the pursuit of understanding the unknown, driving both humans and animals to explore their environments. Still, certain stimuli tend to spark curiosity more than others.

Recent research supports a Goldilocks principle, in which curiosity is biased toward moderately complex or uncertain stimuli while avoiding overly simple or convoluted situations. This tendency characterizes human curiosity, but few studies have explored this impulse in nonhuman animals. A team of researchers at Kyoto University's Institute for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior, EHUB, wondered if a new sort of method might be useful in addressing curiosity in monkeys.

Video games are gaining more acceptance as tools that may help train cognitive abilities, and thus improve quality of life for humans. The researchers thought that if they could develop a video game that sparked the curiosity and engagement of animals in laboratories and zoos -- or even pets such as cats and dogs -- this could potentially help improve living environments and contribute to animal welfare.

Researchers have deployed a portable, non-invasive monitoring system on the seafloor of a remote Greenlandic fjord to observe Arctic biodiversity without disturbing the ecosystem.

Acid-filled pitchers complete with fangs. Labyrinthine chambers decorated with bristles. Leaves that snap shut in less than a second. Employing strategies like these, carnivorous plants have a reputation as fearsome predators, but they may do more to help their insect neighbors than previously thought. 

Using mass spectroscopy to analyze the nitrogen isotope levels of wasps and pitcher plant leaves, researchers found that the nectar of carnivorous pitcher plants comprises an important part of the insects’ diet. This research provides evidence that this interaction isn’t as simple as a predator eating their prey, and that these pitcher plants likely play a larger role in their local ecosystems than was first thought. 

A Hiroshima-University-led research team has discovered a key gene responsible for the initiation of gemma development, acting as a "master switch" to start asexual reproduction (cloning) in the model plant Marchantia polymorpha (common liverwort). 

A team of professional and amateur Japanese astronomers found evidence for a thin atmosphere around a small body in the outer Solar System, a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) known as (612533) 2002 XV₉₃. The object is so small that it should not have a sustainable atmosphere, raising questions about when and how the atmosphere formed. Future observations to better characterize the atmosphere will help solve these mysteries.