Two researchers at the University of Zurich have discovered and described a new, previously unknown palm species found in the virgin forests of Colombia. In close cooperation with an indigenous community there, they mapped the geographical distribution of the palm species and subjected their study to a local peer review process.

A new interdisciplinary study published in Nature reconstructs over 2,000 years of population history in Argentina’s Uspallata Valley (UV), a southern frontier of Andean farming spread in ancient times, with broader lessons on how agriculture shaped societies and how communities endured crises. By combining ancient human and pathogen genomics with isotopic analyses, archaeology and paleoclimate records–and working in close collaboration with Huarpe Indigenous communities–, the research reveals how local hunter-gatherers adopted agriculture, how more recent intensive maize farmers experienced prolonged stress, and how kinship-based mobility may have helped communities persist through instability. 

The pinewood nematode is a devastating pest for pine forests in Asia and Europe. A new modelling study, produced by INRAE for the European HOMED project in collaboration with Wageningen University in the Netherlands and the University of Lisbon in Portugal, compares the cost-effectiveness of different methods for monitoring and controlling the pinewood nematode in homogenous pine stands, based on an INRAE-developed dispersal model of the nematode’s insect vector. The results, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, show that aerial surveillance is more effective than ground surveys conducted from forest roads and tracks. Selective felling of trees showing symptoms of pinewood nematode infestation offers a better cost-effectiveness ratio than clear-cutting, as it avoids the losses incurred by felling non-infested trees. Under optimal monitoring conditions, the selective felling of trees could, in future, reduce by a factor of 200 the costs of control measures and crisis management. These results will be considered in the review and assessments carried out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to improve the related European regulation, drawing on the modelling work and pinewood nematode control methods available.

A research team has developed a sustainable, leak-free thermal energy storage material by embedding stearic acid (SA) into a carbon aerogel derived from chitin, a naturally abundant biopolymer.