Red blood cells, long thought to be passive bystanders in the formation of blood clots, actually play an active role in helping clots contract, according to a new collaborative study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine (PSOM) and Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.
In these microscopic close-ups, samples of red blood cells aggregate from left to right, becoming more compact despite the absence of platelets, long thought essential to clotting.
(Image: Rustem Litvinov)
“This discovery reshapes how we understand one of the body’s most vital processes,” says Rustem Litvinov, a senior researcher at PSOM and co-author of the study. “It also opens the door to new strategies for studying and potentially treating clotting disorders that cause either excessive bleeding or dangerous clots, like those seen in strokes.”
The findings, published in Blood Advances, upend the long-standing idea that only platelets, the small cell fragments that initially plug wounds, drive clot contraction. Instead, the Penn team found that red blood cells themselves contribute to this crucial process of shrinking and stabilizing blood clots.
Until now, researchers believed that only platelets were responsible for clot contraction. These tiny cell fragments pull on rope-like strands of the protein fibrin to tighten and stabilize clots.
“Red blood cells were thought to be passive bystanders,” says co-author John Weisel, professor of cell and developmental biology at PSOM and an affiliate of the bioengineering graduate group at Penn Engineering. “We thought they were just helping the clot to make a better seal.”
To figure out how red blood cells were driving this unexpected behavior, the team turned to Prashant Purohit, professor of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics at Penn Engineering.
As blood begins to clot, a web-like protein called fibrin forms a mesh that traps red blood cells and pulls them close together. “That packing sets the stage for osmotic depletion forces to take over,” says Purohit.
Once the red blood cells are packed tightly within the fibrin mesh, proteins in the surrounding fluid are squeezed out from the narrow spaces between the cells. This creates an imbalance: the concentration of proteins is higher outside the packed cells than between them, which results in a difference in “osmotic pressure.”
That pressure difference acts like a squeeze from the outside, pushing the red blood cells even closer together. “This attraction causes the cells to aggregate and transfer mechanical forces to the fibrin network around them,” says Purohit. “The result is a stronger, more compact clot, even without the action of platelets.”
If a company releases new phone models but doesn’t change the cameras, would anyone pay attention? Fortunately that’s not the case with Google’s new Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro Fold phones, which make a few advancements in the hardware — hello, telephoto camera on the base-level Pixel for the first time — and also in the software that runs it all, with generative AI playing an even bigger role than it has before.
“This is the first year where not only are we able to achieve some image quality superlatives,” Isaac Reynolds, group product manager for the Pixel cameras, told CNET, “but we’re actually able to make you a better photographer, because generative AI and large models can do things and understand levels of context that no technology before could achieve.”
Modern smartphone cameras must be more than glass and sensors, because they have to compensate for the physical limitations of those same glass and sensors. You can’t expect a tiny phone camera to perform as well as a large glass lens on a traditional camera, and yet the photos coming out of the Pixel 10 models surpass their optical abilities. In a call that covered a lot of photographic ground, Reynolds shared with me details about new features as well as issues of how we can trust images when AI — in Google’s own tools, even — is so prevalent.
Pro Res Zoom adds generative AI to reach 100x
The new Pro Res Zoom feature is likely to get the most attention because it strives for something exceptionally difficult in smartphones: long-range zoom that isn’t a fuzzy mess of pixels.
You see this all the time: Someone on their phone spreads two fingers against the screen to make a distant object larger in the frame. Photographers die a little each time that happens because, by not sticking to the main zoom levels — 1x, 2x, 5x and so on — the person is relying on digital zoom; the camera app is making pixels larger and then using software to try to clean up the result. Digital zoom is certainly better than it once was, but each time it’s used, the person sacrifices image quality for more zoom in the moment.
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At up to 30x zoom, the Super Res Zoom feature upscales the image for a sharp result.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
Google’s Super Res Zoom feature, introduced with the Pixel 3, interpolates and sharpens the image up to 30x zoom level on the Pixel 10 Pros (and up to 20x zoom on the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro Fold). The new Pro Res Zoom on the Pixel 10 Pro pushes way beyond that to 100x zoom — with a significant lift from AI.
Past 30x, Pro Res Zoom uses generative AI to refine and rebuild areas of the image based on the underlying pixels captured by the camera sensor. It’s similar to the technology that Magic Editor uses when you move an object to another area in the image, or type a prompt to add things that weren’t there in the first place. Only in this case, the Pixel Camera app creates a generative AI version of what you captured to give the image crisp lines and features. All the processing is performed on-device.
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Pro Res Zoom takes the soft zoomed-in version (left) and uses generative AI to rebuild a version that’s sharper and more detailed (right).
Patrick Holland/CNET
Reynolds explained that one of the factors driving the creation of Pro Res Zoom was the environments where people are taking photos. “They’re taking pictures in the same levels of low light — dinners did not get darker since we launched Night Sight,” he said. “But what is changing is how much people zoom, [and] because the tech is getting so much better, we took this opportunity to reset and refocus the program on incredible zoom quality.”
Pro Res Zoom works best on static scenes such as buildings, skylines, foliage and the like — things that don’t move. It won’t try to reconstruct faces or people, since generative AI can often make them stand out more as being artificially manipulated. The generated image is saved alongside the image captured by the camera sensor so you can choose which one looks best.
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The generative AI has added realistic texture and sharp edges to the zoomed-in image at left.
Patrick Holland/CNET
What about consistency and accuracy of the AI processing? Generative AI images are built out of pixel noise that is quickly refined based on the input driving them. Visual artifacts have often gone hand-in-six-fingered-hand with generated imagery.
Using Pro Res Zoom on the Pixel 10 Pro XL to capture distant details.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
But that’s a different kind of generative AI, says Reynolds. “When I think of Gen AI in this application, I think of something where the team has spent a couple of years getting it really tuned for exactly our use case, which is image enhancement, image to image.”
Initially, people inside Google were worried about artifacts, but the result is that “every image you see should be truly authentic to the real photo,” he said.
Auto Best Take
This new feature seems like a natural evolution — and by “natural,” I mean “processor speeds have improved enough to make it happen.” The Best Take feature was introduced with the Pixel 8, letting you capture several shots of a person or group of people, and have the phone merge them into one photo where everyone’s expressions look good. CNET’s Patrick Holland wrote in his review of the Pixel 8, “It’s the start of a path where our photography can be even more curated and polished, even if the photos we take don’t start out that way.”
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Even when some of the subjects here were deliberately trying to fool the Pixel 10 Pro’s Auto Best Take feature by closing their eyes or gazing elsewhere, the camera has created this natural looking composite where everyone looks good.
Patrick Holland/CNET
That path has led to Auto Best Take, which does it automatically — and not just grabbing a handful of images to work with. Says Reynolds, “[It] can analyze… I think we’re up to 150 individual frames within just a few seconds, and pick the right five or six that are most likely to yield you the perfect photo. And then it runs Best Take.”
From the photographer’s point of view, the phone is doing all the work, though, as with Pro Res Zoom, you can also view the handful of shots that went into the final merged image if you’re not happy with the result. The shots are full-resolution and fully processed as if you’d snapped them individually.
“What’s interesting about this is you might actually find in your testing that Auto Best Take doesn’t trigger very often, and there’s a very particular reason for that,” said Reynolds. “Once the camera gets to look at 150 items, it’s probably going to find one where everybody was looking at the camera, because if there’s even one, it’ll pick it up.”
Improved Portrait mode and Real Tone
Another improvement enabled by the Pixel 10 Pro’s Tensor G5 processor is a new high-resolution Portrait mode. To take advantage of the wide camera’s 50-megapixel resolution, Reynolds said the Pixel team rebuilt the Portrait mode model so it creates a higher quality soft-background depth effect, particularly around a subject’s hair.
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The Pixel 10 Pro’s new high-resolution Portrait mode does a better job of separating the subject from the background, even with challenging situations like curly hair.
Patrick Holland/CNET
Real Tone, the technology for more accurately representing skin tones, is also incrementally better. As Reynolds explained, Real Tone has progressed from establishing color balances for people versus the other areas of a frame to individual color balances for each person in the image.
“That’s not just going to mean better consistency shot to shot, it means better consistency scene to scene,” he said, “because your color, your [skin] tone, won’t depend so strongly on the other things that happened in the image.”
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The Pixel 10 Pro has done a good job of photographing skin accurately, even when the light is affected by other factors such as panes of colored glass in this example.
Patrick Holland/CNET
He also mentioned that a core component of Real Tone has been the ability to scale up image quality testing methods and data collection in the process of bringing the feature’s algorithms to market.
“What standards are we setting for diversity and equity, inclusion across the entire feature set?” he said. “Real Tone is primarily a mission and a process.”
Instant View feature in the Pixel 10 Fold
One other significant photo hardware improvement has nothing to do with the cameras. On the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the Pixel Camera app takes advantage of the large internal screen by showing the previous photo you captured on the left side of the display. Instead of straining to see details in a tiny thumbnail in the corner of the app, Instant View gives a full-size shot, which is especially helpful when you’re taking multiple photos of a person or subject.
On the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, when you take a photo it’s displayed on the left-side screen in Instant View.
Google
Camera Coach
So far, these new Pixel 10 camera features are incorporated into the moment you capture a photo, but Reynolds also wants to use the phones’ cameras to encourage people to become better photographers. Camera Coach is an assistant that you can invoke when you’re stuck or looking for new ideas while photographing a scene.
Using Camera Coach at the Made by Google 2025 event.
Google/Screenshot by Viva Tung/CNET
It can look at the picture you’re trying to take and help you improve it using suggestions such as getting closer to a subject for better framing or moving the camera lower for a more dramatic angle. When you tap a Get Inspired button, the Pixel Camera app looks at the scene and makes suggestions.
“Whether you’re a beginner and you just need step-by-step instructions to learn how to do it,” said Reynolds, “or you’re someone like me who needs a little more push on the creativity when sometimes I’m busy or stressed, it helps me think creatively.”
Watch this: Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL First Look: Familiar Design, New AI Tricks
CP2A content credentials
All of this AI being worked into the photographic process, from Pro Res Zoom to Auto Best Take, invariably brings up the unresolved question of whether the images we’re creating are genuine. And in a world that is now awash in AI-generated images that look real enough, people are naturally guarded about the provenance of digital images.
For Google, one answer is to label everything. Each image captured by the Pixel 10 cameras or touches Google Photos is tagged with C2PA Content Credentials (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity), even if it’s untouched by AI. It’s the first smartphone with C2PA built in.
“We really wanted to make a big difference in transparency and credibility and teaching people what to expect from AI,” said Reynolds. “The reason we are so committed to saving this metadata in every Pixel camera picture is so people can start to be suspicious of pictures without any information.”
Marking images that have no AI editing is meant to instill trust in them. “The image with an AI label is less malicious than an image without one,” said Reynolds. “When you send a picture of someone, they can look at the C2PA in that picture. So we’re trying to build this whole network that customers can start to expect to have this information about where a photo came from.”
What’s new in the Pixel 10 camera hardware
Scanning the specs of the Pixel 10 cameras, listed below, you’d rightly notice that they match those found on last year’s Pixel 9 models, but a couple of details stand out.
The camera array on the back of the Pixel 10 Pro.
Andrew Lanxon/CNET
For one, having a dedicated telephoto camera is no longer one of the features that separates the entry-level Pixel from the pro models. The Pixel 10 now has its own 10.8 megapixel, f/3.1 telephoto camera with optical image stabilization that offers a 5x optical zoom and up to 20x Super Res Zoom.
It’s not as good as the 48-megapixel f/2.8 telephoto camera used in the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL (the same one used in the Pixel 9 Pros), but that’s not the point. You don’t need to give up extra zoom just to buy a more affordable phone.
Another difference you’ll encounter, particularly when recording video, is improved image stabilization. The optical image stabilization is upgraded in all three phones, but the stabilization in the Pixel 10 Pros is significantly improved. Although the sensor and lens share the same specs as the Pixel 9 Pro, the wide-angle camera in the Pixel 10 Pro models necessitated a new design to accommodate new OIS components inside the module enclosure. Google says it doubled the range of motion so the lens physically moves through a wider arc to compensate for motion. Alongside that, the stabilization software has been tuned to make it smoother.
Camera Specs for the Pixel 10 Lineup
Pixel 10
Pixel 10 Pro
Pixel 10 Pro XL
Pixel 10 Pro Fold
Wide Camera
48MP Quad PD, f/1.7, 1/2″ image sensor
50MP Octa PD, f/1.68, 1/1.3″ image sensor
50MP Octa PD, f/1.68, 1/1.3″ image sensor
48MP Quad PD, f/1.7, 1/2″ image sensor
Ultra-wide Camera
13MP Quad PD, f/2.2, 1/3.1″ image sensor
48MP Quad PD with autofocus, f/1.7, 1/2.55″ image sensor
48MP Quad PD with autofocus, f/1.7, 1/2.55″ image sensor
10.5MP Dual PD with autofocus, f/2.2, 1/3.4″ image sensor
The Honor Magic V Flip 2 has been finally unveiled in China. Honor’s new clamshell foldable takes on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 and Motorola Razr 60 Ultra with features such as a 200 MP main rear camera and a silicon-carbon battery.
Honor’s Magic V Flip 2 features a 200 MP main rear 1/1.4-inch sensor with f/1.9 aperture, and OIS. The phone also gets a secondary 50 MP ultrawide camera with 120 degree FOV. On the inside, the handset gets a 50 MP selfie camera.
The clamshell foldable packs a 5,500 mAh silicon-carbon battery with support for 80W wired and 50W wireless charging. It also supports 7.5W reverse wireless charging.
Coming to the displays, the Magic V Flip 2 has a 6.82-inch LTPO OLED inner screen that offers a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. The display has a resolution of 2868 x 1232 pixels and a rated peak brightness of 5,000 nits.
At the front, the phone sports a 4.0-inch LTPO OLED with up to 120Hz refresh rate, 1200 x 1092 pixel resolution and 3,600 nits of peak brightness.
The Honor Magic V Flip 2 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, paired with up to 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. It runs Android 15-based MagicOS 9.0.1 out of the box with a host of AI features in tow.
Other highlights of the new clamshell include IP58 and IP59 ratings, SGS durable-flat certification, dual speakers, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, dual SIM, and NFC. The Magic V Flip 2 is available in Purple, White, Gray versions as well as a limited edition Blue color.
The Magic V Flip 2 starts at CNY 5,499 ($765) for the 12GB/256GB model. It is also available in 12GB/512GB, 12GB/1TB, and 16GB/1TB variants priced at CNY 5,999 ($835), CNY 6,499 ($905), and CNY 7,499 ($1045), respectively. The phone is currently up for purchase in China with sales starting August 28.
ROME (Italy) – Achille Polonara will not be on the court with Italy at FIBA EuroBasket 2025 but he will be there in spirit.
Point guard Marco Spissu announced he will wear No. 33 to honor his teammate Polonara, who is currently battling cancer.
Spissu has been playing with the senior national team since 2021 and always wore No. 0. But for this tournament, he will take Polonara’s number.
Polonara played almost the entire 2024-25 season for eventual champions Virtus Bologna in the Italian league. He appeared just briefly in the first two games of the Semi-Finals in June before being diagnosed with myeloid leukemia.
The 33-year-old forward, who played with Spissu for three seasons at the Italian club Dinamo Sassari, recently finished his second cycle of chemotherapy and continues to recover.
The diagnosis came less than a year after Polonara had overcome another major health battle. In October 2023, he was treated for a testicular tumor, which was successfully removed. He made his return to the court in mid-December that same year.
Polonara has long been a key figure for the Italian national team. He appeared most recently in two FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers games, having also competed in the 2015 and 2022 EuroBaskets, the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2023, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the 2024 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Puerto Rico.
Italian captain Nicolo Melli said Polonara remains involved with the team.
“From the U20 level on, I’ve basically spent every summer with Achille. He’s part of this group. We always call and text him, and he’s in the ‘secret’ team group chat with only the players. We always keep him in mind while preparing for EuroBasket. Hopefully we’ll be able to get some satisfaction for him as well,” Melli said.
Italy will be facing Greece on August 28 to start play in Group C in Limassol.
NASA is undergoing a dramatic pivot under its new acting chief, Sean Duffy, who has announced a shift in the agency’s priorities from Earth-focused climate programs to deep space exploration. During a recent interview, Duffy emphasized that NASA’s mission is to explore space, rather than conduct extensive Earth science research, signaling an end to many climate studies the agency has long undertaken. This move comes amid broader political pressures and budgetary decisions, and it has raised concerns among scientists about the potential impact on climate monitoring and research. While the focus on Moon, Mars, and beyond promises ambitious space projects, the sidelining of Earth science marks a significant change for the agency’s direction and long-term goals.
NASA abandons climate science
For decades, NASA has been a leader in studying Earth’s atmosphere, climate systems, and global warming trends. Satellites and research programs have provided invaluable data on rising temperatures, greenhouse gas emissions, and weather patterns. Acting chief Sean Duffy, however, announced that these initiatives will no longer be a priority. According to Duffy, NASA’s core mission is space exploration, and Earth science programs will be scaled back or discontinued. Critics warn that cutting climate programs could undermine decades of research and impede the nation’s ability to respond to environmental challenges.
Focus on Moon, Mars, and deep space
NASA is now concentrating its resources on ambitious missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Plans include establishing lunar bases, developing nuclear-powered space infrastructure, and accelerating preparations for crewed missions to Mars. Duffy highlighted the need for America to lead in space exploration, suggesting that competition with China and other nations is a driving factor. While these initiatives promise technological innovation and high-profile achievements, they represent a major shift in funding and priorities away from the Earth science programs that have historically been a key part of NASA’s portfolio.
Controversy and scientific backlash
The announcement has sparked criticism from scientists, environmentalists, and lawmakers. Many argue that abandoning climate research not only risks public understanding of global warming but may also conflict with NASA’s founding legislation, which mandates the study of both space and Earth’s atmosphere. Polls indicate that Americans value NASA’s role in monitoring climate change, making this policy shift a contentious decision. Experts caution that sidelining Earth science could have long-term consequences for environmental policy, disaster preparedness, and scientific leadership.
SYDNEY, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — New research reveals that heat-stressed mountain ash forests in the Australian state of Victoria are rapidly thinning and turning from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
These forests, storing more carbon per hectare than the Amazon, are predicted to lose a quarter of their trees by 2080 due to global warming, according to a statement released Thursday by Australia’s University of Melbourne (UoM).
Native to southeastern Australia and among the world’s tallest trees, mountain ash faces climate-driven stress that will reduce its capacity as a carbon reservoir, warn researchers from UoM and the University of New Hampshire in the United States.
Scientists analyzed almost 50 years of Australian forest data, finding that for every degree of warming, these forests lose around 9 percent of their trees, said the study’s lead researcher Raphael Trouve from UoM.
“A growing tree needs space and resources to survive. Under resource-limited conditions, such as water stress, a big tree will outcompete smaller, surrounding trees, causing their deaths,” Trouve said.
The forests’ natural thinning, driven by competition for water and resources, could significantly reduce the forests’ capacity to store carbon and slow global warming, said the study published in Nature Communications.
“Australia’s mountain ash forests are one of the Earth’s most carbon-dense ecosystems, but our study reveals how climate warming could turn them from carbon sinks into carbon emitters,” Trouve said.
He warned that tree deaths and decomposition will boost carbon emissions equivalent to a million cars driving 10,000 km annually for 75 years, excluding the added threat of increasing bushfires.
The thinning in forests also poses risks to regional water supplies, including Melbourne’s, through altered streamflow and water yield, he added. ■
A new study has found that engineering a food supplement can prevent the declining bee population by boosting reproduction. The researchers used the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica to produce a specific mix of six sterols, which bees require for development. The “superfood” was incorporated into their diet during a feeding trial, which led to a significant number of new larvae.
The study in Nature shows how the newly engineered supplement offers a way to enhance colony resilience without depleting natural floral resources. The compounds — 24-methylenecholesterol, campesterol, isofucosterol, ß-sitosterol, cholesterol, and desmosterol — comprise the majority of bee tissues.
“Our study demonstrates how we can harness synthetic biology to solve real-world ecological challenges. Most of the pollen sterols used by bees are not available naturally in quantities that could be harvested on a commercial scale, making it otherwise impossible to create a nutritionally complete feed that is a substitute for pollen,” comments senior author, professor Geraldine Wright at the Department of Biology, University of Oxford.
Researchers from the UK-based Royal Botanic Gardens Kew and the University of Greenwich, with the Technical University of Denmark, also led the study.
They suggest that since the yeast biomass also contains essential proteins and lipids, it has the potential to be expanded into bee feed.
Additionally, researchers underline that their findings enable the survival of bees and food businesses reliant on beekeeping.
They suggest the supplement could be available to farmers in two years. However, the researchers say more large studies are needed to check on the long-term impacts of colony health and pollination efficacy.
Artificial pollen is nutritionally insufficient
Bee populations are vulnerable and threatened by climate change and agricultural expansion due to the depletion of floral diversity. Their diet mainly consists of pollen, which contains specific lipids, or sterols, required for development.
Worker bees feeding in the Oxford Bee Lab (Image credits: Caroline Wood).However, the researchers warn that artificial pollen is nutritionally inferior. These supplements are made of protein, flour, sugar, and oil, which lack the right sterol compounds. The team explains that beekeepers resort to artificial pollen because the varieties of natural pollen are insufficient.
Meanwhile, the study’s engineered Y. lipolytica’s sterol mixture proved successful over a three-month feeding trial. Compared to the control, the sterol-enriched diet group had 15 times more larvae reach the viable pupal stage.
Additionally, the colonies feeding on the enriched diet were noted to be more likely to care for and rear the eggs and larvae by the end of the three-month period, unlike the control, which ceased brood production after 90 days.
Finally, the researchers found the bees only transfer the most biologically necessary sterols to their young, as the profile of larvae in colonies fed with engineered yeast matched the naturally foraged colonies.
“For bees, the difference between the sterol-enriched diet and conventional bee feeds would be comparable to the difference for humans between eating balanced, nutritionally complete meals and eating meals missing essential nutrients like essential fatty acids,” says lead author Dr. Elynor Moore, Department of Biology, University of Oxford (now at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands).
“Using precision fermentation, we are now able to provide bees with a tailor-made feed that is nutritionally complete at the molecular level.”
Identifying and harvesting sterols
Before the study was carried out, researchers did not know precisely which sterols in pollen were necessary for bee health.
Jennifer Chennells weighs honeybee dietary choice tubes, Oxford Bee Lab (Image credits: Caroline Wood).By assessing the sterol composition of tissue from pupae and adult bees, they were able to see which sterols were present in bee tissues. The researchers say it required delicate work, as individual nurse bees were dissected and their guts separated.
They used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing so the yeast would produce these sterols in a sustainable and affordable way. This yeast was selected as it has a high lipid content and has been shown to be food-safe — it is already used to supplement aquaculture feeds.
The yeast biomass was cultured in bioreactors and dried into a powder after harvesting.
“We chose oleaginous yeast Y. lipolytica as the cell factory because it is excellent at making compounds derived from acetyl-CoA, such as lipids and sterols, and because this yeast is safe and easy to scale up,” comments co-author professor Irina Borodina at The NNF Center for Biosustainability, Technical University of Denmark.
“It is used industrially to produce enzymes, omega-3 fatty acids, steviol glycosides as calorie-free sweeteners, pheromones for pest control, and other products.”
Honeybees in food systems
The researchers stress the importance of pollinators like honeybees, which contribute to 70% of global crops. Nutrient deficiencies, climate change, mites, viral diseases, and pesticides pose a significant threat to food security and biodiversity.
Rearing caged honeybees in the Oxford Bee Lab (Image credits: Caroline Wood).Over the last decade, the US reports it has lost 40–50% of its commercial honeybee colonies. Experts warn that the country could lose 60–70% of its colonies by the end of this year.
According to the researchers, their study provides a way to build colony resiliency.
“Honey bees are critically important pollinators for the production of crops such as almonds, apples, and cherries, and so are present in some crop locations in very large numbers, which can put pressure on limited wildflowers. Our engineered supplement could therefore benefit wild bee species by reducing competition for limited pollen supplies,” says co-author Professor Phil Stevenson, RBG Kew and Natural Resources Institute at the University of Greenwich.
Danielle Downey, executive director of honeybee research nonprofit Project Apis m., who was not affiliated with the study, adds: “We rely on honeybees to pollinate one in three bites of our food, yet bees face many stressors.”
“Good nutrition is one way to improve their resilience to these threats, and in landscapes with dwindling natural forage for bees, a more complete diet supplement could be a game changer. This breakthrough discovery of key phytonutrients that, when included in feed supplements, allow sustained honey bee brood rearing has immense potential to improve outcomes for colony survival and, in turn, the beekeeping businesses we rely on for our food production.”
Finally, the researchers suggest their findings can also open doorways to developing dietary supplements for other pollinators or farmed insects.
Nutrition Insight previously spoke to the CEO of APIX Biosciences US about how its scientists created a new food source that can sustain honeybee colonies indefinitely without natural pollen.
Last year, a team of Switzerland-based researchers demonstrated that honey bees synthesize nutrients for their native gut microbes.
FITZGERALD: “On the last couple of years of history, I’d quickly say Sabalenka and if you’d asked me this a year ago, I would’ve said that she’s the best hardcourt player in the world. I think that court just suits her. The ball comes onto the racket and it’s in her hitting zone and she’s all power. She’s already a great player, but to make her an all-time player, I think she’s gotta keep developing a few more nuances, winning points in different ways.”
PRATT: “I think Sabalenka will likely make the semifinals, but it depends a little on the draw and who she draws as a potential quarter. There are some dangerous players ranked No.5-No.12 including Rybakina, Anisimova and Paolini.”
REA: “I think Sabalenka’s going to be right around the mark. I think she’ll get conditions to suit her here – the courts and balls are lively enough. She will have reenergised, refocused and reprioritised what she needs to do in her game through the preparation phase and into Cincinnati, so I’d expect Sabalenka to be in the last four, if not beyond and right in the mix to hold up the trophy at the end of the fortnight.”
Iga Swiatek looks to have broken the shackles following her Wimbledon triumph after claiming the silverware in Cincinnati. If not the Pole or Sabalenka, who is best placed to land the title in New York?
MASUR: “You look at Iga, well, she seems to be back. I always think the US Open is a bit tougher for her because it’s a little bit faster and some of the girls can get that ball hard and fast into her forehand. The interesting one is Coco Gauff. She seems to have these serving woes that have crept back in when it was something that looked like she was kind of moving forward on. Isn’t she a tough cookie though. The hardest thing in tennis is when you’re not playing your best sometimes you get really despondent, but she puts it all behind her. I put Swiatek and Rybakina in a little group a millimetre behind Sabalenka. Madison Keys is probably struggling a bit. I always think she’s a great hard-court player though. Maybe that Montreal final is a real fillip for Naomi Osaka and she starts to show us the kind of form that was winning Slams. The really interesting one is Victoria Mboko. I watched her at the French and thought, ‘Oh my god, this girl is good’.
FOURLIS: “Looking at the list of players – Keys, Anisimova, Pegula – there’s a lot of Americans that have had a good last couple of months, but I think from Iga’s perspective, momentum is so big in tennis and she’s definitely shown that the last couple of weeks after Wimby and at Cincinnati and she has a lot of belief now that everything’s going right. I think she’ll continue to try to ride that momentum, that wave through the whole US swing.”
The Callisto Quartet has announced the appointment of Taiwanese-American violinist Eric Tsai as its new first violinist, replacing violinist Cameron Daly. He joins violinist Gregory Lewis, violist Eva Kennedy, and cellist Hannah Moses.
Tsai has studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, and Stony Brook University, with teachers including Shmuel Ashkenasi, Ida Kavafian, Catherine Cho, and Hagai Shaham. His accolades include second prize at the 2019 Michael Hil International Violin Competition, the bronze medal at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and the Chimei Arts Award. He also reached the semi-finals of the Premio Paganini competition, and from 2022–2023 his ensemble Quatuor Cael was the honours ensemble at the Juilliard School.
Most recently Tsai established the Spiritus Festival in Long Island, which held its inaugural summer season in June, and he will be continuing with residencies with the Callis Ensemble throughout the 2024–2025 season. Tsai has also performed across New York and Philadelphia as part of community engagement projects, and during the Covid-19 pandemic his quartet performed for under-served communities throughout Taiwan in partnership with Taiwan Connection.
The Callisto Quartet was established in 2016 at the Cleveland Institute of Music has since won accolades including the grand prize at the 2018 Fischoff Competition, second prize at the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition, as well as prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, and the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition.
The quartet has also held residencies at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Yale University, Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, and currently serves as associated faculty at the Chamber Music Connection in Columbus, Ohio.
The quartet expressed its enthusiasm for Tsai’s appointment:
‘We are so excited to welcome violinist Eric Tsai to our ensemble. Eric is an amazing musician with a rich history as both a performer and an educator. He brings such thoughtful musicianship and energy to our ensemble, and we are so excited for this next chapter together!’
In The Best of Technique you’ll discover the top playing tips of the world’s leading string players and teachers. It’s packed full of exercises for students, plus examples from the standard repertoire to show you how to integrate the technique into your playing.
In the second volume of The Strad’s Masterclass series, soloists including James Ehnes, Jennifer Koh, Philippe Graffin, Daniel Hope and Arabella Steinbacher give their thoughts on some of the greatest works in the string repertoire. Each has annotated the sheet music with their own bowings, fingerings and comments.
The Canada Council of the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank is 40 years old in 2025. This year’s calendar celebrates some its treasures, including four instruments by Antonio Stradivari and priceless works by Montagnana, Gagliano, Pressenda and David Tecchler.
Early on in its 27th season, South Park has garnered more controversy than it has in years (possibly ever), along with some of its highest ratings.
Last week’s episode took aim at the Trump administration’s brutal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids, poked fun at secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s penchant for puppy murder and cosmetic surgery (Noem has since climbed atop her moral high horse and accused the show of sexism), and of course, Donald Trump himself. Along with Trump’s martial takeover of Washington DC, this week’s instalment, titled Sickofancy, takes aim at artificial intelligence (specifically ChatGPT) and the larger tech-bro industry.
Picking up where we last left off, the show’s resident doofus, Randy Marsh, sees his beloved Tegridy Weed marijuana farm raided by border patrol agents. They kidnap all of his workers (“Hey! Those are my Mexicans!”), leaving him with only one employee, the ever-stoned Towelie (a talking bath towel, naturally). Despondent, Randy turns to ChatGPT for advice. The sycophantic, soft-voiced app draws up a new business plan for him and Towelie to implement. With the help of a single Mexican who they spring from an Ice detention centre and plenty of recreational ketamine, they rebrand to Techridy, “an AI-powered marijuana platform for global solutions”.
Meanwhile, in Washington, President Trump takes a break from receiving lavish gifts (as well as assurances that “you do not have a small penis”) from politicians, business titans and foreign leaders to remake the capital into a dystopian police state festooned with his own image (which includes his less-than-impressive member).
The two storylines converge when Randy attempts to bribe Trump into legalising marijuana nationwide by bequeathing Towelie to him. It’s all for naught though, as ChatGPT’s advice proves useless and he ends up having to sell Tegridy Farms and move his family back to the suburbs (the end of an era for the show, which has heavily featured this subplot for seven years, much to the annoyance of some fans).
Parker and Stone’s take on AI – that it is dumbing us down, robbing us of person-to-person connection and giving us really, really bad advice – is refreshingly clear-eyed, if not particularly incendiary. The larger skewering of tech bros is solid, although it’s slightly disappointing that Elon Musk never gets brought in for any of it, even though the running gag about ketamine addiction is clearly aimed at him. That said, the digs at Apple CEO Tim Cook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg help fill that gap.
The Trump material remains roundly funny and it’s clear the show is building to a big conclusion, most likely involving his unwilling partner and lover Satan (who is finally taking steps to free himself from the abusive relationship).
This episode is unlikely to cause as big a stir as the previous two. But watching South Park satirise the horrifying militarisation of Washington DC in real-time – Union Station, which features in the show’s central montage, was the scene of a fascist photo op featuring vice-president JD Vance, defence secretary Pete Hegseth and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller – is another reminder that no show has ever worked harder to have its finger on the US nation’s pulse.
