|
Top headlines
Lead story
“I feel invincible.” Such was how a friend explained to me her newfound enthusiasm for coffee. The caffeine in tea, she told me as we browsed the dizzying array of coffee options at the store, just wasn’t cutting it. But after downing a cup of liquid energy? Goodbye, bleary workday mornings; hello, world domination.
I personally haven’t hopped on the coffee train yet, and I don’t think I will anytime soon – not least because of the genetically wily fungus repeatedly devastating coffee farms for the past century.
Since the 1920s, African farms have been contending with the specter of coffee wilt disease. Some countries still haven’t recovered from those early outbreaks. And it poses a threat to producers in the Americas and Asia as well. Despite attempts to genetically bolster crops, the arabica and robusta coffee varieties that the fungus prefers remain vulnerable. Today’s uneasy truce with the pathogen could be upended with another resurgence.
Evolutionary biologist Lily Peck of UCLA wanted to understand how the fungus has outmaneuvered coffee plant defenses time and time again. She “resurrected” the genomes of past strains, stitching together a history of adaptive genes jumping between fungal species – with implications for an agricultural industry often dependent on monoculture.
“Reconciling the tension between agricultural productivity and environmental protection is important to balance humanity’s needs for the future,” writes Peck.
[ Sign up for our newsletter on how AI is impacting society. Every Friday. ]
|
Coffee farming is critical to the economies of several African countries.
Wang Guansen/Xinhua via Getty Images
Lily Peck, University of California, Los Angeles
Coffee wilt disease has continually devastated farms around the world. Understanding the fungus’s genetics can help protect everyone’s cup of joe.
|
Jesse Jackson remained a fixture throughout his life at civil rights marches and Democratic Party events. Here, in 1985, he crossed the Pettus Bridge in Selma with other Black leaders, including U.S. Reps. Hakeem Jeffries and Maxine Waters.
AP Photo/Mike Stewart
Gibbs Knotts, Coastal Carolina University; Christopher A. Cooper, Western Carolina University
A civil rights activist who ran for president twice and became a Democratic power broker, Jackson was an American political icon. But above all, he was a Southerner.
|
Environment + Energy
|
-
Stephanie Kivlin, University of Tennessee; Aimee Classen, University of Michigan; Lara A. Souza, University of Oklahoma
Over a three-decade experiment in the Rocky Mountains, fungi and plant life fundamentally changed. The result has consequences for cattle and wildlife.
-
Thomas Robertson, Macalester College
Strategic resources have been central to the American-led global system for decades, as a historian explains. But US actions toward Greenland today are different.
|
|
Ethics + Religion
|
-
Lauren Nicole Henley, University of Richmond
In 1912, a young Black woman’s supposed religious beliefs were quickly blamed to make sense of a terrifying crime spree.
|
|
Education
|
-
Leana Cabral, Columbia University
A sociologist explains how Black students in Philadelphia navigate racial prejudice and find affirmation in their schools.
|
|
Arts + Culture
|
-
Ben McCann, Adelaide University
Robert Duvall has died at 95. From The Godfather to The Apostle, he illuminated every film he was in.
|
|
Health + Medicine
|
-
Bethany Barone Gibbs, West Virginia University; Alex Crisp, University of Iowa
New research reveals a deepening crisis in prenatal health as geography and income increasingly dictate whether a mother can meet her basic nutritional needs.
|
|
International
|
-
Tamara Krawchenko, University of Victoria
Alberta is not a place that ‘doesn’t matter’ economically; the anger of those who want to separate from Canada stems from the belief that it matters a great deal and is still being disrespected.
|
|
