New research identifies for the first time the genes that help plants grow under stressful conditions—with implications for producing more sustainable food crops in the face of global climate change.

Led by the University of East Anglia (UEA), the study reveals the genes that enable plants to make a novel anti-stress molecule called dimethylsulfoniopropionate, or DMSP. It shows that most plants make DMSP, but that high-level DMSP production allows plants to grow at the coast, for example in salty conditions.

The research also shows that plants can be grown under other stressful conditions, such as drought, when either they are supplemented with DMSP or plants are created that make their own DMSP. Such an approach may be of particular benefit in nitrogen-poor soils to improve agricultural productivity.

This is the first study to describe the genes that plants use to produce DMSP, identify why plants make this molecule, and discover that DMSP can be used to improve the stress tolerance of plants. The findings are published today in the journal Nature Communications.

Prof. Jon Todd, of UEA’s School of Biological Sciences, said, “Excitingly, our study shows that most plants make the anti-stress compound DMSP, but that the saltmarsh grass Spartina is special due to the high levels it accumulates. This is important because Spartina saltmarshes are global hotspots for DMSP production and for generation of the climate-cooling gas dimethylsulfide through the action of microbes that breakdown DMSP.”

Lead author Dr. Ben Miller, also from UEA’s School of Biological Sciences, added, “This discovery provides fundamental understanding about how plants tolerate stress and offers promising avenues for improving the tolerance of crops to salinity and drought, which is important for enhancing agricultural sustainability in the face of global climate change.”

The research team included scientists from UEA’s School of Biological Sciences, School of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Pharmacology, and Ocean University of China.

They studied a species of saltmarsh cordgrass—Spartina anglica—that produces high levels of DMSP and compared its genes with those from other plants that produce the molecule, though mainly at low concentrations.

Many of these low DMSP-accumulating species are crop plants that cover large areas in the UK, such as barley and wheat.

The researchers identified three enzymes involved in the high-level production of DMSP in Spartina anglica. DMSP plays crucial roles in stress protection and is integral to global carbon and sulfur cycling, as well as the production of climate-active gases.

Saltmarsh ecosystems, particularly those dominated by Spartina cordgrass, are hotspots for DMSP production due to these plants being able to synthesize unusually high concentrations of the compound.

New research in Medical and Veterinary Entomology reveals that when rhinoceroses are found dead after being illegally killed by poachers, analyzing insects on the decomposing body aids in estimating the time since death. This information has been used by investigators and officials to construct cases against suspected perpetrators.

The study included 19 rhinoceroses that were illegally killed and dehorned in the Republic of South Africa between 2014 and 2021. Scientists collected 74 samples of insect evidence from these rhinoceros remains, from which an accurate estimate of their time of death was calculated. The specimens included 18 species from 12 families belonging to three insect orders.

“This has implications across both the science of forensic entomology and forensic wildlife, and especially highlights the opportunities for improving the global understanding of the procedures related to criminal wildlife cases,” said co–corresponding author Ian R. Dadour, Ph.D., of Source Certain and Murdoch University, in Australia. “Over the last 30 years, the results of this new activity combined with ranger teams and satellite tracking have led to a rebound in rhinoceros populations.”

Engineers have worked out how to give robots complex instructions without electricity for the first time, which could free up more space in the robotic ‘brain’ for them to ‘think.’

Mimicking how some parts of the human body work, researchers from King’s College London have transmitted a series of commands to devices with a new kind of compact circuit, using variations in pressure from a fluid inside it.

They say this world first opens up the possibility of a new generation of robots, whose bodies could operate independently of their built-in control center, with this space potentially being used instead for more complex AI-powered software.

“Delegating tasks to different parts of the body frees up computational space for robots to ‘think,’ allowing future generations of robots to be more aware of their social context or even more dexterous. This opens the door for a new kind of robotics in places like social care and manufacturing,” said Dr. Antonio Forte, Senior Lecturer in Engineering at King’s College London and senior author of the study.

The findings, published in Advanced Science could also enable the creation of robots able to operate in situations where electricity-powered devices cannot work, such as exploration in irradiated areas like Chernobyl which destroy circuits, and in electricity sensitive environments like MRI rooms.

The researchers also hope that these robots could eventually be used in low-income countries which do not have reliable access to electricity.

Dr. Forte said, “Put simply, robots are split into two parts: the brain and the body. An AI brain can help run the traffic system of a city, but many robots still struggle to open a door—why is that?

“Software has advanced rapidly in recent years, but hardware has not kept up. By creating a hardware system independent from the software running it, we can offload a lot of the computational load onto the hardware, in the same way your brain doesn’t need to tell your heart to beat.”

Currently, all robots rely on electricity and computer chips to function. A robotic ‘brain’ of algorithms and software translates information to the body or hardware through an encoder, which then performs an action.

In ‘soft robotics,’ a field which creates devices like robotic muscles out of soft materials, this is particularly an issue as it introduces hard electronic encoders and puts strain on the software for the material to act in a complex way, e.g. grabbing a door handle.

To circumvent this, the team developed a reconfigurable circuit with an adjustable valve to be placed within a robot’s hardware. This valve acts like a transistor in a normal circuit and engineers can send signals directly to hardware using pressure, mimicking binary code, allowing the robot to perform complex maneuvers without the need for electricity or instruction from the central brain. This allows for a greater level of control than current fluid-based circuits.

By offloading the work of the software onto the hardware, the new circuit frees up computational space for future robotic systems to be more adaptive, complex, and useful.

As a next step, the researchers now hope to scale up their circuits from experimental hoppers and pipettes and embed them in larger robots, from crawlers used to monitor power plants to wheeled robots with entirely soft engines.

Mostafa Mousa, Post-graduate Researcher at King’s College London and author, said, “Ultimately, without investment in embodied intelligence, robots will plateau. Soon, if we do not offload the computational load that modern day robots take on, algorithmic improvements will have little impact on their performance. Our work is just a first step on this path, but the future holds smarter robots with smarter bodies.”