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Hydrothermal vent systems are thought to be the most like the sites on Earth where life began. The shallow-water hydrothermal vent system on Kueishan Island offers marine biologists an exceptional research possibility. Dr. Yung-Che Tseng (Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology) and Dr. Tzu-Hao Lin (Biodiversity Research Center) took advantage of the Marine Research Station to establish comprehensive research tactics that included marine physicochemical, biological, and soundscape aspects of the hydrothermal vent systems. For the first time, they carefully tracked, over a two-year period and across multiple habitats (including the venting system and surrounding coral reef ecosystems). The research team's findings reveal that shallow earthquakes in close proximity to the vent sites trigger periodic changes in hydrothermal discharge, resulting in significant fluctuations in pH levels, dissolved inorganic carbon, and sulfide concentrations during active venting periods. These variations in physicochemical conditions, in turn, influence the soundscapes of the surrounding marine habitats. Remarkably, the environmental characteristics exhibit notable differences between various geologically active periods, underscoring the complexity of hydrothermal vent impacts. Furthermore, the study suggests that even distant coral ecosystems may be indirectly affected by hydrothermal activity through seasonal changes in soundscapes. These discoveries provide insight into the origins of life and the evolution of early Earth settings facilitated by hydrothermal vent systems, as well as novel perspectives on monitoring and conserving extreme marine ecosystems. The study report was published in Limnology and Oceanography Letters in May 2024, with the co-first author being Ling Chiu (Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University) and Dr. Min-Chen Wang (Institute of Physiology, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel). The Academia Sinica's Development Award Project, the Marine Research Station, and the National Science and Technology Council provided funding for the study.

Certain insects, like beetles and butterflies, can undergo massive tissue replacement during their development, a transformation process considered unique to insects. Compared to insects, vertebrates exhibit relatively limited changes in appearance during post-embryonic development. Nonetheless, at the cellular level, whether similar drastic changes occur akin to those observed in insect development remains an unexplored research topic. Dr. Chen-Hui Chen and his team at the Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology (ICOB) created the palmuscle myofiber tagging and tracking system for in toto monitoring of the growth and fates of ~5000 fast myofibers in developing zebrafish larvae. They found that zebrafish, as a vertebrate model, can similarly undergo complete muscle elimination and replacement during post-embryonic development. Due to limitations in research tools, past studies on vertebrate muscle cells have primarily focused on cell culture models or histological investigations. This study may represent the first instance of simultaneously and continuously observing all muscle cells within an individual at both the organismal and cellular levels. This study finding challenges the current understanding of vertebrate development. This unexpected finding was published in June this year in the EMBO Journal. The first author, Uday Kumar, is affiliated with the Taiwan International Graduate Program, jointly administered by Academia Sinica and National Chung-Hsing University. Other team members include Chun-Yi Fang, Hsiao-Yuh Roan, Shao-Chun Hsu, Chung-Han Wang, and Chen-Hui Chen. This study is supported by funding from the Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology and grants from Academia Sinica to C.-H.C. (AS-CDA-109-L03 and AS-GCS-112-L01); and grants from National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan, to C.-H.C. (NSTC 110-2628-B-001-016, and NSTC 111-2628-B-001-026).

The transition from natal downs for thermoregulation to juvenile feathers for flight is an environmental adaptation in avian evolution. As the regulatory switches for this transition are mostly unknown, we conducted gene regulatory analysis and functional perturbations in developing feathers. We elucidated four switches. First, extracellular matrix reorganization leads to peripheral pulp formation, mediating epithelial-mesenchymal interactions for branching morphogenesis. Second, α-SMA compartmentalizes dermal papilla stem cells for feather renewal cycling. Third, LEF1 works as a key hub of Wnt signaling to build rachis and convert radial downy to bilateral symmetry. Fourth, scale keratins strengthen feather sheath with SOX14 as the epigenetic regulator. These switches are largely conserved in chicken (precocial) and zebra finch (altricial), two distantly related species, suggesting their conservation in all birds. This study was a collaboration between Dr. Wen-Hsiung Li’s lab (Academia Sinica) and Dr. Cheng-Ming Chuong’s lab (University of South California). Published on May 16 in Nature Communications.

Shifting the focus from land to sea when considering the Cold War in East Asia, Kuan-Jen Chen sheds light on the importance of the ‘oceanic’ lens as a structural imperative in grand strategic thinking.

Expression noise at transcript or protein levels can result in cell-to-cell heterogeneity within an isogenic population. The detailed molecular pathways underlying noise regulation are not fully understood. Dr. Jun-Yi Leu’s group at the Institute of Molecular Biology establishes an experimental evolution strategy to search for mutations that increase expression noise in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and reveals the histone deacetylase Hos2 as a negative noise regulator. They found the Hos2 mutant down-regulated multiple ribosomal protein genes and exhibited partially compromised protein translation, indicating that Hos2 may regulate protein expression noise by modulating the translation machinery. This work was published on May 23, 2024 in Nucleic Acids Research. The lead author of this work, Wei-Han Lin, is a student in the Doctoral Program in Microbial Genomics, which is a collaborating program between Academia Sinica and National Chung Hsing University. Funding was provided by Academia Sinica and the National Science and Technology Council.

Pediatric brain tumors and osteosarcomas often utilize the ALT (Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres) mechanism to length telomeres for cellular immortality. A research team led by Associate Research Fellow Dr. Liuh-yow Chen at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, discovered that orphan nuclear receptors regulate telomere elongation through APBs (ALT-associated PML bodies) in ALT cancer cells. Additionally, they found that arsenic trioxide (As2O3), a treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia, can target APBs and inhibit ALT activity in cultured ALT cancer cells and in mouse xenografts, which opens the possibility of repurposing As2O3 for ALT cancer treatments. This research provides deep insights into the biology of ALT-related cancers and a new potential avenue for their treatment. The study was published in Nucleic Acids Research on May 17, 2024. The first author of the paper is Venus Marie Gaela, a PhD student in TIGP-MCB at Academia Sinica. The research was funded by Academia Sinica and the National Science and Technology Council.

The newest issue of the Journal of Social Sciences and Philosophy has just been published

New Publication of “Dimasa Language: Structure and Texts” by ILAS

In this paper, in situ data of Mars satellite mission MAVEN was analyzed. Direct evidence was found for explosive mass ejections from Mars ionosphere through magnetic reconnections between strong crustal field regions with open magnetic fields. The mass ejections by magnetic reconnection in the Mars ionospheric lead to Mars mass loss and are very similar to the observed solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs). This study was led by Academician Lou-Chuang Lee of Academia Sinica and Professor Xiao-Jun Xu of Macau University of Science and Technology and was published in Nature Astronomy (April 2024).

The capability to sense and respond to the environment is essential for survival and fitness in all organisms. Recent studies have shown organisms from different kingdoms, such as fungi, plants, and mammals can recognize and respond to conserved nematode pheromones, named ascarosides. However, the mechanisms underlying cross kingdom perception of nematode pheromones remain unclear. A research team led by Dr. Yen-Ping Hsueh at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, revealed that two families of GPCRs are responsible for ascarosides detection, leading to the activation of the cAMP-PKA pathway for trap development in nematode-trapping fungus Arthrobotrys oligospora. The expansion of GPCRs in A. oligospora may have been advantageous for recognizing diverse nematode-derived signals to ensure robust prey recognition during co-evolution. Moreover, the identification of ascarosides receptors in a fungal species sheds light on the molecular mechanisms of ascaroside-mediated cross-kingdom communication. This research has been published on April 22, 2024 in Nature Microbiology. The lead author of this research, Chih-Yen Kuo, is a TIGP-MCB student at Academia Sinica, and collaborators of this research includes Dr. Frank Schroeder at Cornell University and Dr. Yu-Chu Chang at Taipei Medical University. Funding was provided by Academia Sinica and the National Science and Technology Council.

This is a popular history of horse racing in China’s leading treaty port, namely Shanghai. This monograph describes how horse racing was introduced, transformed and eventually disappeared due to its implication of British imperialism and colonialism.

We are pleased to announce the new publication of issue 25.2 of Language and Linguistics. This issue includes 4 articles and our annual acknowledgements: