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By twisting the dials on key neurotransmitter systems in our brains, psychoactive compounds in a few kinds of mushrooms can provoke profound psychedelic experiences. The same compounds also show promise in treating illnesses such as therapy-resistant depression. But researchers don’t fully understand how they work in the brain—and why they evolved in the first place is a deeper mystery.

A new analysis, published on 21 September in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, adds to the confusion by confirming that two distinct genera of psychedelic mushrooms produce the same psychoactive compound, psilocybin, through entirely different chemical pathways. The research details a “completely novel path” to making psilocybin, says Jason Slot, a biochemist at Ohio State University who was not involved with the study. He adds that it could point toward “potentially very useful new enzyme tools for synthetic biology.” But it also underscores the puzzle of why two mushroom lineages would have independently arrived at making the same mind-bending molecule.

Mushrooms in the genus Psilocybe such as P. cubensis are the best-known source of psilocybin. But it’s also found in a few species from other genera, including a subset of fungi from the genus Inocybe commonly known as fiber cap mushrooms. When it binds to receptors for the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain’s neurons, it triggers potent hallucinogenic experiences, which are central to some Indigenous rites and are cherished by modern recreational users.

Scientists don’t know exactly why psilocybin has this effect, but they have dissected the intricate chemical pathway by which Psilocybe mushrooms enzymatically make the compound. Scientists assumed fiber cap mushrooms made psilocybin with similar substrates and chemical reactions, but they hadn’t tested the idea. “We simply thought the order of biosynthetic events and the intermediates were the same,” says study co-author Dirk Hoffmeister, a biochemist at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. “Frankly, we weren’t really sure what to expect.”

There are some 2,700 wolves across Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, and seemingly just as many opinions about how they should be managed.

In August, a federal judge from the U.S. District Court in Montana added one more to the mix when he ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to revisit its 2024 decision to keep Northern Rocky Mountain gray wolves off the federal endangered species list and under the management of those three states.

Among other missteps, the agency had not incorporated “the best available science” into its decision, Judge Donald Molloy wrote. His decision has come at a precarious time for the Endangered Species Act: The USFWS is considering revoking key protections for habitat critical to endangered species, and a handful of proposed bills before Congress would remove protections from certain animals, bypassing the agency.

The ruling is just the latest chapter in a saga that’s stretched on since 1995 over whether wolves across different regions of the lower 48 states should be listed—what Molloy calls a “political yo-yo process.” Scientists say this constant volleying could have profound consequences for wolves in the contiguous U.S., undermining the decades of work that conservationists and governments have done to bring them back from the brink. Gray wolves are still listed as endangered or threatened in the majority of states.

On a tiny Italian island, scientists conducted a radical experiment to see if the bees were causing their wild cousins to decline.

Off the coast of Tuscany is a tiny island in the shape of a crescent moon. An hour from mainland Italy, Giannutri has just two beaches for boats to dock. In summer, hundreds of tourists flock there, hiking to the red and white lighthouse on its southern tip before diving into the clear waters. In winter, its population dwindles to 10. The island’s rocky ridges are coated with thickets of rosemary and juniper, and in warmer months the air is sweetened by flowers and the gentle hum of bees.

“Residents are people who like fishing, or being alone, or who have retired. Everyone has their story,” says Leonardo Dapporto, associate professor at the University of Florence.

It was Giannutri’s isolation that drew scientists here. They were seeking a unique open-air laboratory to answer a question that has long intrigued ecologists: could honeybees be causing their wild bee cousins to decline?

To answer this, they carried out a radical experiment. While Giannutri is too far from the mainland for honeybees to fly to it, 18 hives were set up on the island in 2018: a relatively contained, recently established population. Researchers got permission to shut the hives down, effectively removing most honeybees from the island.

When the study began, the island’s human population temporarily doubled in size, as teams of scientists fanned out across the scrubland tracking bees. Then came the ban: they closed hives on selected days during the peak foraging period, keeping the honeybees in their hives for 11 hours a day. Local people were sceptical. “For them, we were doing silly and useless things,” says Dapporto. But the results were compelling.

“‘Wow,’ was my first response,” says the lead researcher, Lorenzo Pasquali, from the University of Florence. When the data came together, “all the results were pointing in the same direction”.

https://archive.is/H9Gy6

Standing on top of a small mountain, Kim Seung-ho gazes out over an expanse of paddy fields glowing in their autumn gold, the ripening grains swaying gently in the wind. In the distance, North Korea stretches beyond the horizon.

“It’s so peaceful,” says the director of the DMZ Ecology Research Institute. “Over there, it used to be an artillery range, but since they stopped firing, the nature has become so beautiful.”

The land before him is the demilitarised zone, or DMZ, a strip of land that runs across the Korean peninsula, dividing North and South Korea roughly along the 38th parallel north. Stretching 155 miles (250km) across the peninsula and 2.4 miles wide, the DMZ remains one of the world’s most heavily fortified borders, strewn with landmines and flanked by military installations on both sides.

Yet, in the 72 years since the war ended, this forbidden strip has become an accidental ecological paradise.

The zone’s varied terrain creates distinct habitats: the wetlands of the western sector shelter migrating cranes, while the rugged eastern mountains provide sanctuary for some of the country’s most threatened mammals, including Siberian musk deer and Asiatic black bears.

South Korea’s National Institute of Ecology has documented nearly 6,000 species here, including more than 100 endangered species – representing more than a third of South Korea’s threatened wildlife.