The team found that increasing levels of Sox9, a protein that plays a major role in regulating astrocyte activity during aging, significantly improved these cells’ ability to remove amyloid plaques. The findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, point to a potential treatment strategy that focuses on boosting the brain’s own support system to slow cognitive decline in neurodegenerative disease.

Astrocytes and Brain Function

“Astrocytes perform diverse tasks that are essential for normal brain function, including facilitating brain communications and memory storage. As the brain ages, astrocytes show profound functional alterations; however, the role these alterations play in aging and neurodegeneration is not yet understood,” said first author Dr. Dong-Joo Choi, who conducted the work while at Baylor’s Center for Cell and Gene Therapy and Department of Neurosurgery. Choi is now an assistant professor at the Center for Neuroimmunology and Glial Biology, Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Sox9 and Aging Astrocytes

In this study, researchers set out to better understand how astrocytes change with age and how those changes are linked to Alzheimer’s disease. They focused on Sox9 because it controls the activity of many genes in aging astrocytes.

“We manipulated the expression of the Sox9 gene to assess its role in maintaining astrocyte function in the aging brain and in Alzheimer’s disease models,” said corresponding author Dr. Benjamin Deneen, professor and Dr. Russell J. and Marian K. Blattner Chair in the Department of Neurosurgery, director of the Center for Cancer Neuroscience, a member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor and a principal investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Testing in Mice With Established Symptoms

“An important point of our experimental design is that we worked with mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease that had already developed cognitive impairment, such as memory deficits, and had amyloid plaques in the brain,” Choi said. “We believe these models are more relevant to what we see in many patients with Alzheimer’s disease symptoms than other models in which these types of experiments are conducted before the plaques form.”

To test their approach, the researchers either increased or eliminated Sox9 in these mice and tracked their cognitive performance over six months. The animals were evaluated on their ability to recognize familiar objects and environments. At the end of the study, the team measured how much plaque had accumulated in the brain.

Boosting Sox9 Improves Plaque Clearance and Memory

The results revealed a clear contrast. Lower Sox9 levels led to faster plaque buildup, simpler astrocyte structure and reduced ability to clear amyloid deposits. Increasing Sox9 produced the opposite outcome, enhancing astrocyte activity, improving their structural complexity and promoting plaque removal.

Importantly, mice with higher Sox9 levels maintained better cognitive function, suggesting that activating astrocytes to clear plaques can help slow the mental decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

“We found that increasing Sox9 expression triggered astrocytes to ingest more amyloid plaques, clearing them from the brain like a vacuum cleaner,” Deneen said. “Most current treatments focus on neurons or try to prevent the formation of amyloid plaques. This study suggests that enhancing astrocytes’ natural ability to clean up could be just as important.”

A New Direction for Alzheimer’s Treatment

The researchers emphasize that more work is needed to understand how Sox9 functions in the human brain over time. Even so, the findings open the door to new therapies that aim to harness astrocytes as a natural defense against neurodegenerative disease.

Research Team and Funding

Additional contributors to the study from Baylor College of Medicine include Sanjana Murali, Wookbong Kwon, Junsung Woo, Eun-Ah Christine Song, Yeunjung Ko, Debo Sardar, Brittney Lozzi, Yi-Ting Cheng, Michael R. Williamson, Teng-Wei Huang, Kaitlyn Sanchez and Joanna Jankowsky.

The research was supported by National Institutes of Health grants (R35-NS132230, R01- AG071687, R01-CA284455, K01-AG083128, R56-MH133822). Additional funding came from the David and Eula Wintermann Foundation, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P50HD103555 and shared resources from Houston Methodist and Baylor College of Medicine.

“We’re used to hearing the ‘Big One’ — Cascadia — being this catastrophic huge thing,” said Chris Goldfinger, a marine geologist at Oregon State University and lead author of the study. “It turns out it’s not the worst case scenario.”

Deep-Sea Evidence Reveals a Hidden Pattern

To investigate this possibility, Goldfinger and his colleagues examined sediment cores taken from the ocean floor. These cores preserve about 3,100 years of geological history. The team focused on turbidites, which are layers of sediment left behind by underwater landslides that are often triggered by earthquakes.

By comparing turbidite layers from areas influenced by both fault systems, the researchers identified similarities in their structure and timing. These patterns point to a potential synchronization between Cascadia and the northern San Andreas fault.

Pinpointing the exact timing between earthquakes on the two faults is challenging. However, Goldfinger noted three cases within the past 1,500 years, including the most recent event in 1700, where the data suggests the earthquakes occurred within minutes to hours of each other.

A Larger Disaster Scenario

This possible connection has major implications for earthquake preparedness.

“We could expect that an earthquake on one of the faults alone would draw down the resources of the whole country to respond to it,” Goldfinger said. “And if they both went off together, then you’ve got potentially San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver all in an emergency situation in a compressed timeframe.”

Scientists have long considered the idea that faults might interact in this way, but real-world evidence has been scarce. The only documented example occurred in Sumatra, where two large earthquakes struck three months apart in 2004 and 2005.

A Chance Discovery Leads to a Breakthrough

Goldfinger’s interest in this question goes back decades, including a key moment during a 1999 research cruise. While collecting sediment cores from the Cascadia subduction zone off Oregon and northern California, the team accidentally drifted off course. They ended up about 55 miles south of Cape Mendocino in California, within the San Andreas fault zone.

Instead of abandoning the location, the researchers decided to collect a core there as well. What they found turned out to be highly unusual.

“Doublets” Point to Back-to-Back Earthquakes

Under normal conditions, turbidites show a consistent pattern, with coarse material settling at the bottom and finer sediment layering on top. In this unexpected core, the pattern was reversed. Coarse, sandy material sat above finer, silty sediment.

This unusual structure suggested a two-step process. The lower, finer layer likely formed first during a major Cascadia earthquake. The coarser material on top appeared to result from a subsequent event along the nearby San Andreas fault.

To confirm this idea, the team used radiocarbon dating on this core and others collected near Cape Mendocino, where the two fault systems meet. The results supported the idea that these reversed layers, which the researchers call “doublets,” were created by earthquakes occurring close together in time, rather than aftershocks or unrelated events.

Researchers and Collaboration

The study also included contributions from Ann Morey, Christopher Romsos and Bran Black of Oregon State’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences; Jeff Beeson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Oregon State; Maureen Walzcak, University of Washington; Alexis Vizcaino, Springer Nature Group in Germany; Jason Patton, California Department of Conservation; and C. Hans Nelson and Julia Gutiérrez-Pastor, Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra in Spain.

“The idea that exercise must be exhausting or painful is holding people back,” ECU’s Director of Exercise and Sports Science, Professor Ken Nosaka, said.

He points to a different approach that can be more effective and far easier to stick with. “Instead, we should be focusing on eccentric exercises which can deliver stronger results with far less effort than traditional exercise — and you don’t even need a gym!”

What Is Eccentric Exercise

Eccentric exercise focuses on the phase when muscles lengthen rather than shorten. This typically happens during the lowering portion of a movement, such as bringing a dumbbell down, walking downstairs, or slowly lowering yourself into a chair.

According to the study, muscles can produce greater force during these lengthening movements while using less energy than they would during lifting, pulling, or climbing actions.

More Strength With Less Effort

“You can gain strength without feeling as exhausted. So, you get more benefit for less effort. That makes eccentric exercise appealing for a wide range of people,” Professor Nosaka said.

Although these movements can sometimes lead to mild soreness, especially for beginners, discomfort is not required to see progress.

Simple Exercises You Can Do At Home

Eccentric exercises are easy to incorporate into daily routines and do not require special equipment. Examples include chair squats, heel drops, and wall push-ups. Research shows that just five minutes a day of these movements can lead to meaningful improvements in strength and overall health.

Ideal For Older Adults And Beginners

Because eccentric exercise puts less strain on the heart and lungs, it is especially well suited for older adults and people with chronic health conditions. The movements also feel familiar, which makes them easier to adopt and maintain over time.

“These movements mirror what we already do in daily life. That makes them practical, realistic and easier to stick with,” Professor Nosaka said.

“When exercise feels achievable, people keep doing it.”

Even so, these isolated jaws revealed something remarkable. The fossils belonged to a species that lived around 275 million years ago and would have been considered a “living fossil” even in its own time. The jaws were also highly unusual, with a twisted shape. Some of the teeth pointed outward and sideways, while rows of smaller teeth lined the inner surfaces. This structure suggests the animal may have been among the earliest of its kind to grind plant material.

Naming a Strange New Species

In a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers formally described the species and named it Tanyka amnicola. The name Tanyka comes from the Indigenous Guaraní language and means “jaw,” while amnicola translates to “living by the river.”

“Tanyka is from an ancient lineage that we didn’t know survived to this time, and it’s also just a really strange animal. The jaw has this weird twist that drove us crazy trying to figure it out. We were scratching our heads over this for years, wondering if it was some kind of deformation,” says Jason Pardo, the study’s lead author, who worked on the project during his post-doctoral fellowship at the Field Museum in Chicago. “But at this point, we’ve got nine jaws from this animal, and they all have this twist, including the really, really well-preserved ones. So it’s not a deformation, it’s just the way the animal was made.”

An Ancient Branch of Tetrapods

Tanyka belongs to a broad group of vertebrates known as tetrapods, which includes all four-limbed animals with backbones such as reptiles, birds, mammals, and amphibians. The earliest tetrapods, called stem tetrapods, eventually split into two major branches. One group evolved to lay eggs on land, leading to reptiles, birds, and mammals. The other group continued laying eggs in water, giving rise to modern amphibians like frogs and salamanders.

Even after this split, some stem tetrapods continued to exist alongside their more recently evolved relatives. Tanyka was one of these holdovers from an older lineage.

A similar pattern can be seen in mammals. Early mammals laid eggs, while later groups evolved live birth. Most modern mammals reproduce by giving birth, but a few species, such as the platypus, still retain the older egg-laying trait.

“In the sense that Tanyka was a remaining member of the stem tetrapod lineage, even after newer, more modern tetrapods evolved, Tanyka is a little like a platypus. It was a a living fossil in its time,” says Pardo, who is now a research associate at the Field Museum while working on a postdoctoral fellowship through the University of Vilnius in Lithuania.

What Did Tanyka Look Like?

Much about Tanyka remains unknown, especially its full body shape. “We found these jaws in isolation, and they’re really weird, and they’re very distinctive. But until we find one of those jaws attached to a skull or other bones that are definitively associated with the jaw, we can’t say for sure that the other bones we find near it belong to Tanyka,” says Ken Angielczyk, a curator of paleomammalogy at the Field Museum in Chicago, who served as Pardo’s advisor during his post-doctoral fellowship there, and a co-author of the paper.

Based on comparisons with related species, researchers think Tanyka may have resembled a salamander with a slightly longer snout. Its size is uncertain, but estimates suggest it could have reached up to three feet in length. The surrounding rock indicates it likely lived in freshwater environments such as lakes.

A Jaw Built for Grinding Plants

Although the rest of its body is still a mystery, the jaw provides clear clues about how Tanyka fed.

If you run your tongue along your lower teeth, you can feel how they point upward toward the roof of your mouth. In Tanyka, this arrangement was completely different. Its lower jaw was twisted so that the teeth pointed outward to the sides instead of upward. At the same time, the inner surface of the jaw, which faces the tongue in humans, was oriented upward.

This inner surface was covered with small teeth called denticles, forming a rough grinding area similar to a cheese grater. Scientists believe the upper jaw likely had a similar structure.

“We expect the denticles on the lower jaw were rubbing up against similar teeth on the upper side of the mouth. The teeth would have been rasping against each other, in a way that’s going to create a relatively unique way of feeding,” says Pardo.

This type of tooth-to-tooth grinding is typically associated with animals that process plant material. “Based on its teeth, we think that Tanyka was a herbivore, and that it ate plants at least some of the time,” says Juan Carlos Cisneros, an author of the paper at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI) in Brazil. Researchers note that this is surprising, since most stem tetrapods are thought to have been carnivorous.

Filling Gaps in Ancient Ecosystems

The discovery of Tanyka helps scientists better understand life during the early Permian Period. Around 275 million years ago, the region that is now Brazil was part of Gondwana, a vast supercontinent that included South America, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. Fossils from this time and place are relatively rare compared to those from regions in the Global North.

“The Pedra de Fogo Formation in Brazil is one of the only windows we have into Gondwana’s animals during the early Permian Period of Earth history, and Tanyka is telling us about how this community actually worked, how it was structured, and who was eating what,” says Angielczyk.

The study was co-authored by Jason Pardo (Field Museum, University of Vilnius), Claudia Marsicano (Universidad de Buenos Aires, CONICET), Roger Smith (Iziko South African Museum, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg), Ken Angielczyk (Field Museum), Jörg Fröbisch (Museum fur Naturkunde — Leibniz-Institut fur Evolutions- und Biodiversitatsforschung), Christian Kammerer (North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences), and Martha Richter (Natural History Museum, London).

Although P. floydmuraria measures just 3 to 4 millimeters in length, it may play an important role in controlling pests in urban settings. These synanthropic (urban-dwelling) spiders were found to feed mainly on Hymenoptera (such as ants), Diptera (flies and mosquitoes), and Coleoptera (beetles), based on dietary studies of both the new species and a related Pikelinia population in Armenia, Colombia.

Scientists observed these spiders capturing ants up to six times larger than their own prosoma (body) size, demonstrating an impressive ability for such a small predator. They also consistently target common household pests, including mosquitoes (Culicidae) and houseflies (Muscidae). By placing their webs near artificial light sources, the spiders appear to take advantage of phototactic (light-attracted) insects, making their hunting more efficient and potentially helping maintain balance in urban environments.

Clues From a Related Galapagos Species

The study also shed light on a related species from the Galapagos Islands. Researchers provided the first detailed description and illustrations of the female internal genitalia of Pikelinia fasciata, a species first identified in 1902.

Strong similarities between the Galapagos spider and the newly discovered Colombian species, including nearly identical male palpal structures, point to a possible close evolutionary link. This is notable given the vast Pacific Ocean separating their habitats. Scientists are still unsure whether these shared traits come from a common ancestor or from similar environmental pressures shaping their evolution.

What Comes Next for This Newly Discovered Spider

The identification of P. floydmuraria represents only the second known species of the Pikelinia genus recorded in Colombia. Researchers emphasize the need for additional molecular and DNA-based studies to better understand its evolutionary background, trace its geographic origins, and measure its full impact as a natural controller of urban pests.

Phenolic compounds, particularly flavonoids, are already highly valued in medicine for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-carcinogenic effects. This new finding suggests Cannabis may contain even more biologically important compounds than previously recognized.

Dozens of Previously Unknown Cannabis Compounds Identified

In their study, researchers analyzed three commercially grown Cannabis strains from South Africa and identified 79 phenolic compounds. Of these, 25 had never before been reported in Cannabis. Among them were 16 compounds tentatively classified as flavoalkaloids, a group that is rarely found in nature.

Interestingly, these flavoalkaloids were concentrated mainly in the leaves of just one of the strains, highlighting how much chemical variation can exist between different types of Cannabis. The findings were recently published in the Journal of Chromatography A.

Why These Compounds Are Hard To Detect

Dr. Magriet Muller, an analytical chemist in the LC-MS laboratory of the Central Analytical Facility (CAF) at Stellenbosch University and the study’s first author, explains that studying plant phenolics is especially difficult because they occur in very small amounts and have highly diverse structures.

“Most plants contain highly complex mixtures of phenolic compounds, and while flavonoids occur widely in the plant kingdom, the flavoalkaloids are very rare in nature,” she explains.

She also notes just how chemically complex Cannabis is. “We know that Cannabis is extremely complex — it contains more than 750 metabolites — but we did not expect such high variation in phenolic profiles between only three strains, nor to detect so many compounds for the first time in the species. Especially the first evidence of flavoalkaloids in Cannabis was very exciting.”

Advanced Techniques Reveal Hidden Chemistry

As part of her postgraduate work in SU’s Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, Muller developed advanced analytical methods that combine comprehensive two-dimensional liquid chromatography with high-resolution mass spectrometry. These tools allow scientists to separate and identify compounds in extraordinary detail.

“We were looking for a new application for the methods that I developed, after successfully testing them on rooibos tea, grapes and wine. I then decided to apply the methods to Cannabis because I knew it was a complex sample, and that Cannabis phenolics have not been well characterized,” she explains.

Prof. André de Villiers, who led the study and heads the analytical chemistry research group at SU, said the results were striking. “The excellent performance of two-dimensional liquid chromatography allowed separation of the flavoalkaloids from the much more abundant flavonoids, which is why we were able to detect these rare compounds for the first time in Cannabis.”

Untapped Medical Potential in Overlooked Plant Material

According to Prof. de Villiers, the discovery underscores how much remains to be learned about Cannabis. So far, most research has focused on cannabinoids, the compounds responsible for the plant’s psychoactive effects.

“Our analysis again highlights the medicinal potential of Cannabis plant material, currently regarded as waste. Cannabis exhibits a rich and unique non-cannabinoid phenolic profile, which could be relevant from a biomedical research perspective,” he concludes.

The findings suggest that even parts of the plant often discarded, such as leaves, may hold valuable compounds with potential uses in medicine.