That is the finding of a recently published peer-reviewed journal article, whose authors recommend further study and consideration of changes to regulations to protect consumers, especially those who are immunocompromised. They examined data, previous studies, and U.S. and international regulations related to the cannabis and hemp industry.

The article was published in Frontiers in Microbiology. It was researched and written by Kimberly Gwinn, professor of entomology and plant pathology at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture: Maxwell Leung, assistant professor, and Ariell Stephens, graduate student, both from the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Arizona State University; and Zamir Punja, professor of plant pathology/biotechnology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.

“Hemp and cannabis are new crops, and we are in the early stages of understanding relationships with their pathogens. Several pathogens produce mycotoxins, compounds that negatively impact human health and are regulated in other crops. In this review, we summarize the current literature on mycotoxins in hemp and cannabis products, identify research gaps in potential mycotoxin contamination in hemp and cannabis, and identify potential developments based on research in other crop systems,” Gwinn said.

Cannabis research has mostly focused on the substance and medical uses of the plant, but with the increased legalization of cannabis for various uses, this article addresses the need for more study of potential health risks.

“Although fungi and mycotoxins are common and well-studied contaminants in many agricultural crop species, they have been generally under-studied in cannabis and hemp. This is partly because human health risk assessment methodologies used to regulate food and pharmaceuticals have yet to become standard for the emerging cannabis and hemp industries. Additionally, the wide range of consumer uses of cannabis and hemp flowers, including for medical use by patients with susceptible conditions, makes it uniquely challenging to assess and manage human health risk of these contaminants,” according to the article.

The authors discuss Aspergillus, Penicillium, Fusarium, Mucor, and other fungi that can infect the plants and can produce mycotoxins; review the regulations and assessment methods of the contaminants; and offer recommendations to produce safer products for all consumers. Environmental factors such as where the plants are grown, whether indoors or outdoors, and in soil or soilless media, may impact the kinds of contaminants and ensuing health risks.

Studies reviewed by the authors show some fungi may cause infection on lung and skin tissues, and these infections were most common when smoked and less common in edibles. They also found cancer patients using cannabis to help with nausea and appetite as well as transplant patients and consumers with HIV and type 1 diabetes may be particularly susceptible to infection. Studies also show workers harvesting cannabis could also be at risk. The authors encouraged consumers who are immunocompromised to use products that have been sterilized until better data are obtained.

The authors studied international and U.S. standards for these contaminants, but there is a lack of data on the prevalence of the contaminants and their health impacts. Another issue for consumers is the varying levels of legalization of cannabis products from state to state, which has resulted in each state creating its own regulations. Fusarium mycotoxins, a prevalent class of fungal contaminants in agricultural commodities that can result in vomiting, are not currently regulated.

Assessing and testing for pathogens can be problematic, as the authors found when they studied various methods including culture-based assays, immuno-based technologies, and emerging technologies. The article also examines management of the possible toxins before harvest and after harvest. “A major hurdle faced by cannabis and hemp industries is addressing the disconnect between production-related issues and human safety issues,” the article states. Recreational use of hemp and cannabis is common in many areas and all case studies linking cannabis use and fungal infections, except one, involved patients who were immunocompromised. The authors suggest a potential solution is “to reduce potential harm to medical users of cannabis from toxigenic fungi is to develop a two-tier system that distinguishes products intended for medical and recreational use.”

“We wrote this article to bring these issues to the attention of the scientific, medical, and regulatory communities. We hope to encourage further research in this area, particularly in the areas of mycotoxins in product. Better data and public access to data will allow us to fully evaluate these risks and subsequently ensure safe products for consumers,” Gwinn said.

Urbanization and human activities have transformed a significant proportion of the land on Earth, resulting in the formation of urban environments. These urban environments are human-made habitats that often impose several selective pressures on their inhabitants. A key characteristic of such environments is the presence of impermeable, heat-retaining surfaces created using brick, stone, asphalt, and concrete. Notably, these surfaces form urban heat islands, i.e., regions with elevated surface temperatures. An unexpected result of heat stress is the impact on the behavior, physiology, and evolutionary trajectories of resident organisms. Although several studies have investigated the role of urban heat stress on evolution in animals, its effects on plant evolution remain largely unexplored.

To address this gap, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Yuya Fukano from the Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, Japan, investigated how urban heat islands affect the leaf colors of Oxalis corniculata, also known as the creeping woodsorrel. This plant exhibits diverse leaf colors ranging from green to red and is found in both urban and non-urban spaces across the world. Research suggests that these color variations serve as an evolutionary adaptation to protect the plant from environmental stress. Moreover, red pigments (anthocyanins) in the leaves are thought to mitigate heat and light-induced damage by intercepting light and forming antioxidants.

To investigate this evolutionary theory, Dr. Yuya Fukano and his team, comprising Dr. Wataru Yamori from the University of Tokyo, Dr. Yuuya Tachiki from Tokyo Metropolitan University, and Dr. Kenta Shirasawa from the Kazusa DNA Research Institute, conducted field observations of the leaf color distribution in the creeping woodsorrel, across urban and non-urban regions at the local, landscape, and the global scales. Their study findings were published in Science Advances on [date]. “We noticed that the red-leaved variants of the creeping woodsorrel commonly grew near impervious surfaces in urban areas but rarely grew in farmlands or green spaces in and around the city,” says Dr. Fukano, while discussing their observations. The team identified a pattern where green-leaved variants of the creeping woodsorrel dominated green spaces while their red-leaf counterparts dominated the urban sites of Tokyo at both the local and landscape levels. Upon further examination of an online database, the team discovered that these geographical findings were consistent across the globe, thereby confirming a link between urbanization and leaf color variations in the creeping woodsorrel.

This motivated the team to quantify the adaptive benefits of these leaf color variations by examining their influence over biomass growth and photosynthetic ability under heat stress and non-heat stress conditions across controlled and uncontrolled cultivation experiments.

Through these experiments, the team found that the red-leaf variants exhibited superior growth rates and higher photosynthetic efficiency under high temperatures, whereas green-leaf variants thrived in lower temperatures. As a result, red-leaf variants tend to thrive in urban areas with low plant density due to high stress tolerance. The opposite is true for their green-leaf counterparts, which display higher growth competitiveness in lush green areas. “Although these findings will not change much in the immediate future, this study showcases one of the most popular examples of ongoing evolution that can be observed in urban areas,” remarks Dr. Fukano.

The team also conducted genome-wide genetic analyses, which indicated that the red-leaf variant of O. corniculata may have evolved multiple times from the ancestral green-leaf plant. Discussing the implications of these findings, Dr. Fukano mentions, “Urban heat islands are precursors to global warming. Understanding the rapid adaptive evolution of urban organisms to high temperatures will provide valuable insights on ecosystem dynamics and sustainable crop production.”

These adaptations to high-temperature stress likely extend beyond leaf color, thereby warranting further research into various plant traits for a comprehensive understanding of plant adaptation to urban heat islands.

The team published the findings Oct. 20 in the journal Science Advances. The researchers found that a harsh workplace climate, which can include harassment and feelings of not belonging, was the most common reason women left academia. This attrition affects not only early-career professionals, but also those who have achieved the highest ranks in universities, the study found.

This finding helps to explain, in part, why women remain underrepresented among faculty in nearly all academic fields in the U.S., said Katie Spoon, the paper’s first author and a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science. For example, only 28% of professors in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields are women in the U.S., despite women receiving 40% of STEM PhDs for the past 10 to 15 years.

“If you look back at the literature from 20 or 30 years ago, it painted a much bleaker picture than many of the newer studies today,” said Aaron Clauset, the paper’s corresponding author and a professor of computer science. “Things are changing, but there is still a lot of work left to do.”

Previous research on gendered attrition in academia tended to have a limited scope.

Many studies investigated faculty retention only among assistant professors, in STEM fields, or at high-prestige institutions, due to the difficulties in finding and reaching faculty who left academia.

Spoon and her team analyzed a census of employment records of all 245,270 tenure-track and tenured professors from 391 PhD-granting universities and institutions in the U.S. They came from STEM fields, but also disciplines like social sciences and business. The tenure track is a professor’s pathway to promotion. Faculty members usually start as assistant professors without tenure. If they get promoted, they become tenured associate professors, and eventually they can be promoted to full professors, an indefinite appointment that tends to come with more academic freedom and job security.

The researchers found women are leaving academia at a higher rate than men at every career stage, especially after they receive full professorship. During their appointment as assistant professors, women are 6% more likely to leave their jobs than men each year. The attrition rate is higher among full professors, where women professors are 19% more likely to leave academia than men each year.

“We were surprised to see the gender gap actually grow after faculty received tenure, given how important the title is,” Spoon said. “This result suggests that perhaps the field has neglected thinking about tenured women and their experiences.”

The team also surveyed more than 10,000 current and former faculty members for factors that led or could lead to their decision to leave a faculty job. The result showed women are more likely to feel pushed by a variety of factors out of their faculty positions, while men are more likely to be pulled toward more attractive jobs elsewhere. The most common reasons women, especially tenured women, reported for leaving academia were harsh workplace climates, which can include dysfunctional leadership, harassment, discrimination and feelings of not belonging.

While previous research has suggested that women are more likely to leave academia in pursuit of better work-life balance, the new paper found that male faculty were about as likely to leave for this reason.

“We see an emphasis on work-life balance among early career faculty members,” said Clauset. “But the issue with workplace climate is the dominating factor among the women tenured professors, a position that lasts the majority of one’s academic career.”

The researchers hope their paper will inspire administrators nationwide to take action.

“It can start with asking faculty, particularly women, what needs to be done, listening, and taking specific, concrete steps to address their concerns,” Spoon said.

The fossils were found 40 years ago in north-eastern France. An international team of palaeontologists from the Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld in Germany, the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland, the Natural History Museum in Luxembourg and The Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University in Sweden have now analysed them and identified them as a new pliosaur genus: Lorrainosaurus.

Pliosaurs were a type of plesiosaur with short necks and massive skulls. They appeared over 200 million years ago, but remained minor components of marine ecosystems until suddenly developing into enormous apex predators. The new study shows that this adaptive shift followed feeding niche differentiation and the global decline of other predatory marine reptiles over 170 million years ago.

Lorrainosaurus is the oldest large-bodied pliosaur represented by an associated skeleton. It had jaws over 1.3 m long with large conical teeth and a bulky ‘torpedo-shaped’ body propelled by four flipper-like limbs.

“Lorrainosaurus was one of the first truly huge pliosaurs. It gave rise to a dynasty of marine reptile mega-predators that ruled the oceans for around 80 million years,” explains Sven Sachs, a researcher at the Naturkunde-Museum Bielefeld, who led the study.

This giant reptile probably reached over 6 m from snout to tail, and lived during the early Middle Jurassic period. Intriguingly, very little is known about plesiosaurs from that time.

“Our identification of Lorrainosaurus as one of the earliest mega-predatory pliosaurs demonstrates that these creatures emerged immediately after a landmark restructuring of marine predator ecosystems across the Early-to-Middle Jurassic boundary, some 175 to 171 million years ago. This event profoundly affected many marine reptile groups and brought mega-predatory pliosaurids to dominance over ‘fish-like’ ichthyosaurs, ancient marine crocodile relatives, and other large-bodied predatory plesiosaurs,” adds Daniel Madzia from the Institute of Paleobiology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, who co-led the study.

Pliosaurs were some of the most successful marine predators of their time.

“Famous examples, such as Pliosaurus and Kronosaurus — some of the world’s largest pliosaurs — were absolutely enormous with body-lengths exceeding 10 m. They were ecological equivalents of today’s Killer whales and would have eaten a range of prey including squid-like cephalopods, large fish and other marine reptiles. These have all been found as preserved gut contents,” said senior co-author Benjamin Kear, Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Researcher in Palaeontology at The Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University.

The recovered bones and teeth of Lorrainosaurus represent remnants of what was once a complete skeleton that decomposed and was dispersed across the ancient sea floor by currents and scavengers.

“The remains were unearthed in 1983 from a road cutting near Metz in Lorraine, north-eastern France. Palaeontology enthusiasts from the Association minéralogique et paléontologique d’Hayange et des environs recognised the significance of their discovery and donated the fossils to the Natural History Museum in Luxembourg,” said co-author Ben Thuy, Curator at the Natural History Museum in Luxembourg.

Other than a brief report published in 1994, the fossils of Lorrainosaurus remained obscure until this new study re-evaluated the finds. Lorrainosaurus indicates that the reign of gigantic mega-predatory pliosaurs must have commenced earlier than previously thought, and was locally responsive to major ecological changes affecting marine environments covering what is now western Europe during the early Middle Jurassic.

“Lorrainosaurus is thus a critical addition to our knowledge of ancient marine reptiles from a time in the Age of Dinosaurs that has as yet been incompletely understood,” says Benjamin Kear.