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Following up on their recent study in Communications Biology Sasha Tetu et al discuss how plastic pollution of the oceans may affect marine microbes as well as strategies to identify the substances responsible for leachate toxicity and to further understand their impact.
In light of their recent finding that insertion of a rare endogenous retrovirus, β4, is the cause of the characteristic coat coloring in agouti and piebald mice, Akira Tanave and Tsuyoshi Koide now discuss the origin and expansion of this element as well as potential roles of β4 in the mouse genome.
Karen Echeverri and her colleagues showed in their recent Communications Biology study that an unconventional Fos/Jun heterodimer regulates axon regeneration in axolotl. In this article, she emphasises the diverse mechanisms of regeneration in other species and discusses future work needed to understand how the nervous system can be regenerated.
Chathuranga Dharmarathne et al. discuss an innovative conservation project to reduce human-elephant conflict in Sri Lanka. This project uses citrus trees to repel elephants from farms, thereby reducing crop loss among farmers and providing additional income.