A new analysis of solar and wind power shows its generation worldwide has outpaced electricity demand this year.

"Applying for an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship: A Fellow’s Perspective" is an informal, non-official guide written by two successful recipients of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow...

The world’s oldest complete wooden hunting weapons from Schöningen, Germany, are 100,000 years younger than previously claimed.

Zymoseptoria tritici is a cosmopolitan hemibiotrophic wheat pathogen with a high mutation rate and a mixed reproduction system, with sexual and asexual cycles occurring within the same disease cycle. ...

Pathogens are engaged in a fierce evolutionary arms race with their host. The genes at the forefront of the engagement between kingdoms are often part…

Starships form a recently discovered superfamily of giant transposons in Pezizomycotina fungi, implicated in mediating horizontal transfer of diverse cargo genes between fungal genomes. Their elusive nature has long obscured their significance, and their impact on genome evolution remains poorly understood. Here, we reveal a surprising abundance and diversity of Starships in the phytopathogenic fungus Verticillium dahliae. Remarkably, Starships dominate the plastic genomic compartments involved in host colonization, are enriched in virulence-associated genes, and exhibit genetic and epigenetic characteristics associated with adaptive genome evolution. We further uncover extensive horizontal transfer of Starships between Verticillium species and, strikingly, from distantly related Fusarium fungi. Finally, we demonstrate how Starship activity facilitated the de novo formation of a novel virulence gene. Our findings illuminate the profound influence of Starship dynamics on fungal genome evolution and the development of virulence. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

Numerous gram-negative bacterial pathogens employ the type III secretion system (T3SS), a multiprotein injectisome, to deliver virulence proteins into host cells and cause diseases. We uncover erucami...

Inorganic phosphate (Pi) is essential for life, and plant cells monitor Pi availability by sensing inositol pyrophosphate (PP-InsP) levels. In this work, we describe the hijacking of plant phosphate s...