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While numerous studies have documented microplastic contamination in coastal waters and surface oceans, little has been known about its presence in the deep sea, which accounts for nearly 90% of the world's marine environment. In particular, hydrothermal vent ecosystems—unique deep-sea habitats that support diverse life despite the absence of sunlight—have remained largely unexplored with respect to microplastic pollution.

A research team led by Dr. Se-Joo Kim and Dr. Jinyoung Jeong at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), in collaboration with researchers from the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST), has conducted the world's first comparative study to reveal how microplastics accumulate in animals inhabiting hydrothermal vents in two different oceans.

The researchers analyzed deep-sea snails and mussels collected by KIOST from hydrothermal vents located more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) below the surface in the North Fiji Basin of the southwestern Pacific Ocean and the Central Indian Ridge in the Indian Ocean. KRIBB researchers subsequently performed detailed microplastic analyses and ecological interpretations of the collected specimens.

Microplastics found across vent species

The study detected microplastics in 92% of all animals examined, with an average of 3.42 particles per individual, demonstrating that even remote deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems are already contaminated by plastic pollution. Among the detected polymers, polystyrene, widely used in consumer products and packaging materials, was the most abundant.

The researchers further discovered that feeding behavior plays a major role in determining where microplastics accumulate within the body.

In grazing snails that feed on microbial mats covering the seafloor, microplastics were concentrated primarily in the digestive organs. By contrast, filter-feeding mussels exhibited a relatively even distribution of microplastics throughout their tissues, indicating that biological characteristics strongly influence the pathways through which microplastics enter and accumulate within marine organisms.

Sharp differences between ocean basins

The comparison between two ocean basins also revealed substantial regional differences.

Animals collected from the Indian Ocean contained significantly higher concentrations of microplastics than those from the southwestern Pacific. After normalizing for body weight, Indian Ocean specimens contained up to 14.7 times higher microplastic concentrations. The researchers suggest that differences in surrounding human activities, riverine plastic inputs and large-scale ocean circulation likely contributed to these regional variations.

Evidence reaching the deep ocean

The findings provide the first scientific evidence that plastic pollution generated at the ocean surface can be transported thousands of meters downward, reaching one of Earth's most remote and extreme marine ecosystems.

The study also demonstrates that biological characteristics such as feeding strategy influence how microplastics accumulate within organisms, while regional environmental conditions determine the overall level of contamination.

These findings are expected to contribute to future deep-sea environmental monitoring, environmental impact assessments for deep-sea mineral resource development and long-term conservation strategies for deep-sea ecosystems.

"Plastic pollution has now spread even to deep-sea hydrothermal vent ecosystems that were once considered among the most isolated environments on Earth," said Kim, one of the corresponding authors of the study. "Our findings provide important scientific evidence for establishing future deep-sea environmental monitoring systems and conservation policies."

Publication details

Won-Kyung Lee et al, Oceanic determinants of microplastic bioaccumulation in fauna of deep-sea hydrothermal vents: Comparative study of the southwestern Pacific and Indian Oceans, Water Research (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2026.126245

Who's behind this story?

Swati Mestri

Swati Mestri holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering and has worked as a content editor since 2019. She has experience editing research documents across technology, health care, and materials science, and has a particular interest in technology and space. Full profile →

Andrew Zinin

Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →

Citation: Microplastics reach even 2,000 meters below the ocean surface, study finds (2026, July 15) retrieved 16 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-microplastics-meters-ocean-surface.html

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At first, these letters were received by the public as possibly either a clerical error or a glitch in the system. Not so, according to a California DMV spokesperson, who said that internal monitoring had flagged some patterns that indicated the possibility that cheating had occurred. Those who received letters were told to retake the test and pass within 30 days or have their driver's license revoked on the spot.

Hardly anyone finds visiting their local DMV office a fun outing, to the point that the Zootopia cast sloths as customer service employees as an easy joke. And a funny one, fair play to the animators. Tedious form-filling and waiting around are the hallmarks of bureaucracy.

However, in an age when everyone has a phone in their pocket that has the answers to every kind of question, there's at least the temptation to look up answers if you get stuck. The large scale of California's reaction seems to indicate widespread problems.

It is also causing problems for some drivers. Getting around in California isn't easy if you don't have a car, and having the threat of your license being taken away can seriously disrupt your life. It's one thing to study for the written test, and perhaps retake it if you miss something or get confused by the way a question is worded. It's something else entirely to have an established pattern to your life and then be told to write a test or lose that license in the span of a month.

Already, there are stories of people who have previously passed a written driving exam and then failed on their second attempt, and that doesn't mean they cheated. Two California state senators have written to the DMV asking for reasons why these tests were flagged, and asking for transparency on what was done to trigger this mass letter campaign.

At the same time, anyone who has spent any time on the highways of Los Angeles knows that it's not exactly textbook driving etiquette and peace and harmony out there. As Homer Simpson observed, "Gas brake honk. Gas brake honk. Honk honk punch. Gas gas gas." If people are trying to game the written test by whatever means, then the DMV needs to be vigilant.

So, on one hand, cheaters shouldn't prosper. And on the other hand, how easily would you sail through a written driving test tomorrow if you had to know the rules of the road down to the last letter? Who has the right of way when two cars pull up to a four-way stop at the same time again? Perhaps it's time for a quick refresher, DMV letter or not.

➡️ Skip the lot. Let Car and Driver help you find your next car.

Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels. %!s()

The request follows the death of Mexican immigrant Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston. Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term, 17 Mexican immigrants have died during immigration enforcement, 14 in ICE custody and three in agency operations.

Mexico’s foreign ministry had previously said it would make the request, which was formalized on Tuesday, according to the ministry. It said a similar request will also be sent to the US Department of Justice.

The United States is not legally obliged to act on the requests.

Also, the Mexican government said it had started sending letters to US detention centers where Mexican immigrants had died, demanding they “immediately cease the actions or omissions that resulted in these deaths, such as preventing access to prompt and expedited medical care, as well as the application of policies incompatible with medical and penitentiary standards”.

The first center to receive the letter was Adelanto, in California, where four Mexican immigrants died.

The letters are a first step toward “the eventual filing of civil lawsuits” against the companies that operate the detention centers to stop human rights violations, according to the ministry.

Last week, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, the Mexican foreign minister, said his country would go directly to US authorities to request criminal investigations in cases of Mexicans killed in ICE custody or enforcement operations.

Salgado Araujo, who had no criminal record and had lived in the US for 35 years, was shot last Tuesday while driving his construction crew to a job site in Houston. His death sparked protests in Houston and demands for an independent investigation from Democrats and Salgado Araujo’s family.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said the 52-year-old had rammed an ICE vehicle, and that a federal agent fired a weapon in self-defense.

Velasco Álvarez also sent a letter to Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, requesting that US authorities gather information on the deaths of the Mexican immigrants in ICE custody and analyze the “compatibility of these events with international human rights obligations”.

The foreign minister also asked Türk to seek the opinion of the Human Rights Council, a UN intergovernmental body that promotes human rights, on the cases and offer recommendations.

The developments mark an escalation in Claudia Sheinbaum’s response to Trump’s immigration crackdown. The Mexican president earlier this year ordered Mexico’s diplomatic missions across the US to regularly check in with ICE detainees, and her government even lodged a complaint with Türk. %!s()

That's according to a new review that discusses the ongoing threat of antimicrobial-resistant infections and why current prevention and treatment methods fall short.

"Bioactive environments to combat antimicrobial resistance: artificial intelligence and model-driven microbial biocontrol for living materials" is a review carried out by researchers at University of California San Diego and recently accepted for publication by the Journal of Applied Microbiology.

It also explores how AI and metabolic modeling approaches can inform the design, development and testing of more effective biocontrol strategies.

Global health threat

"Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health threat, projected to cause 8–10 million deaths annually by 2050. The persistent failure of current antibiotic treatments has led to the assertion by some that we are already in the post-antibiotic era. More research is needed to develop effective strategies that can prevent infections in the first place," said lead author Dr. Kathleen Furtado.

"Extensive cleaning with chemical disinfectants is our current frontline defense, but this approach is not always effective at removing resistant pathogens, and certain cleaners can even promote the development of resistance. We discuss using microbial biocontrol as a complementary approach to combat antimicrobial resistance. In other words, using 'good' microbes to outcompete, directly inhibit and/or occupy space such that pathogens cannot gain a foothold."

Microbial control so far

To date, microbial biocontrol has been tested in agriculture, for livestock and soils, and in various built environments, particularly hospitals.

But in built environments, the outcomes of microbial biocontrol have been inconsistent, with some studies citing large reductions in pathogen prevalence while others have seen little effect. These inconsistencies are likely due to several factors, such as genetic differences between the strains used, undefined mechanisms for how those strains could inhibit pathogens, environmental stressors that vary between facilities, nutrient variability on different built-environment surfaces and other microbes present in that environment.

Moreover, the current regulatory landscape for microbial biocontrol in built environments lacks a consistent approach for risk assessment, which is a significant barrier to implementation. The review argues that AI and modeling can help account for these variables and guide testing for risk assessment.

How AI can help

"This review adds to our understanding of the field by highlighting how AI can synthesize information from microbial metabolic modeling, multi-omic data sets and more focused lab experiments," Furtado said.

"We describe how AI and models can make microbial biocontrol more feasible, specifically by predicting how biocontrol microbes might interact with existing communities or pathogens, identifying potential risks (e.g., likelihood for resistance genes to spread) and integrating context-specific information about a given environment to better predict how microbes might interact in the real world.

"We describe how these models fit within iterative design-test-learn cycles: laboratory and multi-omic data inform metabolic models and can collectively be used to build AI foundation models. These models generate predictions that then inform new experiments to validate and/or further improve existing models. This iterative cycle of prediction, validation and continually filling gaps in our models serves to promote the development of innovative, effective and safe biocontrol."

The built environment

Microbes for biocontrol could be deployed in spray cleaners; this approach has been tested, and certain formulations are commercially available, although data on their efficacy is mixed.

However, these formulations could be improved by selecting strains that are most likely to survive and be active against pathogens in built environments, which is where modeling approaches would be particularly helpful.

"We also discuss how microbial biocontrol may be implemented using engineered living materials (ELMs), which could allow for sustained biocontrol and enhanced biosafety. ELMs involve growing or embedding/printing microbes into materials that are suitable for construction (e.g., ceramics, concrete and cellulose)," Furtado said.

"Microbes can even be encapsulated in materials to prevent their escape, which would further reduce any potential human health or environmental risks while still allowing for competitive inhibition (e.g., by competing for nutrients or secreting compounds that inhibit pathogens).

"Modeling could further enhance this approach by identifying materials that optimally balance supporting survival and activity of the biocontrol microbe with structural integrity."

Next steps

Furtado warns that any insights gained from using AI and metabolic modeling must be experimentally validated to ensure the microbes and engineering approaches used are effective and safe.

"Also, we still know relatively little about how microbes behave in real-world built-environment settings—specifically, the extent to which potential competitive mechanisms are actually expressed by biocontrol microbes in these settings. More mechanistic experiments are needed, and AI-guided model predictions provide a potential way to identify, prioritize and design these experiments," she said.

This review was led by Furtado and Dr. Jack Gilbert, with support from Dr. Maxwell Neal, who has extensive expertise in metabolic modeling approaches.

More information

Kathleen L Furtado et al, Bioactive environments to combat antimicrobial resistance: artificial intelligence and model-driven microbial biocontrol for living materials, Journal of Applied Microbiology (2026). DOI: 10.1093/jambio/lxag161

Who's behind this story?

Gaby Clark

MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news. Full profile →

Andrew Zinin

Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →

Citation: Helpful microbes could battle pathogens in our hospitals and schools—with the help of AI to make it work (2026, July 15) retrieved 16 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-microbes-pathogens-hospitals-schools-ai.html

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Only in coastal regions do plants exist that have developed special salt-tolerance mechanisms. Such plants are known as halophytes. Yet glycophytes can also protect themselves against higher salt concentrations and drought to a certain extent.

To develop resistant crops, it is necessary to understand the various molecular regulatory mechanisms that play a role in the response to salt stress. A team led by Professor Iris Finkemeier from the Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Münster (Germany) and Professor Motoaki Seki from the RIKEN research institute (Japan) has discovered a previously unknown mechanism. The paper is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A histone mark tied to stress

The researchers investigated the "histone code" and its role in adapting to salt stress in thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana). Histones are proteins within the genome. They do not carry genetic information but regulate, along with other factors, whether and to what extent information in DNA is used to produce proteins. This epigenetic control is based on chemical modifications to histones, known as histone marks, which influence the interaction between histones, DNA and regulatory proteins. The researchers discovered a histone mark essential to the plant's stress response.

In thale cress, the enzyme "HDA19" plays an important role in regulating plant development, metabolism and stress response. The team demonstrated that this enzyme is responsible for removing the newly discovered histone mark, thereby influencing how the plant copes with high salt content. Plants lacking the enzyme are significantly more tolerant of saline soils.

A trade-off in tougher plants

In these plants, proteins also found in dry seeds ("late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins") are produced in greater quantities. These proteins help plants adapt to drought. However, these plants grow slightly more slowly and produce reduced seed yields. These seedlings are well suited to deciphering the molecular basis of control. In addition to various molecular genetic methods, the team used high-resolution mass spectrometry and identified proteins regulated by HDA19.

Publication details

Florian Kotnik et al, HDA19-mediated deacetylation of histone H3.3 at lysines 27 and 36 regulates plant sensitivity to salt stress, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2026). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2534315123

Who's behind this story?

Gaby Clark

MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news. Full profile →

Andrew Zinin

Master's in physics with research experience. Long-time science news enthusiast. Plays key role in Science X's editorial success. Full profile →

Citation: Epigenetic mechanism explains how some plants cope with salt stress (2026, July 15) retrieved 16 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-epigenetic-mechanism-cope-salt-stress.html

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only. %!s()