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: Getting touchy

A once-mysterious neural pathway may have a crucial role in making injured areas overly sensitive to touch, a study in mice suggests. When a person has any kind of injury—a broken shin, for example, or a sunburn—the pain system becomes hypersensitised, firing up in response to normally painless sensations induced by, for instance, walking or a gentle massage. Normally, this tenderness protects the vulnerable tissue as it heals. But occasionally the pain can overstay its usefulness, becoming chronic in conditions such as arthritis. Now, neuroscientists from the University of California, San Francisco have found that a small subset of nerve fibres, the function of which remained a puzzle since their discovery decades ago, could be routing innocuous touch sensations to the pain pathway when there’s an injury. The researchers found that the fibres, called unmyelinated low-threshold mechanoreceptors (C-LTMRs), are easily stimulated, unlike classic pain fibres, which respond only when the sensation is intense. But C-LTMRs aren’t usually used to detect light touch - this falls to another another major group of sensory neurons—so their role was unclear. The small population of cells have remained enigmatic because they have been difficult to target specifically.

Talking trees

After decades of seeing plants as passive recipients of fate, scientists have found them capable of behaviours once thought unique to animals. Some plants even appear to be social, favouring family while pushing strangers from the neighbourhood. Research into plant sociality is still young, with many questions unanswered. But it may change how people conceive of the floral world, and provide new ways of raising productivity on Earth’s maxed-out farmlands. In a recent research, biologists at McMaster University have described how Impatiens pallida, a common flowering plant, devotes less energy than usual to growing roots when surrounded by relatives. In the presence of genetically unrelated Impatiens, individuals grow their roots as fast as they can. Acknowledging relatives in this way is an example of kin recognition. It’s common in the animal world, and is a precursor to kin selection, in which animals help their familial group, not just themselves. The researchers think plants have kin selection, too. It’s a controversial idea, but that it’s even being debated shows how far research into plant sociality has come. Intriguingly, the plants in McMaster University’s latest study were potted separately and unexposed to each others’ secretions, suggesting that their leaves emit chemical signals, as well as their roots.

Supersonic speed