BULLETIN 1
As famine data dries up, can AI step in? (Devex)

 

A crowd of Rohingya refugees clamors for food during a distribution by a volunteer organization in Kutupalong camp in southern Bangladesh in 2017.
Credit: Tommy Trenchard / Panos Pictures
CGIAR June 13 2025

This was shared in Devex Newswire.
Researchers are developing AI tools to predict famine more accurately and affordably — especially in conflict zones and data-scarce areas — as traditional early warning systems face the financial strain of aid cuts, Devex reported. Yanyan Liu was interviewed for this article exploring how IFPRI’s model could eventually assist humanitarians, policymakers, and development agencies once it is peer-reviewed and published, which could happen later this year.
“We are not trying to replace IPC or FEWS NET,” said Yanyan Liu. “But we can say that our model, this method, is complementary,” Liu said. “Our model can help fill in some gaps, some locations, in the conflict-affected setting, for example — where we cannot send people to go.”
The article emphasized that conflict is one of the most important factors to consider when it comes to predicting hunger. Devex reported that the IFPRI team found that a 10% increase in conflict intensity corresponds with a 31% chance that people classified as “stressed” — or IPC Phase 2, according to IPC’s five-stage framework for assessing the severity of hunger crises — get pushed into Phase 3 or worse, which marks the threshold for humanitarian crisis, and that Stage 5 is famine.
Using all of these inputs, the model uses machine learning to forecast the extent and severity of acute food insecurity up to a year in advance. Validated against published IPC estimates, it accurately identifies 94.1% of cases classified as IPC Phase 3 or worse, Liu said. In addition, 77.5% of cases the model predicted to experience severe food insecurity materialized within three to 12 months, the article stated.
Read the full article here
See https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/as-famine-data-dries-up-can-ai-step-in-devex/

 

BULLETIN 2

FAO at the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference

 

 

FAO News

FAO’s engagement at the United Nations Ocean Conference 2025 emphasized the essential role of science, innovation, and international collaboration in promoting sustainable ocean management, reaffirming the Organization’s role as a leading global authority on sustainable fisheries and aquaculture.
Below is a series of articles highlighting the engagement and leadership of Director-General QU Dongyu, the launch of the most comprehensive global assessment of marine fish stocks to date, and how FAO has reinforced its position as a leading authority for ocean and aquaculture sustainability.
https://www.fao.org/about/fao-unoc-series/en

 

SCIENTIFIC NEWS

Universal features of alternative splicing and the regulatory roles of transcription factors in this process under diverse environmental stimuli in rice
Benze Xiao, Shuai Yang, Chengqi Wang, Fangyu Zhang, Yi Liu, Guosheng Xie & Zhengfeng Zhang
Theoretical and Applied Genetics; June 12 2025; vol.138; article 149

 

Key message
The universal features of AS in rice under diverse environments have been discovered. These features involve tissue variations, temporal fluctuations, commonalities among distinct stresses or treatments, as well as notable differences between differentially alternative splicing and expressed genes. Many differentially AS genes were found to be splicing factors and transcription factors (TFs), and there was a significant correlation between the expression levels of TFs and the PSIs of AS events. The impact of TFs on AS was confirmed through analyzing the transcriptome data of TF mutants and identifying a large number of differential AS events between mutants and wild type. The transcription levels of transcription factors showed a significant correlation with those of splicing factors under abiotic stresses. It was concluded that transcription factors can influence the splicing patterns of stress-responsive genes by regulating the expression of splicing factors. This provides a survey of the existing public resources and approaches that support the roles of AS in plant adaptation to changing environments and the studies on AS regulation.
Abstract
Pre-mRNA alternative splicing (AS) plays an essential role in response to environmental stimuli in plants. Recent studies have revealed the co-transcriptional nature of splicing, leading to the reasonable speculation that elements or factors regulating transcription can influence splicing. However, the impact of transcription factors (TFs) on AS in plants under environmental stimuli is still elusive. Herein, we investigated the universal characteristics and the regulatory roles of TFs in AS under various controlled conditions using a standard RNA-seq dataset, TENOR in rice. Accordingly, we found AS widely occurred in rice under stimuli, showing significant differences between shoots and roots, temporal dynamics, commonalities among different stresses or treatments as well as significant differences between differentially alternatively spliced genes (DASGs) and differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Moreover, a large number of DASGs under various stresses encode for splicing factors (SFs) or TFs. A significant correlation was shown between the expression levels of TFs and the percent spliced in values (PSIs) of AS events. The predominant TFs came from the bHLH, bZIP and HsfA families, and the mutants of OsbHLH148, OsbZIP62 and OsHsfA2e showed obviously different AS events compared with the wild types under abiotic stresses. Furthermore, a significant correlation was discovered between the transcription levels of TFs and SFs. These results suggest that TFs might regulate AS of downstream genes partly by altering their own transcriptional and splicing patterns, thereby further regulating the transcription of SFs. This work provides insights into the general characteristics of AS and the potential mechanisms by which TFs regulate AS in plants.
See https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00122-025-04932-w