Yeast species have several adaptations that enable them to survive in harsh environments. These adaptations include biofilm formation, where the secretion of extracellular polymeric substances can protect the cells from a hostile environment, or, under nutrient-limited conditions, pseudohyphal or hyphal growth, where the colony can send out long tendrils to explore the environment and seek nutrients. Recently, we observed a spiral colony morphology emerge in an isolate of the hyphae-forming yeast Magnusiomyces magnusii (M. magnusii) grown under laboratory conditions. We use an off-lattice agent-based model (ABM) that simulates colony development to investigate the hypothesis that bias in the angle between successive hyphal segments causes the spiral morphology. The model involves biologically motivated rules of hyphal extension, with key model parameters including the colony size at the onset of hyphal filaments, and the angle between the penultimate and the apical segments. Using one example of an experimentally grown colony, we use a sequential neural likelihood method to perform likelihood-free Bayesian inference to infer the model parameters. Our results indicate a mean angle between hyphal segments of ${2.3}^{\circ } [{1.1}^{\circ }, {3.6}^{\circ }]$ (95% credible interval). To confirm the model’s applicability to colony growth, we use biologically feasible parameter values to yield morphologies observed in M. magnusii experiments.

NASA’s ICESat-2 mission was launched in 2018, carrying a photon-counting laser altimeter, with a primary objective of measuring height changes across Earth’s surface. ICESat-2 has provided measurements of ice surface height between 88º N and S, repeated four times per year, with high vertical accuracy and along-track spatial resolution. Its accuracy and coverage has enabled near-complete recovery of height changes across the ice sheets, capturing subtle changes in the interior, and rapid changes along the dynamic margins with steep slopes and the floating peripheral ice shelves. The ICESat-2 Science Team has developed a suite of algorithms that produce along-track and gridded land ice height products at various levels of processing, all freely available at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Here, we describe three higher-level land-ice data products derived from ATL06 and their underlying algorithms: along-track height change (ATL11), digital elevation model (ATL14) and gridded surface height change (ATL15). We demonstrate the suitability of each data product for studying different ice sheet regions. We then show height changes for Greenland and Antarctica from ATL15 during the first 6 years of the ICESat-2 mission (October 2018–December 2024), illustrating how ICESat-2 measurements can distinguish the multi-year trends from seasonal fluctuations.

The article aims to shed new light on the voices of bereaved benefactors: slaves, freedmen and freedwomen, who are often marginalized in literary and monumental sources, by exploring a series of unpublished funerary inscriptions from Rome, currently in storage at the Museo Nazionale Romano. Editions of the text, translations and commentaries have been produced by young scholars from the British School at Rome (former participants of the BSR Postgraduate Course in Epigraphy). Their entries, edited by Abigail Graham (Institute for Classical Studies, University of London, British School at Rome) and Silvia Orlandi (La Sapienza, President of the Association Internationale d’ Epigraphie Grecque et Latine), are an exciting and unique opportunity to view inscriptions through a different lens: from scholars with diverse backgrounds and interests (history, archaeology, epigraphy, as well as linguistics), including postgraduates and academics. Careful consideration of text, appearance and context presents an array of voices and audiences as well as poignant messages that transcend time and space through a common experience: grief. By incorporating interdisciplinary scholars in the editorial process, we aim to provide and promote uniquely accessible epigraphic discussions that reflect the broader impact and significance of epitaphs as texts, images and emotive experiences.