Large-scale field investigation in the Eastern Tianshan Mountains of Xinjiang identified 108 Palaeolithic/microlithic surface findspots. Pulei Cave reveals the first well-preserved spelean sediment record containing Upper Palaeolithic cultural remains in eastern Xinjiang, dating from c. 45–43 ka BP.

This article challenges the OECD’s dominant downstream-centric framework on plastic pollution by drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. While OECD policies emphasize mismanaged waste and littering in low- and middle-income countries as primary causes of plastic leakage, the authors argue this perspective obscures the structural role of upstream plastic production, driven largely by petrochemical interests in the Global North. Through field data, the article reveals how “leaky” infrastructures – such as incineration plants in India, public–private waste partnerships in Indonesia and grassroots upcycling in the Philippines – fail to contain plastic waste, often exacerbating pollution and exposing communities to toxic emissions and microplastics. The study introduces a conceptual framework of “material and structural leakiness,” emphasizing how plastics and the infrastructures designed to manage them are inherently porous. It critiques the notion of shared responsibility, highlighting how it disproportionately burdens marginalized communities. The authors call for a paradigm shift away from recycling and clean-up as core solutions, advocating instead for upstream interventions like production caps and chemical regulation. The article underscores that without legally binding global commitments to reduce virgin plastic production, the toxic burden of plastic pollution will continue to fall on the most vulnerable populations.

Following the recent report of strongyloidiasis caused by Strongyloides fuelleborni within a semi-captive colony of baboons in a UK safari park, we investigated the genetic relationships of this isolate with other Strongyloides isolates across the world. Whole-genome sequencing data were generated with later phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial (mt) cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) and nuclear ribosomal 18S sequences against 300 published Strongyloides reference genotypes. The putative African origin of the UK S. fuelleborni was confirmed and full-length mt genome sequences were assembled to facilitate a more detailed phylogenetic analysis of 14 mt coding regions against all available Strongyloides species. Our analyses demonstrated that the UK isolate represented a novel African lineage not previously described. Additional complete mt genomes were assembled for several individual UK safari park worms to reveal a slightly altered mt genome gene arrangement, allowing clear separation from Asian S. fuelleborni. Furthermore, these UK worms possessed expanded intergenic regions of unknown function that increase their mt genome size to approximately 24 kilobases (kb) as compared with some 16 kb for Asian S. fuelleborni; this may have arisen from unique populational founder and genetic drift effects set within the peculiar mixed species baboon and drill ancestry of this semi-captive primate colony. A maximum likelihood phylogeny constructed from 14 mt coding regions also supported an evolutionary distinction between Asian and African S. fuelleborni.

Although there is a clear rise in academic interest in region formation, theoretical approaches to the topic vary greatly, stemming from geopolitical identifications of objective regional boundaries, through functionalist ideas of regional linkages, to post-structuralist ideas about fluid regional belonging. This article provides a typology of region formation approaches, based on the ontological assumptions of its authors. The typology is based on two main debates within contemporary international relations ontology: regarding the basic components of reality (material vs. ideational) and regarding the status of theories (transfactual vs. phenomenalist). The presented matrix provides an ideal-typical position for each of these four iterations and illustrates its viability in the case of region formation literature on the Asia-Pacific. Doing so, the text contributes to (meta) theoretical discussions of how regions are formed while at the same time illustrating the often-overlooked stories of region formation.

In 2022, the Centre for Global South Asia (CGSA) at Royal Holloway University of London developed a small research project entitled ‘Exhibit Asia’. The aim was to explore the use of exhibitions in nation-making in postcolonial South and East Asia in contrast to the scholarly preoccupation with investigating the region’s history of museums and exhibitions primarily in a colonial context. Its academic outcomes were to be a conference and related publication; but we also wanted our research to be relevant to our students. The resulting intervention in the teaching and learning of history took the form of a curatorial fellowship for an international cohort of ten students from Taiwan, Japan, India, Pakistan and the UK, leading to a co-curated online exhibition. The first section of this article sets out the development, design and delivery of the fellowship and discusses the viability and relevance of such projects. The subsequent three sections are co-authored by several of the participating students. They outline their methods, reflections and learnings; share their insights on the role of exhibitions in perceptions of Asia in the UK today; and analyse responses to ‘Tea and Tigers’, the online exhibition that was the outcome of the fellowship.

Eight Acheulean sites are located in an under-researched ecological setting within the hilly terrain of the Upper Son Valley, India. A total of 1348 Acheulean artefacts have been identified across these sites, primarily preserved in high-energy depositional contexts, providing insights into the Pleistocene environment of hominin occupation and available lithic technology.

A species new to science, Micarea svetlanae, is described from the southern part of the Russian Far East based on morphological, chemical and molecular data. This species is closely related to M. isidioprasina, which also has the micareic acid, the granular-isidiate thallus with Sedifolia-grey pigment, and crystalline granules in the hymenium and thallus, but differs in the cushion-shaped thallus, the presence of Sedifolia-grey pigment in the hymenium, numerous crystalline granules in the hymenium and hypothecium and 0–2(3)-septate ascospores. The results of the phylogenetic reconstruction place M. svetlanae in the M. prasina group. Morphological features and data on ecology, distribution and secondary metabolites are presented in detail in the paper. This new lichen species is named in honour of the Russian lichenologist Dr Svetlana Tchabanenko, who devoted her life to the study of lichens of the Russian Far East.

A new Philippine foliicolous species, Porina dolichoepiphylla, was discovered from the central part of Mindanao Island, and is described and illustrated here. This new species is characterized by conspicuously longer ascospores, a feature shared only with P. virescens within the Porina epiphylla subgroup but can be distinguished from the latter by its hairless surface, as well as rough thalli with primordia of perithecia. Porina dolichoepiphylla sp. nov. is known only from the type locality on Mt Kitanglad, growing along the frond of Asplenium vittaeforme in a shady lower montane forest. An updated checklist of Porina species in the Philippines with a taxonomic key to the foliicolous species of the Porina epiphylla subgroup is also provided. The discovery of the new lichen species highlights the importance of continued exploration and documentation efforts within the Philippine archipelago.