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SPOP is the most mutated protein in prostate cancer and plays a role in endometrial, uterine and other cancers. Despite this importance, how SPOP mutations drive cancer has been incompletely understood. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital used cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to capture the first 3D structure of the entire SPOP assembly. The study, published today in Molecular Cell,revealed previously unknown SPOP interfaces that harbor clusters of cancer-causing mutations.
The normal function of SPOP is to control the level of certain proteins within a cell. When SPOP is dysregulated through mutations, it can cause dramatic effects in the cell because protein levels are altered, triggering abnormal behaviors. SPOP may not be the fire that sets cancer ablaze, but if mismanaged, it can light the fuse.
“The prostate cancer-associated mutations are well understood,” said corresponding author Tanja Mittag, Ph.D., St. Jude Department of Structural Biology. “They are in the substrate-binding site and prevent SPOP from recognizing its substrates. But mutations found in patients with endometrial and other cancers were puzzling. The mutated sites did not seem to be important for SPOP function, at least looking at previous structures.”
Big picture understanding
Determining the 3D structure of SPOP using cryo-EM allowed the researchers to gain insights into the underlying mechanisms that drive the function of this protein both in its normal state and when mutated in cancer. By looking at how the SPOP oligomer assembles, the researchers were able to identify key interactions between regions of the protein, which had not been seen before. These were exactly the regions that are mutated in endometrial cancer.
“Once we had the 3D structure of SPOP, we could see that the pieces of the puzzle that had been missing were inherently important for understanding how SPOP functions in cancer,” said co-first author Matthew Cuneo, Ph.D., St. Jude Department of Structural Biology. “We were now able to see that what we initially thought to be regions of SPOP without functional importance are actually key to SPOP assembly and biology.”
One mutation, dramatic effects

Previous studies had demonstrated that the SPOP protein assembles into long filaments. However, scientists could tell that the full picture had yet to be uncovered, as certain mutations unexpectedly affected this filament.
For example, mutations in the MATH domain [the part of SPOP that binds substrates] affected the propensity of the protein to assemble and hang around in cells. The researchers also observed how a single mutation could dramatically affect how the protein forms filaments. Mutating the interface that locks the MATH domain in place completely changed the assembly of the proteins from a single to a double filament with intertwined MATH domains.
Discovering these additional protein interfaces in the filament using cryo-EM helped further explain how SPOP mutations contribute to cancer.
“Taking a broader view to look at the full-length protein gave us a deeper understanding of how mutations affect SPOP,” said co-first author Brian O’Flynn, Ph.D., St. Jude Department of Structural Biology. “The scale of the change just from one point mutation is huge. It was unexpected to see that.”
New questions
Researchers in the field have already experimented with drugs that target the MATH domain of SPOP. Drugs could now be developed to target specifically the mutant forms of SPOP in endometrial cancer. One of the implications of this work is that one day it might be possible to differentially target SPOP based upon its functional form within the cell.
“In addition to the questions that this research answers, what’s exciting is that for scientists asking about SPOP, the possibilities have really opened up,” O’Flynn added.

Immunotherapies have improved outcomes of many patients with cancer, including melanoma. But these therapies work for only a subset of patients. Numerous studies are looking at improving responses, including research focusing on enhancing tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). TILs are immune cells in tumors that can recognize and attack the cancer cells but often there aren’t enough of them or they’re unable to harness a strong enough response to durably suppress tumor growth and spread.
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, led by cancer biologist Eric Lau, Ph.D., have identified a relatively natural way to increase the numbers and antitumor activities of TILs. In a new article published in Nature Cancer, Lau’s team demonstrates how L-fucose, a nontoxic dietary plant sugar that is enriched in red and brown seaweeds, can increase TILs, promote antitumor immunity and improve the efficacy of immunotherapy.
The sugar molecule L-fucose, while found in foods, can also be made within our own cells through the breakdown and conversion of other molecules. It is important for immune and developmental processes, and abnormalities with L-fucose synthesis and usage are associated with diseases including cancer.
“Overall levels of L-fucose in melanoma cells decrease and how the cells use L-fucose changes during progression. However, we have found that raising L-fucose levels via dietary supplementation can suppress tumors, markedly increase TILs and enhance the efficacy of some immunotherapies in our animal models. In humans, higher levels of L-fucose in melanomas are associated with less aggressive disease and better responses to therapy,” said Lau, lead study author and assistant member of the Tumor Biology Department at Moffitt.
The research team wanted to determine the mechanisms underlying how L-fucose appeared to increase TILs and trigger their antitumor activity. For nearly seven years, they performed a battery of laboratory experiments and demonstrated for the first time that L-fucose can regulate interactions between CD4+T cells, a type of TIL, and melanoma cells. In mouse experiments, they found that administration of oral L-fucose increased the levels of L-fucose in tumor cells, reduced tumor growth and increased the total levels of TILs. Their studies found that of the many types of immune cells that comprise TILs, CD4+T cells play a crucial role in mediating the increase in TILs that suppress melanomas during L-fucose treatment. The researchers identified the key molecular mechanisms that contribute to L-fucose-mediated CD4+T cell antitumor activity.
“When one thinks of sugar, one often thinks of glucose or sucrose — common table sugars that our cells use for energy. Unlike those sugars, L-fucose is used by our cells not for energy but to decorate proteins to fine-tune their behavior and activity. We found that the addition of L-fucose onto the protein HLA-DRB1 causes it to be localized to the surface of melanoma cells, which triggers CD4+T cell-mediated antitumor immune cell activity,” said Lau.
In addition to decorating proteins in tumor cells, Lau’s team also found that L-fucose alters the biology and behavior of CD4+T and other immune cells, suggesting that this sugar might be used to modulate immune function. These findings have important implications for using L-fucose to enhance immunotherapies that are currently used to treat cancer patients. “So, we took our work one step further and discovered that oral L-fucose also enhances activity of immunotherapy drugs in some of our melanoma models.”
Next, the researchers looked at tumors from three independent groups of patients from three cancer centers to assess whether L-fucose levels and L-fucose-decorated HLA-DRB1 might reflect patient responsiveness to the immunotherapeutic agent anti-PD1. They found that patients who responded well to anti-PD1 therapy tended to have higher levels of both in their tumors, suggesting that these may be useful as potential biomarkers to predict responsiveness to immunotherapy.
“Our findings identify and delineate a molecular mechanism by which L-fucose regulates an important interface between melanoma and immune cells. This mechanism can be therapeutically leveraged by simply feeding L-fucose, which suggests a provocative and almost counterintuitive possibility: using sugar to fight cancer,” Lau said.
Moving forward, Lau and his team hope to translate their preclinical findings to help patients more directly and determine how much L-fucose can enhance immunotherapies, starting with a small clinical trial of melanoma patients.
Their work is supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (GM061126), the National Cancer Institute (P30CA076292, K99CA172705, R00CA172705, R01CA241559), the Harry J. Lloyd Charitable Trust, and the Moffitt Foundation through a Miles for Moffitt award.

Many life-saving drugs directly interact with DNA to treat diseases such as cancer, but scientists have struggled to detect how and why they work — until now.
In a paper published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, University of Cambridge researchers have outlined a new DNA sequencing method which can detect where and how small molecule drugs interact with the targeted genome.
“Understanding how drugs work in the body is essential to creating better, more effective therapies,” said co-first author Dr Zutao Yu from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry. “But when a therapeutic drug enters a cancer cell with a genome that has three billion bases, it’s like entering a black box.”
The powerful method, called Chem-map, lifts the veil of this genomic black box by enabling researchers to detect where small molecule drugs interact with their targets on the DNA genome.
Each year, millions of cancer patients receive treatment with genome-targeting drugs, such as doxorubicin. But despite decades of clinical use and research, the molecular mode of action with the genome is still not well-understood.
“Lots of life-saving drugs directly interact with DNA to treat diseases such as cancer,” said co-first author Dr Jochen Spiegel. “Our new method can precisely map where drugs bind to the genome, which will help us to develop better drugs in the future.”
Chem-map allows researchers to conduct in situ mapping of small molecule-genome interactions with unprecedented precision, by using a strategy called small-molecule-directed transposase Tn5 tagmentation. This detects the binding site in the genome where a small molecule binds to genomic DNA or DNA-associated proteins.
In the study, the researchers used Chem-map to determine the direct binding sites in human leukaemia cells of the widely used anticancer drug doxorubicin. The technique also showed how the combined therapy of using doxorubicin on cells already exposed to the histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor tucidinostat could have a potential clinical advantage.
The technique was also used to map the binding sites of certain molecules on DNA G-quadruplexes, known as G4s. G4s are four-stranded secondary structures that have been implicated in gene regulation, and could be possible targets for future anti-cancer treatments.
“I am so proud that we have been able to solve this longstanding problem — we have established a highly efficient approach which will open many paths for new research,” said Yu.
Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian, who led the research, said: “Chem-map is a powerful new method to detect the site in the genome where a small molecule binds to DNA or DNA-associated proteins. It provides enormous insights on how some drug therapies interact with the human genome, and makes it easier to develop more effective and safer drug therapies.”

A protein in soybeans blocks the production of a liver enzyme involved in the metabolism of triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein, scientists found in a recent study.
Consuming soy flour rich in the protein B-conglycinin has the potential to reduce LDL cholesterol levels and lower the risk of metabolic diseases such as atherosclerosis and fatty liver disease, said Elvira de Mejia, a professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the corresponding author of the study.
Published in the journal Antioxidants, the study was co-written by Neal A. Bringe, a food scientist with Benson Hill Company; and Miguel Rebollo Hernanz, who at the time of the research was a visiting scholar at the U. of I. Rebollo Hernanz is the first author of the paper.
Scientists have long known of soybeans’ cholesterol-lowering properties and lipid-regulating effects, and the current project investigated two soy proteins thought to be responsible for these outcomes — glycinin and B-conglycinin — and found the latter to be particularly significant.
“As we hypothesized, soybeans’ effects on cholesterol metabolism are not only associated with their protein concentrations and composition but also with the peptides embedded in them that are released during gastrointestinal digestion,” de Mejia said.
The team defatted and ground into flour 19 soybean varieties, each of which contained differing proportions of the two proteins. The proportion of glycinin in these varieties ranged from 22%-60% while the B-conglycinin ratio ranged from 22%-52%.

Using a simulation of the human digestive process validated by other studies, the team sequentially mixed the defatted soybean flours with various fluids and enzymes to mimic the oral, gastric, intestinal and colonic phases of digestion, de Mejia said.
They identified 13 bioactive peptides produced during digestion, most of which came from glycinin and B-conglycinin, according to the study.
In testing the digested materials’ capacity to inhibit the activity of HMGCR, a protein that controls the rate of cholesterol synthesis, the researchers found that their inhibitory properties were 2-to-7 times less potent than simvastatin, a popular drug used to treat high LDL cholesterol and fat levels in the blood that was used as a control in the study.
After classifying the soybean varieties by their glycinin and B-conglycinin composition and their HMGCR inhibitory properties, the team selected five varieties for further analysis.
“We started with cells that were already exposed to fatty acids to mimic fatty liver disease and tried to understand the role of the digested soy proteins,” de Mejia said.

“We measured several parameters associated with cholesterol and lipid metabolism and various other markers — proteins and enzymes — that positively or negatively affect lipid metabolism.”
These markers included HMGCR and angiopoietin-like 3, a protein secreted primarily by the liver that is a critical modulator of lipid metabolism, de Mejia said.
ANGPTL3 inhibits the enzymes involved in the metabolism of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, which is sometimes called “good cholesterol” in contrast to LDL’s reputation as “bad cholesterol.” Both HMGCR and ANGPTL3 are overexpressed in fatty liver disease, according to the study.
Secretion of ANGPTL3 more than tripled after the liver cells were exposed to the fatty acids, de Mejia said. However, the team found that peptides from three of the digested soybean varieties reduced ANGPTL3 secretion by 41%-81% in correlation with their glycinin and B-conglycinin ratios.
Although the fatty acids reduced the liver cells’ absorption of LDL cholesterol by more than one-third, the soybean digests reversed this by inhibiting the expression of a protein. The digests increased the cells’ uptake of LDL by 25%-92%, depending on the soybean variety and its glycinin and B-conglycinin proportions.
“One of the key risk factors of atherosclerosis is oxidized LDL cholesterol; therefore, we investigated the preventive effects of the soybean digests at eight different concentrations,” de Mejia said. “Each of them reduced the LDL oxidation rate in a dose-dependent manner, inhibiting the formation of both early and late oxidation products associated with the disease.”
Greater concentrations of B-conglycinin in the digests correlated with larger reductions in oxidized LDL, esterified cholesterol, triglycerides and HMGCR levels in plasma, the team found.
“The digested soybeans’ peptides were able to reduce lipid accumulation by 50%-70%, and that’s very important,” de Mejia said. “That was comparable to the statin, which reduced it by 60%. We also clearly saw different markers that were influenced by key enzymes that regulate hepatic lipogenesis — the development of a fatty liver.”
ANGPTL3 is an important marker, since its circulating levels are associated with relatively high hepatic impairment and inflammation, de Mejia said. “Our role as food scientists is to find bioactive compounds that could regulate this in plasma. It’s easy to measure to prevent hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis.”
The team’s current research, led by postdoctoral researcher Erick Damian Castañeda-Reyes and doctoral student Jennifer Kusumah, compares the anti-inflammatory capacity of selected soybean varieties based on their protein composition.
The research was supported by the Agricultural Research Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

When teacher Angela Ratcliffe started treatment for breast cancer, she started wearing funny wigs to help her children come to terms with her hair loss.She hoped to raise a smile and raise cash for the Breast Cancer Now campaign.And now her school, Chorley All Saints, have held their own “crazy hair day” in her honour.Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk

Adolescent chimpanzees share some of the same risk-taking behaviors as human teens, but they may be less impulsive than their human counterparts, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The study gets at age-old nature/nurture questions about why adolescents take more risks: because of environment or because of biological predispositions?
“Adolescent chimpanzees are in some sense facing the same psychological tempest that human teens are,” said lead researcher Alexandra Rosati, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and anthropology at the University of Michigan. “Our findings show that several key features of human adolescent psychology are also seen in our closest primate relatives.”
The researchers conducted two tests involving food rewards with 40 wild-born chimpanzees at a sanctuary in Republic of Congo. The chimpanzees voluntarily participated in the games in order to receive food treats. The research was published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Chimpanzees can live to be 50 years old and experience adolescence at about 8 to 15. Like humans, chimpanzees show rapid changes in hormone levels during adolescence, start forming new bonds with peers, show increases in aggression and compete for social status.
In the first test, adolescent and adult chimpanzees could choose between two containers in a gambling task. One container always contained peanuts, a food that chimpanzees somewhat like. The other container concealed either an unliked food — a cucumber slice — or a favorite food — a banana slice. The chimpanzees could play it safe and get the peanuts, or take a chance for some coveted banana at the risk of ending up with unappetizing cucumber.
The chimpanzees’ emotional reactions and vocalizations were recorded, including moans, whimpers, screams, banging on the table or scratching themselves. Saliva samples also were collected to track hormone levels.
During several rounds of the test, adolescent chimpanzees took the risky option more often than adult chimpanzees, but adolescents and adults had similar negative reactions when they received cucumber.
The second test, modeled after the famous “marshmallow test” with human children, examined delayed gratification where chimpanzees could receive one banana slice immediately or wait for one minute to receive three slices.
Both adolescent and adult chimpanzees chose the greater delayed reward at a similar rate. Human teens tend to be more impulsive than adults so they would be more likely to take the immediate reward.
“Prior research indicates that chimpanzees are quite patient compared with other animals, and our study shows that their ability to delay gratification is already mature at a fairly young age, unlike in humans,” Rosati said.
However, adolescent chimpanzees weren’t happy about waiting for the extra banana slices and they threw more tantrums during the one-minute delay than adult chimpanzees.
Risk-taking behavior in both adolescent chimpanzees and humans appears to be deeply biologically ingrained, but increases in impulsive behavior may be specific to human teens, Rosati said.

Experiencing childhood trauma may lead an individual to volunteer, donate money or contact their elected officials about environmental issues later in life, according to recent research published in Scientific Reports.
The CU Boulder and Loyola University study is one of the first in the U.S. to associate childhood trauma and public, civic environmental engagement in adulthood. It also found that, in addition to people who experienced childhood trauma, those who traveled and had experiences in nature as children were also more likely to report engaging in private “green behavior” as adults, such as recycling, driving or flying less, and taking shorter showers.
“We set out to explore reasons or motivations why someone would get environmentally engaged versus not and experiencing childhood trauma emerged as a really powerful motivator,” said lead author Urooj Raja, who earned her doctorate in environmental studies at CU Boulder in 2021.
As part of Raja’s doctoral work, the researchers conducted a survey in 2020 using a nationally representative sample of about 450 U.S. adults to examine two types of environmental engagement. Public, civic engagement was measured in hours per month devoted to an environmental protection cause, such as writing letters to elected officials or donating time and resources to an organization. Private, green behavior was defined as self-reported actions adopted by individuals or households to reduce their environmental impact.
Previous research has shown that people who experience natural disasters as children are more likely to get involved in environmental causes, but these new findings show that childhood trauma of any kind is associated with increased interest in both private and public environment engagement as an adult. This indicates there may be something about a formative, negative experience that drives individuals to engage on a public or policy level with environmental issues, instead of only practicing green behavior.
“It suggests that there could be another way of looking at trauma,” said Raja, now an assistant professor in the School of Communication at Loyola University Chicago.

While the researchers can’t say exactly why experiencing traumatic events earlier in life boosts the likelihood of getting publicly involved in environmental issues, they note that previous research has associated trauma with a strong sense of empathy, and empathy with green behavior.
It could also partly be a coping mechanism, to attempt to keep bad things from happening to other people or living things, said Raja.
Drivers of environmental engagement
Research in this area has often examined disengagement — the reasons why people don’t act on pressing environmental issues. Raja’s team wanted to know: What drives those who do engage?
First, Raja interviewed 33 people who are highly engaged in environmental issues. She discovered that many had experienced some kind of childhood trauma.

“It emerged as a very powerful piece of why people wanted to and became engaged with environmental work,” said Raja.
Second, they gathered survey data from about 450 U.S. adults who self-reported that they spent five hours or more in the past month working on environmental issues. They answered a series of questions about themselves, including their current civic engagement and green behavior, formative childhood experiences (gardening, swimming in a lake or going on a hike in the woods for the first time), and traumatic experiences in childhood (living in poverty or experiencing hunger, not having a safe home environment, losing a parent or sibling, dealing with health issues, or enduring sexual harassment, assault or bullying).
The data revealed that childhood experiences in nature, travel and trauma were all predictors of private, green behavior later in life. However, only childhood trauma was also significantly associated with public, civic engagement. Trauma also had the largest impact on predicting green behavior, compared to other formative life experiences.
Studies in decades past — including work by Louise Chawla, professor emerita in the Program in Environmental Design — have found a strong link between childhood travel and experiences in nature and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors later in life. The new survey confirms that these types of childhood experiences still predict green behavior for adults today.
“This is another data point that supports the value of creating opportunities for people to connect with nature, and the importance of those experiences for cultivating a society that protects the natural resources that we all depend on,” said Amanda Carrico, co-author of the new study and associate professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at CU Boulder.
A need for more resources and support
Carrico, who is trained as an environmental psychologist and teaches courses on climate change, has noticed that many students and professionals in the field struggle not only with the weight of their work, but also with the experiences that may have led them to it.
“It’s emotionally intense and exhausting,” said Carrico, noting that those who work on mitigating climate change are also often part of communities directly affected by its growing impacts. “You’re talking about a community of people that seem to be carrying other kinds of emotionally complex burdens.”
The authors say that the findings only further emphasize the need for people engaged in public-facing or civic environmental work to have access to resources and support.
“People, in their own words, have said that we need better resources,” said Raja. “Making the link between adverse childhood experiences and the need for more resources for people that do this type of work is an important first step to making that happen.”
This work was funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, the Graduate School of Arts and Science, the Center to Advance Research and Training in the Social Sciences, and the Department of Environmental Studies. Publication of this article was funded by the University of Colorado Boulder Libraries Open Access Fund.

A new study has found that consuming dietary nitrate — the active molecule in beetroot juice — significantly increased muscle force while exercising.
While it is known that dietary nitrate enhances exercise, both boosting endurance and enhancing high-intensity exercise, researchers still have much to learn about why this effect occurs, and how our bodies convert dietary nitrate that we ingest into the nitric oxide that can be used by our cells.
To help close this gap, researchers at the University of Exeter and the U.S. National Institutes of Health traced the distribution of ingested nitrate in the saliva, blood, muscle and urine of ten healthy volunteers, who were then asked to perform maximal leg exercise. The team wanted to discover where in the body the dietary nitrate was active, to give clues on the mechanisms at work.
An hour after the nitrate was taken, participants were asked to perform 60 contractions of the quadriceps — the thigh muscle active while straightening the knee — at maximum intensity over five minutes on an exercise machine. The team found a significant increase in the nitrate levels in muscle. During the exercises, researchers found this nitrate boost caused an increase in muscle force of seven per cent, compared to when the participants took a placebo.
Andy Jones, Professor of Applied Physiology at the University of Exeter, said: “Our research has already provided a large body of evidence on the performance-enhancing properties of dietary nitrate, commonly found in beetroot juice. Excitingly, this latest study provides the best evidence to date on the mechanisms behind why dietary nitrate improves human muscle performance.”
Previous studies had found an increase of nitrate in tissue and body fluid after ingesting labelled dietary nitrate. By using the tracer in the new study, researchers were able to accurately assess where nitrate is increased and active, and also shed new light on how the nitrate we consume is used to enhance exercise performance.
“This study provides the first direct evidence that muscle nitrate levels are important for exercise performance, presumably by acting as a source of nitric oxide,” said Dr Barbora Piknova, research collaborator and staff scientist in the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. “These results have significant implications not only for the exercise field, but possibly for other medical areas such as those targeting neuromuscular and metabolic diseases related to nitric oxide deficiency.”
The research was conducted in collaboration with the University of Queensland, Australia, under the QUEX partnership with Exeter.

‘What Is Eating My Mind’, a documentary for BBC Africa Eye, is an insightful and deeply personal story of living with bipolar disorder in Kenya, where the issue of mental health is often taboo.Noella Luka was living out her dream of studying filmmaking in the US when a manic episode turned her life upside down. She was hospitalised and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Noella quit film school, returned to Kenya, and picked up a camera. For years, she has kept a record of her battle with bipolar disorder and her search for answers to one burning question: ‘What Is Eating My Mind?’ While filming, she faces her biggest challenge yet, but her story is one of hope.

Published1 hour agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, AFP via Getty ImagesBy George WrightBBC NewsJapan’s prime minister says his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its falling birth rate.Fumio Kishida said it was a case of “now or never.”Japan – population 125 million – is estimated to have had fewer than 800,000 births last year. In the 1970s, that figure was more than two million. Birth rates are slowing in many countries, including Japan’s neighbours.But the issue is particularly acute in Japan as life expectancy has risen in recent decades, meaning there are a growing number of older people, and a declining numbers of workers to support them.Japan now has the world’s second-highest proportion of people aged 65 and over – about 28% – after the tiny state of Monaco, according to World Bank data.”Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society,” Mr Kishida told lawmakers.”Focusing attention on policies regarding children and child-rearing is an issue that cannot wait and cannot be postponed.”He said that he eventually wants the government to double its spending on child-related programmes. A new government agency to focus on the issue would be set up in April, he added.However, Japanese governments have tried to promote similar strategies before, without success.In 2020, researchers projected Japan’s population to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century.Japan has continued implementing strict immigration laws despite some relaxations, but some experts are now saying that the rules should be loosened further to help tackle its ageing society.Falling birth rates are driven by a range of factors, including rising living costs, more women in education and work, as well as greater access to contraception, leading to women choosing to have fewer children.Last week, China reported its first drop in population for 60 years.More on this storyChina’s population falls for first time since 19615 days ago’Jaw-dropping’ world fertility rate crash expected15 July 2020