Scientists Witness a Mysterious Sexual Bond Between a Bull And a Male Donkey

03 Nov. 2026, By P. Dockrill

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-witness-a-mysterious-sexual-bond-between-a-bull-and-a-male-donkey

Achille with Patroclo. 

(André B. da Cruz)

The heart wants what the heart wants.

At least, that's one way of looking at an extraordinary relationship scientists discovered by chance during fieldwork in Ethiopia.

Over a series of observations, researchers documented an unusual sexual bond between a male donkey and a bull.

The observations, reported in Current Biology, show animal sexual behavior can be a more complex social phenomenon than we might realize, the team says.

"Nature does not always respect the boundaries we draw around it," ethologist Elisabetta Palagi from the University of Pisa in Italy told ScienceAlert.

"Animal behavior is not a picture painted in black and white: It uses the whole palette, with all the colors of the rainbow."

While same-sex sexual behavior (SSSB) is a widespread behavior among animals, observations of sex between animals of different species are much rarer.

Editor's note: The video below shows footage of the bull mounting the donkey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmusyMW6zis

Yet the interactions observed by Palagi's team between Achille (a bull) and Patroclo (a male donkey) might be something even rarer still – a bond that possibly transcended the sexual encounters they shared.

"Both animals had access to other potential partners, including individuals of their own species and of both sexes," Palagi said.

"Yet they repeatedly sought each other out."

The research team had traveled to the Ethiopian highlands to study gelada monkeys when they noticed by accident the interactions between Achille and Patroclo in a nearby grazing area.

Over a number of days, Achille was seen mounting Patroclo. Mounting was documented 51 times, with 34 of the events resulting in intromission (penile penetration).

Editor's note: Graphic image below of the bull mounting the donkey.

When Achille tried the same thing with another male donkey in the pasture, the donkey showed clear avoidance behaviors, including a display of threatening facial expressions (ear flattening).

In contrast, Patroclo never avoided or kicked away Achille, but instead appeared to present his hindquarters to the bull, and both animals engaged in other acts that caught the researchers' attention.

Achille mounting Patroclo.

 (Martina Francesconi, University of Pisa)



"Achille and Patroclo were more likely to exchange affiliative behaviors, such as licking, rubbing and nuzzling, with each other than with other animals, and these interactions lasted longer. They also spent most of their observed time close together," Palagi said.

"The sexual interactions were one component of a much broader, selective relationship."

According to the researchers, pre-mounting behaviors (involving acts such as licking and nuzzling) are not unexpected between animals, as they may help facilitate mounting.

But Patroclo and Achille's behavior was perhaps unusual, in that they engaged in post-mounting interactions much more often than any foreplay, suggesting there was more to their relationship than sex alone.

"Although interpreting this behavior is challenging, the interactions observed between Achille and Patroclo, embedded in repeated, reciprocal, and mutual affiliative interactions, may also function as a signal of relationship quality," the researchers write in their paper.

"Rather than being solely attributable to sexual arousal, these interactions appear to play a role in prolonging the social interaction beyond the sexual act."

On another occasion, when Achille mounted another donkey, Patroclo moved in close, as if to prevent further interactions between them, and Achille ended up interacting with Patroclo instead, including body licking.


According to Palagi, this apparent selectivity and the consistency of their association were the most surprising part of the research, especially since the animals belonged to different owners and spent their nights apart, only encountering each other during daily grazing.

"The mounting initially attracted our attention, but their repeated preference for each other's company became the most compelling part of the story," Palagi told ScienceAlert.

"Patroclo's behavior was particularly striking… His participation made the relationship especially intriguing."

According to the researchers, Achille and Patroclo's interactions appear to be the first documented case of a sustained same-sex sexual relationship between a bull and a donkey.

While we can't know exactly what the relationship meant to them – and need to be careful not to interpret their interactions through an anthropomorphic lens – it's clear something was going on here, suggestive of a social bond that crossed a boundary between species.

Whether that bond still exists is uncertain. After the study, Achille and Patroclo were moved to different grazing areas.

The researchers hope to return to see if the animals resume their activities, and to investigate whether similar relationships are occurring between species more often than we realize.

"Unusual behavior can remain anecdotal simply because nobody has the opportunity to document it systematically," Palagi said.

"Nature's full palette becomes visible only when we are willing to notice the unexpected."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Discover That a Giant Bird Thought Extinct for Thousands of Years Never Actually Disappeared

By Bournemouth U., Nov. 2, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-that-a-giant-bird-thought-extinct-for-thousands-of-years-never-actually-disappeared/

The common crane (pictured above) is the same species as a prehistoric giant crane once thought to be extinct, according to new ancient DNA research. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Ancient DNA analysis has challenged a 150-year-old belief about a giant bird thought to have disappeared after the last Ice Age.

For more than 150 years, scientists believed that enormous crane bones found in European caves belonged to a giant bird species that disappeared after the last Ice Age. Now, ancient DNA has overturned that identification, revealing that the supposedly extinct bird was actually a larger version of a species still living in Europe today.

Researchers at Bournemouth University (BU) found that the fossils attributed to Grus primigenia belonged to the common crane. Their findings also raise questions about whether other prehistoric birds classified as extinct species were simply larger forms of birds that survive today.

Ancient DNA Solves a 150-Year-Old Mystery

The mystery began in the 19th century when French biologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards examined unusually large crane bones discovered in caves in southern France. Believing they represented a distinct species, he named the bird Grus primigenia. The remains dated to the end of the last Ice Age and were long considered evidence of an extinct giant crane.

To investigate the bird’s identity, a team led by Dr. John Stewart, Professor of Evolutionary Paleoecology at BU, analyzed ancient DNA from 18 crane bones recovered across England, Wales, France, Germany, and the Balearic Islands. Working with the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, the researchers used genetic evidence to determine which species the bones belonged to.

“Previous studies had merely used the size and shape of the bones to attempt to understand these large birds. The use of DNA analysis has given us a more accurate picture of what they represent,” Stewart explained.

Why Scientists Mistook the Cranes for an Extinct Species

The genetic findings indicate that the oversized fossils belonged to common cranes rather than a separate extinct species. Stewart believes differences in body size between male and female cranes may have contributed to the original misidentification.

“We suspected that these large cranes were not extinct and instead represented larger, modern European common cranes. We believe that the reason for the mistaken identity was that cranes have large males and smaller females, and we think this contributed to previous speculation that there were two different species: the living, common crane we see today and the extinct, larger species,” Stewart said.

What Caused Ancient Cranes to Shrink?

Although the DNA evidence clarifies the birds’ identity, it leaves another question unanswered: Why were some prehistoric common cranes considerably larger than those living today?

“The challenge going forward is to investigate the reason for the cranes decrease in size. Wetland drainage and human land use changes are what we suspect, but more work is needed to resolve that,” Stewart said.

The researchers plan to investigate whether changes in wetland habitats and human land use contributed to the reduction in crane body size. These remain possible explanations rather than established causes.

Could Other Supposedly Extinct Birds Still Exist?

The findings suggest that some prehistoric bird species identified primarily through fossil measurements may need to be reconsidered. Differences in bone size do not necessarily indicate separate species, and ancient DNA could help determine whether other supposedly extinct birds were actually larger or smaller populations of surviving species.

“While it is true that many species of birds are vulnerable to human actions today, it may be that we have overestimated the number of extinctions in the past,” Stewart said.

“Some of these may instead represent size changes to living species,” he concluded.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Human Bodies Are Producing Two Billion Tons of CO2 a Year

By U. of Bath, Nov. 2, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/human-bodies-are-producing-two-billion-tons-of-co2-a-year/

Scientists have uncovered a largely overlooked component of the global carbon cycle, revealing how population changes are reshaping the amount of CO2 humans produce. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A new study reveals that the amount of carbon dioxide produced by human metabolism has increased dramatically over three decades.

The carbon dioxide produced by human bodies as they convert food into energy increased by 74% over three decades, according to a University of Bath-led study. By 2015, the global total had reached an estimated 2.05 billion metric tons (2.26 billion U.S. tons) annually, highlighting a substantial component of the Earth’s carbon cycle that scientists had not previously quantified on this scale.

Unlike emissions from burning fossil fuels, the CO2 humans exhale largely comes from carbon recently absorbed from the atmosphere by plants and transferred through food. Burning coal, oil, and natural gas releases carbon that has been stored underground for millions of years, adding it to the active carbon cycle.

Population Growth Drove Most of the Increase

Published in The Lancet Planetary Health, the study found that annual CO2 production from human metabolism rose from 1.18 billion metric tons (1.30 billion U.S. tons) in 1985 to 2.05 billion metric tons (2.26 billion U.S. tons) in 2015. More than 60% of that increase was attributable to population growth rather than a substantial rise in the amount produced by each individual.

To estimate global emissions from metabolism, the researchers analyzed thousands of real-world measurements of CO2 production in people ranging from infants to older adults. They combined these findings with worldwide population and body weight data to calculate how human metabolic activity changed over time.

Professor Javier Gonzalez, who led the research at the University of Bath’s Centre for Exercise, Nutrition and Metabolism, explained:

“We all produce carbon dioxide simply by turning food into energy, but until now we haven’t had a good idea how much that adds up to worldwide.

Improving Our Understanding of the Carbon Cycle

“What we’ve found is that the increase is mainly because there are more of us. This gives scientists one more piece of the puzzle when working out where carbon comes from and where it goes. Ultimately, this information can help scientists more accurately predict how effective carbon reduction strategies may be.”

Human metabolism contributes to the continuous movement of carbon through the environment, particularly in densely populated cities. Accounting for that activity could help researchers develop more accurate carbon budgets and better assess the effects of strategies designed to reduce emissions.

Why Human Breathing Is Not Driving Climate Change

The researchers emphasize that their findings do not suggest people should exercise less, change their diets, or attempt to reduce the carbon dioxide they breathe out. The purpose is to improve scientific measurements of carbon movement, not identify respiration as a contributor to fossil fuel emissions.

Gonzalez stressed the distinction: “The important thing is that the carbon dioxide we breathe out is not the same as burning fossil fuels. We’re not saying that breathing is driving climate change.

“What this study does is give us a much clearer picture of how much CO2 people produce around the world, and how that is changing as the population grows. This understanding can help improve the accuracy predictions of carbon reduction programs.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Depression Symptoms Improved in Just 48 Hours After a Single Psychedelic Dose

By Karolinska Inst., Nov. 1, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/depression-symptoms-improved-in-just-48-hours-after-a-single-psychedelic-dose/

Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in certain species of mushrooms, commonly known as magic mushrooms. In the body, it is converted into psilocin, which acts on serotonin receptors in the brain, altering perception, mood, and thought processes. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A single dose of psilocybin produced rapid antidepressant effects in a small Swedish clinical trial, with improvements lasting for weeks.

A single dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic compound found in magic mushrooms, produced rapid improvements in depression symptoms in a small Swedish clinical trial. After six weeks, 53% of participants who received psilocybin were in remission, compared with just 6% of those given a placebo.

Some participants reported improvements within two days, and the antidepressant effects persisted for more than three months in self-reported assessments. The findings come from Sweden’s first randomized, double-blind trial of psilocybin for depression, conducted by researchers at Karolinska Institutet and published in JAMA Network Open.

Hampus Yngwe 

Credit: Photo: Stefan Zimmerman



Testing Psilocybin for Common Depression

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are among the most widely prescribed treatments for depression, but they can take several weeks to work, cause unwanted side effects, and provide insufficient relief for some patients. Previous research has suggested that psilocybin may act more quickly, although much of that work has focused on treatment-resistant depression or depression associated with cancer.

The new phase 2 trial investigated whether psilocybin could also help people with more common forms of recurrent depression. Researchers enrolled 35 adults between the ages of 20 and 65 who had moderate to severe symptoms. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either 25 milligrams of psilocybin or niacin, a vitamin used as an active placebo because it produces noticeable physical sensations.

Both groups received psychotherapeutic support across five sessions before, during, and after treatment. During the dosing session, participants wore eye masks, listened to music through headphones, and were encouraged to direct their attention inward.

Depression Symptoms Improved Within Days

Researchers measured depression severity using the MADRS (Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale), with assessments conducted by clinicians who did not know which treatment each participant had received.

Eight days after treatment, depression scores had fallen by an average of 9.7 points in the psilocybin group, compared with 2.4 points in the placebo group. The 7.3-point difference was statistically significant and considered clinically meaningful. The advantage remained evident at assessments conducted 15 and 42 days after treatment, while participants’ own ratings indicated improvement as early as the second day.

“Our results suggest that psilocybin can provide rapid, clinically meaningful improvement in depression and may serve as an alternative to standard treatment when fast symptom reduction is important,” says lead author Hampus Yngwe, consultant psychiatrist and PhD student at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

Long-Term Effectiveness Remains Uncertain

Although the initial results favored psilocybin, the difference between the groups was no longer statistically confirmed after one year. At that point, 53% of participants in the psilocybin group remained in remission, but many people who had received the placebo had also recovered.

Johan Lundberg 

Credit: Photo: Stefan Zimmerman



“However, the long-term effects are uncertain. Repeated treatments may be needed to prevent relapse. This needs to be investigated in larger studies.”

The findings suggest that a single supervised dose may provide relatively rapid symptom relief for some patients, but the small trial cannot establish how consistently those benefits will last or whether additional doses would improve long-term outcomes.

Side Effects and the Challenge of Blinding

Psilocybin was generally well tolerated, with most reported side effects being mild or moderate and temporary. However, two participants who received the psychedelic experienced severe, persistent anxiety that required medical attention.

“It is important to emphasize that the treatment is not risk-free and that some patients may need extra support,” says Johan Lundberg, professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience and the Centre for Psychiatry Research, Karolinska Institutet, who led the study.

Another limitation involved the difficulty of keeping participants unaware of their assigned treatment. Psychedelics produce distinctive psychological effects, and almost everyone in the trial correctly guessed whether they had received psilocybin or the placebo. Such awareness can influence expectations and make it harder to determine how much improvement comes from the drug itself.

“We want to understand how factors such as treatment expectations and lack of blinding affect the results, as previous studies may have exaggerated the treatment effects,” says Hampus Yngwe.

Investigating How Psilocybin Changes the Brain

Researchers are now turning to biological measurements collected during the trial to investigate how psilocybin might influence depression. Their next analyses will examine PET brain scans alongside blood and cerebrospinal fluid samples obtained before and after treatment.

One area of interest is synaptic density, which reflects the number of connections through which nerve cells communicate. Depression has been associated with disrupted communication between brain regions, while preclinical studies suggest that psychedelics may promote the growth of synaptic connections. Whether comparable changes occur in people receiving psilocybin remains an open question.

“Research suggests that the interaction between parts of the brain is impaired in depression and that this may be linked to changes in the connections between nerve cells, known as synapses. In preclinical studies, psychedelics have been shown to stimulate synaptic growth. We therefore want to investigate whether psilocybin alters synaptic density in the brain,” concludes Hampus Yngwe.

The Life of Earth

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Aphantasia: Some People Can't Picture Things While Awake, But See Them in Dreams

02 Nov. 2026, By E. Öz

https://www.sciencealert.com/aphantasia-some-people-cant-picture-things-while-awake-but-see-them-in-dreams

(skynesher/E+/Getty Images)

Picture someone you know well. You might be able to bring their face to mind, perhaps their smile or the way their hair falls. For some people, that familiar face never becomes a mental picture, however hard they try.

When they fall asleep, this can change. Faces and places may appear in their dreams, even though they cannot deliberately picture them during the day.

What allows those images to appear during sleep?

The inability to picture things at will is known as aphantasia. A study published in Scientific Reports explored the dreams of people who have it and found that the relationship between waking imagination and dreaming varies considerably from person to person.

The researchers looked beyond images, asking about sounds, smells, tastes, touch, the feeling of movement, and inner speech, the experience of hearing words in your mind.

Some people described similar sensory experiences while dreaming and imagining things awake. Others reported sensations in dreams that they could not deliberately summon during waking life.

The question had a personal beginning. Two of the researchers, Derek Arnold and Loren Bouyer of the University of Queensland in Australia, describe having lifelong aphantasia. Their dreams are not alike, and each felt that the sensations in their dreams reflected those they could imagine during the day.

They had previously described how their imaginations differ. Arnold can imagine sounds, while Bouyer can imagine sensations of touch. Neither can voluntarily form mental pictures.

Working with Merlin Monzel of the University of Bonn in Germany, they investigated how these experiences varied among a larger group.

The team analyzed online questionnaire responses from 205 people. Scores measuring visual imagination placed 84 participants in a visual aphantasia group and 121 in a comparison group.

(gilaxia/iStockphoto/Getty Images)



Participants considered situations that might bring different senses to mind, such as remembering a social gathering. They ranked the imagined sensations they experienced and answered questions about everyday habits, including mentally rehearsing conversations or imagining how a movement would feel.

They also reported how often different sensations appeared in their dreams, with an option to say they were unsure.

Within the aphantasia group, 46 percent reported always having visual experiences in their dreams. About 8 percent reported never having them. Nobody in the comparison group reported experiencing visual dreams.

Among participants in the aphantasia group, the researchers found no evidence that stronger waking visualization went along with more frequent visual dreaming.

The connections were clearer for sounds and inner speech. Participants who reported these experiences more often in dreams also tended to report them more often while awake, although the associations were generally weak to moderate.

People in the aphantasia group who often heard sounds and conversations while dreaming also tended to report more frequent use of imagined sounds and inner speech in daily life, such as mentally rehearsing conversations before speaking.

Across the three questionnaires, participants were consistent in how closely their waking imagination matched their dreams. Some repeatedly reported a close match, while others described substantial differences.

Why a sensation would be available during sleep but not on demand while awake is still unclear. One possible explanation involves how brain regions involved in imagination work together. The researchers suggest that difficulties coordinating this activity might continue during sleep for some people, while changing for others.

Comparing brain activity in people with these different experiences could help test that idea. It could also reveal whether similar processes produce imagined sensations during waking life and dreams.

The study did not measure brain activity, so that explanation remains untested. The findings rely on participants describing their experiences and remembering their dreams. Those in the aphantasia group were also more likely to be unsure whether particular sensations occurred in their dreams. The group included some people with weak visual imagination alongside those reporting none.

Future sleep studies could bring researchers closer to the experience itself by waking participants immediately after dreams and asking what they remember.

Some people with aphantasia report images and sounds in dreams that they cannot call up while awake. For others, the sensations missing from waking imagination are also absent from their dreams.

The Life of Earth

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Just 30 Minutes in a Sauna Triggers an Immediate Immune Response

01 Nov. 2026, By C. Cassella

https://www.sciencealert.com/just-30-minutes-in-a-sauna-triggers-an-immediate-immune-response

(SolStock/E+/Getty Images)

Some people swear by a sauna session. They claim that sitting and sweating in a hot room rejuvenates them.

But for such a popular trend, the scientific evidence to support that feeling is surprisingly scarce.

Researchers in Finland have now found evidence that a single sauna session can have an immediate impact on the immune system at a cellular level.

In a small experiment, just 30 minutes in a Finnish sauna – with hot yet dry heat – triggered a significant increase in circulating white blood cells.

These crucial immune cells help defend the body against pathogens, and they often increase after exercise.

Simply sitting in a sauna could stimulate a similar stress response, and it could have benefits for the immune system.

The results are published in Temperature.

"This may indicate that sauna bathing mobilizes additional white blood cells into the bloodstream from tissues, where they are then redeposited after the session," speculates exercise scientist Ilkka Heinonen from the University of Turku in Finland.

"This kind of periodic release of white blood cells into the bloodstream is beneficial, as once they leave their storage sites, they are better able to patrol the body and respond to pathogens."

(Blasius Erlinger/The Image Bank/Getty Images)



In the experiment, 51 middle-aged men and women took part in a traditional Finnish sauna session.

This included sitting in a room at around 73° Celsius (163° Fahrenheit) for 30 minutes, with a cold shower halfway through.

Immediately after the session, a whole host of white blood cells appeared to be mobilized in the blood of participants compared to before the sauna session.

This included an increase in neutrophils, which are first responders, and lymphocytes, which help build immune memory.

There was also an increase in the combined count of monocytes, which engulf pathogens and debris, and eosinophils and basophils, which are both linked to inflammatory responses.

Levels of immune messenger proteins called cytokines, on the other hand, barely shifted, on average, although a few did increase with body temperature.

Thirty minutes after the sauna session, however, this apparent immune surge had mostly dropped off again.

Most of the white blood cell increases had disappeared, but some monocytes lingered.

Researchers only analyzed participants' bloodwork up to 30 minutes after the sauna session, so it is unclear how their immune cells might change over longer periods of time or how that might impact their risk of getting sick.

But some observational studies in the past have found that frequent sauna bathing is associated with a lower risk of some illnesses, like pneumonia.

What's more, other experiments have shown that hot baths can lower your blood pressure and significantly increase red blood cells that carry oxygen.

Bathing in heat seems to produce similar physiological responses to what occurs during exercise, and these cardiovascular outcomes are linked to improved immune function.

That said, vigorous exercise can also backfire, temporarily weakening the immune system, so there's reason to tread cautiously.

Extreme heat isn't something to mess with.

Despite growing global interest in hot and cold therapy, scientists still know remarkably little about how the body copes with extreme temperatures, and what that means for our short-term or long-term health.

The recent experiment in Finland is limited in what it can tell us.

Researchers did not measure specific immune cell subsets, like T cells or natural killer cells, which could have provided more insight into how a sauna actually impacts immune function.

In 2023, for instance, a study reported that Finnish sauna sessions altered T cells and natural killer cells, but only when the sessions were repeated.

What's more, the impact was different depending on whether the participants were trained sauna-goers or not.

In this experiment, repeated sauna exposure increased white blood cell counts in trained participants, but it reduced some T cells in untrained participants.

That study, however, only analyzed healthy young men, which limits how these results can be generalized to others.

For now, all we can say is that it looks increasingly like bathing in heat can trigger a temporary change to immune cells.

Beyond that, it's all guesswork.

Plus, it's good to remember that just like cold therapy, hot therapy might also come with risks…

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Chuck's picture corner to Nov. 1 2026

A sunny cold week. A quiet one for me.

Rachelle has been on the Camino trail in Spain all Oct.

sunrise out the office window

the ground is full of colour, I'll lawn mow the leaves to return their nutrients and biotica back to the soil.

The waterfowl are starting to collect in their favorite spots along the river.

This is one of their favorite bays. There are ducks here as well. The back right of the pic has lots of birds.

my last batch of chili finally done.

I chose photography as a retirement hobby as the properties of light have always interested me, and the subject is near infinite. Photography works to capture some of it. Water is much the same.

Despite the size, I think the darker swans are this years young.

river traffic gets busier this time of year, this guy is loaded heading east.

I counted a couple of doz. so far this year.

Spain is a very christian place

Enjoy your day

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Eating a Handful of Peanuts Could Change Your Blood in a Surprising Way, Study Finds

BY DEUTSCHES INST. FÜR ERNÄHRUNGSFORSCHUNG POTSDAM-REHBRÜCKE,
OCTOBER 30, 2026

Peanuts are nutrient-rich legumes packed with protein, healthy unsaturated fats, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Although commonly considered nuts, they grow underground and belong to the same plant family as beans and lentils. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A handful of peanuts may leave a telltale signature in your blood, and researchers have linked that pattern to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

What happens inside your body after eating a handful of peanuts? Beyond providing protein, fiber, and healthy fats, these popular legumes appear to leave a distinctive chemical fingerprint in the bloodstream. Scientists have now linked this pattern of circulating fats to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, offering new clues about the complex relationship between diet, body weight, and metabolic health.

To investigate, researchers combined a six-month dietary experiment with data from a long-term population study involving more than 27,000 people. Their findings revealed how peanut consumption reshapes certain blood lipids and suggested that body mass index plays an important role in the observed connection to diabetes risk.

Looking Beyond Cholesterol

Cholesterol tests capture only part of the fat circulating in the bloodstream. A technique called lipidomics provides a more detailed inventory, revealing differences among lipid classes that conventional measurements may miss.

The type of fat you eat helps shape how your body processes and stores it. Replacing saturated fats with unsaturated fats can improve blood lipid profiles and reduce inflammation, helping address the cardiometabolic risks associated with unhealthy diets.

Even saturated fatty acids are not a uniform group. Very long chain saturated fatty acids (VLCSFA), which contain more than 20 carbon atoms, may have distinctive metabolic effects. Peanuts, which are legumes, supply these fats alongside monounsaturated fatty acids.

Tracking the Effects of Peanuts

Dr. Inés Domínguez-López and Professor Matthias Schulze at the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke worked with University of Barcelona researchers to investigate how peanuts influence this broader lipid landscape.

They began with ARISTOTLE, a randomized controlled trial involving 63 healthy adults ages 18 to 33. For six months, participants consumed either 25 grams (0.88 ounces) of skin-roasted peanuts, 32 grams (1.13 ounces) of peanut butter, or 32 grams (1.13 ounces) of a control butter containing peanut oil each day.

Using high-resolution mass spectrometry, an approach known as “deep lipidomics,” the team identified a characteristic pattern of blood fats following peanut consumption. They called it the “Peanut Lipidomic Signature” (PeLS).

A Different Mix of Blood Fats

Peanut consumption significantly increased certain very long-chain saturated fatty acids, particularly C24:0 and C22:0. These were preferentially incorporated into specific lipid classes, including ceramides, through processes involving enzymes that lengthen fatty acid chains.

“This is not merely a simple increase in fat levels but a complex ‘remodeling’ of the lipidome,” explains first author Domínguez-López.

“By characterizing this specific peanut lipid signature, we have uncovered a potential biological marker that links dietary fat quality to metabolic outcomes,” explains Schulze.

The researchers then examined samples and records from EPIC-Potsdam, a long-term population study with more than 27,000 participants. Its data included people who developed type 2 diabetes (774 cases) and cardiovascular disease (545 cases).

Where Body Weight Fits In

The peanut lipid signature was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, but not cardiovascular disease. Much of the relationship with diabetes was statistically explained by body mass index (BMI).

“This suggests that the positive metabolic effects of these specific peanut-derived lipids may be linked to their ability to support a healthier body weight or stabilize metabolic processes related to adiposity,” Domínguez-López says.

Affordable and widely available, peanuts could be a practical addition to a balanced diet that supports metabolic health, with their distinctive blood lipid signature linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Do Spiders Dream? Scientists Discover a Mysterious Sleep State

BY U. OF BONN, OCT. 31, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/do-spiders-dream-scientists-discover-a-mysterious-sleep-state/

The spider Portia fimbriata in a sleeping position, hanging upside down beneath its self-spun web. 

Credit: Daniela C. Rößler

Scientists have discovered that spiders experience REM-like sleep, complete with twitching muscles and moving eyes, raising the intriguing possibility that they might dream.

Spiders may have more in common with sleeping humans than scientists previously realized. Researchers at the University of Bonn have discovered that Australian jumping spiders experience two distinct stages of sleep, including a state that closely resembles REM sleep in humans. During this stage, the spiders move their eyes and twitch their muscles, behaviors that raise intriguing questions about the origins of sleep and whether spiders might experience something resembling dreams.

The findings provide the first comprehensive experimental confirmation of regulated sleep in spiders. They also suggest that complex sleep patterns may be far more widespread throughout the animal kingdom than previously understood.

In humans and other vertebrates, sleep involves multiple stages, including REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. This stage is associated with rapid eye movements, changes in muscle activity, and vivid dreaming in humans. Scientists have long wondered whether animals with very different nervous systems, including spiders, experience comparable sleep states.

To investigate, researchers from the Institute of Organismic Biology at the University of Bonn turned to an unusual subject: the Australian jumping spider Portia fimbriata.

The spider Portia fimbriata hunting an orb-web spider. 

Credit: Daniela C. Rößler



A Remarkably Intelligent Spider

The spider belongs to the genus Portia, a group of predators known for their sophisticated hunting techniques. Unlike many spiders that primarily capture insects, Portia species specialize in hunting other spiders.

One of their most remarkable strategies involves manipulating the webs of their prey. By producing vibrations that imitate insects struggling in silk, these spiders can lure web-building spiders toward them. Such complex hunting behavior suggests an unusual capacity for learning and adapting to different situations.

Despite their impressive abilities, these predators are quite small. A fully grown Portia fimbriata is roughly the size of a one-euro coin.

Their sophisticated behavior made them particularly interesting subjects for investigating sleep. Scientists wanted to determine whether these spiders simply become inactive at night or enter a genuine, biologically regulated sleep state similar to those observed in vertebrates.

Scientists Discover Two Distinct Sleep Stages

The researchers found convincing behavioral evidence that Portia fimbriata does more than rest. The spiders exhibit regulated sleep with two clearly distinguishable stages.

One of these stages closely resembles REM sleep, a well-known phase of human sleep characterized by rapid eye movements and muscle twitches.

During the spiders’ REM-like periods, the researchers observed eye movements and twitching muscles, suggesting that certain features of sleep may be shared by animals whose nervous systems are dramatically different from our own.

The discovery is especially significant because most scientific knowledge about sleep has come from studies of vertebrates, including humans, other mammals, birds, and reptiles. Until now, comprehensive experimental evidence establishing true sleep behavior in spiders had been lacking.

Although the REM-like movements are intriguing, they do not demonstrate that spiders dream. Determining whether spiders experience anything comparable to human dreams would require evidence beyond the behavioral observations available in this study.

How Researchers Studied Sleeping Spiders

To examine the spiders’ nighttime behavior, the scientists monitored individual Portia fimbriata specimens over multiple days and nights.

Each spider was kept in a small plastic dish measuring 12 centimeters in diameter. The researchers exposed the animals to different lighting conditions to investigate their daily activity cycles and determine how their behavior changed between day and night.

High-resolution video recordings allowed the team to examine the spiders’ movements in detail. During nighttime observations, infrared cameras captured their sleeping positions, periods of inactivity, and episodes of REM-like behavior without requiring visible light.

But remaining motionless is not necessarily proof of sleep. Animals can become inactive for several reasons, so the researchers needed additional evidence to distinguish actual sleep from ordinary rest.

They tested the spiders’ responses to sound and measured how quickly the animals reacted. These experiments helped determine whether the spiders became less responsive to external disturbances during their resting periods, an important characteristic of sleep.

The team also investigated a phenomenon known as “sleep rebound,” which occurs when an animal compensates for interrupted or insufficient sleep by sleeping more afterward. Testing for this response helped establish whether the spiders’ rest was regulated by an underlying biological need.

Together, these observations and experiments provided evidence that the spiders experience genuine sleep rather than simply remaining inactive.

The Challenge of Identifying Sleep in Spiders

Studying sleep in spiders presents difficulties that researchers do not typically encounter when investigating humans or other mammals.

One major obstacle was identifying a stimulus that would reliably awaken the spiders during experiments. Spiders perceive their surroundings very differently from humans, making it challenging to design tests that could consistently measure their responses.

The researchers also had to be careful when interpreting the unusual movements recorded during the REM-like stage. Although eye movements and muscle twitches resemble behaviors associated with REM sleep in vertebrates, similar outward movements do not necessarily indicate identical processes inside the nervous system.

Another important limitation was the inability to directly measure the spiders’ brain activity. Instead, the researchers had to base their conclusions entirely on observable behavior.

To overcome these challenges, they collected extensive high-resolution video recordings over long observation periods. This provided the detail needed to examine subtle movements and sleep patterns, but it also generated enormous amounts of data that had to be analyzed.

By combining behavioral recordings with experiments measuring responsiveness and recovery from interrupted sleep, the researchers were able to build a much stronger case for true sleep in spiders.

What Spider Sleep Reveals About Evolution

The discovery could have important implications for understanding how sleep evolved.

REM sleep is one of the most fascinating and still incompletely understood aspects of human biology. Although it is closely associated with dreaming in humans, scientists continue to investigate its broader functions and evolutionary history.

Finding REM-like behavior in spiders raises the possibility that some features of complex sleep are shared across a much wider range of animals than previously established.

Spiders and vertebrates have very different nervous systems, yet both appear capable of entering distinct behavioral sleep states. Understanding these similarities could help researchers identify fundamental properties of sleep that have persisted through evolution or developed independently in different animal groups.

The findings also open new opportunities in behavioral biology, neuroscience, and chronobiology, the study of biological rhythms and internal clocks. They may be particularly valuable for understanding how sleep functions in animals with relatively simple nervous systems.

Rather than limiting sleep research to humans and traditional laboratory animals, the scientists recommend studying a much broader diversity of species, especially those with unusual nervous systems or highly specialized adaptations.

Such comparisons could help reveal whether sleep serves a universal biological purpose and whether some of its essential features originated very early in animal evolution.

Despite decades of research, many basic questions about why animals sleep and what happens during different sleep stages remain unanswered, even in humans.

Could Spiders Dream? Scientists Want to Find Out

The University of Bonn researchers are now extending their investigations to other spider species to better understand how sleep and REM-like states evolved across this diverse group of animals.

They also plan to compare spiders sleeping in laboratory environments with those living in the wild. These studies could reveal whether natural surroundings influence sleep patterns in ways that controlled laboratory conditions cannot fully capture.

Another major research direction involves exploring the relationship between sleep and intelligence. Because Portia spiders display sophisticated hunting and learning abilities, they provide an interesting opportunity to investigate whether sleep contributes to cognitive processes in animals with very different brains from humans.

Future studies will also examine what happens inside the nervous systems of spiders and insects during sleep. Direct measurements of neural activity could help determine whether the REM-like behaviors observed in spiders involve processes comparable to those found in vertebrates.

The researchers are additionally interested in how environmental changes influence sleep. In particular, they hope to investigate the effects of climate change and human activities, including artificial light at night (ALAN), on the sleep behavior of spiders and other small animals.

Artificial nighttime lighting can alter the natural cycle of light and darkness that many organisms use to regulate their daily rhythms. Understanding how spiders respond to these disruptions could provide new insights into the broader ecological consequences of human activity.

For now, the findings establish something remarkable: even a tiny jumping spider can experience distinct, regulated stages of sleep, including one that resembles REM sleep in humans.

Whether those sleeping spiders actually dream remains an open question, but their unusual nighttime behavior offers scientists a new way to investigate one of biology’s oldest mysteries.

The Life of Earth

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Scientists Create Stunning, Car-Quality Paint Without Using a Single Pigment

By Kobe U. Oct. 30, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-create-stunning-car-quality-paint-without-using-a-single-pigment/

Kobe University material engineer Hiroshi Sugimoto developed a structural color coating that is gloss and can be applied to large, 3D surfaces. In addition, his team showed that adding a protective coating did not significantly change the hue, making the technology useful for real-world applications. 

Credit: Kobe University

A new silicon-based coating could dramatically reduce the weight and environmental impact of conventional paints.

A glossy, car-quality finish no longer has to depend on pigments. Researchers at Kobe University have developed a coating made from silicon nanoparticles that produces vivid, lasting color without the fading or angle-dependent shifts associated with many conventional coloring technologies.

Reported in the journal Small Structures, the advance combines several properties that have been difficult to achieve together: adjustable gloss, consistent color across viewing angles, compatibility with protective coatings, and application to large, three-dimensional surfaces. The technology could also dramatically reduce the weight of painted objects, including aircraft.

How Color Can Exist Without Pigments

Traditional paints rely on pigments to absorb certain wavelengths of light and reflect others. These coatings often require relatively thick layers that add weight, while some pigments gradually degrade with exposure to sunlight. Structural color works differently. It arises from interactions between light and microscopic structures, as seen in the brilliant feathers of peacocks. However, reproducing these effects in manufactured coatings has generally required precisely arranged structures that can change appearance with viewing angle.

“Color coatings are expected to provide vivid color, brightness, gloss, and long-term durability, yet no existing technology satisfies all of these requirements simultaneously,” says Kobe University materials engineer Hiroshi Sugimoto. His earlier research established that silicon nanospheres could produce structural colors without unwanted viewing-angle shifts. His team subsequently developed an inkjet printing method for the material, but the resulting surfaces scattered light too diffusely to achieve a polished, glossy appearance.

The coating technology developed by Sugimoto achieves high opacity and brightness with only a single layer of silicon nano spheres. The spheres have a diameter of around a quarter of a micrometer, that is, about a hundredth of a thin human hair. Credit: J. Song et al., Small Structures 2026

 (DOI: 10.1002/sstr.70600)

The Nanoparticle Design Behind the Gloss

The researchers addressed this limitation by surrounding silicon nanospheres with thin silica shells. These shells protect the particles and control the distance between them, encouraging more orderly arrangements that reduce diffuse light scattering. The improved organization makes it possible to produce a glossy finish while controlling its intensity.

“Packing the nano spheres in silica shells not only protects the particles but also controls their spacing and should improve self-assembly into neat arrays,” Sugimoto explains.

The team demonstrated the coating on large, complex three-dimensional surfaces and showed that an additional protective layer did not significantly alter the resulting color. This overcomes a major limitation of previous structural color systems, whose optical properties can be disrupted by protective coatings.

“The most exciting aspect of this work is that it demonstrates glossy, non-iridescent and protection-coated structural color coatings for 3D objects in a single platform, making the technology useful for real-world applications,” Sugimoto says.

A Paint Layer That Could Weigh Just Ounces

The coating achieves high opacity and brightness using only a single layer of silicon nanospheres. This extremely thin structure offers a potentially enormous weight advantage over conventional paints. Coatings on wide-body passenger aircraft can add several hundred kilograms (about 660 pounds for 300 kilograms), whereas the researchers estimate that an equivalent structural color layer could theoretically weigh just several hundred grams (about 11 ounces for 300 grams). That comparison remains hypothetical rather than a demonstrated aircraft application.

The materials also offer potential environmental advantages. Silicon can be sourced from the semiconductor industry, while silica is among the most abundant materials in Earth’s crust. Because structural color does not depend on organic pigments that can break down under light exposure, the coatings could reduce fading and the need for replacement. Their actual environmental benefits at industrial scale have yet to be established.

From Industrial Coatings to New Optical Technologies

Sugimoto is helping establish a company to bring the technology toward industrial production. The fabrication process can accommodate several established manufacturing techniques, potentially allowing the coatings to be applied over much larger areas.

“The process is compatible with scalable coating methods such as spray coating, slot-die coating, and roll-to-roll processing,” Sugimoto explains.

The research group’s longer-term ambitions extend beyond decorative and protective finishes. By engineering the optical behavior of silicon nanoparticles, the scientists hope to create coatings that perform additional functions, including detecting environmental changes, driving light-activated chemical reactions, and managing energy.

“We want to expand the possibility of applications for the science behind our technology beyond coloration. Looking ahead, we aim to develop multifunctional silicon nanoparticle coatings that combine structural coloration with additional optical functions such as sensing, photocatalysis, and energy management.”

The birth of modern Man

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Something Strange Is Happening to Barn Owls: They’re Changing Color

By U. of Lausanne, Oct. 28, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/something-strange-is-happening-to-barn-owls-theyre-changing-color/

Barn owls are nocturnal birds of prey known for their distinctive heart-shaped faces, pale feathers, and nearly silent flight.

 Credit: Shutterstock

DNA from more than 3,000 barn owls reveals natural selection at work, but the advantage behind their changing feathers may involve coping with stress rather than color itself.

Swiss barn owls have become more reddish-brown and more heavily spotted over the past 30 years. By tracking the DNA variants linked to their plumage, researchers have found evidence of natural selection acting over about ten generations, offering a detailed view of evolution unfolding in the wild.

The study, published in Nature Communications, was led by Dr. Tristan Cumer, a research fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Lausanne (Unil)’s Faculty of Biology and Medicine. Working in Professor Jérôme Goudet’s team, Cumer and his colleagues examined how genetic variants associated with color and spotting became more or less common over time. The challenge was to distinguish changes that could occur randomly from those shaped by natural selection.

“We compared the changes observed in the population with simulations in which evolution was entirely random. A genetic variant associated with reddish-brown plumage became far more common than chance alone could explain. Only simulations that included natural selection reproduced the changes we observed,” explains Cumer, the paper’s first author.

Redder feathers may be a byproduct

The analysis depended on both extensive genetic sequencing and records collected through decades of fieldwork.

“Drawing on the exceptional volume of data collected by Alexandre Roulin and his group, who have monitored these birds of prey in the field for decades, we were able to sequence the complete genomes of more than 3,000 owls and identify the DNA variants associated with color and spotting. This is one of the most in-depth genetic analyses ever conducted on a wild population,” says Goudet, the study’s last author, who is also affiliated with the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics.

Barn owls.

 Credit: Quentin Fort



The researchers identified genetic regions that play a major role in the birds’ appearance. These include MC1R, a gene already known to affect pigmentation, and a region on a sex chromosome whose contribution to both color and spotting they clarified. Identifying these links, however, does not establish which trait natural selection is favoring.

“We also do not know whether plumage color is itself the trait directly favored by natural selection,” says Goudet. “MC1R plays a role in pigmentation, but it is part of the melanocortin system, which has also been linked to other traits, including stress responses and aggression. Selection may therefore be acting on one of these traits, with the change in the owls’ appearance simply arising as a consequence.”

Food and stress could shape plumage

Barn owl plumage ranges from pure white to deep reddish-brown, with shades of golden brown in between. Some birds have only a few faint dark spots on their chests, while others carry many more prominent markings. Research at Unil has linked this variation to aspects of the birds’ lives beyond their appearance.

Plumage color is associated with fertility, hunting strategies, and diet. White barn owls, for example, use moonlight to their advantage when attacking prey, as described in an earlier Unil report in French. Spotting is associated with immunity and the ability to cope with stress. Birds with large black spots appear better able to withstand certain stressful conditions, including food shortages and parasites.

These connections offer possible explanations for the recent changes, although the ecological factors driving them remain unidentified. Roulin, a professor in Unil’s Department of Ecology and Evolution and a co-author of the study, suggests that shifts in food supplies or environmental stress could be involved.

“A change in prey availability may have favored reddish-brown barn owls, which eat more voles, whereas white owls tend to feed more on wood mice. The increase in spotting could be linked to greater environmental stress. Despite the striking differences in color between individuals, it remains extremely difficult to determine which ecological factors explain these variations.”

Evolution tracked across ten owl generations

The study’s evidence for natural selection is clearer than the explanation for what is driving it.

“Conducted in collaboration with the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach, this study is one of the rare cases in which the genetic basis of recent evolution has been traced with such precision in the wild. This kind of demonstration is much harder in animals living in their natural environment than in a laboratory,” adds Goudet.

For almost a decade, Goudet and his team have been working to decode the barn owl genome and establish the species as a model for studying evolution in the wild. Their work includes sequencing and assembling its reference genome, a DNA sequence that serves as a guide for genetic research, and reconstructing its evolutionary history across Europe and the Mediterranean. They have also investigated genetic recombination, which reshuffles DNA from one generation to the next, and studied how mutations arise and are passed on within populations.

“Research on this scale is possible because field teams, genomics specialists, and members of the Faculty of Biology and Medicine’s core facilities work together,” says Professor Goudet.

The changes documented in the owls show that detectable genetic evolution need not take millions of years. Cumer sees potential implications for how wild species respond to changing conditions, while the pressures acting on these owls remain unresolved.

“The study carries an encouraging message: it shows that species living in the wild can evolve over a short period. This capacity for rapid adaptation could help them cope with environmental change, including climate change,” says Cumer.

The team now plans to use computer analysis of photographs to measure color and spotting more precisely. Researchers also intend to reconstruct the plumage color of birds that died very young using their genetic data, allowing them to investigate whether particular plumage features are associated with better chances of survival.

The Life of Earth

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