Scientists Solve a 4,000-Year-Old Mystery About Britain’s Giant Standing Stones

By Curtin U., Sept. 14, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-solve-a-4000-year-old-mystery-about-britains-giant-standing-stones/

Prehistoric builders hauled 25-tonne stones at least 11 miles across Yorkshire to construct Britain’s tallest surviving stone row. The discovery suggests the Devil’s Arrows were created with remarkable planning and that their distant source may have held cultural or spiritual significance. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Prehistoric builders in Britain went to extraordinary lengths to create one of the country’s most striking ancient monuments. New research shows they intentionally transported enormous stones weighing more than 25 tonnes for at least 18 kilometers (11 miles) before raising them as the famous Devil’s Arrows, Britain’s tallest surviving prehistoric stone row.

A study led by Curtin University in collaboration with the University of York, UK, has identified the geological origin of the stones for the first time. The analysis points to Brimham Rocks, a dramatic and rugged landscape in North Yorkshire.

A 4,000-Year-Old Monumental Mystery

The Devil’s Arrows stand near Boroughbridge in northern England. Reaching heights of up to seven meters (23 feet), the towering stones form an unusual alignment in a lowland landscape.

Although their impressive size has made them a prominent feature for thousands of years, researchers had not been able to determine exactly where the stones came from. They are thought to have been transported and erected during the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, possibly around 2000 BC.

Lead author Dr. Anthony Clarke, from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the discovery challenges established ideas about the decisions prehistoric communities made when constructing monumental sites.

Prehistoric stones in Yorkshire, known as the Devil’s Arrow. 

Credit: University of York



“Our research shows these stones weren’t simply taken from the nearest available source – they were deliberately chosen from a challenging landscape 18 kilometers away,” Dr. Clarke said.

“Plumpton Rocks, which is closer to the Devil’s Arrows, had previously been identified as the probable source of the stones. Our findings instead point to Brimham Rocks, showing that prehistoric builders transported these enormous stones significantly further than thought.

“Each stone weighs more than 25 tonnes, so moving them would have required incredible planning, coordination and engineering skill.

“This tells us prehistoric people placed real importance on the landscape itself. It wasn’t just about convenience – the location the stones came from likely held meaning for them.”

Why Carry 25 Tonne Stones So Far?

The newly identified source is important because suitable stone was available closer to the monument. Instead of taking material from the nearest location, prehistoric builders appear to have deliberately selected stones from a more distant and difficult landscape.

That decision suggests the origin of the stones may have mattered for reasons beyond practicality. Brimham Rocks itself may have carried cultural, symbolic, or spiritual significance for the communities involved.

Co-author Dr. Jim Leary from the University of York said the results change the picture of prehistoric monument building.

“These results show that ancient communities were making deliberate and meaningful choices about where their stones came from,” Dr. Leary said.

“It highlights the importance of landscape and shared belief systems, as well as the remarkable effort involved in transporting and raising stones of this size.”

Mineral Fingerprints Reveal the Stones’ Origin

To investigate where the Devil’s Arrows came from without damaging them, the researchers used a new low-impact sampling technique. Adhesive tape allowed the team to collect extremely small mineral grains from the stones.

Researchers then examined the age “fingerprints” preserved in those grains. Those signatures provided a geological match with Brimham Rocks, revealing the most likely source of the monument’s enormous stones.

The evidence also allowed researchers to rule out natural transportation by processes such as glacial movement. Instead, the findings indicate that people intentionally moved the stones across the landscape.

That would have required prehistoric communities to transport blocks weighing more than 25 tonnes over a distance of at least 18 kilometers before positioning and raising them at the monument site.

Searching for More Clues

Dr. Clarke said the researchers now hope to use the same noninvasive approach to investigate other standing stones whose origins remain uncertain. The team also plans targeted excavations at the Devil’s Arrows and at the newly identified source area.

“These next steps could help us better understand when the stones were moved and how these extraordinary monuments were constructed,” Dr. Clarke said.

Justin Scully, National Trust General Manager for Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal and Brimham Rocks, said the findings establish a direct connection between Brimham Rocks and the Devil’s Arrows, linking two notable Yorkshire landscapes through an ancient human story.

“We’re incredibly grateful to the researchers for helping us uncover this new chapter in the stones’ story and deepen our understanding of the people who shaped this landscape thousands of years ago,” Mr. Scully said.

“The Devil’s Arrows are deeply cherished by local communities, and we’re delighted that this discovery adds a new chapter to their story.”

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The Physics That Curves a Ping-Pong Ball Just Showed Up in Quantum Light

By B. A. Senn, Paul Scherrer Inst., Sept. 15, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/the-physics-that-curves-a-ping-pong-ball-just-showed-up-in-quantum-light/

Putting spin on a ping-pong ball changes its trajectory – a similar effect also occurs in the quantum world. 

Credit: AI-generated symbolic image

Researchers have directly observed the optical Magnus effect for the first time, revealing a tiny shift in laser interactions that could affect the precise control of qubits in quantum computers.

Anyone who has watched a spinning soccer ball curve around a defensive wall has seen what happens when spin changes an object’s path through the air. The ball bends away from the direction it initially seemed to be traveling because its rotation creates an uneven force as it moves.

Physicists call this the Magnus effect. Researchers have now observed an optical counterpart of the same phenomenon at a vastly smaller scale, using laser light and a single trapped calcium ion.

Instead of making the ion curve through space, the optical effect shifts the point where a tightly focused laser interacts most strongly with it. An international team led by scientists at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI measured this tiny sideways displacement experimentally for the first time.

The finding could matter for quantum computers that use lasers to control individual qubits with extreme precision. If the shift is overlooked, the laser may not act exactly where researchers expect. But the effect could also become useful.

“The forces it generates could be used to couple qubits to one another, enabling more complex computations,” explains first author Philip Leindecker from the PSI Center for Photon Science and the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich.

The laser misses its expected target

At first glance, the strongest interaction should occur at the center of the laser beam, where the light is most intense. But tightly focusing laser light also changes the spatial structure of its electromagnetic field. That shifts the point of strongest interaction slightly to one side.

First author Philip Leindecker looks into the ultrahigh-vacuum chamber of a quantum computer at PSI that operates with trapped ions. The experimental demonstration of the optical Magnus effect could contribute to controlling such quantum computers even more precisely in the future. 

Credit: Paul Scherrer Institute PSI/Edgar Brucke

A single ion measures the displacement

To measure the effect, the researchers used a single calcium ion held almost motionless by electromagnetic fields in an ion trap. Trapped ions can also serve as qubits in quantum computers, where lasers are used to manipulate their quantum states with high precision.

The team moved the tightly focused laser relative to the ion and measured how strongly the ion interacted with the light at different positions.

“Our ion acts like a tiny sensor that we can use to feel out the structure of the laser light,” Leindecker explains. “This makes it possible to measure a shift of just a few hundred nanometers.”

That sensitivity allowed the researchers to observe the optical Magnus effect directly.

The shift could disrupt qubit control

The experiment also revealed a surprising feature of the shift. Its size depended only on the wavelength of the laser light and not on how tightly the beam was focused.

That result could be important for trapped-ion quantum computers. These systems rely on precisely aimed laser light to control individual qubits, so even a tiny sideways shift could contribute to errors if it is not taken into account. At the same time, the forces created by the effect may offer a new way to connect qubits and support more complex operations.

Scientists at the University of Amsterdam had predicted the optical Magnus effect theoretically several years earlier. The new experiment confirms that prediction and provides a more detailed characterization of how the effect behaves.

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Scientists Turn Sunlight Into Quantum Entanglement

By Optica, Sept. 15, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-turn-sunlight-into-quantum-entanglement/

Using a new cone-shaped solar concentrator, researchers showed that sunlight can be used to create entangled photons. This could one day enable satellites to create secure encryption keys using the sunlight already abundant in space.

 Credit: Florian Sterl

Scientists have turned ordinary sunlight into a source of quantum entanglement, opening a surprising path toward more energy-efficient quantum technology.

Quantum technologies often depend on powerful lasers that consume significant amounts of energy. As these systems grow larger and more widespread, their energy requirements could become an increasingly important concern. Now, researchers have demonstrated that sunlight itself can be used to generate quantum entanglement between photons, potentially offering a more energy-efficient alternative.

“Quantum entanglement is crucial for applications such as secure communication, ultra-precise sensing and high-performance computation,” said Cheng Li, a recent graduate of the University of Ottawa in Canada. “Our work shows that abundant natural light sources can be used for quantum entanglement, opening the possibility of more energy-efficient and accessible quantum technologies.”

Published in Optica, Optica Publishing Group’s journal for high-impact research, the study found that sunlight could produce entanglement comparable to laser-based methods once differences in the bandwidth of the incoming light were taken into account. The work brought together theoretical advances from Robert Boyd’s team at the University of Ottawa and a new solar concentrator created by Hanieh Fattahi’s team at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) in Germany.

“This technology could one day enable satellites to create secure encryption keys using the sunlight already abundant in space, reducing the need for onboard lasers and much of the supporting hardware,” said Li, first author of the paper. “Sunlight-driven entanglement generation could also provide the crucial ingredient needed to scale up quantum computing without adding to the energy burden.”

Cheng Li is shown with the outdoor experimental setup. The sunlight concentration module, including the Fresnel lens and the solar concentrator, is mounted on a solar-tracking motor to ensure stable power delivery. The entanglement generation and detection setup, including the nonlinear crystal and the single-photon detectors, is shielded in an optical enclosure placed inside a blackout tent.

 Credit: Jasvinder Brar, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light



Rethinking the Light Needed for Quantum Entanglement

Scientists have traditionally believed that creating the strong correlations needed for photon entanglement requires coherent light. In coherent light, the waves remain synchronized, with their peaks and valleys following a predictable relationship. Lasers are therefore commonly used because they produce highly coherent light concentrated around a single color.

Earlier research from Boyd’s team challenged that assumption. The researchers predicted theoretically and then demonstrated experimentally that incoherent light could also generate quantum entanglement. Using an LED, which produces incoherent light, they successfully created polarization-entangled photons.

That work showed that light does not have to be orderly in every respect to produce entanglement. For example, photons can travel in disorganized directions while still becoming entangled through another characteristic, such as polarization.

The new Optica study pushes that concept further by replacing the LED with sunlight. Sunlight presents a greater challenge because it spreads in many directions and contains a wide range of colors.

Creating Entangled Photons From Sunlight

To generate entanglement, the researchers used spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), an established optical process involving a nonlinear crystal. When a pump beam interacts with the crystal, individual photons can split into pairs that may become quantum entangled.

Normally, the pump beam comes from a laser. In this experiment, the team instead used sunlight that had been strongly polarized while remaining highly incoherent across space and time. This meant the overall light field oscillated in the same direction even though it contained photons of many colors traveling along different paths.

“We designed our experimental setup so that differences introduced by the different colors and propagation directions didn’t influence the photons’ polarization,” said Li. “As our theory predicts, if the entanglement lives only in polarization, then it should only depend on the pump’s orderliness in its oscillation direction and not on its direction or color. This allowed us to produce high-quality polarization entanglement from highly spatially and temporally incoherent sunlight.”

Focusing Sunlight Onto a Tiny Crystal

A major practical challenge was concentrating enough sunlight onto a nonlinear crystal only a few millimeters in size.

To overcome this problem, Fattahi’s team at MPL developed an all-glass solar concentrator. The cone shaped device collects sunlight gathered by a Fresnel lens roughly the size of a household window and directs it into an optical fiber approximately as thin as a human hair. From there, the concentrated light can be focused onto the tiny nonlinear crystal responsible for generating entanglement.

Putting Sunlight-Based Entanglement to the Test

The researchers tested their approach in an outdoor experiment at MPL. They used quantum state tomography to analyze the quantum state produced by the setup and found that the entanglement generated from sunlight was about 94% similar to a perfectly entangled state.

The photons also displayed correlations that violate Bell’s inequality. Such correlations cannot be explained by classical physics, providing evidence that the photons were genuinely quantum entangled.

With the proof of principle now established, the researchers are working toward a system that could eventually be deployed outside the laboratory. Their next steps include increasing the brightness of the system and improving the quality of the entanglement it generates.

The researchers also note that the concept may extend beyond SPDC. Other nonlinear optical techniques, including four-wave mixing, could potentially use similar approaches, opening additional possibilities for quantum photonics.

A Quantum Idea That Faced Early Skepticism

The researchers say the project initially met considerable skepticism because sunlight seemed like an unlikely source for producing useful quantum effects.

“Since the inception of this project, our idea has met with repeated doubt and pushback,” said Li. “Some world-renowned researchers in the field even questioned whether it would be possible to detect any photons — not to mention entangled photons — from sunlight-driven nonlinear optical processes. However, we trusted our calculations, continued improving the experimental setup, and eventually showed that it was possible.”

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It Turns Out Chihuahuas Are Actually Part Coyote

15 Sept. 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/it-turns-out-chihuahuas-are-actually-part-coyote

A family resemblance? (Mark Newman/The Image Bank/Getty Images & David Leahy/Compassionate Eye Foundation/Getty Images)

Chihuahuas are really weird dogs. We love them, but no doubt there's something a bit… quirky about those little guys.

A new investigation into the ancestry of dog genetics, reported in Nature Communications, could go some way to explaining why.

Chihuahuas, it turns out, share some genes with wild coyotes (Canis latrans).

DNA – the genetic blueprint recorded in every cell of a living organism's body – encodes the history of evolution.

Parents pass their DNA on to their offspring, and while mutations may sometimes reorganize the template slightly, it's DNA that allows scientists to trace ancestry back through time.

Embracing the coyote within… 

(P_PHOTO/iStock/Getty Images)



It's not an easy history to read, but modern computing is helping decipher this vast genetic database to help us make sense of it.

A team based at Stanford University was testing out a new pair of software programs, named Gnomix and Gnofix, which look at the genomes of many animals at once and estimate their relationship to each other, mapping out their evolutionary history.

This process – which is technically called local ancestry inference, or LAI – can help researchers figure out the ancestry of specific sections of DNA in an animal's genome.

Which is how they stumbled on a sizable quirk in the genome of the world's tiniest dog.

Chihuahuas, they realized, share multiple segments of their genome with wild coyotes.

There was already some evidence that well-known modern Mexican breeds – the Chihuahua and the hairless Xoloitzcuintli, often referred to as Xolo – were a mix of European and pre-Columbian canines.

The majority of domestic dog breeds today are of European descent, but these two have managed to hold on to some fragments of their 'New World' ancestry.

The Gnomix software has helped confirm the North American heritage of the Chihuahua and the Xolo, with coyote genes in the Chihuahua family tree, and Arctic dog ancestry making up more than 4 percent of the Xolo genome.

The study didn't reveal exactly when coyote genes might've entered the Chihuahua lineage, but research has suggested it occurred before Columbus arrived to the Americas.

We also don't know if the interbreeding was deliberate or accidental, or which traits Chihuahuas might've inherited from their indigenous ancestors – though there's something about their massive ears and expressive howls that are awfully reminiscent of coyotes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzoM70WknWA

Unlike some other lap dogs, Chihuahuas are known for their independent, proud, and self-assured natures, despite their size. We'd like to think it could be the wild coyote within, though it is difficult to say for sure.

"Wild coyotes and wolves have been found to hybridize naturally, especially in geographical areas where 'wolf-like' behavioral traits are beneficial," zoologist Jacqueline Boyd, who was not involved in the study, explained in an article for The Conversation.

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

Coyotes are much smaller than wolves, but they're still far from the diminutive dimensions of a Chihuahua.

The Chihuahua's miniature stature was probably more a result of artificial selection, with humans breeding for specific traits, than anything else.

"There is some evidence for the presence of diminutive dogs among pre-contact Mesoamerican cultures, but how these relate to Chihuahuas is unknown," Boyd wrote.

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Earth May Be Harboring a Hidden Stash of Water, Up to 1,800 Miles Below The Surface

15 Sept. 2026, By S. Vartan

https://www.sciencealert.com/earth-may-be-harboring-a-hidden-stash-of-water-up-to-1800-miles-below-the-surface

(Olexsii Mach/Canva Pro)

The phrase "water is life" is true – water makes all known life on Earth possible.

It's also a key component in lubricating the super-slow movement of Earth's mantle layer, hydrating those rock layers enough for them to ooze and slide past each other.

This is important to the tectonic cycle, which in turn helps regulate climate over geological time. That water also allows for important recycling of rocks and volatile compounds through the mantle.

"Liquid water is the key component of Earth's habitability," geoscientist Alfred Wilson from the University of Leeds in the UK writes in a commentary accompanying a new study about Earth's interior waters.

How did that water get into the mantle?

One model suggests asteroids brought the water to Earth, and it stayed hydrated as the planet formed. Or maybe the water came later, hydrating a previously dry mantle.

Where exactly that water is currently located within the miles-deep mantle layer of the planet's interior hasn't previously been well understood.

The new research suggests the water is likely located near the boundary between the mantle and its liquid outer core, where seismic tests have shown there are mysterious "ultralow velocity zones."

The lower mantle extends from about 660 to 2,900 kilometers (373–1,802 miles) beneath the surface. Its most abundant minerals, including bridgmanite and ferropericlase, are thought to be largely dry.

Other minerals can hold water at depth, but many either need unusual compositions to remain stable or break down at the high temperatures found in the deepest mantle.

So the researchers went looking for another possibility.

They used laser-heated diamond anvil cells – devices that squeeze tiny samples between two diamond tips just a paper-thickness-width apart, while lasers blast them with heat – to recreate high temperatures and pressures.

Pressure–temperature conditions for the formation of iron oxyhydroxides.

 (Yuan et al., Nature Geoscience, 2026)



Under those conditions, the scientists have identified two previously unknown iron oxyhydroxides (Fe5O12Hx and Fe7O12Hx), that could lock away enormous amounts of water.

The experiments show that these phases can exist under deep-mantle conditions, but do not directly demonstrate that they are present inside Earth.

"Identifying these iron oxyhydroxides is important because they are seemingly stable, dense phases that capture and retain water across a wide range of lower-mantle conditions," writes Wilson in his commentary.

These minerals formed even when water was scarce. In some experiments, the starting material contained less than 0.1 percent water, yet even those trace hydrogen concentrations were enough to stabilize the new phases.

That's important because Earth's deep interior isn't like some giant underground ocean. Any water stored there would have to be incorporated into minerals, often under conditions where free water is essentially absent.

These new minerals appear unusually well suited to the job.

They are both stable at the extreme conditions of the lowermost mantle and substantially denser than surrounding mantle rock.

That means that when a primordial molten "basal magma ocean" cooled and crystallized early in Earth's history, these water-bearing minerals could have formed and then sunk toward the core-mantle boundary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dht2C1nMtCo

This hidden water may not necessarily stay hidden, because as water-bearing material is dragged upward by mantle circulation, decreasing pressure could destabilize the minerals, releasing their water into other mantle phases.

Eventually, some of that water could, and probably does, make its way back toward the surface through mantle plumes and volcanism.

The discovery also sheds light on a previous mystery. A mineral known as the "H-phase," observed in earlier high-pressure experiments, appears to match one of the newly identified oxyhydroxides.

The researchers suggest that hydrogen contamination from trace moisture – rather than an entirely new dry mineral – may have helped produce the puzzling phase in earlier experiments.

"Apparently, even very small amounts of hydrogen are sufficient to stabilize these highly hydrated iron compounds," says mineral physicist and crystallographer Leonid Dubrovinsky from the University of Bayreuth.

There are still big unanswered questions, and the picture is "incomplete" according to Wilson.

Exactly how much water these minerals contain needs to be determined, and what happens when they reach the core-mantle boundary remains uncertain. It is also unclear how easily and over what time periods water stored in these deep minerals can ultimately return to the surface.

Still, the discovery suggests that Earth's water cycle may extend all the way to the edge of the core, and according to Wilson, these newly identified minerals "represent a breakthrough in the mystery of how the Earth obtained and retained its water."

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Scientists Discover Rain Can Damage Paint With Tiny Electrical “Lightning”

By Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Sept. 14, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-rain-can-damage-paint-with-tiny-electrical-lightning/

Drops can become electrically charged as they slide across surfaces. If they then fall onto a coating—such as on a car—the coating can be corroded by the drop’s electrical discharge and permanently damaged. 

Credit: Katharina Maisenbacher / MPI-P

Charged raindrops may damage paint with tiny electrical discharges that act like microscopic lightning.

Weather gradually wears down painted and coated surfaces, something anyone who has had to repaint a fence has probably seen firsthand. The same problem affects far larger structures as well. Landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge require repeated repainting and maintenance to keep their protective coatings intact.

Scientists have traditionally blamed two major processes for this kind of deterioration. One is mechanical stress, where repeated impacts and friction from droplets slowly weaken a coating or cause pieces of it to flake away. The other is chemical damage, especially when water contains corrosive substances such as acids or salts.

A Hidden Electrical Source of Damage

Now, researchers have identified another factor that may contribute to coating failure: the electrical charge carried by water droplets.

The work was led by Hans-Jürgen Butt, director at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, together with researchers from the University of Bonn, South China University of Technology, MIT, and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

“A few years ago, we investigated the physics behind how water droplets become charged as they slide across surfaces. This is a kind of ‘friction electricity’ in droplets and is physically much more complex than previously assumed,” says Rüdiger Berger, group leader in the “Physics at Interfaces” department. “When such charged droplets strike a coating, they discharge locally and can puncture the layer in specific spots like a small flash of lightning—with consequences for the coating’s durability.”

In other words, droplets can pick up electrical charge while moving across certain materials. When they later strike a coated surface, that charge can be released at a very small point, creating localized electrical damage.

Testing Thousands of Water Droplets

To test the effect, the researchers first released droplets onto a surface covered evenly with Teflon, a material widely known for its use on frying pans.

When the droplets carried no electrical charge, the coating showed no visible changes under a microscope, even after 3,000 impacts.

The team then changed the experiment by allowing droplets to roll across common materials before they hit the Teflon surface. These included a houseplant leaf, PVC, and polystyrene, such as that found in plastic windows.

As the droplets traveled across those surfaces, they accumulated electrical charge. They were then allowed to fall onto the Teflon coating.

After 3,000 charged droplets had struck the surface, microscopic examination revealed clear changes both in the coating and in the metal underneath it.

Different Surfaces Produce Different Charges

How much charge a droplet collected varied substantially depending on the material it crossed.

“The charge a droplet acquires as it slides depends heavily on the specific surface—we measured differences of up to a factor of ten,” explains Zhongyuan Ni, the study’s first author. “Regardless of this, we were able to detect changes in the coating in all experiments.”

The results suggest that electrical effects from moving water may be another important piece of the puzzle in understanding how protective surfaces deteriorate over time.

Toward Longer Lasting Protective Coatings

The researchers hope the findings, published in the journal Nature, could eventually help engineers develop coatings that are more resistant to this newly identified form of damage.

Such improvements could have applications ranging from cultural heritage sites and major infrastructure to cars and ordinary painted surfaces around the home, including the familiar garden fence.

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New Mexico’s Largest Reservoir Was Nearly Full. Now It’s at 1.4%

By L. Doermann, NASA Earth Observ., Sept. 9, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/new-mexicos-largest-reservoir-was-nearly-full-now-its-at-1-4/

New Mexico’s Elephant Butte Reservoir was nearly full on June 2, 1994 (left), in contrast to very low levels during periods of drought on July 8, 2013 (center), and July 27, 2026 (right). The images were acquired with the TM (Thematic Mapper) on Landsat 5 and the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 and Landsat 9. 

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

New Mexico’s largest reservoir plunged to just 1.4 percent capacity in July 2026, revealing the dramatic impact of prolonged drought and record early snowmelt.

NASA is using satellite data to help water managers understand the shrinking supply and prepare for future shortages.

When astronaut John Glenn remarked on the landscape below him while orbiting Earth in 1962, one feature caught his attention: a green, irrigated valley northwest of El Paso, Texas, surrounded by desert. Human-made lakes along the Rio Grande have helped make agriculture possible in this otherwise dry region. Irrigation water supports fields of alfalfa, cotton, onions, pecans, and Hatch green chiles, one of the area’s best-known crops.

Drought Tightens Its Grip on the Rio Grande

That agricultural lifeline has come under growing pressure as unusually dry conditions have persisted across the Rio Grande basin. Extreme drought has affected the region for several years, reducing the water available to replenish rivers and reservoirs.

Conditions became even more difficult in 2026. At the Rio Grande’s headwaters in the southern Rocky Mountains, the earliest snowmelt on record further reduced the amount of water available later in the season.

New Mexico’s Largest Reservoir Falls to 1.4 Percent

Together, these conditions helped push Elephant Butte Reservoir, the largest reservoir in New Mexico, to its lowest level since 1971. When the image above was captured on July 27, 2026 (right), the reservoir held just 1.4 percent of its capacity.

The contrast with earlier decades is striking. Elephant Butte was nearly full on June 2, 1994 (left), and water levels remained relatively high through much of the period from 1985 to 2000. During another major drought, the reservoir reached its annual low of 2.9 percent capacity on July 8, 2013 (center).

The exceptionally low water in 2026 exposed debris that had been hidden along the shoreline and left boat ramps at Elephant Butte Lake State Park coated with sediment. However, the reservoir appears to have reached its lowest point for the year in late July. Water releases for agriculture ended after July 28, according to state officials, allowing the reservoir to begin slowly gaining water again.

Water volume data from the Texas Water Development Board shows how the level of Elephant Butte Reservoir has varied from the lake’s creation in 1915 to summer 2026. 

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison

Managing a Shrinking Water Supply

The prolonged drought has underscored the broader challenges facing the Rio Grande and the communities that depend on it. Water users in both New Mexico and Texas draw on surface water and groundwater throughout the valley. With supplies under increasing strain, managers must carefully plan how water is stored, allocated, and shared.

Several projects supported by NASA’s Western Water Action Office (WWAO) are designed to give water managers better information for making those decisions. The projects combine satellite observations with other measurements to provide a more detailed picture of changing water conditions across the region.
NASA Satellites Help Track the Rio Grande

In one effort, researchers developed a model that uses NASA satellite observations of factors including soil moisture and evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration measures water moving from the land into the atmosphere through evaporation and plant activity. The resulting near-real-time tool supplements the Elephant Butte Irrigation District’s existing system for allocating water.

Another project combined satellite measurements of water surface heights with observations collected by drones and instruments on the ground. Researchers used the combined data to examine how groundwater pumping changes the flow of the Rio Grande. The WWAO says this information can help water managers administer water rights.

NASA scientists are also participating in a federal study focused on the Upper Rio Grande. The effort seeks to better understand regional water needs, estimate how much water may be available in the future, and develop data-based tools that can help communities manage increasingly limited supplies.

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Thawing Permafrost Is Releasing Carbon, but Something Unexpected Happens

BY ALFRED WEGENER INST., HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR POLAR AND MARINE RESEARCH, SEPT. 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/thawing-permafrost-is-releasing-carbon-but-something-unexpected-happens/

Permafrost in the Arctic stores large quantities of organic carbon. When the frozen ground thaws or coastal sections erode, this carbon can enter the sea, where microorganisms can break it down and convert it into climate-damaging greenhouse gases.

 Credit: Alfred-Wegener-Institut / Jaroslav Obu

Much of the ancient carbon released from thawing Arctic permafrost appears to end up trapped in seabed sediments rather than quickly returning to the atmosphere.

The Arctic’s frozen ground holds an enormous reservoir of organic carbon. As permafrost thaws and coastlines erode, some of that carbon is carried into the ocean, where microorganisms can break it down and potentially turn it into greenhouse gases.

Until now, scientists have had only a limited idea of how much of that carbon ultimately escapes into the atmosphere and how much remains trapped in the ocean. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute and MARUM – Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen have now investigated that question along the permafrost coast of Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island) in Canada.

By studying sediment cores from the seafloor, the team found that a substantial amount of carbon from land is being stored in seabed sediments. They also uncovered an unexpected biological preference: the microorganisms living there appear to favor fresh marine carbon over the much older carbon released from permafrost. The findings were published in Nature Geoscience.

A Vast Carbon Reservoir Is Starting to Thaw

Permafrost ecosystems across the Arctic contain roughly 1,300 gigatonnes of organic carbon, much of it derived from ancient plant remains. Another 400 gigatonnes are stored in sediments in oceans and river deltas.

That frozen carbon reservoir is becoming increasingly vulnerable as the Arctic warms faster than any other region on Earth. As permafrost thaws, rivers and collapsing coastlines can carry its carbon into the Arctic Ocean.

“Consequently, up to 0.02 gigatonnes are entering the sea each year, and according to forecasts, this outflow could rise by 70 to 150 percent by the year 2100,” says Dr Manuel Ruben, lead author of the study from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). “However, how much of this is released back into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas and how much is stored in the seabed has, until now, been largely unknown.”

Knowing what happens to this carbon is important because it helps scientists estimate how strongly thawing permafrost could influence future climate change.

Sediment Cores Reveal Where the Carbon Goes

To investigate, the researchers collected sediment cores at different distances from the coast of Herschel Island. Together, those cores preserve about 50 years of deposits.

The results showed that large amounts of organic carbon are indeed being swept away from the coast, but relatively little of it becomes part of the ocean’s active carbon cycle.

“Although the sea here carries away huge quantities of organic carbon from the coast, surprisingly little of it ends up in the ocean’s active carbon cycle,” says Manuel Ruben. “Microorganisms convert around ten percent of the organic carbon from the sediments into gases, which rise into the water and can then enter our atmosphere.”

Most of the remaining carbon stays stored in the seafloor.

Following Carbon With Isotopes

The scientists also examined how quickly permafrost material builds up on the seabed and what happens to it after burial.

They measured dissolved inorganic carbon inside tiny spaces between sediment particles – known as pore water. This allowed them to estimate how much CO2 microorganisms had produced after breaking down organic matter.

The team then studied the isotopic makeup of that carbon to determine where the microbes’ food came from.

”Carbon isotopes represent our atomic indicators that can identify the food source of the microorganisms,” says Prof. Gesine Mollenhauer, a geochemist at the AWI and co-spokesperson for the ‘The Ocean Floor – Earth’s Unexplored Interface’ cluster of Excellence. “The 13C isotope, for example, tells us whether they have consumed carbon from land or from the sea. By way of the 14C isotope, we were able to determine whether the single-celled organisms preferred old organic carbon from permafrost or fresh organic carbon from algae remains.”

“Gourmet” Bacteria Prefer Fresher Food

That analysis revealed a striking pattern. The microorganisms buried in the sediments seem to favor fresh carbon from marine sources, such as recently produced algae, rather than older carbon released from thawing permafrost.

“The sediment is home to ‘gourmet’ bacteria that apparently prefer fresh carbon stemming from, for example, more recent algal remains over the ‘old’ carbon from permafrost deposits,” explains Gesine Mollenhauer.

That preference suggests carbon carried into the sea from land may contribute less to atmospheric greenhouse gas levels than scientists had feared.

Still, the researchers caution that the picture is not complete.

“However, we do need further research here. This is because some of the organic carbon from the permafrost may already have been broken down before it reaches the seabed.”

Thawing Permafrost Also Changes Coastal Ecosystems

The movement of carbon from land into the sea could affect more than greenhouse gas emissions. It can also change the chemistry and biology of coastal waters that help support food sources for local communities.

Material eroded from the coast can reduce the amount of sunlight penetrating the water in two ways. Freshly broken sediment makes the water cloudier, while dissolved organic carbon can darken it.

That matters because single-celled organisms such as algae depend on sunlight to produce biomass and oxygen. This process, known as primary production, provides the foundation of marine food webs that support fish, crustaceans and seals.

Researchers plan to study these connections further during the international ‘Arctic Pulse’ campaign scheduled for 2027. Using the Polarstern research icebreaker, AWI research aircraft and land-based measurements, scientists will investigate how rapid environmental change is reshaping Arctic ecosystems.

Improving Climate Predictions

The new results give scientists a clearer picture of what happens after carbon escapes from thawing Arctic permafrost and reaches the ocean.

“Our study shows, more precisely than ever before, how much carbon is safely stored in the seabed – and just how much of the decomposed material actually originates from the old permafrost,” says Manuel Ruben. “This provides an important foundation for climate models that can predict the consequences of permafrost thawing for the global climate.”

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Your Brain Cleans Itself While You Sleep – Scientists Just Discovered How Fast

By L. Auburn, U. of Rochester, Sept. 12, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/your-brain-cleans-itself-while-you-sleep-scientists-just-discovered-how-fast/

Scientists have used AI to measure the brain’s hidden waste-clearing flow, a process that becomes especially active during deep sleep. They found that fluid moves much faster around the brain’s open spaces than it does through deeper tissue, where it slows by about 50 times. 

Credit: Shutterstock

AI reveals a striking two-speed cleanup system that helps the sleeping brain clear away harmful waste.

During deep sleep, a waterlike fluid moves through and around the brain, helping remove metabolic waste associated with disorders including Alzheimer’s disease. This cleanup process is known as the glymphatic system. It was first described in 2012 by Maiken Nedergaard, a pioneering neuroscientist and co-director of the University of Rochester Center for Translational Neuromedicine.

Although scientists have learned a great deal about the glymphatic system, major questions remain about how it actually works. One of the biggest uncertainties is the speed at which fluid travels through different parts of the brain. Measuring such slow circulation in a living brain is especially challenging because researchers need to observe it without causing permanent damage.

The Challenge of Measuring Brain Fluid Flow

“You can put a microscope on a small patch of the brain and watch what’s happening there with a lot of detail, and we’ve worked with that type of data in the past, but it’s only a tiny view of the overall process,” says Professor Douglas Kelley from URochester’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “If you want to image whole brains, an MRI is a great approach because it gives you a three-dimensional view. But an MRI has serious limitations too, the biggest of which is that it does not capture the fluid flow velocity, at least not for flows this slow.”

To overcome that limitation, Kelley and researchers from URochester, Brown University, and the University of Copenhagen turned to artificial intelligence. Their new study, published in Science Advances, describes a method that uses physics-informed artificial intelligence to extract fluid flow speeds from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data.

The researchers trained neural networks using videos that showed dye spreading through brain tissue over time. From those changes, the AI models could estimate both the speed of the fluid and the permeability of the surrounding brain tissue.

The Brain’s Cleanup System Has Two Speeds

The results revealed two major pathways by which the glymphatic system helps remove particles from the brain, including amyloid beta proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers found that these pathways operate at dramatically different speeds.

In more open areas around the brain, including the region between the skull and the brain’s surface, the waterlike fluid travels at a few microns per second. Deeper inside brain tissue, however, the fluid moves far more slowly, flowing at a rate roughly 50 times lower.

This large difference in speed gives researchers a clearer picture of how waste may be transported through different brain environments. Fluid can move relatively quickly through open spaces, while its movement through dense brain tissue is much more gradual.

From Animal Brains to Human Health

For now, the research team is working to establish baseline measurements of brain fluid flow in animals such as mice. Those measurements are helping researchers refine and improve the AI tools.

Eventually, they hope to compare glymphatic circulation in healthy and diseased brains, as well as in young and old brains. A major long-term goal is to extend the technique to humans.

“We’re working hard toward being able to measure the flow of waterlike fluids in and around human brains because then the clinical applications get a lot more important and exciting,” says Kelley. “We hope to someday be able to see whether an Alzheimer’s patient has poor circulation in their brain or even screen for poor circulation earlier in life to try to stave off Alzheimer’s. Or we could check when somebody has been concussed to see whether the fluid circulation in their brain is disrupted. This study gets us a step closer.”

If researchers can eventually measure these slow fluid movements reliably in people, the technique could offer a new way to investigate whether the brain’s natural waste-clearing circulation changes with Alzheimer’s disease, aging, or traumatic brain injury.

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Scientists Can Now Watch 'Conversations' Between Cells Across The Body of a Living Animal

12 Sept. 2026. By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-can-now-watch-conversations-between-cells-across-the-body-of-a-living-animal

New techniques reveal previously unseen communication between living systems in the body of a zebrafish. And yes, that glowing node between its eyes is the pineal gland.

 (Ruetten et al., Nature, 2026)

Biology – the study of living things – can admittedly be a little reductive at times.

It's easy to miss important connections depending on how you look at an organism. Microscopes show us the fine details of a body, dissection has helped us identify different organs, and X-rays can show us the bigger picture of internal systems.

But until now, it's been tricky to see how living cells communicate across those systems, which traditionally have been studied in isolation, even though our bodies ultimately work as a whole.

Now, scientists have figured out how to watch cells from disparate parts of the body communicate with each other. Their research has been presented in the journal Nature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuuwV6LitjU

"This work bridges two fundamental scales of biology – the cell and the organism – such that we can now fill that observability gap," says computational neuroscientist Virginie Ruetten, who developed the technique along with a team based at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US.

"There are some really basic properties that were just missing because it's been very difficult to look at cellular responses at scale."

The new imaging technique – dubbed WHOLISTIC (WHole-Organism Live-Imaging System for recording Tissue and IntraCellular activity) – captures cellular activity across the entire body, second by second.

So far, Ruetten and team have used this technique to image real-time signaling in naturally transparent animals: first with larval zebrafish, and then with another kind of freshwater fish, Danionella cerebrum, which remain transparent into adulthood.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXk5KxhS5_c

Both of these fish are important model organisms in scientific research.

Being able to see how the cells in their bodies communicate across different organ systems could help scientists figure out how similar systems in our own bodies might be working, too.

Calcium is a near-universal signal cells use to communicate with each other. It's involved in all manner of biological processes. It helps muscles to contract and synapses to fire; it's crucial at the start of life, when sex cells are fertilized, and at the end, when cells are programmed for death.

The WHOLISTIC technique uses genetic engineering to make nearly every cell in the body express fluorescent calcium sensors. These sensors literally light up when calcium levels in the cells shift.

A single fluorescence channel enables identification of organs and tissues via distinct visual textures. The areas with a yellow 'glow' show stronger fluorescence from the calcium sensor.

 (Ruetten et al., Nature, 2026)

"We know that evolution has produced functioning organisms, but evolution didn't care whether a decision was implemented in the brain's prefrontal cortex or in a connection between the brain stem and the bladder," says neuroscientist Misha Ahrens, whose lab hosted the research.

"This now allows all these fields – physiology, neuroscience, behavior, cell biology – to connect and study all of them in the same animal."

This whole-body imaging approach has already led to some unexpected findings.

For one, the scientists saw calcium sensors in a fish's chondrocytes (the main cells that form cartilage) flaring up in response to the cold.

They were also surprised to see the brain's protective tissue layers (meninges) – not just its neurons – responding to ketamine.

Zooming out, the body's rhythms were illuminated like never before.

"At the multi-organ scale, it revealed unknown muscle synergies and muscle–organ interactions," the authors report in their paper.

"At the whole-organism scale, the method captured brainstem-controlled redistribution of body-wide blood flow."

The team hopes that scientists around the world will be able to adopt this method for their own research, offering unprecedented insight into the body as a whole.

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Children of Centenarians Have a 42% Lower Risk of Death, Study Finds

By Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Sept. 12, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/children-of-centenarians-have-a-42-lower-risk-of-death-study-finds/

Exceptional longevity may be accompanied by a longer stretch of healthier life. New findings suggest that some of this protection can extend to the next generation, though not equally across all age-related diseases. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Living to 100 may benefit more than one generation. Children of centenarians tend to live longer while delaying major threats to heart health.

A study published in JAMA Network Open found that adults with at least one parent who lived to 100 had substantially lower risks of death, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension than people whose parents had shorter lives. Several of these outcomes also occurred years later, suggesting that exceptional longevity may involve an extended period of healthier aging rather than survival alone.

Led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Boston University, and Tufts Medical Center, the work strengthens evidence that unusually long and healthy lives cluster within families. Lifestyle remained important, but it did not fully account for the advantages observed among centenarians’ children.

“Centenarians—people who live to age 100 or older—offer crucial insights into what it looks like to age well,” said Sofiya Milman, M.D., M.S., professor of medicine and of genetics at Einstein, vice chair for research in the department of medicine, and senior author of the study. “We wanted to know whether they pass their good health and longevity down to their children—and, if so, whether those advantages can be explained by healthy habits or whether something more fundamental, like genetics, is at work.”

Three Studies Track Exceptional Longevity

The researchers combined evidence from three geographically diverse, long-running projects: the Einstein-led LonGenity study, the New England Centenarian Study (NECS) at Boston University, and the UK Biobank. Together, the analysis included 2,319 adults with at least one centenarian parent and 2,703 controls.

Control participants either had parents who lived to age 85 or younger or were spouses of centenarians’ offspring. Including spouses gave researchers another useful comparison group because couples often share environments and health habits but not the same inherited biology.

Sofiya Milman, M.D., M.S., professor of medicine and of genetics at Einstein, vice chair for research in the department of medicine, and senior author of the study. 

Credit: Albert Einstein College of Medicine



The available data covered 16 years in LonGenity and the UK Biobank and 29 years in NECS. Although the studies collected information independently, the team analyzed each group using the same approach. This allowed the researchers to determine whether associations with death and age-related disease appeared consistently across different populations.

Lower Risks and Later Disease

At any given age, people with a centenarian parent had a 42% lower risk of death than participants whose parents had shorter lifespans. Their risk of cardiovascular disease was 33% lower, while their risk of hypertension was 32% lower.

The timing of these outcomes was also notable. Centenarians’ offspring died approximately three years later on average and developed hypertension about five years later. Delaying a common condition such as high blood pressure could have wider health implications because hypertension contributes to heart, blood vessel, kidney, and brain disease.

The benefits remained largely consistent after the researchers accounted for smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, diet, education, and socioeconomic status. The findings therefore suggest that familiar health behaviors and social circumstances do not completely explain why exceptional longevity runs in certain families.

Protection Has Clear Limits

Having a centenarian parent did not provide equally strong protection against every disease. Stroke risk was reduced only in the LonGenity and NECS studies, not consistently across all three groups. Cancer risk was no lower among centenarians’ offspring, a result that agrees with some earlier research.

“The overall consistency of these findings across these quite different studies was especially noteworthy and reinforces the idea that exceptional longevity runs in families,” said Eric Reed, Ph.D., staff scientist in medicine and lead author of the study. “This is not to say that lifestyle doesn’t count—healthy behaviors remain important for everyone. But some people from families with exceptional longevity appear to enjoy biological advantages that help them remain healthy despite the environmental and behavioral factors that affect us all.”

Turning Longevity Biology Into Treatments

“This study wasn’t designed to identify the specific inherited traits that benefit centenarians’ children,” Dr. Milman said. “However, studying families with exceptional longevity can provide a unique window into the biology of healthy aging. Our findings provide a strong rationale for studying centenarians and their families to uncover those biological factors that promote longevity and protect these individuals from age-related diseases.

“Ultimately,” Dr. Milman added, “discovering those factors could lead to treatments that mimic the effects of naturally occurring longevity mechanisms, potentially helping people who did not inherit exceptional longevity to live longer and healthier lives.”

“This study provides strong evidence that the offspring of centenarians share some of their parents’ advantages in healthy aging,” said study co-author Paola Sebastiani, Ph.D., director of the Center for Quantitative Methods and Data Science at Tufts Medical Center. “These findings bring us closer to understanding the biological factors that may help protect against age-related disease and promote longer, healthier lives.”

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Mulberry Shows Surprising Effects on Gut Bacteria and Metabolism

By Wroclaw Medical U., Sept. 11, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/mulberry-shows-surprising-effects-on-gut-bacteria-and-metabolism/

Mulberry compounds may reshape gut microbial activity in ways linked to metabolism and intestinal health, but their effects appear to depend strongly on how the plant is processed. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Mulberry’s potential benefits may begin with gut microbes, but the way it is prepared could make all the difference.

Researchers are examining whether bioactive compounds in mulberry can alter the gut microbiota in ways that influence glucose regulation, fat metabolism, and intestinal health.

A review involving scientists from Wroclaw Medical University found encouraging evidence from laboratory and animal studies, although research in humans remains limited.
Why Mulberry Preparations Differ

The gut microbiota helps digest food, maintain the intestinal environment, and produce substances that can affect the rest of the body. Anna Prescha, PhD, DSc, a professor in the Department of Dietetics and Bromatology at Wroclaw Medical University, says mulberry is especially interesting because it contains polyphenols and polysaccharides that may interact with these microorganisms.

Most research has examined white mulberry (Morus alba), but black mulberry (Morus nigra), particularly its fruit, has also shown potential. Mulberry leaves contain polyphenols, polysaccharides, and 1-deoxynojirimycin (DNJ), which is known to influence carbohydrate metabolism. Black mulberry fruit supplies abundant anthocyanins and other phenolic compounds, as well as polysaccharides.

The final product depends heavily on how the plant material is handled. Drying, fermentation, and extraction can change both the quantity and balance of its active compounds. Two preparations made from the same leaves or fruit may therefore have different compositions and produce different biological responses.

Gut Bacteria Turn Mulberry Into Metabolites

Studies reviewed by the researchers suggest that preparations made from mulberry leaves and fruit can alter the abundance and activity of certain gut bacteria. Some experiments reported increases in beneficial microbes and greater production of acetate, propionate, and butyrate.

These short-chain fatty acids are created when gut bacteria ferment dietary material. They help support the intestinal lining and contribute to the chemical communication connecting the gut with metabolism elsewhere in the body. Several studies linked mulberry-related microbial changes with improvements in measures of glucose and lipid metabolism.

The effects, however, varied considerably among preparations. Polysaccharides extracted from black mulberry fruit differed in structure and in how effectively gut microbes used them. Fractions obtained through water extraction and treatment with pectate lyase displayed the greatest prebiotic potential.

Structure Shapes the Microbial Response

Leaf polysaccharides showed the same sensitivity to chemical structure. Features such as molecular weight and monosaccharide composition appeared to influence which bacteria could consume them and which short-chain fatty acids those microbes produced. This helps explain why simply listing the compounds in a product may not be enough to predict its effects.

Infographic highlighting how mulberry species, plant parts, and preparation methods can influence their chemical composition and potential effects on the gut microbiota. 

Credit: Wroclaw Medical University

Some of the strongest results came from mixtures rather than isolated components. In mice fed a high-fat diet, a white mulberry fruit fraction containing both polyphenols and polysaccharides produced more favorable changes in the gut microbiota than either fraction given separately. The combined treatment also improved some indicators of metabolic syndrome and intestinal health.

Researchers then transferred microbiota from mice treated with the combined fraction into other animals. The recipient mice also experienced improvements in certain metabolic disturbances, strengthening the possibility that the altered microbial community helped transmit some of the treatment’s effects.

Finding the Right Mulberry Formula

The findings suggest that mulberry’s biological activity may emerge from interactions among multiple compounds rather than from one dominant ingredient. Prescha emphasizes that researchers must consider the species, plant part, chemical proportions, and processing method when trying to produce a specific effect. A universal mulberry supplement is therefore less realistic than carefully designed preparations intended for particular purposes.

The review began with the Nutri-Sfera Student Research Group in the Department of Dietetics and Bromatology at Wroclaw Medical University. The topic was proposed by two students who have since graduated: Marta Miszczak from the Dietetics program and Karolina Kłosowska-Buryło from the Pharmacy program. Their involvement brought nutritional and pharmaceutical perspectives together, allowing the team to examine mulberry as both a complex plant material and a possible influence on the microbiota and metabolism.

Human Evidence Is Still Missing

Despite the encouraging results, most evidence comes from animal models and in vitro experiments. Human studies directly measuring how mulberry preparations affect the gut microbiota remain scarce. Comparisons are also difficult because relatively few studies provide a detailed chemical analysis of the products they test.

Prescha cautions that researchers cannot yet assume the relationships observed among mulberry, gut microbes, and metabolism will work the same way in people. Changes found in mice or laboratory cultures may not translate into meaningful human health benefits.

Clinical trials will need to test standardized preparations whose chemical composition has been thoroughly documented. These studies could determine which mulberry products alter the human gut microbiota, how large and consistent those changes are, and whether they lead to measurable improvements in metabolic or intestinal health.

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