A Single Dose of Psilocybin Induces Lasting Brain Changes, New Study Suggests

06 May 2026, By J. COCKERILL

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-single-dose-of-psilocybin-induces-lasting-brain-changes-new-study-suggests

Psilocybin appears to 'loosen up' patterns of brain activity. 

(Alllex/E+/Getty Images)

Just one insightful psychedelic trip can have a profound impact on a person, and a new study goes some way to explaining why.

The research suggests a single dose of psilocybin (the psychedelic compound in 'magic mushrooms') that sufficiently 'shakes up' the brain's tried-and-true patterns could improve a person's mental well-being for up to a month after their trip.

Many studies on the effects of psilocybin have looked at groups receiving the drug for therapeutic reasons.

Instead, this new work investigated how 28 healthy participants who had never tried psilocybin before reacted to a 25 milligram dose, which is enough to elicit a strong psychedelic trip.

The results may help to explain some of the improvements seen in people with depression, addiction, and anxiety.

"We already knew psilocybin could be helpful for treating mental illness," says UC San Francisco (UCSF) neurologist Robin Carhart-Harris. "But now we have a much better understanding of how."

Psilocybin is best known as the active compound in 'magic mushrooms'. 

(Yarphoto/Getty Images)



Carhart-Harris and team assessed the novice trippers' experiences through a series of psychological tests to gauge factors like cognitive flexibility, sense of well-being, and psychological insights gleaned during the trip.

To compare these self-reported dimensions with something a bit more objective, the scientists also recorded the brain activity of participants using electroencephalography (EEG), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

EEG readings were taken before the trip, and then one, two, and four and a half hours into it.

Meanwhile, fMRI and DTI readings were taken before the psilocybin session, and then one month after.

Participants undertook two sessions. They were informed that with each session they would receive a dose of psilocybin, but they wouldn't know how much.

In the first session, all participants were given 1 milligram of psilocybin, which is low enough to be considered a placebo. This was the control.

A month later, participants were given 25 milligrams in a second session. The same psychological and neurological tests were conducted in the preliminary phase as during the full-dose replication, to gather baseline data.

As you can imagine, it was obvious to many participants which session had included the drug, which somewhat limits the findings.

Nevertheless, the data revealed a link between a temporary uptick in brain entropy – a measure of how widely the brain's neural activity varies – and psychological insight reported the following day.

Participants with greater brain entropy under the influence of psilocybin, along with next-day psychological insight, also reported greater improvements in psychological well-being one month post-trip.

"Our data shows that such experiences of psychological insight relate to an entropic quality of brain activity and how both are involved in causing subsequent improvements in mental health," explains Carhart-Harris.

"It suggests that the trip – and its correlates in the brain – is a key component of how psychedelic therapy works."

The experience of insight appears particularly crucial to the long-term effects on well-being. Perhaps this could help doctors hone the use of psilocybin in a clinical setting by further investigating what dose and settings promote those deeper revelations.

Some researchers, however, question whether heightened brain entropy is a reliable marker of the psychedelic state. In a recent critical review, for instance, an international team of neuroscientists suggests that this view may oversimplify things. Their review calls for a more nuanced understanding of how entropy relates to the psychedelic experience.

Carhart-Harris and team also acknowledge in their report, "we may not have yet discovered a sufficiently sensitive assay for detecting (true) functional brain changes post-psilocybin," writing that further work will be needed to fill this gap.

But the fact that a single dose of a drug can have lasting effects on subjective well-being – particularly when the trip itself involves physical brain changes that appear related to subjective psychedelic experience and next-day insights – is, as neuroscientist Taylor Lyons from Imperial College London says, "especially exciting."

"Psilocybin seems to loosen up stereotyped patterns of brain activity and give people the ability to revise entrenched patterns of thought," says Lyons.

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New Research Challenges Long-Held Beliefs About How the Brain Makes Decisions

By U. of Illinois Grainger College of Engin., May 6, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/new-research-challenges-long-held-beliefs-about-how-the-brain-makes-decisions/

Researchers have uncovered evidence that early brain regions may play a more active role in decision-making than traditionally believed, challenging long-standing hierarchical models. These findings suggest that intelligence may rely on dynamic, interconnected processes, offering new perspectives that could influence future AI design.

 Credit: Shutterstock

New research challenges traditional views of how the brain makes decisions, suggesting that even its earliest regions play a more active and dynamic role than previously thought.

New research from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign suggests that how the brain makes decisions could influence the future design of artificial intelligence. Led by electrical and computer engineering professor Yurii Vlasov and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study shows that early brain regions play a role in decision-making, challenging long-standing ideas about how the brain is organized.

The human brain is often described as the most complex structure in the universe. Its inner workings remain so difficult to understand that reverse-engineering it was named one of the National Academy of Engineering’s 14 grand challenges in 2008. For years, scientists have based artificial intelligence systems such as convolutional neural networks on the assumption that decisions arise through a step-by-step flow of information, starting in early sensory regions and ending in the frontal cortex. However, researchers like Vlasov are now reexamining that assumption.

Beyond Hierarchical Models of Intelligence

Another way to understand the brain focuses on natural intelligence, which has been shaped by evolution rather than designed by humans. In this framework, decision-making does not happen in a simple sequence. Instead, it involves interconnected feedback loops that send signals in both directions across different brain regions.

Mouse navigating in naturalistic virtual reality using its whiskers to make perceptual decisions to turn left or right. Contrary to traditional views on brain organization, the perceptual decision making is represented strongly at the very early stages of cortical computations in the primary cortex.

 Credit: The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign



Natural intelligence also stands out for its efficiency. It can perform complex computations while using far less energy than current AI systems. To better understand how this works, Vlasov and his team studied the brain from a systems-level perspective, looking at how different parts interact rather than examining them in isolation.

“We want to learn from a billion years of evolution,” Vlasov said. “How is that biological intelligence organized architecturally? Can we learn from the architectural side of the brain and emulate that to make AI more effective, less power-hungry, and more intelligent than it currently is? In the level of decision-making, that’s where current AI is lacking.”

Early Brain Regions and Decision Signals

To tackle the complexity of the brain, the researchers focused on its earliest processing stages, which handle sensation and perception. They recorded neural activity in mice as the animals moved through a virtual reality corridor and made decisions based on what they perceived.

The results were unexpected. Signals linked to decision-making appeared in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1), an area traditionally associated with basic sensory processing. This suggests that decision-related activity begins earlier in the brain than previously thought.

Further analysis showed that S1 is influenced by higher-level brain regions through feedback loops. This top-down modulation indicates that decision-making is not driven only by one-way, feed-forward signaling, but instead involves ongoing interactions across multiple levels of the brain.

“The neural code of the brain is still mostly an unknown language,” Vlasov said. “But this systems-level understanding can be viewed as a potential impact on how more efficient artificial neural networks can be built — how the next generation of AI can be thought through. Maybe with these analogies that we learn from real brains, we can improve AI further.”

Implications for Future AI Architectures

The findings do not provide a direct blueprint for building better artificial intelligence, but they offer a new way to think about it. By studying how the brain organizes and processes information, researchers may identify principles that can improve AI systems.

Vlasov and his team plan to continue exploring how brain activity changes over time, with a focus on fast temporal dynamics. They are also developing new tools to measure and analyze neural signals more precisely.

“By looking at the fast temporal dynamics of neural activity, maybe we can understand better how these feedback loops are engaged in making decisions,” Vlasov said. “Maybe that’s the approach that potentially uncovers these currently unknown mechanisms — how these feedback loops are organized dynamically and how they form and shape different levels of processing. Maybe that can be implemented in new architectures for AI.”

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Scientists Discover How Coffee Impacts Memory, Mood, and Gut Health

BY U. COLLEGE CORK, MAY 6, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-how-coffee-impacts-memory-mood-and-gut-health/

New research explores how coffee interacts with the gut–brain axis, shedding light on how it may influence both the microbiome and mental well-being. The findings suggest that regular coffee consumption alters microbial activity and is linked to shifts in mood, stress, and cognitive function. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Coffee alters gut bacteria and improves mood and cognition, with both caffeinated and decaf offering distinct mental health benefits.

Researchers at APC Microbiome Ireland, a leading research center at University College Cork, have, for the first time, closely examined how coffee produces positive effects on the gut-brain axis.

The study, published in Nature Communications and supported by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC), shows that regularly drinking both caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee can shape the gut microbiome and influence mood and stress.

Although coffee’s benefits for digestion and mental well-being are well known, the biological processes behind these effects have not been fully understood. This study explored how coffee affects the microbiota-gut-brain axis, the two-way communication system linking the gut microbiome and the brain, using a wide range of measurements.

Study Design and Participant Analysis

The research followed 31 coffee drinkers and 31 non-coffee drinkers using psychological evaluations, caffeine and diet logs, and stool and urine samples to track changes in gut microbes and self-reported mood and stress. “Coffee drinkers” were defined as individuals who regularly consume 3-5 cups per day, an amount considered safe and moderate for most people by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Participants then avoided coffee for two weeks while continuing psychological assessments and biological sampling. During this period, regular coffee drinkers showed clear shifts in gut metabolite profiles compared to non-coffee drinkers.

Photo (L-R): Professor John Cryan, Dr Serena Boscaini and Dr Gerard Moloney.

 Credit: Provision.



After this phase, coffee was reintroduced in a blinded setup. Half of the participants received decaffeinated coffee, while the others consumed caffeinated coffee. Both groups reported lower levels of stress, depression, and impulsivity, indicating that coffee improved mood regardless of caffeine content.

Microbiome Changes and Beneficial Bacteria

Certain bacteria, including Eggertella sp and Cryptobacterium curtum, were found in higher levels among coffee drinkers than non-coffee drinkers. Eggertella sp is believed to support gastric and intestinal acid production, while Cryptobacterium curtum plays a role in bile acid synthesis. These functions may help remove harmful gut bacteria and reduce stomach infections. Higher levels of Firmicutes bacteria were also observed, which have been linked to positive emotional states in females.

Only participants who consumed decaffeinated coffee showed clear improvements in learning and memory, suggesting that compounds other than caffeine, such as polyphenols, may drive these cognitive effects. In contrast, caffeinated coffee was associated with reduced anxiety along with better alertness and attention. Caffeine was also linked to a lower risk of inflammation.

Expert Insights on Coffee and Health

Corresponding author of the study, Professor John Cryan, Principal Investigator at APC Microbiome Ireland, University College Cork, commented, “Public interest in gut health has risen hugely. The relationship between digestive and mental health is also increasingly being better understood, but the mechanisms behind coffee’s effects on this gut-brain axis have remained unclear.

“Our findings reveal the microbiome and neurological responses to coffee, as well as their potential long-term benefits for a healthier microbiome. Coffee may modify what microbes do collectively and what metabolites they use. As the public continues to think about dietary changes for the right digestive balance, coffee has the potential to also be harnessed as a further intervention as part of a healthy, balanced diet.”

“Coffee is more than just caffeine—it’s a complex dietary factor that interacts with our gut microbes, our metabolism, and even our emotional well-being,” said Professor Cryan. “Our findings suggest that coffee, whether caffeinated or decaffeinated, can influence health in distinct but complementary ways.”

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What Happens to Your Birds at Night — You've Never Seen This

 Backyard Bird Mind May 3, 2026 

Every evening your yard goes quiet. The feeders empty. The branches go still. And most people have no idea what actually happens next. 🌙🐦 

Where do your birds go when the light leaves your yard? The answer is far more specific, far more deliberate, and far stranger than most people realize.

 In this video, we go into the dark — into the exact roost sites, the physiological strategies, and the extraordinary things your birds do between dusk and dawn that most people never get to see.

🔴 Where the Cardinal Actually Goes Every Night — and why your holly bush may be his bedroom 

🔴 Regulated Hypothermia — the chickadee drops its body temperature by 22°F to survive the cold 

🔴 The Communal Roost — why twelve bluebirds that won't share a perch by day pack into the same box at night 

🔴 Unihemispheric Sleep — how birds sleep with one eye literally open and what they are listening for 🔴 The Great Horned Owl, the Cat, and the Sensory Network Running Through Your Dark Yard 

🔴 Why Robins Sing at 1am in Well-Lit Neighborhoods — and why it's your streetlight's fault 

🔴 What Is Flying Over Your House Right Now — the spring migration you cannot see but is happening above your roof tonight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xftmgUhS7Q

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Darwin’s Islands Still Evolving: Giant Daisies Rewrite the Rules of Evolution

By F. K. Hansen, Norwegian U. of Sci. and Tech., May 4, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/darwins-islands-still-evolving-giant-daisies-rewrite-the-rules-of-evolution/

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was a British naturalist whose work transformed biology by providing a unifying explanation for the diversity of life. Through observations made during his voyage on the HMS Beagle, he developed the theory of evolution by natural selection, proposing that species change over time as heritable traits that improve survival and reproduction become more common. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Galápagos plants show repeated evolution and emerging species, emphasizing evolution’s flexibility and active role today.

The Galápagos Islands have long stood as a living laboratory of evolution, but their story is far from finished. Nearly two centuries after Darwin’s famous finches reshaped our understanding of life, new research reveals that evolution on these remote islands is still unfolding in unexpected ways.

When Charles Darwin arrived in 1835 aboard the HMS Beagle, he collected birds that he later studied in England. At first, he thought they included sparrows, woodpeckers, finches, and even a single tit. He later realized they were all closely related finches, with differences in their beaks reflecting adaptations to different diets.

This became a classic example of parallel evolution, where similar traits emerge more than once but through different genetic routes.

Darwin’s observations of these finches helped support his theory of evolution by natural selection, showing how species can change over time in response to their environments.

“More than 150 years after Darwin’s work on the Galápagos transformed our understanding of life on Earth, these islands continue to reveal new biology,” says Professor Michael D. Martin at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) University Museum.

Herbarium sheet with Scalesia incisa collected by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle in the Galápagos Islands from 1831-1836. 

Credit: GBIF, Cambridge University Herbarium (CGE) collection



Ongoing Discoveries in Galápagos Science

Martin is part of a global research team that includes scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; the University of California, Davis; the University of Copenhagen; the Charles Darwin Foundation in the Galápagos; the University of Georgia, Athens; the University of British Columbia; and other institutions. Together, they examined evolution in the plant genus Scalesia, often called the Galápagos giant daisies. Their findings were recently published in Nature Communications.

“Just like Darwin’s famous finches, these plants evolved rapidly after arriving on the Galápagos from mainland South America,” says Vanessa Bieker of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the study’s lead author.

The Scalesia genus is relatively young, with all existing species emerging within the past one million years. Despite this short timespan, they have adapted to a wide range of island environments, from humid highland forests to dry lowland areas.

Plants in the genus Scalesia have evolved adaptive traits multiple times, but not always using the same genes. The photo shows the serrated leaves of Scalesia affinis (radiate-headed scalesia).

 Credit: Michael Martin, NTNU University Museum



“The appearance of different species varies dramatically, from low shrubs to tall trees. Most striking are the leaves, which range from large and entire to small and deeply lobed,” says Martin.
Leaf Adaptations and Genetic Mysteries

Lobed leaves, often with complex and jagged edges, are believed to help these plants cope with heat and dryness by limiting water loss and improving heat release. Until now, scientists did not know how this trait developed at the genetic level.

By sequencing the full genomes of all known Scalesia species, the team found that lobed leaves evolved multiple times, appearing independently in different branches of the family tree.

A Galápagos National Park guide searching for Scalesia plants on Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos. New research shows how the island fuels parallel evolution, as Scalesia plants have evolved the same adaptive traits, but using different genes.

 Credit: Michael D. Martin, NTNU



Some populations may already be on separate evolutionary paths. Many Scalesia groups could represent unique lineages that have not yet been formally classified as distinct species.

Parallel Evolution and Genetic Pathways

“Even more surprising was that each time this trait evolved, it did so through different genes—even though all of them belong to the same biological system controlling leaf development,” says Bieker.

“This provides a clear example of parallel evolution: nature arriving at the same solution multiple times, but through different genetic pathways. Instead of being controlled by a single ‘master gene,’ evolution appears to draw on an entire network of interacting genes, tweaking different components to produce similar outcomes.”

Close-up of serrated leaves of Scalesia affinis (radiate-headed scalesia). 

Credit: Michael Martin, NTNU University Museum



Repeated Trait Evolution and Ongoing Speciation

These findings offer new insight into how complex traits can evolve repeatedly in nature.

The study also shows that evolution in these plants is still happening today.

“Populations within the same species show large genetic differences and have been isolated from one another for long periods. This means new species may be in the process of forming. Many Scalesia populations may represent distinct evolutionary lineages that have not yet been formally described,” says Martin.

Conservation Implications and Evolution in Action

The researchers suggest that each isolated population should be treated as its own conservation unit, which could change how the Galápagos ecosystem is protected in the future. Their work also provides a detailed view of how a single species can quickly branch into many distinct forms.

“Our findings highlight the flexibility and creativity of evolution,” says Bieker.

She notes that Darwin also collected many plant specimens during his time in the Galápagos. Seventy-eight of these were later identified as entirely new species, including four types of Scalesia.

The Life of Earth

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NASA Satellite Reveals Just How Fast Mexico City Is Sinking

05 May 2026, By M. Janetsky, Associated Press

https://www.sciencealert.com/nasa-satellite-reveals-just-how-fast-mexico-city-is-sinking

Mexico City's Angel of Independence monument has had 14 steps added to its base over the years as the land around it has gradually sunk. 

(Orbon Alija/E+/Getty Images)

MEXICO CITY (AP) – Mexico City is sinking by nearly 10 inches (about 25 centimeters) a year, according to new satellite imagery released this week by NASA, making it one of the world's fastest-subsiding metropolises.

One of the world's most sprawling and populated urban areas, at 3,000 square miles (about 7,800 square kilometers) and some 22 million people, the Mexican capital and surrounding cities were built atop an ancient lake bed.

Many downtown streets were once canals, a tradition that continues in the rural fringes.

Extensive groundwater pumping and urban development have dramatically shrunk the aquifer, meaning that Mexico City has been sinking for more than a century, leaving many monuments and older buildings — like the Metropolitan Cathedral, where construction began in 1573 — visibly tilted to the side.

The contracting aquifer has also contributed to a chronic water crisis that is only expected to worsen.

"It damages part of the critical infrastructure of Mexico City, such as the subway, the drainage system, the water, the potable water system, housing and streets," said Enrique Cabral, a researcher studying geophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

"It's a very big problem."

Mexico City is sinking so fast that the subsidence can be spotted from space.

Mexico City is a well-known hot spot of subsidence, but new satellite data has revealed just how fast the region is sinking. The dark blue color on this map indicates areas found to be subsiding by more than half an inch (more than 2 centimeters) per month. 

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/David Bekaert)

In some parts it is happening at an average rate of 0.78 inches (2 centimeters) a month, according to NASA's newly released report, such as at the main airport and the iconic monument commonly known as the Angel of Independence.

Overall that means a yearly subsidence rate of about 9.5 inches (24 centimeters). Over the course of less than a century, the drop has been more than 39 feet (12 meters), according to Cabral.

"We have one of the fastest velocities of land subsidence in the whole world," he said.

The NASA estimates are based on measurements taken between October 2025 and January 2026 by a powerful satellite known as NISAR, which can track real-time changes on the Earth's surface and is a joint initiative between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization.

NISAR scientist Paul Rosen said that by capturing details of the Earth from space, the project is also "telling us something about what's actually happening below the surface."

"It's basically documentation of all of these changes within a city," Rosen said.

He added: "You can see the full magnitude of the problem."

With time the team hopes to be able to zoom in even more on specific areas and someday get measurements on a building-by-building basis.

More broadly, researchers hope to apply the technology around the world to track things like natural disasters, changes in fault lines, the effects of climate change in regions like Antarctica and more.

Rosen said it could be used to bolster alert systems, letting scientists alert governments to the need for evacuations in cases of volcano eruptions, for example.

For Mexico City the technology amounts to a big advance in studying the subsidence issue and mitigating its worst effects, according to Cabral.

For decades the government has largely ignored the problem other than stabilizing foundations under monuments like the cathedral.

But following recent flare-ups of the water crisis, Cabral said, officials have begun to fund more research.

Imagery from the NISAR satellite and the data that comes with it will be key for scientists and officials as they plan on how to address the problem.

"To do long-term mitigation of the situation," Cabral said, "the first step is to just understand."

The Life of Earth

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One Complex Emotion May Have a Powerful Effect on Your Mental Health

05 May 2026, By N-A. WILSON, THE CONVERSATION

https://www.sciencealert.com/one-complex-emotion-may-have-a-powerful-effect-on-your-mental-health

(Marco Bottigelli/Moment/Getty Images)

Words escape you. Your skin tingles. You are overwhelmed by how small and insignificant you really are, bursting with a feeling that is hard to define.

This is awe.

Awe is a complex emotional state we experience when the enormity of what we see or feel transcends what we understand. It can be positive or negative.

Astronauts report this feeling when confronted with the vastness of space and Earth's puny place within it.

This experience – sometimes known as the "overview effect" – can change forever how people who've seen Earth from afar think about life here.

"Hello, World", an incredible photo of Earth captured by Artemis II mission commander Reid Wiseman on April 2, 2026. Auroras are visible at the top right and bottom left. 

(NASA)



But you don't have to travel to the moon and back to experience awe.

Beautiful art, a walk in nature, or dancing in a crowd can give you this overwhelming, transcendent feeling.

Neuroscience suggests experiences of awe can be good for your mental health – when they're positive. So, when is awe good for us? And what exactly is going on in the brain?

Awe can be both positive and negative

Positive awe is what probably comes to mind when most people think of awe. If you've ever been moved by something immense and beautiful – such as a majestic mountain or sunset – you've likely experienced this sense of calm and wonder.

(Arnaud Mesureur/Unsplash)



However, psychologists sometimes describe awe as an experience at the boundary of pleasure and fear.

Both pleasure and fear can result in similar bodily arousal – racing heartbeat, goosebumps and chills – but the way we interpret this as an emotion will depend on the context. It can be the same when we experience something vast and overwhelming.

Negative awe may occur when we feel threatened or a lack of control, such as during an earthquake or terrorist attack.

Imagine standing in front of a tsunami and seeing it come towards you. You may feel powerless and filled with dread, while also overcome with a sense of insignificance in the face of nature's majesty and power. This is the complexity of awe.

Trying to make sense of the unexpected

Our brains are constantly making predictions and integrating our experiences into what we already know.

We tend to "filter out" sensory signals that match our expectations, to instead focus on being ready to respond to information that is surprising.

New information is processed by parts of the brain that help to fit it within our pre-existing understanding of the world, knowledge frameworks known as schemata (or schemas).

According to schema theory, we either assimilate this new information into an existing schema, or have to change the schema to fit the new knowledge.

Not all new experiences will evoke awe. It occurs when we experience both the inability to assimilate an experience into current knowledge and a sense of vastness.

For example, you might have a schema for "waterfall" – a mental framework of what you expect (rocks, water, beautiful).

But confronted by the roar of Victoria Falls, its size and velocity, the way the sun hits the spray, you experience awe; it's unlike any waterfall you have ever seen and is beyond your expectations.

Awe can make us feel small and insignificant in the face of something immense. 

(byronetmedia/unsplash)

What happens in the brain when we experience awe?

When we feel awe, activity decreases in the brain regions associated with internal or self-referential processing. This network is what drives our memory and understanding of our place in the world.

When activity in these regions decreases, there is a shift away from yourself towards processing external information. This may explain why you tend to "feel small" when you experience awe.

But positive and negative awe may have different effects on our nervous system.

Negative awe is associated with sympathetic nervous system activity, which drives our "fight or flight" response.

Positive awe, however, is associated with increased parasympathetic activity. This reduces heart rate and arousal, which is why we may feel calmer.

How awe can be good for us

If you're someone who seeks out experiences bigger than yourself – hiking for breathtaking views, enjoying meditation, art or losing yourself in the roar of a crowd – you probably already know awe can make you feel fantastic.

Now, research is exploring why. Emerging evidence suggests awe may be good for mental health and wellbeing in five ways:

improving your nervous system's ability to relax

diminishing self-focus

making us more likely to help other people

connecting us to others

increasing sense of meaning.

More work needs to be done before we can say whether awe results in long-lasting benefits. But purposefully seeking awe may help you feel less stressed, more satisfied, and happier.

Sharing awe-filled experiences can help us transcend ourselves and connect with others. 

(Danny Howe/Unsplash)

Finding awe in the everyday

What evokes awe will likely be different for different people. But we know some things are more likely to induce this complex feeling, such as experiences of art, music and natural environments that move us.

Many people also find awe in collective experiences, especially those involving shared music or movement, or religious rituals. These help us transcend ourselves and become part of something bigger.

Contemplating inspiring and complex "big" intellectual ideas by learning something new may also have this effect.

So, can you actively cultivate awe?

One way to start is by taking "awe walks". These involve walking with the intention of noticing beauty, vastness and wonder. Connecting with your own sense of spirituality – even if you are not religious – can also evoke awe.

In many cases, the vast and overwhelming experience of awe can start with simple acts of noticing.

The Life of Earth

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Plant Seeds Do Something Incredible When The Sound of Rain Strikes

04 May 2026, By I. Farkas

https://www.sciencealert.com/plants-can-sense-the-sound-of-rain

(sbayram/iStock/Getty Images)

Plant seeds can sense the vibrations generated by falling raindrops and respond by waking from their state of dormancy to welcome the water, new research shows.

While the soothing pitter-patter of rainfall induces humans to snuggle up and settle down, it appears to do the opposite for rice seeds, causing them to germinate in 'anticipation' of the coming deluge.

The finding, discovered by MIT mechanical engineers Nicholas Makris and Cadine Navarro, offers the first direct evidence that seeds and seedlings can sense and respond to sounds in nature.

"What this study is saying is that seeds can sense sound in ways that can help them survive," explains Makris.

"The energy of the rain sound is enough to accelerate a seed's growth."

Artistic representation of a rice seed germinating in response to the acoustic vibrations caused by falling raindrops. 

(Cadine Navarro/MIT)



Plants don't have the same aural equipment we do to actually hear sounds, of course. But the study suggests that seeds respond to the same vibrations that can produce a sound experience in our human ears.

Across a series of experiments, the researchers submerged nearly 8,000 rice seeds in shallow tubs of water, at a depth of around 3 centimeters (1 inch), and exposed some of them to falling water drops over periods of six days.

They varied the height and size of each falling drop to simulate rainstorms of differing intensities, while also altering the positions of the seeds to determine how depth and distance influence germination.

A hydrophone recorded the acoustic vibrations produced by the drops, confirming that the experiment mimicked the vibrations produced by actual raindrops falling in nature – such as the driving downpours that can sometimes pelt Massachusetts' puddles, ponds, and wetlands.

For those suddenly craving the soothing sounds of a storm, the researchers uploaded the otherworldly percussion of a Massachusetts shower serenading a puddle, providing a rare human glimpse of a submerged seed's experience.

"It gives new meaning to the fourth Japanese microseason, entitled 'Falling rain awakens the soil,'" Makris says.

In their study, the researchers observed that seeds exposed to the falling drops germinated up to around 37 percent faster, compared with seeds that did not receive the simulated rainstorm treatment but were housed in otherwise identical conditions.

This adaptation appears to be facilitated by statoliths – gravity-sensing organelles that settle toward the bottom of certain plant cells, providing a sense of gravitational direction (gravitropism) to guide the downward growth of roots and the upward growth of shoots.

The sound waves produced by falling raindrops can impart enough force through water and possibly soil to jostle these statoliths and trigger seed growth.

Indeed, the highest increases in germination rates were observed in the seeds that experienced the highest levels of statolith displacement, due to proximity to the falling drops.

This suggests that seeds planted closer to the surface are likelier to respond, because they're at an optimal depth for absorbing moisture and growing.

Acoustic vibrations are most pronounced in submerged conditions. Since water is denser than air, pressure waves are magnified and travel more easily, making rain much louder underwater.

For perspective, the sounds of rain produced in a shallow puddle are in the range of hundreds of Pascals, while a typical human conversation at a distance of 1 meter (3.3 feet) may be in the range of 0.005 to 0.05 Pascals.

"So if you're a seed that's within a few centimeters of a raindrop's impact, the kind of sound pressures that you would experience in water or in the ground are equivalent to what you'd be subject to within a few meters of a jet engine in the air," says Makris.

The researchers believe that other types of plant seeds react to environmental sounds in similar ways, and ultimately chose rice because it shares similarities in gravitropism with many other plants.

Rice, an essential staple food for billions of people, also grows in underwater environments, making it perfectly suited for this experimental setup.

The Life of Earth

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Shockingly Powerful Giant Octopuses Ruled the Seas 100 Million Years Ago

BY HOKKAIDO U. MAY 5, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/shockingly-powerful-giant-octopuses-ruled-the-seas-100-million-years-ago/

Ancient octopuses may have been giant predators that ruled the seas. Fossilized jaws show they had crushing bites and aggressive feeding habits, with some growing up to nearly 20 meters long. 

Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Giant, intelligent octopuses may have once ruled the ancient seas.

Modern octopuses are known for their intelligence and flexibility, living in reefs, squeezing into crevices, or drifting through deep ocean waters. However, new research suggests their earliest ancestors played a much more dominant role in marine ecosystems. A study led by Hokkaido University reports that the first known octopuses were massive predators that occupied the very top of the food chain, alongside large marine vertebrates. The findings were published in Science on 23 April 2026.

Because octopuses lack hard parts like bones or shells, they rarely leave behind fossils. This has made it difficult to trace their evolutionary history. To address this, researchers focused on fossilized jaws, which are more likely to be preserved, to better understand early octopus evolution.

Using high resolution grinding tomography and an artificial intelligence model, the team identified fossil jaws embedded in rock samples from the Late Cretaceous period, dating from 100 to 72 million years ago. These specimens, discovered in Japan and Vancouver Island, were preserved in calm seafloor sediments and retained detailed wear marks that provided insight into feeding behavior.

A sketch of the giant octopus. 

Credit: Yohei Utsuki, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Hokkaido University



Giant Predators with Powerful Jaws

The fossils came from an extinct group of finned octopuses called Cirrata. By studying the size, shape, and wear patterns of the jaws, researchers determined that these animals were active predators that likely crushed hard prey with strong bites.

“Our findings suggest that the earliest octopuses were gigantic predators that occupied the top of the marine food chain in the Cretaceous,” says Professor Yasuhiro Iba of Hokkaido University. “Based on exceptionally well-preserved fossil jaws, we show that these animals reached total lengths of up to nearly 20 meters, which may have surpassed the size of large marine reptiles of the same age.”

“The most surprising finding perhaps was the extent of wear on the jaws,” says Iba. The fossils showed heavy chipping, scratching, cracking, and polishing, all evidence of powerful biting.

“In well-grown specimens, up to 10% of the jaw tip relative to the total jaw length had been worn away, which is larger than that seen in modern cephalopods that feed on hard-shelled prey. This indicates repeated, forceful interactions with their prey, revealing an unexpectedly aggressive feeding strategy.” These results point to ancient octopuses as strong, active hunters that consumed plentiful prey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2VARSAoztg&t=2s

Digital fossil-mining of an octopus jaw fossil that enabled precise visualization of its fine structures by using zero-shot learning AI.

 Credit: Shin Ikegami, Kanta Sugiura, Yasuhiro Iba, Jörg Mutterlose, Yusuke Takeda, Mehmet Oguz Derin, Aya Kubota, Kazuki Tainaka, Harufumi Nishida

Evolutionary Impact and Behavioral Complexity

This discovery reshapes scientific understanding of early octopus evolution. The fossils push back the earliest record of finned octopuses by about 15 million years and extend the broader octopus timeline by roughly 5 million years, placing their origins around 100 million years ago.

Another notable finding was uneven wear on the jaws. In the two species studied, one side of the biting surface showed more wear than the other, suggesting these animals may have favored one side when feeding. This type of asymmetry, known as lateralization, is linked in modern animals to advanced neural processing. The findings indicate that early octopuses may already have exhibited complex, intelligence-related behavior.

For many years, scientists believed ancient marine ecosystems were dominated by vertebrate predators, with invertebrates occupying lower positions in the food chain. These results challenge that view by showing that giant octopuses were an exception, rising to the highest level of the food web and competing with large vertebrates.

“This study provides the first direct evidence that invertebrates could evolve into giant, intelligent apex predators in ecosystems that have been dominated by vertebrates for about 400 million years. Our findings show that powerful jaws and the loss of superficial skeletons, common characteristics of octopuses and marine vertebrates, were essential to becoming huge, intelligent marine predators” says Iba.

Future Discoveries and Ecosystem Insights

This research opens new possibilities for reconstructing ancient marine ecosystems in greater detail. By combining digital fossil mining with artificial intelligence, scientists expect to uncover many more hidden fossils.

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Psychology says people who let dirty dishes pile up instead of washing them immediately aren’t being lazy

D. Moran, May. 02, 2026

https://spacedaily.com/d-psychology-says-people-who-let-dirty-dishes-pile-up-instead-of-washing-them-immediately-arent-being-lazy-theyve-reached-a-level-of-daily-depletion-where-one-more-small-task-feels-heavier/

There’s a particular argument that has played out in millions of households, in roughly the same form, for as long as people have been living together.

One person looks at the sink full of dishes and feels a small surge of irritation. Why hasn’t this been dealt with? It would take ten minutes. The other person, the one who left the dishes there, is sitting on the couch, not because they don’t see the dishes, but because the gap between seeing them and being able to summon the energy to wash them feels, in this moment, larger than they can cross.

The first person reads the pile as a character flaw. Laziness. Inconsideration. A failure to notice or care. The second person experiences it as something else entirely. They’re not lazy. They’re depleted. And the pile is sitting there because something else, often invisible to everyone in the household, has already taken what it would have cost to clean up.

I’ve been watching this dynamic up close in my own home since my daughter was born. My wife and I are both, by temperament, the kind of people who keep a clean kitchen. The dishes always got done before we became parents. Now, sometimes, they don’t. And the reason isn’t that we’ve gotten lazy. The reason is that a baby has been added to our lives, and our daily energy budget hasn’t expanded to match what the day now requires. The dishes are, on the harder days, the most honest piece of information in the house.

This is a piece about reading that information correctly, in your own life and in the lives of the people you live with.

Why the small task is the one that breaks

There’s a body of psychological research, going back to the late nineties, on something called ego depletion or decision fatigue. The original work was led by social psychologist Roy Baumeister, and the basic finding was that self-control and decision-making seem to draw from a limited pool of mental energy. Use that pool too much, and the next decision, even a small one, becomes harder than it should be.

Some aspects of Baumeister’s original ego-depletion model have been challenged in replication studies. But the core observation that people make worse decisions and resist tasks more when their cognitive resources are depleted has held up in multiple frameworks. A widely cited paper on the construct, published in the journal Innovation in Aging, defined decision fatigue as a state in which depleted internal resources lead to procrastination, avoidance, and a reluctance to engage with tasks that require any further self-regulation.

In plainer language, after enough small drains on your willpower, you stop being able to do small things.

This is the part most people misunderstand. The dishes don’t take much. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen. On a normal day, with a normal energy reserve, you wouldn’t think twice about doing them. The reason they go undone isn’t that they’re hard. It’s that they’re being asked of someone whose budget for “one more thing” has already gone to zero earlier in the day, and not necessarily for visible reasons.

If you’ve ever looked at a small task and felt, for no clear reason, like it was an immense ask, you weren’t being dramatic. You were registering an honest signal about the state of your inner battery.

The invisible drain most households don’t see

A lot of the depletion in modern households doesn’t come from the visible chores. It comes from what researchers now call the mental load.

A landmark 2019 study by psychologists Lucia Ciciolla and Suniya Luthar, published in the journal Sex Roles, gave one of the first quantitative looks at this. They asked mothers about the cognitive and emotional management of their households, things like remembering schedules, anticipating needs, planning the week, monitoring the kids’ wellbeing. Their finding was striking. Mothers overwhelmingly reported being the primary captain of household management, and the more cognitively responsible they felt, the lower their personal wellbeing and relationship satisfaction.

A more recent 2024 paper in the Archives of Women’s Mental Health extended these findings. Researchers at the University of Southern California found that mothers spent roughly twice as much time on cognitive household labor as fathers, and that this invisible cognitive work, far more than the physical chores themselves, predicted increased stress and depression risk.

Why is the cognitive load so much heavier than the physical one? Because cognitive labor doesn’t end. Anyone who has cooked dinner knows that the dinner ends. The mental work of running a household, the constant background process of remembering, planning, anticipating, monitoring, never gets to clock off. It’s running while you’re at your job. It’s running while you’re trying to relax. It’s running while you’re trying to sleep.

By the time the visible task arrives, the dishes, the laundry, the email that needs replying to, the person being asked to do it has already been doing dozens of invisible cognitive tasks all day. The pile in the sink isn’t the start of their workload. It’s the part you can finally see.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

This Tiny Creature Survived a World of Dinosaurs and Changed What Came Next

BY U. OF WASHINGTON, MAY 3, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/this-tiny-creature-survived-a-world-of-dinosaurs-and-changed-what-came-next/

An illustration of Cimolodon desosai on the tree with a fruit in its mouth. It was about the size of a golden hamster, the researchers said. It likely scampered on the ground and in the trees and ate fruits and insects. 

Credit: Andrey Atuchin

This tiny dinosaur-era mammal may hold the secret to surviving Earth’s worst extinction.

Mammals lived alongside dinosaurs for millions of years until a catastrophic event 66 million years ago wiped out about 75% of life on Earth. Even after this mass extinction, some species endured. Among the survivors were small, rodent-like mammals from the genus Cimolodon. These animals belonged to a group known as multituberculates, which first appeared during the Jurassic Period and survived for more than 100 million years before eventually disappearing. By studying them, scientists gain insight into how early mammals made it through the extinction and later evolved into the wide range of species seen today.

New Species Found in Baja California

Researchers led by the University of Washington have identified a previously unknown species within this genus using a fossil discovered at a site in Baja California. The fossil is estimated to be about 75 million years old. The new species, named Cimolodon desosai, was roughly the size of a golden hamster. Scientists believe it moved both on the ground and in trees and likely fed on fruits and insects.

The findings were published April 22 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

A Common Mammal With Survival Advantages

“The genus Cimolodon was a pretty common mammal during the Late Cretaceous, the last epoch of the Age of Dinosaurs. Cimolodon fossils have been found throughout western North America, from western Canada down through Mexico,” said senior author Gregory Wilson Mantilla, a UW professor of biology and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Burke Museum. “This new species, Cimolodon desosai, was ancestral to the species that survived the extinction event. It and its descendants were relatively small and omnivorous — two traits that were advantageous for surviving.”

Rare Fossil Provides More Complete Picture

The fossil was first discovered in 2009 by Wilson Mantilla and his team. Unlike many similar finds, which often consist only of teeth, this specimen included a broader set of remains. The researchers recovered teeth, a skull, jaws, and parts of the skeleton, including a femur and an ulna.

“It’s very hard to find fossils at this site compared to other areas,” Wilson Mantilla said. “At first, my field assistant found just a little tooth poking out. If he had just found that, I would have been over the moon. But then when we looked inside the crack of the rock, we could see there was more bone.”

Because the team uncovered more than just teeth, they were able to better estimate the animal’s size, body structure, and movement. These details also provide a clearer picture of the environment it lived in and improve understanding of the multituberculate group overall.

Advanced Imaging and Identification

To study the fossil in detail, the researchers used digital imaging and micro-computed tomography, or micro-CT, to produce high-resolution images. They then compared the teeth of C. desosai with those of related species in the Cimolodon genus to confirm it represented a new species.

“That far back in time everything is named based on their tooth characteristics,” Wilson Mantilla said. “If you find a skeleton that’s missing teeth, sometimes it’s hard to attach it to a name.”

Naming the Species and Acknowledgments

The new species was named after Michael de Sosa VI, the field assistant who first noticed the fossil. De Sosa died while the team was still analyzing the specimen.

“He was a great field assistant, and he was like a little brother to me,” Wilson Mantilla said. “It’s a great specimen to be associated with.”

The Life of Earth

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'Negative Time' Really Does Exist, New Experiments Suggest

04 May 2026, ByH. Wiseman, The Conversation

https://www.sciencealert.com/negative-time-really-does-exist-new-experiments-suggest

(shaunl/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

As Homer tells us, Odysseus made an epic journey, against the odds, from Troy to his home in Ithaca. He visited many lands, but mostly dwelt with the nymph Calypso on her island.

We can imagine that his wife, Penelope, would have asked him about that particular time. Odysseus might have replied, "It was nothing. In fact, it was less than nothing. Negative five years I dwelt with Calypso. How else could I have arrived home after only ten years? If you don't believe me, ask her."

Quantum particles, it turns out, are just as wily as Odysseus, as we have shown in an experiment published in Physical Review Letters.

Not only can their arrival time suggest that they dwelt with other particles for a negative amount of time, but if one asks those other particles, they will corroborate the story.

Photons dwelling with atoms

Our experiment used photons – quantum particles of light – and the against-the-odds journey they must undertake to pass straight through a cloud of rubidium atoms.

These atoms have a "resonance" with the photons, meaning the energy of the photon can be transferred temporarily to the atoms as an atomic excitation. This allows the photon to "dwell" in the atomic cloud for a time before being released.

For this resonance to be effective, the photon must have a well-defined energy, matching the amount of energy required to put a rubidium atom into an excited state.

But, by a form of Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle, if the energy of the photon is well defined then its timing must be uncertain: the pulse of light the photon occupies must have a long duration. This means we can't know exactly when the photon enters the cloud, but we can know on average when it enters.

If a photon like this is fired into the cloud, the most likely outcome is that its energy will be transferred to the atoms, and then re-emitted as a photon travelling in a random direction. In such cases, the photon is scattered, and fails to arrive at its Ithaca.

Photon arrival times

But if the photon does make it straight through, a strange thing happens.

Based on the average time when the photon enters the cloud, one can calculate the expected average time it would arrive at the far side of the cloud, assuming it travels at the speed of light (as photons usually do).

Researchers directed a laser toward a cloud of rubidium atoms in a series of new experiments.

 (Михаил Руденко/iStock/Getty Images Plus)



What one finds is that the photon actually arrives far earlier than that. In fact, it arrives so early it appears to have spent a negative amount of time inside the cloud – to exit, on average, before it enters.

This effect has been known for decades and was observed in a 1993 experiment. But physicists had mostly decided not to take this negative time seriously.

That's because it can be explained by saying that only the very front of the long-duration pulse makes it straight through the atomic cloud, while the rest is scattered. This leads to a successful (non-scattered) photon arriving earlier than would be naively expected.

Asking the atoms

However, Aephraim Steinberg, one of the authors of that 1993 paper, was not so quick to accept this dismissal of the negative time as an artefact.

In his laboratory at the University of Toronto, he wanted to find out what happened if one queried the rubidium atoms in the cloud to find out how long the photon had spent dwelling among them as an excitation.

After an initial experiment with inconclusive results, he asked me, as a quantum theorist, for help in working out what to expect.

When we talk of querying the atoms, what this means in practice is continuously making a measurement on the atoms while the photon is passing through the cloud, to probe whether the photon's energy is currently dwelling there.

But there is a subtlety here: measurements in quantum physics inevitably disturb the system being measured.

If we were to make a precise measurement of whether the photon is dwelling in the atoms, at each instant of time, we would prevent the atoms from interacting with the photon.

It is as if, merely by watching Calypso closely, we would stop her getting her hands on Odysseus (or vice versa). This is the well known quantum Zeno effect, which would destroy the very phenomenon we want to study.

Our experiment

The solution is to make, instead, a very imprecise (but still very accurately calibrated) measurement. That is the price paid to keep the disturbance negligible.

Specifically, we fired a weak laser beam – unrelated to the single photon pulse – through the cloud of atoms, and measured small changes in the phase of the beam's light to probe whether the atoms were excited.

Any single run of the experiment gives only a very rough indication of whether the photon dwelt in the atoms, but averaging millions of runs yields an accurate dwell time.

Amazingly, the result of this weak measurement of dwell time, when the photon goes straight through the cloud, exactly equals the negative time suggested by the photons' average arrival time.

Prior to our work, no-one suspected that these two times, measured in entirely different ways, would be equal.

Crucially, the negative value of the weakly measured dwell time cannot be explained by imagining that only the front of the photon's pulse gets through, unlike the time inferred from the arrival time.

So what does this all mean? Is a time machine just around the corner?

Sadly, no. Our experiment is fully explained by standard physics.

But it does show that negative dwell time is not an artefact. However paradoxical it may seem, it has a directly measurable effect on the atomic cloud that the photon traverses.

And it reminds us that there are still lands to discover on the odyssey that is quantum research.

The Life of Earth

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