Meet D-Rex: Ancient Fungus as Tall as a Traffic Cone Has Just Been Discovered in China

16 Oct. 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-uncover-d-rex-gigantic-new-king-fungus-from-china-traces-its-roots-to-65-million-years

D. rex's fruiting bodies were discovered in the forests of Yunnan Province.

 (Song et al., Frontiers in Fungal Biology, 2026)

Yunnan Province in China is famous for its mushrooms and fungi, but somehow, scientists have only just come across a new species that has rightly earned the name 'king'.

Named Dianjunus rex (or D. rex for short), its gigantic, club-like fruiting bodies can grow up to 50 centimeters tall, which is about one and a half feet, or the height of a traffic cone.

A researcher holds up two D. rex fruiting bodies to show off their impressive size.

(Provided by Indunil Senanayake)



But its impressive size is not the only exciting thing about this fungus. Its genes also contain clues about a major moment in the history of life on Earth.

Mycologist Indunil Senanayake of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and her colleagues describe the new species in a paper published in Frontiers in Fungal Biology.

D. rex is the only known member of its family, Dianjunaceae.

"This remarkable species… provides a rare window into the evolution of extreme fungal body forms," says Senanayake.

"The discovery illustrates how much fungus biodiversity remains to be discovered in East Asian forests."

The fungus in its natural habitat. 

(Provided by Indunil Senanayake)



The researchers found the Dianjunaceae family split off from its closest known relatives about 65 million years ago, by comparing its DNA to hundreds of other fungi whose evolutionary history is well-known.

"This timing raises an intriguing possibility," says Senanayake.

The family emerged just 1 million years after the Chicxulub asteroid impact, which triggered a mass extinction event.

The dramatic changes to Earth's climate that resulted from the asteroid wiped out three-quarters of plant and animal species on Earth, including, famously, all non-avian dinosaurs.

"After the mass extinction, forests experienced dramatic changes, including the sudden availability of large amounts of dead plant material," Senanayake says.

"For wood-associated decomposing fungi, such environmental disruption may have created new ecological opportunities."

This isn't the first time scientists have proposed that the dinosaur-killing asteroid led to a worldwide fungal 'boom'. Fossils found in North Dakota, Colorado, and New Zealand show that massive spikes in fungal activity followed in the wake of this mass extinction.

Fungi typically prefer cooler temperatures and acidic environments. The cooler and darker conditions that arise when geological calamities shade our skies – as Chicxulub did – could have easily set the scene for an era dominated by fungi.

Close examination of D. rex under a microscope reveals its identifying features, including its asci and spore-producing structures (h-p).

 (Song et al., Frontiers in Fungal Biology, 2026)

D. rex is related to fungi like morels, truffles, and cordyceps, in the phylum Ascomycota. Like all fungi, Ascomycetes live as mycelium, below the ground or inside the substrates (wood, poop, your toenails, etc.) upon which they feed.

D. rex is often found at the base of oak trees, including the Chinese cork oak (Quercus variabilis) in the forests of the Yunnan Province in south-western China. The specimens on record so far were growing on the decaying roots or stumps of these trees.

D. rex's fruiting bodies were discovered in the forests of Yunnan Province. 

(Song et al., Frontiers in Fungal Biology, 2026)

When it comes time to reproduce, D. rex sends out its gigantic white fruiting bodies, which are called stromata. These serve the same purpose as mushrooms do for other fungi, broadcasting spores into the air so more D. rex may flourish on the forest floor.

But it's unclear why D. rex's stromata are quite so gargantuan – the largest of any Ascomycete on record. Some specimens the researchers collected weighed a whopping 2.2 kilograms.

"A fruiting body which towers above surrounding vegetation and debris could have better dispersal of spores by wind in dense forests," Senanayake proposes.

"However, such a large structure requires substantial energy investment, suggesting that this strategy likely evolved only where the ecological benefits outweighed the costs."

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Scientists Say That a Honey Bee Colony May Actually Be a Single Living Organism

By Lund U., Oct. 16, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-say-that-a-honey-bee-colony-may-actually-be-a-single-living-organism/

Viewing honey bee colonies as superorganisms could reshape modern beekeeping, raising important questions about parasite management and practices that interfere with natural colony behavior. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A new study challenges traditional ideas about honey bee colonies.

A honey bee colony may be more than a society of thousands of insects. A new study proposes that the entire colony functions as a single living organism, with its own development, reproductive cycle, and biological lifespan. This perspective could challenge some of the most common practices in modern beekeeping.

Researchers Hannes Bonhoff of Lund University and Heikki Helanterä, a professor of evolutionary biology and genomics at the University of Oulu in Finland, argue that a queen and her colony together constitute a superorganism. Rather than treating the queen, 200 to 300 drones, and tens of thousands of workers as separate individuals, their framework considers the colony an animal whose members function much like specialized cells in a body.

A Honey Bee Colony That Grows, Ages, and Dies

“We have analyzed what it means for a bee colony to be a single organism, which opens up new insights into the fascinating life of the honey bee,” says Bonhoff.

Under this interpretation, a colony develops through stages comparable to those of a mammal, progressing from an embryo and fetus to a juvenile and adult. Bonhoff argues that colonies also undergo biological aging and eventually die after several years. The comparison treats the colony’s development as a whole, rather than focusing on the much shorter lifespans of its individual bees.

The superorganism concept is not new, but the researchers apply it to the colony’s life cycle, including how it reproduces and cares for its offspring. This approach raises questions about whether certain behaviors traditionally understood as collective insect activity might instead be viewed as functions of a larger biological individual.

Swarming May Be a Form of Parental Care

Honey bee colonies reproduce through swarming, when the established queen leaves the hive with roughly half the colony to find a new nesting site. A new queen remains in the original hive, where she becomes the reproductive center of the next colony generation.

In the researchers’ framework, this process resembles an animal producing offspring and providing extensive parental care. The developing colony inherits an established nest, food resources, shelter, and the support of experienced workers.

“When this superorganism reproduces, the offspring are cared for with great dedication by the parent, in some cases even at the cost of the parent’s life,” says Bonhoff.

The departing queen and her swarm face the risks of finding and establishing a new home, while the next generation develops in familiar surroundings. Established workers can also provide valuable foraging information through the honey bee dance language, which communicates the locations of food sources.

“Parental care therefore goes so far that the offspring inherits the mother’s nest, whilst she herself risks her life by swarming away to settle elsewhere,” says Bonhoff.

What This Could Mean for Modern Beekeeping

The proposed framework could have practical implications for managing honey bee populations. Beekeepers commonly replace queens and prevent swarming to maintain productive colonies. However, the researchers suggest that interfering with these natural processes may disrupt the colony’s reproductive and developmental cycle.

The study also raises questions about controlling Varroa mites, parasitic arachnids that threaten honey bee populations worldwide. Understanding the colony as an organism with distinct life stages could influence how beekeepers approach parasite management, although the proposed perspective does not itself establish a more effective treatment.

“Modern beekeeping methods are based on the idea of keeping the colony young and healthy indefinitely. Our study shows that such interventions fundamentally conflict with the natural reproductive strategy and the ability to cope with parasites,” says Bonhoff.

The research originated in Bonhoff’s master’s thesis at Lund University, supervised by Helanterä and Niklas Wahlberg, a professor of systematic biology at Lund. Wahlberg believes the work contributes to understanding how biological individuality can extend beyond a single insect.

“The concept itself has been around for a long time, but this is the first time it has been applied in a genuine biological context. It’s fascinating to think that, just as individual cells make up an organism, individual bees with different roles make up the superorganism,” concludes Wahlberg.

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For Decades, the Arctic Melt Season Kept Growing. Then It Stopped

By J. Riordon, NASA's Earth Science News Team, Oct. 15, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/for-decades-the-arctic-melt-season-kept-growing-then-it-stopped/

The Arctic melt season lengthened dramatically for decades, but its average duration has barely changed since around 2010. Scientists think changing clouds and increasingly thin sea ice may be behind the shift, though the pause could prove temporary.

 Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison based on data from Boisvert, L., et al.

For much of the satellite record, the Arctic sea ice melt season kept getting longer. Then, around 2010, that long-running trend unexpectedly flattened.

Over several decades, Arctic sea ice generally began melting earlier in the spring and refreezing later in the fall. That extended the time each year when ice was melting and contributed to major reductions in sea ice across the Arctic. A new NASA-led study now shows that while the melt season has lengthened dramatically since satellite monitoring began, its average duration has changed relatively little since about 2010.

Arctic Melt Season Is Now About 40 Days Longer

The researchers found that the Arctic sea ice melt season is now approximately 40 days longer than it was in 1979.

Most of that increase occurred before 2010. Since then, the average length of the melt season has remained fairly steady, even though conditions can still differ substantially from one year to the next.

To track the change, researchers analyzed satellite observations spanning 1979 through 2023. They identified when sea ice began to melt each spring and when freezing resumed in the fall.

Their analysis showed that the longer melt season was caused primarily by later fall freeze-up, rather than by a major shift toward much earlier spring melting.

“Previously, there was more of this multiyear ice that didn’t melt away each summer,” said Linette Boisvert, a co-author on the study and ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Now that the ice is thinner and there’s less of it, there’s a lot more variability.”

On average, however, the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice thickness and extent that characterized the 2000s appears to have paused for the time being.

Since the start of the satellite record, the Arctic sea ice melt season has lengthened in most decades, particularly in the 2000s. 

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison based on data from Boisvert, L., et al.

Why the Arctic Melt Trend Slowed

To understand what may have caused the change, the researchers examined the Arctic’s energy balance. This describes the difference between the heat entering the region from the Sun, atmosphere, and ocean and the infrared energy escaping back into space.

During the 2000s, rapid losses of sea ice exposed larger areas of dark ocean water. Bright ice reflects much of the Sun’s energy, while darker seawater absorbs more of it.

That additional stored heat helped keep the ocean warmer later into the year, delaying fall freeze-up and extending the melt season.

In the left map above, the darkest red areas identify places where the melt season increased most rapidly during that decade. In some locations, it lengthened by as much as 5 days per year.

At the same time, the Arctic ice cover itself was undergoing a major transformation. Much of the sea ice that remains today is younger and thinner than the multiyear ice that once covered a much larger share of the Arctic Ocean. Thinner ice reacts more strongly to short-term changes in clouds, storms, and winds.

Since 2010, the melt season appears to have stabilized.

 Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison based on data from Boisvert, L., et al.



Changing Clouds Are Influencing Arctic Sea Ice

Since 2010, shifts in cloud patterns have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching certain parts of the Arctic Ocean.

Researchers say that change has contributed to a melt season that still fluctuates considerably from year to year but has shown relatively little long-term change over the past decade or more.

The right map above illustrates that shift. Lighter reds and blues represent much smaller rates of change during that period.

The findings do not suggest that climate change has stopped reshaping the Arctic.

The region continues to warm nearly four times faster than the global average, and the remaining sea ice is far thinner than it was several decades ago.

Instead, the study suggests that the Arctic may have entered a different stage, with year-to-year weather conditions now playing a larger role in determining the duration of the melt season.

“Melt season length is much more dependent on atmospheric effects,” Boisvert said. “They seem to be playing a bigger role because the ice is generally thinner and more vulnerable to begin with.”

The Current Pause Could Be Temporary

Researchers caution that the recent leveling off may not continue indefinitely.

Thick Arctic sea ice still survives year-round in areas north of Greenland and around the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

If that remaining thick ice continues to thin, the Arctic could move into another period of rapid sea ice loss. Such a shift could cause the melt season to begin lengthening again.

For now, the findings highlight the importance of continued satellite monitoring of Arctic sea ice, as well as the energy balance that controls how the ice forms, melts, and refreezes.

Scientists still do not know whether the recent stabilization represents a lasting shift in the Arctic melt season or only a temporary pause before another period of rapid change.

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Antibiotic Resistance Is Making This Dangerous Gut Bacterium Even Harder To Kill

By Monash U. , Oct. 14, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/antibiotic-resistance-is-making-this-dangerous-gut-bacterium-even-harder-to-kill/

Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) is a bacterium that can cause severe diarrhea and inflammation of the colon, particularly after antibiotic treatment disrupts the normal gut microbiome. It spreads through hardy spores that can persist on surfaces, making it a persistent challenge in hospitals and other healthcare settings. 

Credit: SciTechDaily.com



An antibiotic resistance gene helps a dangerous gut bacterium build tougher spores that can survive hospital disinfectants.

A hospital surface can be disinfected and still harbor dormant spores of Clostridioides difficile, a bacterium that causes diarrhea that can be deadly for already sick patients. Researchers have now found that an antibiotic resistance gene can help the bacterium produce tougher spores, allowing them to survive hospital-grade cleaning products and high laundry temperatures.

Monash University researchers traced this added resilience to a change in how the bacterium builds its spores. Their study, published in Nature Communications, reveals how acquiring a gene that protects against an antibiotic can also strengthen the form the bacterium uses to spread.

A protein swap builds tougher spores

C. difficile spores behave much like plant seeds, waiting for suitable conditions to become active again. The human gut provides one such opportunity, making survival outside the body a crucial part of the bacterium’s journey between patients.

“Spore survival matters because spores are the main way these pathogens spread between people and through hospitals, homes, and the environment,” said first author Dr. Yogitha Srikhanta, a postdoctoral research fellow at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute.

Antibiotic resistance is supercharging dangerous gut bacteria to withstand even hospital-grade disinfectants intended to kill them. 

Credit: Desirel Ng/Monash University

The resistance gene produces a protein that takes the place of a key protein used to build spores. With that replacement in place, the bacterium can continue making spores despite an antibiotic that would otherwise block the process. The resulting spores are also tougher, extending the gene’s effects beyond resistance to the drug itself.

“Antibiotics are helping bacteria evolve in ways we hadn’t anticipated,” said lead researcher Professor Dena Lyras, director of Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and interim dean of Monash’s Sub-Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences.

Spore survival could help resistance spread

Bacteria that stop responding to antibiotics can leave infections difficult or impossible to treat. The World Health Organization identifies antimicrobial resistance as a major global health threat and estimates that it contributes to millions of deaths each year. The Monash team describes its study as the first to uncover a link between antibiotic resistance and bacterial spores, connecting treatment resistance with the ability to survive outside a patient.

Antibiotic resistance is supercharging dangerous gut bacteria to withstand even hospital-grade disinfectants intended to kill them. 

Credit: Desirel Ng/Monash University

Srikhanta cautioned, “A resistance gene that changes how spores are built could make infections harder to control and help resistant strains spread more easily.

“We are now investigating ways to deal with this new type of antibiotic resistance.”

Targeting the spores could offer a way to interrupt that spread, although the researchers have yet to establish a solution. Lyras said, “Our new research shows just how sophisticated their evolution is, with the potential to have disastrous impacts on humans.

“They are not only better at building tolerance to drugs we develop, but making new versions of themselves that can survive better in particular environments, like surfaces where cleaning products are commonly applied.”

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Healthy Coral Reversed Bleaching in Its Neighbor With Just 1 Week of Contact

15 Oct. 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/healthy-coral-reversed-bleaching-in-its-neighbor-with-just-1-week-of-contact

(Danny Collins)

Corals cannot survive long without the algae that live inside their bodies.

But under stress from factors like heat, pollution, and UV exposure, these algae can become toxic to the coral, which evicts them.

Without their algal symbionts, corals turn white, in what is known as coral bleaching. A 'bleached' coral has limited time to acquire new algal symbionts before it starves to death.

With the threat of coral bleaching events growing each year, Stanford scientists have found a technique that could help rescue corals on the brink of death.

"While bleached corals may be dying, they are not dead yet," says Stanford marine scientist Danny Collins. "The question we wanted to answer is, once a coral has bleached, what can we do?"

A clue came from his colleague Steve Palumbi, who had noticed something interesting in a lab tank.

After just a few days, the color returns to a bleached coral. 

(Danny Collins)

Two pieces of Pocillopora damicornis coral collected from the same colony had fallen onto each other. One was bleached, and the other was healthy. But at the point where they were touching, color was returning to the bleached fragment.

The healthy coral was transferring its symbiotic algae to its neighbor.

"What we've found is that if we put a healthy coral in contact with a bleached coral, the healthy coral actually sends over algal symbionts and nutrients to the bleached coral, fully recovering it in a short period of time," Collins says.

"I was blown away watching the actual color of this healthy coral slowly spread over into this bleached coral."

Direct contact is essential. Just a few millimeters between the two pieces of coral was enough to totally prevent transfer, as the researchers demonstrated in lab experiments. To transfer the algae, the two corals are actually fusing together, Collins explains.

Without direct contact, the corals cannot fuse to transfer algae. 

(Danny Collins)



"Their tissues are growing and creating a nutrient bridge, allowing for the flow of nutrients and symbionts between those cells," he says.

"The healthy coral can jump-start the recovery of the bleached coral, by sending over these symbionts… We can take away the healthy coral, and the bleached coral can now recover itself."

Just one week of contact with healthy coral was enough to jump-start a complete recovery in the bleached pieces, which took up to seven weeks in total. This is an order of magnitude faster than recovery times seen in wild bleached populations.

A healthy piece of coral can offer life support to its bleached neighbor.

 (Danny Collins)



The rate of recovery was the same for corals left touching for the full seven weeks, or separated after one week, which means that after initial inoculation, the algae is replicating inside the recovering bleached corals.

The natural recovery of symbionts after a bleaching event can take months, by which time the coral has died.

The technique may have worked in the lab, with genetically identical pieces of coral sourced from the same colony, but it's still unclear whether the same approach would work out in the ocean, on wild, bleached reefs.

Theoretically, this technique could offer crucial life support to corals on the edge of death.

But it might not be practical at scale if bleaching events continue to become more frequent, persistent, and widespread, which they are expected to do if humans do not stop burning fossil fuels.

It's the emergency medicine of coral reefs, rescuing individual 'patients' at the pointy end of a growing systemic health crisis.

Perhaps this discovery will help reefs survive long enough to see us change our ways.

"These new insights into how corals can naturally recover give us hope for the future," says marine ecologist Fiorenza Micheli.

"They open the door to what's possible and may lead to the breakthrough we need to accelerate reef restoration."

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What Killed Europe’s Ancient Wild Cattle? Scientists Find a Disturbing Answer

By Lund U. , Oct. 10, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/what-killed-europes-ancient-wild-cattle-scientists-find-a-disturbing-answer/

Aurochs skull from Scania from the Biological Museum at Lund University. 

Credit: Lucas Gölén

The fate of Scandinavia’s aurochs warns conservationists worldwide that curbing hunting alone may not save species facing depleted genetic diversity and fragmented habitats.

The cattle on today’s farms descend from aurochs, wild animals that once roamed much of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. They disappeared from Scandinavia thousands of years before the species became extinct worldwide, and researchers have been trying to understand why those northern populations were lost so early. New findings suggest that hunting was only part of the explanation.

Hunting drove a sharp decline in the Swedish population and the complete disappearance of aurochs from the Danish island of Zealand. In southern Sweden, small numbers survived until at least 6,500 years ago, but their surroundings were changing.

Dense forests replaced formerly open landscapes, a shift thought to have contributed to their eventual disappearance. An international team led by Lund University now attributes these early northern extinctions to the combined effects of human pressure, depleted genetic diversity, and the fragmentation and deterioration of habitat.

Reconstruction of an aurochs.

 Credit: Erika Rosengren



Aurochs lost genetic diversity before isolation

Aurochs started colonizing Scandinavia 11,700 years ago, after the last Ice Age ended, and the researchers found that this migration probably involved a population bottleneck, a sharp reduction in numbers that left the survivors with less genetic diversity.

“I found it incredibly interesting to see how the genetic diversity of the aurochs decreased as you moved north from mainland Europe up through Jutland and then dropped further across Zealand and Scania. It’s a textbook example of a bottleneck in evolutionary genetics,” says Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and a senior author of the study.

Erika Rosengren with a mounted aurochs skeleton from the Biological Museum at Lund University. 

Credit: Gunnar Menander

Genetic evidence showed that Scandinavian aurochs remained in contact with the main European population beyond 10,000 years ago, when they had previously been thought to have become isolated. The researchers instead place complete isolation at the flooding of the land bridge around 8,000 years ago, when the Danish-Swedish straits formed.

“These ancient case studies reveal long-term patterns – which species are most vulnerable, how ecosystems shift and transform over time, and when and how human activity began shaping these environments,” says Erika Rosengren, a doctoral student in historical osteology at Lund University and the paper’s lead author.

Erika Rosengren next to a mounted aurochs skeleton at the Biology Museum in Lund. 

Credit: Gunnar Menander



Connected habitats could help prevent extinctions

Scandinavia was among the first regions to lose aurochs, which once roamed much of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. Their final disappearance from Poland in the 17th century ended a decline that had lasted 8,000 years. Human activity was the main cause of that global extinction, although the reasons for the much earlier Scandinavian losses had remained unclear.

“Our results add nuance to our understanding of human impact on animal populations. They confirm that species rarely disappear because of a single factor. Conservation plans must therefore be comprehensive and consider multiple stressors at the same time. Our results support the need to establish ecological corridors for threatened wildlife, rather than isolated nature reserves,” concludes Rosengren.

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A gut microbe makes a fatty acid that cuts artery plaque in half in mice

OCT. 14, 2026, by A. Zinin, Medical Xpress
edited by L. Lock, reviewed by R. Egan

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-gut-microbe-fatty-acid-artery.html

Summary diagram depicting the role of pentadecanoic acid in the modulation of hepatic cholesterol metabolism and atherosclerosis progression. 

Credit: Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11142-x

A common gut bacterium produces a molecule that slows cholesterol production in the liver. When researchers gave the molecule to mice prone to artery disease, the animals developed roughly half as much fatty plaque as untreated controls.

The molecule acts on the same enzyme targeted by statins, the widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs. That connection offers a concrete explanation for something harder to untangle: how bacteria living in the intestine might influence the health of arteries elsewhere in the body.

Researchers at institutions including Sun Yat-sen University and Shenzhen Bay Laboratory in China identified the substance as pentadecanoic acid. Their study, published in Nature, followed its effects from bacterial production to cholesterol clearance.

Following a bacterial clue

Observational studies over the past two decades have shown that the gut microbiota plays an important role in metabolic health, and disruptions can lead to common disorders including diabetes, liver disease and cardiovascular disease. More recent cause-and-effect studies are trying to pinpoint the molecular mechanisms that drive the development of these conditions.

Investigating this connection, the researchers began with existing gut microbiome data from people with and without atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, in which fatty deposits accumulate in artery walls. Several bacterial species were more abundant in healthy people, with Bacteroides uniformis standing out.

Was the bacterium helping protect arteries, or is it simply more common in healthier people?

To find out, the researchers gave it to male mice genetically prone to atherosclerosis that were fed a high-fat diet. After 12 weeks, treated mice had less plaque in their aortas and lower blood levels of LDL, often called "bad" cholesterol. Heat-killed bacteria did not produce the same benefits.

The key appeared to be something the living microbes produced. The team separated substances released into the bacterial culture fluid, testing which one helped the laboratory-grown liver cells take up LDL. Repeatedly narrowing the mixture led them to pentadecanoic acid.

Given directly to mice three times a week for eight weeks, the fatty acid lowered cholesterol and reduced plaque buildup by about half.

Making less, taking in more

The next puzzle was to untangle how a fatty acid could help clear cholesterol from blood.

Experiments showed that pentadecanoic acid binds to and inhibits HMG-CoA reductase, an enzyme needed to make cholesterol. As cholesterol production fell, liver cells increased their supply of LDL receptors: proteins that capture cholesterol-carrying particles from the bloodstream.

The two effects worked together. The liver made less cholesterol and took in more from circulating blood.

The researchers tested that explanation by disabling LDL receptor production specifically in the mouse liver. Without those receptors, neither the bacterium nor the fatty acid provided its usual protection against plaque buildup.

Changing the bacterium supplied another check. Engineered strains that made less pentadecanoic acid still colonized the gut but offered substantially weaker protection. That finding helped connect the bacterial product to the arterial benefit.

Can the effect carry over to people?

Pentadecanoic acid is a saturated fatty acid found in foods such as dairy fat. The study strengthens the evidence that gut microbes also supply it, but showing a protective mechanism in mice does not establish a treatment for people.

Human findings offer reasons to investigate further, alongside reasons for caution. A small 2024 trial in women with fatty liver disease found that adding pentadecanoic acid to a Mediterranean-style dietary intervention further reduced LDL cholesterol. However, a 2026 analysis of two long-running studies found no association between higher blood levels of the molecule and a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease.

The molecule is already marketed as a heart-health supplement. Yet "the clinical evidence supporting a cardiovascular benefit remains limited," cardiovascular specialist Ben Chen of Australia's Monash Victorian Heart Institute told Nature's news team.

It should be noted that the new experiments used only male mice, and human diets and gut communities could change the response seen in the animal experiments. Co-author Xiangyu Mou also disclosed a pending patent covering the molecule's use against atherosclerosis.

Sharing an enzyme target with statins gives researchers a promising mechanism to pursue. Larger human trials would need to establish whether supplying the fatty acid—or encouraging gut bacteria to make more of it—could safely reduce the artery disease that causes heart attacks and strokes.

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Wolves Were Supposed To Save Yellowstone. Scientists Say the Real Story Is Very Different

By R. Luque-Lora, U. of Edinburgh, Oct. 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/wolves-were-supposed-to-save-yellowstone-scientists-say-the-real-story-is-very-different/

Since their reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, wolves have become a celebrated example of how restoring predators can revive damaged ecosystems. But decades of ecological research suggest their influence on the park’s wildlife and vegetation is far more complex than the popular narrative suggests. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Yellowstone’s wolves helped reduce elk numbers, but tree recovery remained limited, challenging the popular story that their return restored the park’s ecosystem.

You might be among the 46 million people who’ve seen a video showing how wolves changed Yellowstone, or you may have heard some other version of this story. Yellowstone, which covers nearly 3,500 square miles of the western United States, was the world’s first national park. Its pioneering reintroduction of wolves, which began in 1995, set a worldwide precedent for conservation.

The first half of the story is well established. Wolves were eradicated from Yellowstone in the 1920s. With the wolves gone, populations of elk (a large species of deer) overgrew. Elk overgrazed the park’s riverbanks, turning groves of willow and aspen and beaver ponds into bare grasslands.

This process was swiftly reversed, or so the story goes, when wolves were reintroduced. Not only did wolves kill elk, keeping their numbers in check, but they also scared them away from the valleys, giving trees a chance to regrow.

A range of beneficial effects followed: beavers moved back and rebuilt their dams, and the regrown shrubs attracted more bears, who further helped keep elk in check.

It’s a neat and captivating story, widely cited as evidence that wolves can restore ecosystems and reforest the land. Unfortunately, reality is much more complicated.

Wolves did not, by and large, restore Yellowstone. Understanding the science behind this fact can teach us a lot about how ecosystems work. Even more interestingly, reflecting on why so many people are keen to believe this story can tell us a lot about ourselves, and our relationship with nature.

Why wolves did not save Yellowstone

The story originated with scientific studies in the early 2000s, built on a theory known as “trophic cascades”: the idea that changes at the top of the food chain can waterfall down to its very bottom. For example, wolf eats elk eats willow: so, more wolves equals fewer elk equals more and taller willows.

This idea was later popularized far beyond the scientific literature, notably by British rewilding advocate George Monbiot, whose 2013 Ted Talk was used to voice-over the viral Yellowstone wolves video.

But with a further two decades of data to draw on, scientists have found that this linear chain of causes and effects is an oversimplification of ecology. Wolves eat elk, yes, but so do humans and bears and mountain lions.

Reductions in elk populations, caused by this varied suite of carnivores, did allow some degree of tree recovery in some parts of the national park. But that recovery has been exaggerated and falls far short of the landscape-wide reversal (from elk-dominated grasslands to willows and beaver ponds) that is often portrayed in popular accounts.

The park’s lead wolf biologist described the reality as more of a “trophic trickle” than a cascade.

Another reason why wolves did not radically transform Yellowstone is that elk aren’t so scared of wolves after all. This might sound odd—who’s ever heard of prey that’s not scared of its predators? Actually, it’s feeding that takes priority in elk behavior: hungry animals will seek good grazing, predators or no predators.

Why we wanted to believe

For all its scientific shortcomings, the story satisfies some of our deepest beliefs and cravings.

First of all, the idea that nature is a balanced machine where the pieces fit precisely and interact like clockwork. Take a single cog away, and the machine falls apart: elk run rampant and the ecosystem collapses. Put the cog back, and in the blink of an eye, things run smoothly as they used to.

But ecosystems aren’t machines: they are dynamic, ever-changing, and often unpredictable.

Second, and more perversely, the story satisfies the common belief that only humans can disrupt nature’s harmony, and that it’s only by leaving nature alone that the balance is restored.

For instance, in the viral video about wolves in Yellowstone, there is not a single image of a human being. The narration describes the wolves as having “turned up” and says, “The number of beavers started to increase.” In fact, the wolves were flown in from Canada, and beavers had been deliberately released into the park’s surroundings. These human interventions are absent from the story the video tells.

In a way, this is a continuation of a much older view of wilderness as something untouched and unpeopled. This view of nature inspired the founding of many national parks, Yellowstone included—eventually displacing millions of people from landscapes that were later presented as pristine.

Third, the Yellowstone story satisfies the craving to conceive of nature as a healing power. It’s the ecological equivalent of “nature cure” stories in popular culture, in which damaged people recover by going on an outdoor journey. What the Yellowstone story portrays, if you like, is a nature-nature cure: in this case, it is not a person but a wilderness that is healed by nature.

Wolves can be worth saving regardless of whether they save Yellowstone. Personally, I think ecologists should learn to say, simply, that they love wolves – and that these objects of their love need serve no purpose beyond themselves.

Before turning to the humanities, I was trained as a conservation biologist. Many biologists, like my earlier self, tend to think of emotions as too soft to include in their publications by contrast with data (especially numerical data), which is seen as hard and indisputable.

Now, though, this seems upside down to me. We don’t need a theory of trophic cascades to justify loving wolves. It is love and sorrow that are solid and beyond dispute, not fickle arguments about the balance of nature.

The Life of Earth

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Fijian bee genomics suggest 99% effective population decline since European colonization

by K. Kasal, Phys.org, Oct. 12, 2026
edited by G. Clark, reviewed by R. Egan

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-fijian-bee-genomics-effective-population.html

Hylaeus navai Dorey, Davies, and Parslow sp. Nov. Female lateral habitus 

(A), face (B), dorsal mesosoma (C), and lateral head (D) (scale bar = 0.50 mm). Credit: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2024.1339446

The decline of pollinator species due to habitat loss and pesticide use over recent decades has been a global concern. Pollinators like bees and butterflies support both wild plants and agricultural food production, but many species are threatened and remain poorly studied. It's estimated that bees, in particular, pollinate between 78% and 94% of all plant species.

One bee species, discovered in Fiji only two years ago, appears to represent an extreme case of this kind of population decline. A new study, published in Ecology and Evolution, indicates that this species has experienced a dramatic decline in its population over the last 150 years—a time span that happens to coincide with European colonization of the islands.
Fiji's previously overlooked Hylaeus bees

In 2024, researchers discovered six Hylaeus species endemic to Fiji. These native Hylaeus bees were largely overlooked until researchers began routinely sampling treetops, where the bees tend to live, feed and reproduce. The canopy-dwelling bees were also small, averaging about 3.9 mm (0.15 inches) in length.

The team involved in the new study writes, "The small-bodied Fijian Hylaeus carry pollen internally and appear to exhibit specialization on red-flower canopy plants, challenging historical assumptions that bees cannot see red. As probable canopy/forest specialists with potentially limited foraging ranges due to their small body size, these taxa are likely vulnerable to habitat change."

Demographic history of H. navai in Fiji in relation to human settlement and environmental change. 

Credit: Ecology and Evolution (2026). DOI: 10.1002/ece3.74366

Recent dramatic population declines revealed

To gain insight into the ecology, genetic health, population structure and distribution of the six Hylaeus species, the team sampled low vegetation and tree canopies at 54 locations on Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. They analyzed DNA from 94 bees across four species. Because H. navai was more abundant in their sample, the researchers focused their population analyses on this species. Their analyses combined genetic reconstruction, historical collection records and environmental models.

Genetic evidence showed reduced diversity and elevated inbreeding among H. navai, indicating the bees had experienced a severe population bottleneck. DNA-based reconstruction suggested an approximately 99% decline (roughly 82% to nearly 100% when uncertainty was considered) in H. navai's effective population size over about 150 years in a series of three distinct bursts, which the team says pushes the bees into endangered territory.

The study authors write, "Over three separate 10-year periods in H. navai's demographic history, we inferred population size declines of 61%, 76% and 82%. These declines provide evidence to justify an International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) assessment, with population size declines of this magnitude aligning with criteria for a listing of critically endangered."

Links to colonization, invasive trees and cyclones

H. navai's population decline aligns with Fiji's increasing human population since it was officially colonized by Britain in 1874. Since then, the islands have experienced increased deforestation, agricultural expansion and habitat fragmentation, likely affecting the bees. Historical records and the near absence of these bees from surveyed lowlands suggest a possible retreat from lower elevations.

This also coincides with an increase in the invasive African tulip tree, which was introduced to Fiji in 1936 as an ornamental plant. The tree produces red flowers, which likely attract the bees. However, its nectar is known to be toxic to honey bees and stingless bees, making it a potential "ecological trap" for H. navai.

The team says that cyclones may also play a role in H. navai's decline. Cyclones have destroyed tree cover and nests and changed microclimates, ultimately reducing suitable habitats for Hylaeus species. Currently, the bees are estimated to be restricted to only 1.4%–2.4% of Fiji's terrestrial area, mostly at higher elevations.

The team notes that all of these are proposed explanations, not yet demonstrated causes. They say future work should test whether African tulip tree nectar actually harms Fijian Hylaeus and should examine how warming and cyclone damage affect the remaining highland habitat.

The study authors write, "Empirically identifying and counteracting the major drivers of decline is of immediate conservation importance for all Fijian Hylaeus bees. We suggest that the Fijian Hylaeus can serve as a model system for understanding past declines in cryptic taxa."

The Life of Earth

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Swarms of Hammerhead Sharks Spotted Gathering Off The Coast of Australia

13 Oct. 2026, By E. Öz

https://www.sciencealert.com/dozens-of-young-hammerhead-sharks-spotted-gathering-off-australian-beaches

Scalloped hammerhead sharks in the Red Sea. 

(Gerard Soury/Photodisc/Getty Images)

Drones watching for sharks off Australia's east coast have filmed dozens of young hammerheads swimming together in shallow water near popular beaches.

In southeast Queensland, researchers recorded groups of up to 80 scalloped hammerhead sharks at Burleigh Beach on the Gold Coast. Farther north, at Noosa Main Beach on the Sunshine Coast, the largest group contained an estimated 100.

Several years of drone records showed where these young sharks gathered and when the biggest groups appeared. The researchers say these stretches of coast may be important habitat for juveniles.

Shark researcher Maddison Cross, affiliated with the University of the Sunshine Coast and Queensland's Department of Primary Industries, led the study.

Researchers estimated shark length by comparing it to a nearby paddleboard of known size – in this case, around 1.05 meters.

 (Cross et al., Marine Biology, 2026)



The team used records from Queensland's SharkSmart program, which flies drones near beaches to monitor sharks for public safety. The flights also record animals moving through coastal waters, allowing scientists to study them without catching or handling them.

Researchers analyzed data from 20,911 flights at nine beaches between September 2020 and December 2024. They identified 84 occasions when scalloped hammerheads were seen, totaling 2,696 shark observations. Some animals were probably recorded more than once, so this is not a count of distinct individuals.

Most observations came from Burleigh and Noosa, where hammerheads usually appeared in groups. At other beaches, they were generally alone or in pairs.

Heatmaps showing where hammerhead sightings clustered at Burleigh Beach in 2023 and 2024, and at Noosa Main Beach in 2023 – yellow marks the busiest spots.

 (Cross et al., Marine Biology, 2026)



The largest gatherings occurred in April, May, and June, during Australia's autumn and early winter. At Burleigh, groups repeatedly used waters near the rocky headland at the beach's southern end. Recorded movement paths overlapped in 2023 and 2024.

From above, the team could map where groups gathered and compare their movements across beaches. Larger hammerheads off North Stradbroke Island generally followed straighter coastal routes, while juveniles at Burleigh and Noosa used smaller areas.

Across the full dataset, estimated shark length averaged about 1.09 meters (3.6 feet). Most of the sharks at those two sites were juveniles. Estimated sizes pointed to a mix of animals in their first year and others around one to two years old.

A map of the nine southeast Queensland beaches covered by the drone program, stretching from the Sunshine Coast down to the Gold Coast. 

(Cross et al., Marine Biology, 2026)



They were not newborn pups, and the researchers could not confirm that these beaches met the criteria for nursery grounds.

The researchers propose that the sites may give young sharks somewhere to feed or shelter. Nearby reefs and rocky areas could support prey, and swimming together might help juveniles avoid predators. Why they gather remains unclear.

Researchers could not reliably recognize individual sharks, so they cannot establish whether the same animals returned each year or how long they stayed. At Noosa, gatherings recorded in 2023 were not seen during the corresponding period in 2024. The researchers note that changes in habitat use or water clarity could explain the difference, since murky water makes sharks harder to detect.

Scalloped hammerheads have suffered steep population declines and are classified globally as critically endangered.

Both gathering sites are covered by Queensland's shark-control program. Burleigh uses shark nets, while Noosa uses nets and baited drumlines to reduce shark-bite risk.

A scalloped hammerhead filmed by drone at Burleigh Beach. The arrows mark its scalloped head shape and central notch – the features researchers used to confirm the species.

 (Cross et al., Marine Biology, 2026)

Government records cited in the study show that the program caught 675 scalloped hammerheads statewide between 2001 and 2024. All but 10 were dead. At Burleigh and Noosa combined, 63 were caught in nets and two on drumlines, including both juveniles and adults.

The study notes that captures of juvenile sharks under 120 centimeters peak from September to February, while drone surveys recorded gatherings from March to June. The team suggests this difference may reflect young sharks moving from sheltered nursery areas into more exposed coastal waters as they grow.

Some groups temporarily split apart when snorkelers or paddleboarders approached, although these encounters were not systematically measured. The researchers list keeping a distance from the groups and avoiding chasing or surrounding the sharks among possible measures to reduce disturbance.

They also call for longer-term monitoring, including tracking individuals with acoustic tags, to establish how these coastal sites connect with nearby nursery habitats.

The Life of Earth

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Stanford Scientists Discover We’ve Lost Ancient Gut Microbes That Traveled With Humans for Thousands of Years

By Stanford Medicine, Oct. 12, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/stanford-scientists-discover-weve-lost-ancient-gut-microbes-that-traveled-with-humans-for-thousands-of-years/

Our gut microbiome is a complex community of trillions of microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi, that help digest food, produce essential vitamins, and regulate the immune system. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Scientists comparing the gut microbiomes of two geographically distant populations uncovered surprising similarities despite thousands of years of separation.

Hundreds of bacterial species missing from modern human guts may have accompanied our ancestors for tens of thousands of years. A Stanford University study published October 7 in Nature found that two populations separated by continents share remarkably similar gut microbes, many with genetic histories linked to ancient human migrations.

The researchers compared the Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania with the Tsimane, Indigenous forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon. Despite different diets and thousands of years of geographic separation, the populations share 1,231 bacterial species. About 60% are rare or absent in industrialized populations.

Ancient Microbes Shared Across Continents

The researchers identified approximately 1,400 bacterial species in the sampled Tsimane population, nearly 90% of which were also found among the Hadza. This extensive overlap was unexpected because the Hadza primarily hunt and gather wild foods, while the Tsimane cultivate crops and consume substantial amounts of dietary fiber.

“We were really surprised to see that the vast majority of the species in the Tsimane’s microbiome correspond with the Hadza’s,” said Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, Stanford professor of microbiology and immunology and senior author of the study.

“That made us wonder if there really is a core set of bacterial and other species that traveled with the ancestors of the Tsimane as they migrated around the globe,” said Benjamin Good, PhD, Stanford assistant professor of applied physics and senior co-author.

Tracing Bacteria Through Human History

“Could these bugs have been in continual interaction with us since long before the ancestors of today’s Hadza and Tsimane became geographically separated?” Sonnenburg asked. “To answer that, we turned to Ben’s team, and what they found blew our minds.”

Using deep metagenomic sequencing and population genetics methods, the researchers analyzed bacterial DNA to reconstruct evolutionary relationships. For many shared species, estimated divergence times matched major prehistoric human migrations, including movements out of Africa and into the Americas.

“We see evidence that these bacteria were present in the ancestors of both the Tsimane and the Hadza, and therefore presumably the ancestors of all of us,” Good said.

What Modern Lifestyles May Have Changed

“Our study establishes that the hundreds of bacterial species that are rare or missing in industrialized microbiomes were ancient companions of ours as we migrated around the globe, likely passed from generation to generation for millennia,” Sonnenburg said. “This long-term association has implications for how such recent biodiversity loss in our microbiome may impact our biology and thus our health.”

Industrialized populations have substantially less diverse gut microbiomes, potentially reflecting factors such as antibiotic use, processed diets, and highly sanitized environments. Changes in gut microbes have been associated with obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune diseases, but whether losing these ancient species directly contributes to illness remains unknown.

“If these microbes hosted by the Hadza and Tsimane really are part of our evolutionary biology, then those of us in industrialized countries are missing a huge part of what our human genome has potentially adapted to over a vast time period,” Sonnenburg said. “We’re interested in more fully exploring these long-standing relationships between humans and our gut microbes.”

The Life of Earth

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