Chuck's photo corner to June 14, 2026 😎🌸🍓🌞

A great end of spring week, Sun rain, and the end of having to water potted seedlings, as they are almost all in the ground now. The colours, sounds, and smells of spring are in such contrast, to the experience of winter. Life abounds.

Chamomile ready to start harvesting.

chives seem happy enough

wild phlox behind some iris in the barn yard island

ready for rain

my garden nemesis

peonys opened this week

The port owned by the township, not that it makes my township taxes any less.

The Federal gov. keeps giving the port money for infrastructure as well, mainly for grain.

The port has moved a couple of boat loads of steel pipe this year so far. The first load was larger pipes.

potentilla

the current shrub

back yard iris

this current doesn't produce edible berries, I think it is the vulgaris current.

these guys nested on the front porch last year in one of my hanging baskets (golden pothos plant)

a shrub variety of euonymus, I believe.

a later flowering well behaved lilac (French lilac I think)

she just keeps after me , lol

out the front door

Rachelle's drive home after a birthday supper with her brother and 4 generations of family at the table

Thurso ferry

The sunsets June 13, 2026

Enjoy the day

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Earth's Core May Be Wrapped in an Ancient, Unexpected Structure

12 June 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/earths-core-may-be-wrapped-in-an-ancient-unexpected-structure

A representation of the underground imaging used in the study. 

(Edward Garnero and Mingming Li/Arizona State University)

The highest-resolution map yet of the underlying geology beneath Earth's Southern Hemisphere revealed something we had never known before: an ancient ocean floor that may wrap around the core.

This thin yet dense layer lies at a depth of about 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below the surface, according to a study published in 2023.

That depth is where the molten, metallic outer core meets the rocky mantle above it. This is the core-mantle boundary.

"Seismic investigations, such as ours, provide the highest resolution imaging of the interior structure of our planet," said geologist Samantha Hansen from the University of Alabama when the results were announced.

"We are finding that this structure is vastly more complicated than once thought."

Researchers lower seismic equipment into place at one of the stations as part of research into the Transantarctic Mountains. 

(Lindsey Kenyon)




Understanding exactly what's beneath our feet – in as much detail as possible – is vital for studying everything from volcanic eruptions to the variations in Earth's magnetic field, which protects us from the solar radiation in space.

Hansen and her colleagues used 15 monitoring stations buried in Antarctic ice to map seismic waves from earthquakes over three years.

The way those waves move and bounce reveals the composition of the material inside Earth.

Because the sound waves move more slowly in these areas, they're called ultralow velocity zones (ULVZs).

Rock movements in the mantle. 

(Hansen et al., Science Advances, 2023)

"Analyzing [thousands] of seismic recordings from Antarctica, our high-definition imaging method found thin anomalous zones of material at the core-mantle boundary everywhere we probed," said geophysicist Edward Garnero from Arizona State University.

"The material's thickness varies from a few kilometers to [tens] of kilometers. This suggests we are seeing mountains on the core, in some places up to five times taller than Mt. Everest."

According to the researchers, these ULVZs are most likely oceanic crust that has been buried for millions of years.

Seismic waves from earthquakes in the southern hemisphere were used to sample the ULVZ structure along the Earth's core-mantle boundary. 

(Edward Garnero and Mingming Li/Arizona State University)



The sunken crust isn't near recognized subduction zones on the surface – zones where shifting tectonic plates push the rock down into Earth's interior.

But simulations reported in the study show how convection currents could have moved the ancient ocean floor to its current resting place.

It's tricky to make assumptions about rock types and movement based on seismic wave movement, and the researchers aren't ruling out other options.

However, the ocean floor hypothesis seems the most likely explanation for these ULVZs right now.

There's also the suggestion that this ancient ocean crust could be wrapped around the entire core. Though, as it's so thin, it's hard to know for sure. Future seismic surveys should be able to add further to the overall picture.

One way the discovery can help geologists is by figuring out how heat from the hotter, denser core escapes into the mantle.

The differences in composition between these two layers are greater than those between the solid-surface rock and the air above it in the part we live on.

"Our research provides important connections between shallow and deep Earth structure and the overall processes driving our planet," said Hansen.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Uncover What Kept Humanity’s First Campfires Burning 780,000 Years Ago

By The Hebrew U. of Jerusalem, June 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-uncover-what-kept-humanitys-first-campfires-burning-780000-years-ago/

A general view of the excavation of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov Acheulian Site. 

Credit: GBV Expedition

Rare charcoal fragments from an ancient lakeshore campsite are offering new clues about fire use, resource management, and the environmental knowledge of some of humanity’s earliest fire users.

Long before cities, farms, or written language existed, some of humanity’s ancestors had already discovered a resource that would transform the course of human evolution: fire. But controlling fire was only part of the challenge. Keeping it burning required a reliable supply of fuel, and new research suggests that access to firewood may have helped determine where people lived nearly 800,000 years ago.

At the prehistoric site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) in northern Israel, scientists have uncovered rare clues preserved in ancient charcoal fragments. The findings reveal not only what fueled some of the world’s earliest known campfires, but also how these early humans organized their lives around a lakeshore environment rich in food, water, raw materials, and fuel.

The study, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, analyzed one of the oldest and most extensive charcoal collections ever recovered from a prehistoric site. The international research team, which included scientists from Israel, Spain, and Germany, found evidence that the inhabitants of GBY used the landscape in surprisingly practical ways, taking advantage of natural resources that made long-term occupation possible.

A Lakeshore That Had Everything

Around 780,000 years ago, the area looked very different from today. GBY sat on the edge of ancient Lake Hula, a freshwater ecosystem surrounded by wetlands, woodland, and abundant wildlife. For hunter-gatherers, it would have been an exceptionally attractive place to live.

Archaeologists have identified more than 20 occupation layers at the site, showing that generations of Acheulian hominins repeatedly returned to the same location over thousands of years. Excavations led by Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have uncovered stone tools, plant foods, fish remains, and the bones of large animals, providing one of the most detailed records of early human life anywhere in the world.

One of the site’s most remarkable discoveries is the remains of a straight-tusked elephant, an animal that could weigh several times more than a modern African elephant. The arrangement of the bones suggests it was butchered at the site, offering a rare glimpse into large-game hunting and processing during the Lower Paleolithic.

Traverse section of a charcoal fragment of ash observed under an ESEM microscope.

 Credit: M. MoncusilPHES

The Hidden Story Inside Ancient Charcoal

While elephant bones and stone tools tend to attract attention, researchers turned their focus to something far less dramatic: charcoal.

Charcoal rarely survives for hundreds of thousands of years, making the GBY collection extraordinary. Because wood reflects the plants growing in the surrounding environment, each fragment serves as a tiny record of the ancient landscape.

The team examined 266 charcoal pieces under a microscope, identifying the species from which they originated. The results revealed a surprisingly diverse environment containing ash, willow, grapevine, oleander, olive, oak, pistachio, and pomegranate.

The pomegranate finding represents the earliest known evidence of the fruit tree in the Levant, extending the documented history of pomegranate in the region by hundreds of thousands of years.

Perhaps even more surprising was the diversity of the charcoal itself. The burned wood represented a wider range of plant species than other botanical remains found at the site, including seeds and fruits.

Why Firewood May Have Shaped Human Settlement

The study challenges the idea that these early humans carefully selected particular tree species for fuel. Instead, the evidence points to a simpler and highly effective strategy.

Much of the wood appears to have come from driftwood naturally deposited along the lake’s edge. Branches and logs carried by water would have accumulated on the shoreline, creating an easily accessible source of fuel that required little effort to collect.

Researchers suggest that the constant availability of firewood may have been one reason why groups repeatedly returned to GBY. The site offered a rare combination of resources concentrated in a single location, reducing the energy needed to meet daily needs.

More Than Warmth and Light

The study also sheds light on how fire was used. Researchers found that concentrations of charcoal overlapped with clusters of fish remains, especially the teeth of large carp. This association provides strong evidence that fish were being cooked at the site nearly 800,000 years ago using controlled fire.

The results support the idea that the GBY hominins possessed advanced cognitive abilities. They could manage fire, organize activities around it, and incorporate it into complex food-gathering and food-processing strategies. At the same time, while activities such as hunting and tool production likely required significant planning, collecting firewood appears to have been a simpler task driven mainly by what was readily available.

Taken together, the evidence portrays a highly capable community that repeatedly returned to a resource-rich location that met many of its needs.

The charcoal assemblage from GBY offers a rare opportunity to explore the connections between fire use, environmental conditions, and hominin behavior. The findings refine scientists’ understanding of early fire use and highlight the important role local resources played in shaping settlement and survival strategies during the Middle Pleistocene.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Astronomers Find Strongest Evidence Yet for Magnetic Fields on Alien Worlds

By ESO, June 12, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/astronomers-find-strongest-evidence-yet-for-magnetic-fields-on-alien-worlds/

This illustration shows magnetic activity in an exoplanet. The planet is a gas giant like Jupiter, but it’s very close to its host star and tidally locked: one side always faces the star and is scorching hot, whereas the other side is extremely cold. This steep temperature difference creates fast winds that blow from the day side to the night side. The planet’s magnetic field, shown here with blue lines, can slow these winds down.

 Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser, L. Calçada

Astronomers studying the atmospheres of several intensely heated exoplanets uncovered an unexpected pattern that may reveal a hidden property of these distant worlds.

Astronomers have uncovered the clearest evidence so far that some planets beyond our Solar System possess magnetic fields. By measuring atmospheric winds on seven extremely hot gas giants, researchers found signs that magnetism is shaping conditions on these distant worlds.

The study used observations from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) and the Gemini North telescope. The results suggest that magnetic fields are controlling the planets’ powerful winds, providing the first reliable measurements of magnetic field strength on exoplanets.

“This breakthrough opens a completely new window on exoplanet research. It’s the first time we can compare the magnetic environments of other worlds — a key step toward ultimately understanding which planets can stay alive, keep their water, and perhaps even, one day, host life as we know it,” says Julia Seidel, an astronomer at the Laboratoire Lagrange, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, France and lead author of the study published today in Nature Astronomy.

A Long-Sought Exoplanet Measurement

Magnetic fields play an important role in shaping planetary environments. On Earth, the magnetic field interacts with the atmosphere and helps protect the planet from harmful charged particles. Other planets in our Solar System, including Jupiter and Saturn, also have magnetic fields.

Despite years of research, scientists had not been able to directly determine the strength of magnetic fields on exoplanets. That challenge has remained unsolved for about 15 years.

Interestingly, the researchers were not originally searching for magnetic fields. Their goal was to study winds in the atmospheres of seven giant planets orbiting different stars. These worlds resemble Jupiter but orbit much closer to their stars and are tidally locked, meaning one side constantly faces the star.

Like the Moon always showing the same face to Earth, these planets have permanent day and night sides. One hemisphere is intensely heated while the other remains much colder. The extreme temperature contrast creates unusual weather patterns and exceptionally powerful winds.

Extreme Winds Reveal an Unexpected Pattern

The team measured winds ranging from about 7,200 km/h (4,475 mph) to more than 25,000 km/h (15,535 mph). By comparison, Jupiter’s fastest known winds reach roughly 1,500 km/h (930 mph).

“In the beginning we set out to check if the atmospheric winds behaved the same way for all hot planets,” explains Seidel, who was previously an astronomer at ESO in Chile.

The researchers analyzed data from the ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s VLT in Chile’s Atacama Desert and a similar instrument on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaiʻi, USA. (The VLT is an ESO telescope while Gemini North is one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.)

As they compared wind speeds with planetary temperatures, an unexpected trend appeared. Instead of moving faster, winds slowed down as temperatures increased.

“This is totally counterintuitive because, all things being equal, hot planets have more energy to accelerate the winds! Something must happen that slows down the wind speeds for hotter objects,” says study co-author Vivien Parmentier, a professor at the Laboratoire Lagrange.

Magnetic Fields as a Planetary Brake

The researchers concluded that the most likely explanation is the presence of global magnetic fields. These fields can interact with charged particles in a planet’s atmosphere, reducing their motion and effectively slowing atmospheric circulation.

Using this effect, the team estimated the magnetic field strength of each planet. The results indicate magnetic fields comparable to those found on giant planets in our own Solar System, with strengths roughly four times greater than Saturn’s or about half that of Jupiter’s.

The findings also suggest that magnetic fields could influence much more than atmospheric winds.

“Here on Earth, we know the beauty of the northern and southern lights, where particles from the Sun hit our magnetic field and are guided toward the poles, colliding with gases in the atmosphere to produce colorful displays of green, pink, and purple,” explains study co-author Bibiana Prinoth, a former PhD student at Lund University, Sweden, now an astronomer at ESO in Garching, Germany.

On these exoplanets, auroras powered by magnetic activity could be even more spectacular.

Looking ahead, scientists are eager to use ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope to study both giant and Earth-sized exoplanets in greater detail. The observatory may even be able to identify atmospheric gases linked to auroral activity on distant worlds.

Prinoth says: “I like to imagine that some of these worlds have a sky filled not only with stars, but with vast curtains of colorful light dancing across a planet that’s half in perpetual day and half in endless night.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Why Evolution Stalled for Millions of Years Before Suddenly Exploding

By U. of Cambridge, June 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/why-evolution-stalled-for-millions-of-years-before-suddenly-exploding/

Artist’s impression of an Ediacaran animal community. 

Credit: Hugo Salais

A new study suggests evolution stayed stuck for millions of years until sexual reproduction helped unleash a burst of biodiversity.

New research suggests that the earliest animals on Earth may have unintentionally slowed the pace of evolution for millions of years. Scientists have found that their reliance on asexual reproduction limited competition and reduced the pressure to adapt, keeping biodiversity low until sexual reproduction emerged and helped drive a surge in evolutionary change.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge analyzed fossils from some of the oldest known animals, dating back roughly 574 million years. Their findings, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, offer a possible explanation for a long-standing mystery: why animal life first appeared on Earth but then remained relatively unchanged for millions of years before experiencing a dramatic increase in diversity.

Fossils of Fractofusus, an animal from the Ediacaran period. 

Credit: Emily Mitchell



The Strange World of Earth’s First Animals

The Ediacaran period, which lasted from about 635 million to 539 million years ago, marked a major turning point in the history of life. After billions of years dominated by microscopic organisms, larger and more complex forms of life began to appear.

Among these early creatures was Fractofusus, an organism that could reach up to 2 meters in height, although many Ediacaran animals were much smaller. Despite being considered animals, they looked more like plants or ferns than anything living today. Scientists have found no evidence that they possessed mouths, internal organs, or the ability to move. Instead, researchers believe they absorbed nutrients directly from the surrounding seawater.

These unusual organisms vanished from the fossil record at the start of the Cambrian period around 540 million years ago, making it difficult for scientists to connect them to any modern group of animals.

Dr. Emily Mitchell at Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, Canada.

 Credit: Emily Mitchell



How Cloning Limited Biodiversity

Previous studies showed that many Ediacaran animals reproduced asexually. Rather than producing offspring through sex, they spread by sending out stolons, or runners, much like modern strawberry plants. In the nutrient-rich oceans of the time, this strategy worked remarkably well.

“Life was pretty nice during the Ediacaran, so the need for sex was rather limited,” said lead author Dr. Emily Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “There was relatively little competition, so there was no real pressure to change anything.”

To investigate why evolution appeared to slow during this period, Mitchell and co-author Professor Andrea Manica examined fossil communities from Mistaken Point in Newfoundland, one of the world’s most important Ediacaran fossil sites.

The team combined laser scanning, spatial analysis, and artificial intelligence to study how these ancient communities were organized. They first demonstrated that stolon-based reproduction reduced competition among neighboring organisms. The researchers then created computer simulations to explore how early animal ecosystems might have developed under different reproductive strategies.

Thousands of simulations were run, while a simple neural network identified which scenarios most closely matched patterns found in the fossil record. Using a method called Approximate Bayesian Computation, the researchers worked backward from real fossil data to estimate how far organisms spread and how intensely they competed for resources.

Their results showed that limited dispersal caused by asexual reproduction could explain both the low number of species present in early animal communities and the long period of evolutionary stagnation.

Stress and Competition Changed the Course of Evolution

Competition and environmental pressures have long been powerful forces shaping evolution. However, the runner-based reproduction used by many Ediacaran animals reduced the need for direct competition.

“If you’re connected to your neighbor by these runners, then you’re sharing nutrients, and you don’t need to compete with them,” said Manica.

Over time, conditions began to change. As life expanded from deeper waters into shallower marine environments, organisms encountered new challenges. Tides, storms, temperature fluctuations, and changing nutrient levels created a much less stable world.

These harsher conditions increased competition and placed greater stress on early animals.

“If you’re suddenly in an environment where you’re essentially getting killed a couple of times per year, then that changes everything,” said Mitchell. “Stress essentially leads to sexual reproduction, and when that happens, we can see a massive increase in dispersal distances as animals attempt to colonize new areas due to an increase in competition.”

According to the researchers, this shift toward sexual reproduction allowed animals to spread farther, occupy new habitats, and compete more effectively. Those changes were accompanied by a sharp increase in biodiversity, creating what scientists describe as a second wave of Ediacaran evolution.

The Road to the Cambrian Explosion

As early animals adapted to new environments and adopted new reproductive strategies, diversification accelerated. This evolutionary momentum continued into the Cambrian period, when the emergence of mobile animals drove even more rapid change.

The study suggests that sexual reproduction may have been one of the key innovations that helped transform life on Earth from relatively simple communities into the diverse animal ecosystems that followed.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Men Can Lose Their Y Chromosome With Age, And We Finally Know The Cost

13 June 2026, By C. Cassella

https://www.sciencealert.com/men-can-lose-their-y-chromosome-with-age-and-we-finally-know-the-cost

(Cavan Images/Getty Images)

The human Y chromosome is shrinking.

In the next 5 million years or so, some geneticists think the sex-determining chromosome will vanish completely from our species.

In the meantime, we have a bigger concern at hand.

As some men age, they are losing the Y chromosome in their blood, brain, or immune cells, and that could have serious health effects.

A loss of the Y chromosome has surprising connections to cancer, kidney disease, heart disease, and Alzheimer's.

For decades, researchers have noticed that as some men grow older, certain cells in their bodies begin to lose their Y chromosome.

Among 70-year-old men, roughly 40 percent show loss of Y in their blood cells, and among 93-year-olds, that number rises to 57 percent.

Once, this loss of Y was considered a 'benign' marker of aging.

But recently, emerging genetic evidence suggests that a lack of the Y chromosome in some cells may be actively contributing to death and disease.

The Y chromosome is known to be crucial for sex determination and sperm function, but historically, it wasn't thought to do much else.

Although it exists in most cells of the body, the odd little chromosome seems to just sit there, twiddling its thumbs. It is a fragile, finicky unit that often leads to mutations during replication.

Of all 46 chromosomes contained in most human cells, the Y chromosome is the only one that can be lost without the cell dying.

But that doesn't mean it can disappear without issue.

Is the Y chromosome vanishing in men? Read our story on the scientific debate. 

(Dmitry Bayer/Getty Images)



In 2022, a study found that when specialized immune cells in the hearts of mice lacked Y chromosomes, it led to cardiovascular dysfunction and death.

Further clinical studies suggest that among elderly men, those who show Y chromosome losses are more likely to die early or develop cancer. While these losses are rare in younger individuals, they can also be associated with infertility and developmental defects.

In 2023, researchers found that up to 40 percent of older men with bladder cancer lack the Y chromosome in their tumors.

Because men are up to five times more likely to develop bladder cancer than women, this led some scientists to suspect that the Y chromosome was playing a role in the disease.

Preliminary evidence supports that idea. In 2025, a study found that immune cells lacking the Y chromosome are less effective at attacking cancerous cells.

That same year, a review concluded that the loss of the Y chromosome is likely to be important in shaping the activity of the male immune system.

Even though the Y chromosome contains roughly 0.9 percent of the total DNA in a male cell, it was only fully sequenced a few years ago.

Since then, advances in genomic sequencing have ushered in a new era for Y chromosome research.

Studies are just beginning, but these initial findings suggest that the Y chromosome may be involved in more cellular functions than scientists previously assumed.

In some ways, that is why evolutionary biologist Jennifer Hughes thinks the Y chromosome is not doomed to vanish from our species.

"The genes that are retained on the Y serve crucial functions across the whole body, so the selective pressure to maintain those genes is too great for them to be lost," Hughes explained to ScienceAlert in 2025.

But not everyone is convinced by that logic.

Evolutionary biologist Jenny Graves agrees with Hughes that the genes on Y are important and may be linked to health and disease; however, she argues that important genes like these can always be 'picked up' by other chromosomes.

"Yes, there are deeply conserved core genes," she told ScienceAlert in 2025.

"But the spiny rat and mole vole had no trouble relocating or replacing them."

These mammals no longer have a Y chromosome; another chromosome has taken over the role of sex determination instead.

It's a good reminder that genes have no problem 'jumping ship'. The Y chromosome may be sinking, whether we like it or not.

Today, the human Y retains only 3 percent of its ancestral genes.

What remains may hold clues not only to the health of the male sex today but also to our species evolutionary history and our future.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Discover a Strange Global Pattern in The Way Humans Walk

12 June 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-a-strange-global-pattern-in-the-way-humans-walk

A still image from one of the experiments, showing position of people (red dots) and recent movement (the orange lines).

 (Echeverría-Huarte et al. CC-BY-ND)

Suppose you're wandering around a space without any particular destination in mind – exploring a park maybe, or ambling across a music festival site.

Would you take left turns more often, or right turns?

That was the question an international team of researchers set out to answer, after a previous study on social distancing during the COVID pandemic surprisingly indicated that we may not be moving as randomly as we think.

This time, the researchers looked specifically at the turns we take, across a variety of age groups, cultural settings, and spaces.

They discovered a clear bias that matched their earlier unexpected results: a significant preference for turning counterclockwise (left).

With that established, another question was raised – why is this preference there?

Experiments were carried out in different countries, with different people, in different settings – and the counterclockwise bias (the dots above the zero line) was consistently present. 

(Echeverría-Huarte et al., Nat. Comm., 2026)

"This was completely unexpected as, at least instinctively, when people walk around randomly, you imagine people turn as their needs suit them with little sign of an overall preference," says engineer Claudio Feliciani, who was based at the University of Tokyo during the study.

"But there was a definite, measurable tendency for people to turn counterclockwise over clockwise, all things being equal."

This counterclockwise bias has been observed before – in circle pits at heavy metal concerts, for example.

So, for this study, the researchers wanted to rule out potential influences on behavior, such as the actions of other people or the way a group was enclosed.

Experiments were run across Spain and Japan (different social and cultural norms), in open and closed spaces, and across a variety of (young) ages.

The researchers also tested individual movement.


In one experiment, 209 people were asked to walk alone and freely inside a hexagonal enclosure made with chairs and tables, removing any chance of their being influenced by a crowd.

Individual tests again showed a counterclockwise bias 

(the graphs bunching to the right of the neutral zero). 

(Echeverría-Huarte et al., Nat. Comm., 2026)

Across all these tests, a modest but statistically significant counterclockwise bias remained.

The bias wasn't affected by people's dominant hand or foot, or by their sex.

The only factor that did cause a slight variation in the bias was age. Younger people showed a stronger bias towards counterclockwise movement, though the study didn't include anyone older than their mid-30s.

As for what's driving this, we're not yet sure – but the study does rule out several possibilities. Whatever's going on appears to be biological, and future studies will be able to analyze this further.

"It likely does not come from the eyes, because we tried to patch people's left or the right eyes and the bias was still there," says Feliciani.

"And some people asked us if it might be large-scale phenomena like the Coriolis force or Earth's magnetic field, but this seems unlikely given what we have managed to point to so far."

A tendency for us to go left rather than right might not seem the most dramatic of scientific breakthroughs, but there are implications here across a whole host of different fields – from building design to emergency planning.

That's because places such as airports, museums, train stations, shopping centers, and stadium forecourts may all be affected by subtle movement preferences, especially when large crowds form.

Evacuation routes could be designed more effectively with these findings.

"There are some interesting parallels to certain sports," Feliciani adds.

"Some running and driving competitions are always, but inexplicably, taken on courses that run counterclockwise. But that's an investigation for another time."

Next steps could involve examining whether this tendency holds in later life, or among people with mobility differences. The researchers also suggest virtual reality experiments could help test it, by allowing more precise control over sensory inputs.

The team is also keen to see whether there's a clockwise or counterclockwise bias in other animals, though only a few studies have found this so far – such as research on ants exploring unknown nests.

"Our results may appear as a minor insignificant discovery, but in nature, most phenomena related to locomotion show that animals mostly walk without directional preference," says Feliciani.

"The strong bias found in people hints to some asymmetry at the biomechanical level."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

A Hidden Gut Signal May Be Driving Sleep Apnea’s Deadly Heart Risks

By American Society for Microbiology, June 11, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-hidden-gut-signal-may-be-driving-sleep-apneas-deadly-heart-risks/

Scientists have uncovered an unexpected link between sleep apnea, gut microbes, and heart disease that could lead to entirely new treatments.

 Credit: Shutterstock

Scientists discovered a surprising gut-heart connection that may help prevent sleep apnea from causing serious cardiovascular damage.

Sleep apnea affects millions of people worldwide and is known to raise the risk of serious cardiovascular problems. Now, researchers have identified a potential new treatment target that could help reduce some of the condition’s harmful effects. Findings presented at ASM Microbe 2026 suggest that gut microbes and the way they alter bile acids may play an important role in protecting against sleep apnea-related heart and metabolic damage.

How Sleep Apnea Affects the Body

Obstructive sleep apnea is a common disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep. These interruptions reduce oxygen levels while allowing carbon dioxide to build up, triggering a range of biological changes throughout the body.

Previous studies have shown that low oxygen levels can alter bile acids, compounds produced by the liver, stored in the gallbladder, and released into the intestines to help digest fats. Beyond their digestive role, bile acids also act as signaling molecules that interact with receptors throughout the body.

Researchers had previously demonstrated that gut microbes can modify bile acids, influencing the development of atherosclerosis, the buildup of fatty plaques inside arteries. Because bile acids enter the bloodstream, they can affect tissues and organs far beyond the digestive system.

“We were pretty sure from our previous studies that bile acids, especially microbially modified ones, were a key to regulating the disease so we wanted to know what happens when one of the key receptors for them are missing — does the disease go away?” said study first author Celeste Allaband, DVM, Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego.

Investigating a Key Bile Acid Receptor

To explore that question, the team studied two groups of mice. One group consisted of mice genetically prone to heart disease, known as ApoE knock-outs. The second group included mice that were also prone to heart disease but lacked a bile acid receptor called the farnesoid X receptor (FXR). These animals are known as ApoE/FXR knock-outs.

Both groups were exposed either to normal sleeping conditions with room air or to conditions designed to mimic sleep apnea. Throughout the study, researchers analyzed gut microbes and metabolites using fecal samples. At the end of the experiment, they measured the amount of fatty plaque that had accumulated in the animals’ arteries.
Fewer Artery Plaques and Less Gut Disruption

“Our study shows that the FXR host receptor, which can be activated or deactivated by bile acids, plays a central role in driving the buildup of fatty plaques in the arteries during sleep apnea-like conditions,” Allaband said. “Strikingly, when this receptor was removed from the mice, the development of arterial plaques dropped significantly in some areas and disruptions to the gut microbiome were minimized.”

The results revealed that mice lacking the FXR receptor developed significantly less plaque in both the aorta and the aortic arch. Some plaque formation still occurred in the pulmonary artery, but the overall burden was reduced. The researchers also observed that sleep apnea-like conditions had a smaller impact on the gut microbiome and the collection of metabolic compounds produced within the body.

“These results tell us that microbially modified bile acids and how they signal through the receptor we knocked out (FXR) seem to be key to the impact of sleep apnea-like conditions in our mouse model. We also identified specific bile acids of interest to explore further,” Allaband said.

Potential Future Treatments

The research team is now pursuing several follow-up studies. One goal is to examine human datasets to determine whether the same biological patterns seen in mice are present in people with sleep apnea.

“We also plan to take some of our key bile acids of interest and see if supplementation of these compounds alone can help prevent or reduce disease,” Allaband said. “We may also take some key microbes of interest and see if they can be given preventively as a probiotic. There is lots of exciting future work to come.”

If similar effects are confirmed in humans, future therapies could potentially target bile acids, the FXR receptor, or beneficial gut microbes to help prevent or reduce the cardiovascular complications associated with sleep apnea.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Hidden Web of Fungus Inside Earth Could Reach The Sun a Billion Times

12 June 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/hidden-web-of-fungus-inside-earth-could-reach-the-sun-a-billion-times

Fluorescent-tagged carbon moving through filaments of mycorrhizal fungus.

 (Rachael Cargill, Loreto Oyarte Gálvez (VU Amsterdam, AMOLF) & Justin Magness )

The ground beneath your feet is not quiescent.

It zings and pulses with frenzied activity, much of it driven by a partnership between plants and fungi that dates back at least 450 million years.

This is the mycorrhizal network – a vast system of fungal filaments locked in a mutual exchange with the plant life that carpets our planet, transporting nutrients from the soil and receiving in return the carbon produced by plant photosynthesis.

It's large, and it's vital. Around 70 percent of all plant species rely on mycorrhizal symbiosis.

Now, for the first time, scientists have compiled a global map of this hidden infrastructure, revealing an underground network of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM) threads that stretches an estimated 110 quadrillion kilometers through Earth's soils.

That's long enough to travel the 150 million-kilometer (93 million-mile) distance from Earth to the Sun nearly a billion times.

A still of the map showing AM network density.

 (SPUN)

"It is hard to overstate the importance and enormity of these fungi," says evolutionary ecologist Justin Stewart of the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

"There could be up to 10 meters (32 feet) of mycorrhizal network in just a teaspoon of soil."

Fungal networks consist of underground threads called hyphae that run below the surface of the ground in forests and other plant communities, and they are often critical for helping these communities thrive.

They transport nutrients such as phosphorus as well as water that is usually beyond the reach of plant roots, in exchange for carbon from the plants.

This makes the 'wood wide web' an integral part of our planet's carbon cycle, but it's difficult to quantify the scope of the role it plays if we don't know how big the network is.

Mycorrhizal fungi under a microscope. The circular structures are spores. 

(Tomás Munita)



The work of Stewart and his colleagues was an ambitious effort to find out.

They assembled data from 322 studies representing more than 16,000 soil cores across nine different global biomes. These studies contained more than 4,000 measurements of AM hyphal densities that allowed the researchers to identify patterns in the conditions under which these networks are more likely to be found.

Then, they used machine learning to predict the density of unseen AM networks across the world, and robotic imaging to measure the thickness of more than 300,000 living fungal threads, allowing them to convert network length into biomass.

The results were huge.

"We have provided the first, to our knowledge, global estimate of AM hyphal densities, predicting 110 quadrillion kilometers of AM hyphae in the top 15 centimeters of Earth's soils," the researchers write in their paper.

The spore of a mycorrhizal fungus. 

(Vasilis Kokkoris - VU Amsterdam, AMOLF)



That network would weigh an estimated 300 million tons – that's four to six times the total living human biomass – and serve as a pathway for roughly 4 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent moving from plants into underground ecosystems each year.

But it was where these networks were strongest that presented the biggest surprise.

Rather than clustering most strongly in tropical rainforests, the highest densities were found in places like grasslands, prairies, steppes, and wetlands. An estimated 40 percent of the world's total AM fungal biomass is concentrated in these locations.

The researchers believe this is because herbaceous plants, such as grass, channel more carbon to mycorrhizal fungi than woody plants do.

Soil samples used to determine mycorrhizal density.

 (Tomás Munita/SPUN)



A more worrying finding is that fungal network density was, on average, 47 percent lower in cultivated croplands.

This is likely related to the use of fertilizers such as phosphorus and nitrogen, as well as fungicides and farming practices that limit fungal presence – but the long-term consequences could be a reduced soil capacity for carbon storage and nutrient transport.

However, there's a lot we still don't know.

Large parts of the world remain poorly sampled, including deserts, tropical forests, and tundra. In addition, most measurements come from the uppermost soil, which means there are deeper layers that we understand little about.

All this makes it difficult to know exactly how much of the underground network has yet to be accounted for, and it's worth noting there is much we don't yet understand about the 'wood wide web'.

Still, this effort represents the most complete map to date – shining a light on the hidden activity in the darkness beneath our feet, and showing us how much more we have to learn.

"Mycorrhizal fungi have shaped life on earth for hundreds of millions of years, but we still understand too little about how the infrastructure of these living transport systems is distributed across the planet," says mycologist Merlin Sheldrake of SPUN and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

"This study is an exciting step towards understanding how this planetary circulatory system operates and suggests ways that we can better work with fungi to help address many of the unfolding challenges of our times, from food security to climate change."

The Life of Earth

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