Psychopathic Tendencies Are Linked to Microbes Inside Your Body, Study Reveals

11 Aug. 2026, By P. DOCKRILL

https://www.sciencealert.com/psychopathic-tendencies-are-linked-to-microbes-inside-your-body-study-reveals

(Alexander Krivitskiy/Unsplash)

The more we find out about the microbiome, the more we realize how truly profound its effects are in shaping who we become.

We already know that the microbes in our bodies may affect our emotions – including our fear response – but how far does their influence reach in terms of determining our personality?

The answer, research suggests, is pretty far.

In a new early-release study published in Translational Psychiatry, scientists have found evidence to suggest that microbiota may even influence people's experience of psychopathy, with researchers discovering links between levels of certain gut and oral microbes and psychopathic personality traits.

While the findings have yet to undergo peer review, the researchers say it's the first time we've found evidence of how microbiota could contribute to psychopathic traits, which remain poorly understood in terms of their biological underpinnings.

Psychopathy is a personality construct marked by characteristics including lack of empathy, antisocial tendencies, impulsiveness, and egoism, but where psychopathic personalities emerge from is still not fully clear.

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

We know that psychopaths can share similarities in brain structure, with certain regions and pathways in the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, often linked with the phenomenon.

But researchers say there has to be more to it.

"Though brain alterations, particularly in the prefrontal cortex and temporo-limbic areas, are suggested to be directly implicated in psychopathy, these alone are insufficient to provide a comprehensive neurobiological explanation for psychopathic behavior," researchers explain in their paper, by first author and biomedical scientist Carolina Costa from the University of Porto in Portugal and her colleagues.

"We hypothesized that the composition of the gut and oral microbiota may be associated with subclinical psychopathic personality traits… To our knowledge, this is the first study to explore this association."

In their research, Costa and her team studied 200 healthy adult participants who filled out the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-Short Form – a questionnaire designed to measure psychopathic traits – and donated blood, saliva, and fecal samples, which were analyzed for signs of bacterial composition in the body or various metabolic markers.

Psychopathy is a personality construct marked by lack of empathy, antisocial tendencies, impulsiveness, and egoism. 

(disqis/Getty Images)



When people's individual diversity of gut and oral microbes was analyzed, no clear links to psychopathy were found, but the picture changed when the participants' results were compared against one another.

From that perspective, a higher abundance of three specific kinds of bacteria showed a positive association with stronger psychopathic traits.

Carrying more microbes in your gut microbiome from the genera Allisonella or Prevotella – or from the species Cloacibacillus evryensis – could mean you're more likely to show psychopathic traits, based on the analysis here.

It's worth noting that none of these results can speak to causation; the research here only surfaces correlations in the data.

But hypothetically speaking, if these microbes do influence people's behavior towards psychopathic tendencies, then how?

We don't know for sure, but the researchers note that Allisonella has previously been linked to several human diseases, and its potential to promote inflammation, which is associated with anxiety and depression, could help explain its possible role in psychopathy.

Similarly, Prevotella has previously been linked with neuropsychiatric disorders, and is thought to affect emotional processing, while the researchers say C. evryensis's association might be due to its suspected role as a producer of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitter involved in systems that regulate impulse control.

Interestingly, one species in the analysis showed a negative association: higher levels of Treponema vincentii in the oral microbiome were linked with lower psychopathy markers, although the researchers admit they don't have an answer for that.

While a lot more research is needed to better understand how these gut microbes may contribute to psychopathic traits, the findings do give us some important new leads to chase down – and could one day support clinicians in identifying people who show these dark impulses.

"Overall, our findings highlight the potential of microbiota and their metabolic outputs as biomarkers for psychopathic traits in the general population," the researchers write.

"The associations we observed, particularly between specific taxa (e.g., Allisonella, Prevotella, C. evryensis, T. vincentii) and traits such as callousness, manipulation, impulsivity, and anti-sociality, suggest a measurable biological footprint for psychopathy that extends beyond traditional neurocognitive models."

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https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Ant Colonies Pulse Like a Physical System, And Scientists Are Beginning to Understand What Triggers Them

11 August 2026, By E. ÖZ

https://www.sciencealert.com/ant-colonies-pulse-like-a-physical-system-and-scientists-are-beginning-to-understand-what-triggers-them

(andersboman/E+/Getty Images)

An ant nest can appear to be a jumble of tiny bodies moving independently.

But every so often, something remarkable happens: much of the colony springs into action almost at once.

These sudden flurries, known as activity bursts, are followed by stretches of relative calm.

Scientists compare these bursts to phase transitions of physical systems and have observed them for decades, but how so many ants synchronize without a leader remains unclear.

A new mathematical model, described in a study published in PRX Life, suggests that ant colonies suddenly become synchronized after reaching a critical point.

(Pebi WMF/500px/Getty Images)



Before this point, ants move independently. But once the colony crosses it, a single ant can trigger a wave of activity throughout the nest.

"Synchronization does not depend on any specific individual; any ant can serve as the first mover," New Jersey Institute of Technology biologist Simon Garnier says in an article published by the American Physical Society.

New York University mechanical engineer Michael Napoli and urban systems engineer Maurizio Porfiri developed the model with Garnier.

"The emergence of activity rhythms in our model is closely dependent on two key ingredients: the colony must be responsive to the activity of a single individual – sensitive to social contagion – and this individual must spread the activity much faster than the timescale of the activity bursts," Napoli told ScienceAlert.

"This insight provides a perspective on other complex systems where burst-like behavior may emerge, but does not persist, whereby the lack of one of these two ingredients ruins the synchronization."

Activity rhythms generated by the mathematical model, showing bursts of activity separated by quieter periods. 

(Courtesy of Michael Napoli)

Ant colonies contain surprisingly large numbers of inactive workers, but an encounter with a moving nestmate can prompt one to start moving.

Earlier models represented this social activation as a probability. The new model also accounts for the physical encounters required for activity to spread.

In the model, ants switch among three states: active, inactive, and refractory.

Active ants move and can activate nearby nestmates. Inactive ants remain still but can be prompted into action. Refractory ants are stationary and temporarily unable to reactivate, preventing bursts from continuing indefinitely.

Model parameters were based on earlier measurements.

Two ants interacting. 

(Maksim Shutov/Unsplash)



In simulations, activity faded before spreading when ants moved too slowly or encountered one another too infrequently.

But when speed, density, or interaction range crossed a critical threshold, encounters became frequent enough for one ant's activity to cascade through the colony.

Napoli compares the effect with a physical phase transition, such as water freezing, but stresses a key limit.

"The transition decides whether the burst is present, not if a burst will occur over the next time period," he said.

The model therefore cannot predict exactly when a quiet colony will spring into action. It determines whether the colony is in a state capable of producing synchronized bursts.

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

How, then, can one ant's activity spread through an entire nest before dying out?

"This is, perhaps, the most interesting result in the paper," Napoli said.

Earlier research has found that ant colonies can behave like neural networks when making collective decisions, and coordinate as a "superorganism" when responding to threats.

"We find that the bursts in the model emerge due to the dramatic difference in time scale between the motion of the ants – which spreads the activity – and the cycle between the behavioral transitions – which determines the burst period," Napoli said.

"This separation of time scales creates the proper conditions for the bursts to persist, and is comparable to many decision-making cascading phenomena in biological systems."

In other words, interactions spread activity much faster than the colony passes through its broader cycle of activity and rest. This allows movement initiated by one ant to travel from nestmate to nestmate without a commander.

The simulated bursts were broadly consistent with observations reported in earlier studies. However, the new study was mathematical rather than experimental, and tests with living ants are underway.

"Presently, experiments are being conducted and analyzed to validate the model against real ant data," Napoli told ScienceAlert.

"We are specifically interested in gauging the proximity of the colony to the transition threshold, whereby the activity bursts may serve as a platform for the colony to spread information extremely rapidly through the nest."

The results could show how closely living colonies operate to this threshold and whether bursts help information travel efficiently. Any evolutionary advantage remains unknown.

A 2023 modeling study suggested synchronized movement could improve access within crowded nests by reducing obstacles created by inactive ants.

Yet a 2017 study found that short-term activity cycles can impede information transmission when synchronized inactivity interrupts chains of physical contact among workers.

Activity bursts may therefore involve trade-offs among movement, communication, energy use, and the organization of work.

The Life of Earth

Gut Bacteria May Leave a Lasting “Protective Memory” in the Intestine

BY O. DIMMER, NORTHWESTERN U., AUG. 6, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/gut-bacteria-may-leave-a-lasting-protective-memory-in-the-intestine/

A metabolite produced when gut bacteria digest fiber may leave a lasting molecular imprint on the intestinal lining. In mice, this “memory” helped sustain immune tolerance and reduced inflammation even after the metabolite was no longer present. 

Credit: Stock

A fiber-derived bacterial metabolite may leave a protective memory in the gut lining that supports long-term immune tolerance.

A signal made by gut bacteria as they break down dietary fiber may continue shaping intestinal immunity long after the signal itself disappears. Northwestern Medicine researchers found that butyrate can leave a durable molecular imprint on the cells lining the intestine, encouraging immune tolerance and protecting mice against conditions resembling inflammatory bowel disease after treatment has ended.

The findings were published in Nature Communications. Yingzi Cong, PhD, the Stanley Gradowski Professor of Gastroenterology and a professor of Microbiology-Immunology and of Pathology, served as senior and co-corresponding author.

The results suggest that beneficial compounds produced by gut microbes may effectively “train” the intestinal lining to preserve an immune-regulating state over time.

“Our laboratory has long been interested in how the gut microbiota regulates immune responses at intestinal mucosal surfaces,” said first and co-corresponding author of the study Tianming Yu, PhD, research assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. “Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which are produced by gut bacteria during the fermentation of dietary fiber, are known to have anti-inflammatory effects in the intestine.”

Tianming Yu, PhD, research assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, was the first and corresponding author of the study. 

Credit: Northwestern University



One important question, however, had remained unresolved.

“A large proportion of butyrate in the gut is rapidly absorbed and metabolized by intestinal epithelial cells (IECs), which limits the amount of free butyrate that can directly reach underlying immune cells,” Yu said. “This led us to ask whether butyrate might act through IECs to regulate intestinal immunity.”

Butyrate leaves lasting immune protection

To investigate that possibility, the researchers added butyrate to the drinking water of mice for a set period and then withdrew it. Two weeks after treatment stopped, CD4+ T-cells were still producing elevated levels of IL-10, a major anti-inflammatory cytokine that helps control inflammation in the intestine.

The treated mice were also more resistant to chemically induced colitis. Compared with untreated animals, they lost less weight, had lower levels of inflammatory markers, and developed less severe tissue damage. The study found that this protection depended on IL-10 signaling.

Changes in the existing gut microbial community did not explain the result. When the experiment was repeated in germ-free mice, which have no microbes, butyrate still produced a lasting immune-regulating environment.

“We found that oral butyrate treatment induces a sustained immunoregulatory response in the intestine, characterized by increased IL-10 production in CD4+ T-cells and protection from intestinal inflammation even after butyrate treatment is stopped,” Yu said. “This effect was also observed in germ-free mice, suggesting that butyrate can establish a lasting intestinal environment that does not depend on continuous microbial stimulation.”

Intestinal cells carry the signal

Yu and his collaborators next examined intestinal epithelial cells (IECs), the cells that create the physical boundary between the body and the gut microbiome. In laboratory experiments, epithelial cells previously exposed to butyrate strongly increased IL-10 production in both mouse and human T-cells.

Yingzi Cong, PhD, the Stanley Gradowski Professor of Gastroenterology and a professor of Microbiology-Immunology and of Pathology, was senior and co-corresponding author of the study. 

Credit: Northwestern University



“We further found that conditioned medium from butyrate-treated IECs strongly induced IL-10-producing CD4+ T-cells in both mouse and human T-cell culture systems,” Yu said. “These findings suggest that IECs secrete some immunoregulatory factors after butyrate treatment, and these factors can act on T-cells.”

A metabolite connects cells to tolerance

Metabolomic analysis, which measures small molecules produced during cellular activity, identified N1-acetylspermidine as one likely messenger. The compound increased IL-10 production in T-cells and appeared to account for part of the immune-regulating effect produced by butyrate-treated epithelial cells, Yu said.

“Mechanistically, we found that butyrate acts on IECs and induces sustained transcriptional and epigenetic activation of Sat1, an acetylpolyamine biosynthetic enzyme,” Yu said. “This promotes production of the metabolite N1-acetylspermidine, which contributes to the ability of butyrate-treated IEC-conditioned medium to induce IL-10 production in CD4⁺ T-cells.”

The results challenge the conventional view that intestinal epithelial cells are temporary responders whose main function is to form a protective barrier.

“The significance of this work is that it identifies a mechanism by which a microbiota-derived metabolite can create durable epithelial T-cell crosstalk,” Yu said. “The intestinal epithelium is often viewed as a short-lived barrier that responds rapidly to luminal stimuli. Our findings suggest that it can also retain a lasting imprint of a microbial metabolite signal. The study also introduces the idea that beneficial microbial metabolites may ‘train’ the IECs to maintain immune tolerance over time.”

Human disease remains the next test

The findings still require further confirmation, but Yu said the pathway could eventually prove relevant to inflammatory bowel disease.

“One important next step is to determine how this epithelial metabolic pathway operates in human intestinal disease, especially in patients with inflammatory bowel disease,” Yu said. “We are interested in testing whether the butyrate-Sat1-N1-acetylspermidine pathway is altered in human IECs and whether it correlates with immune regulation or disease activity.”

The researchers also intend to identify other metabolites involved in the response because N1-acetylspermidine did not fully account for the immune-regulating effects they observed.

More broadly, the findings may change how researchers think about the relationship among diet, microbial metabolites and the intestinal lining.

“Many studies have focused on how inflammation can leave harmful memory in epithelial cells, but our findings suggest that beneficial microbial metabolites may also establish protective epithelial programs,” he said. “Understanding how diet, microbiota-derived metabolites and inflammation shape intestinal epithelial memory could open new directions for restoring intestinal immune tolerance in inflammatory bowel disease.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Starlink Satellites Reveal a Hidden Atmosphere 300 Miles Above Earth

BY KYOTO U., AUG. 9, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/starlink-satellites-reveal-a-hidden-atmosphere-300-miles-above-earth/

Subtle changes in satellite orbits may reveal far more about near-Earth space than previously recognized. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Satellites designed to provide internet service are now serving an unexpected second purpose: helping scientists map the nearly invisible atmosphere at the edge of space.

Researchers at Kyoto University have used orbital changes from about 1,200 Starlink satellites to map Earth’s thermosphere, a thin and difficult-to-observe region of the upper atmosphere. Their analysis produced the first tomographic map of its kind, revealing atmospheric density patterns roughly 482 kilometers (300 miles) above Earth. The study was published in Earth, Planets, and Space.

Although satellites in low Earth orbit travel through what appears to be empty space, traces of atmosphere remain even hundreds of kilometers above the surface. Collisions with these sparse particles create drag, slowly reducing a spacecraft’s speed and altitude.

That effect becomes more intense when solar activity heats and expands the upper atmosphere. Geomagnetic storms can rapidly increase atmospheric density at satellite altitudes, altering predicted orbits and raising the difficulty of collision avoidance.

Why Thermospheric Density Matters

Knowing how density varies across the thermosphere is therefore important for tracking satellites, forecasting reentries, planning maneuvers, and estimating the paths of space debris. Yet the region remains difficult to observe directly.

The thermosphere extends from about 100 to 1,000 kilometers (62 to 621 miles) above Earth. More than 99 percent of the upper atmosphere consists of electrically neutral gas in this region. By comparison, the electrically charged particles of the ionosphere account for less than 1 percent.

A world-first achievement: successful tomographic analysis of thermospheric air density from Starlink satellite orbital data.

 Credit: KyotoU / Mamoru Yamamoto

The ionosphere can be studied through its effects on radio signals. Neutral particles in the thermosphere leave a far weaker signature, so scientists often rely on specialized instruments, models, or measurements collected along individual satellite paths.

The Kyoto University team instead treated the Starlink constellation as a vast network of moving atmospheric sensors.

Turning Orbital Drag Into Atmospheric Data

As each satellite traveled through the thermosphere, drag caused it to lose a small amount of orbital energy. The researchers calculated these changes using publicly available, detailed orbital records known as ephemeris data. They then applied tomography, a mathematical method also used to reconstruct medical scans, to estimate how atmospheric density varied across different locations.

“This is a multidisciplinary study between space science and space engineering,” says corresponding author Mamoru Yamamoto. “Reading papers from both research fields, we realized that deeper dialogue between researchers from both fields is necessary.”

Combining measurements from hundreds of satellites allowed the researchers to produce a two-dimensional map of density across latitude and longitude. Most earlier spacecraft observations provided readings only along a satellite’s individual route, which is similar to learning about a landscape by following a single road.

Improving Space Weather and Orbital Safety

The new method offers a wider snapshot. Its results were highly consistent with density variations measured by the European Space Agency’s SWARM satellites, providing an independent check on the reconstruction.

The work expands on an earlier study by the same team that used publicly available Two-Line Element, or TLE, records to examine changes in thermospheric density over time and altitude. The latest research adds the horizontal dimension, revealing how density differs from one geographic region to another.

Future versions of the system could potentially track thermospheric density close to real time. Such maps could improve space weather forecasts, refine orbital predictions, and help operators respond more effectively when solar storms disturb the upper atmosphere.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

“I Couldn’t Do It Anymore” – Antarctic Guides Quit Their Dream Jobs After Witnessing Tourism’s Damage

BY Z. SOKOLICKOVA, E. COOPER, AND C. HEHIR, AUG. 9, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/i-couldnt-do-it-anymore-antarctic-guides-quit-their-dream-jobs-after-witnessing-tourisms-damage/

Some Antarctic guides found that protecting the place they loved ultimately meant leaving it. Their decisions expose a deeper tension between environmental awareness and the impacts of tourism itself. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Antarctic guides walked away from their dream jobs after tourism’s environmental damage became impossible to ignore.

“You’d see massive glacier calvings, and you’d just want to cry. But all the guests would be cheering. And you’d be like … ‘Can you not put two and two together?’”

Those are the words of a former Antarctic tour guide we interviewed. For anyone interested in nature, few jobs sound more enviable. You spend months among penguins, orcas, and glaciers, helping visitors experience one of the world’s most extraordinary and unspoiled places.

But for some guides, like those we quote in this article, that privilege slowly became impossible to reconcile with their beliefs. Watching climate change unfold while helping thousands more visitors reach the continent eventually led them to leave the jobs they’d once dreamed of.

Antarctica’s Tourism Paradox

Antarctic tourism is growing fast, with over 120,000 visits in 2025-26 and up to 450,000 expected each summer within a decade. Our new study reveals how Antarctic tour guides grapple with the dilemma at the heart of their work—bringing more and more people to an ecologically vulnerable area and helping cause some of the greatest CO2 emissions of any form of tourism.

“I was down there on the hottest day ever recorded in 2020. Hiking up a glacier in my T-shirt, driving boats without gloves. It was really sad. The impacts of climate change absolutely hit you in the face.”

We interviewed 25 former Antarctic guides who decided to quit their jobs (all quotes are anonymized). These guides couldn’t align their morals with the effects of tourism they were witnessing day after day.

As Antarctic tourism expands, former guides describe a growing conflict between introducing visitors to the continent and contributing to pressures on its fragile ecosystems. 

Credit: Zdenka Sokolickova



“Very often, for long periods of time, the penguins had maybe a few hours’ break during the night. Otherwise, there were hundreds of people walking through the colonies non-stop.”

While tour operators often argue that visiting Antarctica can heighten tourists’ awareness of environmental issues, former guides were struck by guests’ ignorance of human impacts.

A Growing Moral Conflict

None of the guides quit overnight. Their decisions emerged through years of reflection, uncertainty, and moral conflict.

“We are always in conflict in our minds with two parts: the excitement to go to Antarctica to work in remote places we like and being complicit in tourism industry development.”

“I can’t work in the farce of climate change cruise tourism anymore. It’s just, how can I go there, tell people about climate change, and not do anything about it?”

The Personal Cost of Leaving

The former Antarctic tour guides show meaningful change is often a painful and gradual process rather than a single dramatic moment. For many, years of acting against their values affected their wellbeing.

“I think what it comes down to for me is, you know, if I think about being on my deathbed and trying to look my kids in the eyes and saying, ‘I tried.’ I don’t know if I could have done that if I kept doing what I was doing.”

The stories of guides who left one of the world’s most extraordinary tourism jobs powerfully illustrate how abandoning unsustainable lifestyles can come with real personal costs.

“To this day, Antarctica … stays in the forefront of my head as the most incredibly raw environment that deserves all the care and protection. And I just think tourism and us being there was doing the opposite of that completely.”

Loving Antarctica From Afar

Many of the research participants still felt deeply connected to Antarctica, and they sometimes regretted leaving. Mixed feelings and ambiguity are an inherent part of decisions we take out of concern and care for others, including remote environments.

“Do I wish I was getting on a flight and heading to the floe edge to take people out on the ice? Yes, there’s a big part of me that wishes I were doing that right now. And I also know that I would feel like shit after doing it.”

Walking Away to Protect It

In the case of the people we interviewed, caring about Antarctica meant walking away from Antarctic tourism. The interviews suggest that distance doesn’t necessarily weaken responsibility. For these former tour guides, caring for Antarctica ultimately meant leaving it—and many felt better after they quit. Sometimes the best way to protect a place you love is to leave it alone.

“I was working very much against what I knew wasn’t right, and I think that was coming out in my body as well. And then when I made that decision to walk away, I just felt so much better. It was like I could breathe again.”

If you’ve ever questioned whether your work aligns with your values, these former Antarctic tour guides offer a thoughtful perspective on balancing career, well-being, and environmental responsibility. Their stories may also inspire a deeper appreciation for protecting Antarctica by leaving it untouched.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Chuck's photo corner to Aug. 9th 2026

It's been a hot muggy couple of weeks. Way more rain than we usually get this time of summer. I even had to use the ac a few nights. Mainly to dry out the air in the bedroom, but a little cooler was nice as well. Still on average it's been a cooler summer especially some nights. Lawn cutting has been quite the chore with all the rain. Even some of the veggy garden is complaining about too much water.

hot peppers coming along

garden phlox

my fav red daylily washed out by yesterday's heavy rain storm

rudbeckia going crazy

rain pouring off the roof

rain and more rain

a misty morning

merlin came to look in at us during supper

dahlias with a long family history given to my by an old friend a few years ago

.

Up in the mountains earlier this week

day lily

choke cherry outside the dining room window,

looks like a variety of nicotina

this colour of bee balm was very popular with the bees

the thistle was a bee favorite as well

crossing the Ottawa river on the ferry, I spotted this boat one of the largest I have seen on the Ottawa.

Enjoy the day

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

What if The Brain Doesn't Create Consciousness? Scientist Proposes It Might Be The Fabric of Reality Itself

09 Aug. 2026, By E. ÖZ

https://www.sciencealert.com/what-if-the-brain-doesnt-create-consciousness-scientist-proposes-it-might-be-the-fabric-of-reality-itself

(Mevans/E+/Getty Images)

For decades, neuroscientists have searched the brain for the biological basis of consciousness, assuming our thoughts, emotions, and subjective experiences emerge from networks of neurons.

But what if that assumption is incomplete?

That's the provocative question explored by neuroscientist Christof Koch of the Allen Institute in Seattle.

Koch recently presented his 'challenges' to our understanding of consciousness at the Bial Foundation's 'Behind and Beyond the Brain' symposium in Porto, Portugal, in April 2026 – building on a body of published work that includes this 2016 paper in Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

Koch explained to ScienceAlert that it may be time to rethink one of neuroscience's deepest assumptions: that consciousness is something the brain produces.

Koch does not dispute the brain's essential role in conscious experience.

Decades of research have shown that injuries, disease, anesthesia, and electrical stimulation can profoundly alter – or even eliminate – awareness.

Instead, he asks a different question: Does the brain create consciousness, or could it be shaping something more fundamental?

Despite remarkable progress in understanding how the brain processes information, neuroscience still faces a profound mystery, Koch argues.

Scientists can increasingly identify the neural circuits involved in perception, memory, emotion, and decision-making. Yet those discoveries still cannot explain why physical brain activity is accompanied by subjective experience.

As Koch writes in a new, as-yet unpublished essay shared with ScienceAlert: "Nothing in science explains how three pounds of matter, a piece of furniture of the Universe like any other, subjects to the same natural laws, can love, hate, dream, imagine, fear or hope for its future."

It isn't the first time Koch has grappled publicly with this puzzle. In 2023, he conceded a 25-year bet with philosopher David Chalmers, admitting neuroscience was no closer to pinning down consciousness's neural mechanism than when he made the wager in 1998.

(Ashley Batz/Unsplash)




To address that question, Koch turns to a philosophical framework known as analytic idealism, which proposes that consciousness may be a fundamental feature of reality rather than something generated by the brain.

Within this framework, the brain is viewed less as a producer of consciousness and more as a filter or shaper of conscious experience.

The ideas did not emerge from a single scientific experiment. Instead, Koch describes a deeply personal experience that fundamentally changed the way he thinks about consciousness and reality.

Several years ago, while sitting alone on a beach, he recalls the boundary between himself and the world dissolving, describing the experience as a timeless and universal reality.

In his essay, Koch describes the experience as "the most meaningful of my life," writing that it "flipped my view of reality".

Koch is careful not to present the experience as scientific evidence. Instead, he writes that it gave him "a view of Mind-at-Large" and prompted him to re-examine the metaphysical assumptions that had guided much of his scientific career, taking alternative philosophical perspectives more seriously.

He also acknowledges that such experiences are inherently subjective. But he argues they should not be dismissed simply because they are difficult to explain, suggesting they, too, are part of the phenomenon science is ultimately trying to understand.

(Dmitry Berdnyk/Unsplash)

In the essay, he points to developments in modern physics as another reminder that some of science's deepest assumptions have already been revised. He does not argue that quantum physics explains consciousness. Rather, he suggests that the history of physics shows scientists have repeatedly been forced to rethink the nature of reality when new evidence emerged.

Koch argues that "our understanding of reality must be rebuilt on a simpler foundation, compatible with both the 'objective' outcome of empirical science as well as with 'subjective' experience."

Koch argues that if current assumptions about consciousness prove incomplete, neuroscience itself may eventually require a similarly profound conceptual shift.

The ideas also have implications for artificial intelligence. If consciousness is not simply the product of increasingly complex computation, the path toward conscious machines may be more complicated than simply building increasingly powerful AI systems.

That does not mean future AI systems could never become conscious. Rather, he argues that the debate cannot be settled simply by making computers more intelligent or more computationally sophisticated.

Koch acknowledges that analytic idealism is not an established scientific theory but a metaphysical framework whose future depends on whether its ideas can be translated into empirically testable hypotheses.

As he writes, "The most important task for the future is to take these insights and translate them into empirically testable hypotheses."

He argues that consciousness remains one of science's greatest unsolved mysteries, and that understanding it may require researchers to rethink long-held assumptions about the relationship between mind, brain, and reality.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Cave Discovery Suggests Neanderthals and Modern Humans May Have Shared Culture

BY KYOTO U., AUG. 8, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/cave-discovery-suggests-neanderthals-and-modern-humans-may-have-shared-culture/

A distant view of the Üçağızlı II Cave in southern Türkiye. 

Credit: KyotoU / Naoki Morimoto

Modern humans and Neanderthals may have shared more than land and genes. They may have also shared culture.

Modern humans and Neanderthals may have shared more than territory, tools, and genes. New evidence from a cave in southern Türkiye suggests the two groups may also have exchanged ideas and developed similar symbolic traditions over thousands of years.

The discovery comes from Üçağızlı II Cave, a site near one of the most important migration routes in human history. The Levant connected Africa with Eurasia, making it a natural passage for Homo sapiens leaving Africa and a likely meeting ground with Neanderthals already living farther north.

Despite the region’s importance, human remains from this period are extremely rare. An international team involving researchers from Türkiye, France, Japan, and Kyoto University spent five years excavating the cave with exceptional precision.

Their work revealed that Neanderthals and modern humans used the site across a period of more than 20,000 years. Both groups made similar stone tools and appear to have relied on comparable methods to survive in the same environment.

The research team performing excavations at the cave site in 2024. 

Credit: KyotoU / Naoki Morimoto
Ancient Shells Hint at Shared Symbolic Culture



The most revealing finds, however, were not tools or food remains.

Both groups deliberately collected the same type of marine shell, even though it offered virtually no nutritional value. Such objects may have been worn, displayed, exchanged, or valued for their appearance, although their exact purpose remains unknown.

That detail is important because symbolic behavior has often been treated as a defining feature of modern humans. Evidence that Neanderthals selected the same unusual shells raises the possibility that cultural preferences passed between the two populations, or that they participated in a shared regional tradition.

“Our findings indicate a deep level of cultural interaction,” says corresponding author Naoki Morimoto of KyotoU. “These two distinct but closely related human groups were not just adapting to the same environment: they were probably sharing symbolic preferences.”

The research team at the excavation site in 2024.

 Credit: KyotoU / Naoki Morimoto

What the Fossils Reveal About Early Migration

The cave also contained modern human fossils dating to approximately 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, placing them near a crucial stage in the spread of Homo sapiens beyond Africa.

These individuals may have been closely related to the founding population that eventually gave rise to today’s non-African populations. Another possibility is that they belonged to an earlier migration whose descendants remained in the Levant longer than scientists previously recognized.

Drone footage of the Üçağızlı II Cave in southern Türkiye.

 Credit: KyotoU / Naoki Morimoto

The findings add to a growing picture of Neanderthals and modern humans as populations whose lives repeatedly overlapped. Their encounters may have involved competition and interbreeding, but the shells suggest something more subtle: the movement of tastes, traditions, or meaning across species boundaries.

Üçağızlı II Cave therefore offers more than a record of two human groups occupying the same place. It provides a rare glimpse of a world in which different kinds of humans may have watched, learned from, and influenced one another.

The birth of modern Man

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Avocados Switch Sex on a Daily Basis, And Researchers Finally Know How

08 Aug. 2026, By I. FARKAS

https://www.sciencealert.com/avocados-switch-sex-on-a-daily-basis-and-researchers-finally-know-how

Persea americana avocado fruit, as analyzed in this research.

  (B.navez/Wikimedia Commons)

At some point in evolutionary history, possibly around 400 million years ago, things started having sex.

This adaptational (and sensual) advance introduced multiple benefits by allowing increased gene sharing, thereby helping to prune deleterious mutations and boost general fitness.

Avocado trees also ostensibly like to have sex, but face a problem: Each tree's flowers have both female and male reproductive organs, so they must somehow avoid self-pollination to derive such sexual benefits.

They do this through a clever evolutionary trick called temporal dichogamy, where the flowers of avocado trees (and many other angiosperms) functionally 'switch sexes' each day.

Yet the underlying genetic basis has fascinated and frustrated botanists and growers for over a century.

In a new study, a team of ecologists and agricultural engineers combined field observations with genetic analyses to finally crack the conundrum of avocado sexuality, revealing their dichogamy-defining gene variants.

"Our study provides a genetic explanation for a century-old mystery of avocado pollination," says Jeffrey Groh, an evolutionary geneticist now at the University of California (UC) Berkeley.

At any moment, an avocado tree may be functionally female or male, with its flowers either receiving or releasing pollen, respectively.

They also display complementary sexual schedules.

"A-type" avocado trees open their female flowers in the morning and their male flowers in the afternoon, while a basically equal population of "B-type" avocado trees do the opposite – avoiding perils of self-pollination.

An image showing an avocado tree's flowers being both open and closed.

  (Jeffrey Groh/UC Davis)



"Flowers are not just static decorations; they are highly evolved and dynamic structures. We can see this in the pulsating rhythm of avocado flowers opening and closing throughout the day," says Groh.

"Through the power of genetics, we can detect traces of this rhythm far into the ancient past."

To approximate an avocado gender reveal, the researchers mapped the genomes of hundreds of avocado trees in varying detail, including the activity of genes at specific times of the day.

They also conducted an avocado 'sex watch,' spending days and nights documenting the hour-by-hour opening and closing of thousands of flowers that react to tiny changes in temperature and light.

The researchers discovered evidence that the activity of a single gene, named SDMYB, oscillates like a clock and controls A- or B-type flowering behaviors.

Researchers tracked the flowering phases of A- and B-type avocado plants over consecutive days. 

Flowers of Persea americana in the female (B) and male phase (C) are also shown. (Groh et al., PNAS, 2026)

The SDMYB gene comes in two variants, known as alleles. A-type trees carry one of each gene variant, while B-type trees hold two copies of the recessive version, providing a revelation that promises to supercharge avocado science.

"These genetic markers will greatly speed up avocado breeding and research," explains Graham Coop, an evolutionary geneticist and professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, as well as the study's senior author.

"This has been a major impediment for avocado breeders. Previously, you could not tell whether a plant was an A- or a B- type until it flowered, and avocado plants may take up to 10 or 15 years to flower in the first place."

Unveiling these genetic blueprints, which appear to have emerged more than 42 million years ago, can pay immediate dividends.

"This is something we can begin using right away," says Marllon Soares dos Santos, an agricultural engineer at UC Riverside and one of the study's co-authors.

For example, California avocado growers may stock 10 percent of an orchard with B-type pollinizer trees to help their neighboring A-type trees produce more fruit.

Yet the fruit of B-type trees is commercially undesirable, unlike the world's favorite, supermarket-stocked Hass avocado, an A-type treat.

"Instead of planting hundreds of seedlings and waiting years to see which flower type they become," Soares Dos Santos explains, "we can make those decisions at the beginning. That makes breeding much more efficient."

So, given the creative cultivation of other popular plants, like grapes, might we be making cotton-candy-flavored guacamole anytime soon?

Alas, gene editing applications may remain many years away. But the genetic markers illuminated in this work will allow breeders to select the plants they want without having to wait for them to flower – saving them time, labor, and orchard space.

"People have wondered about this trait since avocado breeding began in California," concludes Eric Focht, a botany-and-plant-sciences researcher at UCR and one of the study's co-authors.

"Now we finally understand the genetics behind it, and we can use that knowledge to build the next generation of avocados."

The Life of Earth

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Meet the 30-Million-Year-Old Dog That Climbed Trees Instead of Chasing Sticks

BY M. SHERBURNE, U. OF MICHIGAN, AUG. 6, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/meet-the-30-million-year-old-dog-that-climbed-trees-instead-of-chasing-sticks/

Anne Kort, an assistant professor in the Museum of Paleontology and a Michigan Society of Fellows postdoctoral scholar, excavates a horse leg bone at John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon.

 Credit: Nicholas Famoso, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

A nearly complete fossil shows that one early dog combined climbing ability with a body unlike those of modern running canids.

For more than 30 years, a fossil roughly 30 million years old remained sealed inside rock in an Oregon museum collection. When paleontologists first recovered it, they believed it might belong to an oreodont, an abundant group of extinct mammals related to sheep, camels and pigs.

Researchers later recognized the specimen as an early dog. University of Michigan paleontologist Anne Kort has now identified it as one of the most complete pre-Ice Age dog fossils ever found in North America. The animal belongs to Mesocyon coryphaeus, a species named in 1879 that had previously been known only from individual skulls.

Kort was asked to study and describe the fossil for a special issue of the Journal of Paleontology marking the 50th anniversary of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, known as JODA. The specimen was discovered in the late 1980s on Bureau of Land Management property near the Oregon monument.

Kaori Chambers, University of Michigan graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, created an artistic representation of Mesocyon coryphaeus. U-M paleontologist Anne Kort identified a fossil as one of the most complete Mesocyon coryphaeus specimens found yet. The specimen was a fossil dog the size of a coyote. 

Credit: Kaori Chambers, University of Michigan



Paleontologists removed the fossil together with the rock surrounding it, then enclosed the entire block in a protective plaster jacket. During the 1990s, researchers separated the skull for display and determined that it came from a dog. In 2012, park paleontologists, including study coauthor Jennifer Cavin prepared the rest of the skeleton and recognized how much of the animal had survived.

“They thought at first it was an oreodont, which we like to call sheep-camel-pigs,” said Kort, who was a postdoctoral scholar at U-M’s Museum of Paleontology. “This was the most magical, fun project to just be handed on a silver platter.”
Multiple clues confirm an early dog

Paleontologists usually identify an ancient dog by comparing its skull, teeth and other anatomical features with those of known canid fossils. This specimen contained another revealing clue: a hereditary bone growth at the end of the wrist called an osteochondroma. The same condition occurs in approximately 60% of the earliest known dog fossils.

University of Michigan paleontologist Anne Kort identified a fossil as one of the most complete Mesocyon coryphaeus specimens found yet. The specimen, a fossil dog the size of a coyote, had an elbow joint suggesting it could climb and grapple, according to Kort. 

Credit: Anne Kort, University of Michigan



“It’s just this really cool direct hereditary link that we wouldn’t normally find,” Kort said. “This is another line of evidence, and that gives you an idea of how great this fossil is.”

Nearly the entire skeleton is preserved. Only the tail and portions of the hands and feet are missing. Its completeness also allowed the researchers to determine the animal’s sex without relying on indirect anatomical estimates.

“The other fun thing is, it even had the baculum, so, the penis bone,” Kort said. “That means we definitely know this was a male.”
This dog had not mastered running

According to Kort, dogs originated in North America approximately 40 million years ago. Their common ancestor was a canid called Hesperocyon. At that time, much of the continent was covered by dense forests resembling rainforests, and Hesperocyon was probably a “pretty good climber,” unlike dogs living today, Kort says.

A fossil of Mesocyon coryphaeus was found on Bureau of Land Management land in the 1980s, near the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. 

Credit: Image courtesy of National Park Service. Mural created by Roger Witter




Mesocyon appeared about 10 million years later as the global climate cooled. Dense forests were gradually replaced by more open woodlands and, in some places, shrublands. Kort examined the unusually complete skeleton to determine whether Mesocyon had already developed the running adaptations seen in modern dogs.

“The answer is pretty definitely no,” said Kort, who studies the interaction between environment and running adaptations in mammals. “Mesocyon also just has more robust bones in general. It’s shorter and stockier.”

The shape of the elbow joint indicates that Mesocyon could rotate its forearms, an ability that would have helped it grapple and climb, Kort says. The animal also retained a large first toe, represented by the dew claw in modern dogs. This anatomy suggests that Mesocyon sometimes placed its heel on the ground rather than walking entirely on its toes as dogs do today.

University of Michigan paleontologist Anne Kort identified a fossil as one of the most complete Mesocyon coryphaeus specimens found yet. Kort said the dog, which was about the size of a coyote, likely at least occasionally walked from heel to toe and was not adapted for running, whereas modern dogs walk on their tip toes and are adapted for running. 

Credit: Anne Kort, University of Michigan



Extinction erased a different dog ecology

Kort says the specimen also illustrates a broader consequence of extinction. When a species and its relatives disappear, the distinctive way they lived disappears with them.

“This fossil is not our current dogs’ great-great-great uncle, because this whole line went fully extinct. And with that extinction, we did lose a whole kind of dog ecology that we just don’t see anymore,” she said. “I think sometimes there’s an assumption that life finds a way if something goes extinct. It will be replaced, or something will magically bounce back.

“But evolution never finds a perfect fit, it finds good fits. So when we lose things, they’re gone forever. They’re never going to be perfectly replaced, and I think that’s an important lesson to take away when we’re thinking about extinctions today.”

JODA paleontologist Ted Fremd originally found the fossil, made its recovery a priority, and completed the first preparation work that exposed the skull. JODA paleontologist Joshua Samuels assigned Cavin to remove the remaining skeleton from its protective jacket in 2011. Nicholas Famoso, now the chief paleontologist at JODA, later proposed that Kort study the specimen. Xiaoming Wang of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is also a coauthor of the research.

The Life of Earth

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