Scientists Find a Surprising Link Between Cats And Happiness Across 93 Countries

05 Oct, 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-a-surprising-link-between-cats-and-happiness-across-93-countries

(Elena Zaretskaya/Moment RF/Getty Images)

If you're looking for a boost of household happiness, then you might want to consider getting yourself a cat.

In a new study published in PLOS One, an international team of researchers analyzed publicly available data across 93 countries to examine the relationship between happiness scores, domestic cat density, and infection rates of Toxoplasma gondii – the parasite that affects as many as 1 in 3 people and which felines are the primary host of.

The researchers wanted to see if having a cat made a difference to happiness, and whether the risk of parasite infection affected that in any way.

While T. gondii is usually harmless and symptomless for most people, it can cause problems in more vulnerable groups, and has been linked to anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia.

Data from the shaded countries were used in the study. 

(Borráz-León et al., PLOS One, 2026)



Wealth was also included as it's often one of the first factors people consider when it comes to leading a happy and comfortable life.

"What we found is that countries with more cats tended to report higher levels of happiness, while countries with higher exposure to Toxoplasma gondii tended to report lower levels of happiness," say the study authors in a press release.

Those apparently conflicting results need some picking apart. Certain countries may have had a disproportionate impact on the results, the researchers suggest.

China, for instance, had a relatively high happiness score despite a lower cat density than most nations.

One of the more surprising wrinkles in the data was that countries with more cats tended to have lower levels of T. gondii exposure.

Cats aren't the only way humans can be infected by this parasite, but you would expect the association to be in the other direction.

"Of course, these are associations at the country level, so we cannot say that having more cats makes people happier or that Toxoplasma makes people less happy, but the patterns are interesting enough to deserve further investigation," say the study authors.

Then there's the consideration that wealthier countries may make people more likely to own cats and have better access to vet care.

Felines in richer countries are more likely to be kept indoors, get regular check-ups at the vet, and eat commercial cat food.

The findings suggest that biological and ecological factors can play a role in finding that much-desired feeling of happiness, factors which aren't typically included in studies.

"This goes against the simple assumption that having more cats necessarily means greater parasite exposure and suggests that factors such as pets management, sanitation, and socioeconomic conditions may be important," says biologist Javier I. Borráz-León, from the National Institute of Psychiatry Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz in Mexico.

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

How happy (or otherwise) populations are can have very tangible effects on public health, which is why studies like this are so important.

When people are stressed, anxious, and unhappy, they're less productive, more vulnerable, and more likely to need treatment and care from other people.

Now we know that having a cat around could lead to a boost in contentment and well-being, adding to other recent cat and pet discoveries – including research that showed animal companions may help to slow down cognitive decline.

To take the research further, future studies could track cat owners and non-cat owners on an individual basis, rather than at the country level.

That should reveal more about the relationship between cats and happiness and how it might change over time, in combination with other factors.

"Future studies of happiness at the national level should integrate both socioeconomic and biological perspectives and include longitudinal and interdisciplinary approaches to elucidate the underlying mechanisms and processes," write the researchers in their published paper.

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Why Do Muscles Weaken With Age? Scientists May Have Found an Important Missing Piece

By U. of Missouri-Columbia, Oct. 4, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/why-do-muscles-weaken-with-age-scientists-may-have-found-an-important-missing-piece/

Researchers have uncovered an overlooked change in how nerves and muscles communicate during aging, offering a new explanation for why muscle strength can decline even beyond the effects of muscle loss. 

Credit: Stock

A newly identified breakdown in nerve-muscle communication may help explain age-related weakness.

Muscles do not weaken with age simply because they get smaller. New research suggests that part of the problem may lie in the electrical signals that tell them when to contract.

Scientists at the University of Missouri found that communication between nerves and muscle fibers becomes less reliable with age. The failure appears to occur at the neuromuscular junction, where nerves transmit signals that activate muscles.

The finding could help explain part of sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass, strength, and physical function that affects nearly half of adults over age 80.

Looking Beyond Muscle Loss

“While the human lifespan has increased in recent decades, our ultimate goal at Mizzou is to ensure a person’s health span remains as high as possible for as long as possible,” W. David Arnold, executive director of the NextGen Precision Health initiative and a professor in the School of Medicine, said.

Scientists have long focused on muscle loss and the decline of motor neurons as major causes of age-related weakness. Arnold and his colleagues instead examined what happens where nerve signals reach muscle.

Arnold has studied the neuromuscular junction for more than a decade. His team’s findings suggest that this connection becomes less reliable with age.

“A long-held assumption in the field was that the neuromuscular junction remains reliable during aging, and some even suggested it may get better with aging,” Arnold said. “The significance of this new study is we are showing, in both humans and in animal models, that the neuromuscular junction is failing with aging.”
The Protein Behind the Signal

The researchers linked part of the decline to lower levels of NaV1.4, a sodium channel that helps skeletal muscle generate the electrical activity needed for contraction.

Lower levels of NaV1.4 may make muscle fibers less responsive to signals arriving from nerves, giving researchers a possible explanation for why aging muscles do not activate as effectively.
Making Aging Muscle More Responsive

The team also investigated ClC-1, a chloride channel involved in regulating electrical activity in skeletal muscle.

Working with Danish biotechnology company NMD Pharma, the researchers found that partially inhibiting ClC-1 made aging muscles more responsive to nerve signals and improved strength in an animal model.

“We identified an important point of failure at the final step in communication between nerves and muscles,” Arnold said. “And what is perhaps even more exciting is that we showed this failure is potentially reversible. In collaboration with NMD Pharma, a biotechnology company in Denmark, we applied an approach they developed that targets a protein called ClC-1. By partially inhibiting ClC-1, we were able to make aging muscles more responsive to nerve signals and improve muscle strength in an animal model. That gives us a potential path toward eventually testing this approach in older adults.”
A Drug Already Being Studied

NMD Pharma has developed ignaseclant, an experimental drug that partially inhibits ClC-1. The drug has already been studied in people with neuromuscular disease, although not specifically for sarcopenia.

Arnold was an investigator in a multicenter clinical trial involving people with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, the most common inherited neuromuscular disorder. The study reported improvements across several measures of muscle strength and function. Arnold presented the topline findings at the 2026 Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinical & Scientific Conference.

Arnold believes understanding the biology behind sarcopenia is an important step toward developing treatments for it.

“I realized that in order to make a drug widely available to treat sarcopenia, the first step is better understanding what is causing sarcopenia in the first place,” Arnold said. “That curiosity sparked my interest in becoming a researcher.”

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Cancer’s “Obesity Paradox” May Have a Surprising Explanation

By McGill U., Oct. 4, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/cancers-obesity-paradox-may-have-a-surprising-explanation/

Unexpected results from a diet study are challenging assumptions about what influences cancer immunotherapy. 

Credit: Stock

A study links diet and the gut microbiome to responses to immune checkpoint therapy, offering new directions for cancer research.

Cancer treatment can be maddeningly unpredictable. A therapy that works well for one patient may do far less for another, even when doctors use the same approach. One surprisingly ordinary part of daily life may help explain some of that difference: what people eat.

Researchers studying a widely used form of cancer immunotherapy found that certain diets normally associated with weight gain actually helped the treatment work better in mice. The result was unexpected, but it offered a possible explanation for an even stranger pattern scientists have noticed in cancer patients for years.

Some people with a higher body mass index, or BMI, appear to respond better to treatments that help the immune system attack cancer, despite obesity generally being associated with higher cancer incidence and mortality. Researchers have called this contradiction the “obesity paradox.” The new findings suggest that body weight itself may not be the key. Instead, the answer could involve food, the bacteria living in the gut, and the way the two interact with the immune system.

How cancer exploits immune brakes

The treatment the researchers focused on is known as an immune checkpoint inhibitor. The immune system normally has built-in brakes that prevent immune cells from attacking too aggressively. Cancer can take advantage of those brakes to avoid being destroyed. Checkpoint inhibitors interfere with those signals, giving immune cells a better chance to recognize and attack tumor cells.

The treatment can be remarkably effective for some patients, but others receive much less benefit. That uneven response has pushed researchers to look beyond the tumor itself for factors that might influence whether the therapy succeeds.

A team co-led by McGill University researcher Daniela Quail investigated whether diet could be one of them. Other senior members of the team included McGill researcher Logan Walsh and CR-CHUM collaborators Bertrand Routy and Arielle Elkrief. Their research was published in Nature.

“There is a synergistic relationship between the bacteria that reside in our GI tract, and the food we eat,” said Quail, Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Principal Investigator at the Rosalind & Morris Goodman Cancer Institute.

Twelve diets reveal an unexpected effect

The researchers tested 12 different diets in mice and found that some diets associated with obesity improved the animals’ responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors. The benefit appeared even after shorter periods on those diets, making it harder to explain the effect simply through long-term weight gain.

That pointed toward the trillions of microorganisms living in the digestive system, collectively known as the gut microbiome. These bacteria depend partly on the nutrients that reach them through food. Changing the diet can therefore change which microbial populations thrive and how they behave, with consequences that can extend beyond digestion and influence the immune system.

“Even with the right composition of bacteria in your gut, the foods you eat to nourish those populations can determine whether or not you respond to treatment,” said Quail, who co-led a team investigating how diet could affect the success of immune checkpoint inhibitors, a common form of immunotherapy.

Food may matter as much as microbes

The finding adds an important complication to the idea that having certain beneficial gut bacteria is enough to improve a treatment response. What those bacteria are being fed may matter too. Diet and microbes can act together, meaning the same collection of gut bacteria may not produce the same effects under different dietary conditions.

That interaction could help explain why higher BMI has sometimes been associated with better responses to checkpoint inhibitors. Rather than excess body weight directly helping the treatment, some of the biological changes produced by particular diets may alter gut microbes in ways that affect the immune response.

“Our findings were surprising because they highlighted a benefit of some obesogenic diets,” Quail said. “That tells us the relationship between diet and cancer treatment is more complex than a simple message to eat healthy and exercise.”

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The Homo Erectus Problem Scientists Don't Want to Discuss

Richard Uncovers Humanity, Sep 17, 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyg2FcA1PZk

Homo erectus survived for nearly two million years across three continents. 

Your species has lasted three hundred thousand. By every measure of evolutionary success — time, range, adaptability — they were better at being human than you are. And that is not the problem scientists avoid talking about.

The problem is what happens when you look at the fossils closely enough to notice that the species holding the longest record in human history might not be one species at all — that the label "Homo erectus" may be doing the same thing "Homo heidelbergensis" did: hiding a mess inside a name. 

From the first skeleton out of Java to the last survivors on an island where everything else had shrunk, this is the story of a category that held together for over a century — and what happens to the human family tree when it finally breaks apart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyg2FcA1PZk

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Discover a Genius Use For Leftover Steel Waste – And It Could Save Lives

03 Oct. 2026, By S Vartan

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-a-genius-use-for-leftover-steel-waste-and-it-could-save-lives

(Christophe Lehenaff/Getty Images)

We all love a win-win. Well here's one better–a potential win-win-win.

By using what would otherwise be an industrial waste in new road pavements, the future of highways and byways could reduce impacts on climate change and potentially save lives.

A new analysis suggests that replacing conventional urban pavement with roads made partly from recycled steel slag could substantially cut greenhouse gas and air-pollution emissions, while also reducing road maintenance (so fewer annoying road-repair traffic jams, too!).

If you've never heard of steel slag, you're not alone. It's actually a waste product that comes out of the process of melting iron ore or scrap metal to make steel.

This leftover stuff is a mix of silicon dioxide and metal oxides and it can be used to make steel slag epoxy asphalt mixture, or SEAM.

Steel slag is kind of ideal for pavement because its high strength and angular structure make it useful for creating a durable road material.

In this study, the researchers combined the SEAM with an epoxy-modified asphalt binder, producing a material designed to withstand wear and deformation better than conventional pavement.

A more durable road reduces the social annoyance and air pollution of road-construction-related congestion.

But also, as pavement deteriorates, vehicles actually use more fuel (costly on its own both financially and in emissions). So if a road deteriorates less often, it also saves the vehicles that ride on it gas, diesel, and wear-and-tear.

In the researchers' model, all these use-phase effects accounted for about 95 percent of emissions and 60 percent of the lifetime costs of the road in the baseline scenarios.

A) National-scale benefits of SEAM deployment in mainland China under specific scenarios. 

B) Distributions of the monetized benefits associated with reductions in CO2e emissions, PM2.5-related health damages and direct life-cycle costs across the 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% pavement replacement scenarios.

 (Zhang et al. Communications Earth & Environment, 2026.)

Even though most of the costs for any roadway happen in the use phase, the researchers do show that SEAM costs more to build, produces more emissions and generates more fine particulate pollution during its early years of use. But crucially, just when a conventional roadway surface needs replacement (generating those emissions again), the SEAM-based roadway emissions keep going.

This significant durability of the SEAM-based roadways changes the equation.

The researchers modeled three versions containing 20, 35 or 50 percent epoxy. Conventional pavement and 20 percent epoxy SEAM were assumed to last six years, while the 35-percent epoxy version lasted an estimated 15 years and the 50-percent version 20 years.

By spreading the emissions and costs of construction over a longer service life – and reducing the fuel and maintenance penalties associated with deteriorating roads – the longer-lasting pavement could eventually make up for its higher upfront footprint.

The researchers identified the 35-percent epoxy formulation as the best balance within their modeled scenarios: More epoxy extended pavement life, but beyond roughly 35 percent, the additional environmental gains leveled off while costs continued to rise.

They then scaled the model up to China's urban road network, testing scenarios in which 25, 50, 75 or 100 percent of existing urban asphalt pavement was replaced. At the highest replacement level, the model projected reductions of about 1.74 billion tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions and 1.23 billion kilograms of PM2.5 over the assessment period.

PM2.5 is the fine particulate pollution that's linked to deaths from heart disease, kidney disease, dementia, hypertension, lung cancer, and other diseases.

Those numbers add up to create a pretty serious impact. Across the replacement scenarios, the researchers estimated 31,802 to 128,980 premature deaths could be avoided as a result of reduced PM2.5 exposure alone.

Those health figures come from a model linking modeled reductions in fine particulate pollution with established relationships between PM2.5 exposure and mortality. The authors explicitly describe the results as system-level estimates rather than precise epidemiological predictions.

Not to be overlooked, SEAM could also save some serious money: It could generate 3.48–15.01 trillion Chinese Yuan ($519.14 billion to $2.24 trillion US Dollars) according to the study.

These kinds of system-level material performance changes could have even larger implications as they're "broadly transferable to other rapidly urbanizing economies with significant steel industries," the study's researchers write.

"Countries such as India, along with several nations in Southeast Asia and Africa, generate large volumes of [steel slag] while facing accelerating transport demand and mounting environmental constraints." Those countries could also benefit from the climate, public health, and economic gains of the SEAM roadways.

There are logistical complications to account for: Steel slag isn't produced evenly across China, so the researchers modeled shipping it between provinces. That adds emissions – but in their model, the additional transport still produced a large net reduction in CO2-equivalent emissions and PM2.5.

The study also doesn't model whether today's industrial infrastructure could immediately produce and distribute enough material to meet nationwide demand. And one of the biggest drawbacks is that this new pavement requires seven days of curing before it can fully open to traffic.

It's interesting to think that a more sustainable roadway may not necessarily be the one that takes the least energy to build. It could be one that spends the longest time being boringly, gloriously roadlike – smooth, durable, and in need of fewer repairs.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

The Aging Brain Isn't Declining – It's Adapting, Study Finds

03 Oct. 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-aging-brain-isnt-declining-its-adapting-study-finds

(Hill Street Studios/Digital Vision/Getty Images)

As we get older, our episodic memory – managed by the hippocampus region – gradually gets worse. That's the memory related to specific details, like where the car's parked or what time an appointment is.

In old age, the semantic memory, controlled by the frontal cortex, tends to become more dominant. This is the big picture, general knowledge, overall gist memory, covering the rules of hockey or capital cities.

The conventional thinking amongst neuroscientists has long been that this brain shift is our way of adapting to increasing neural wear and tear: a compensatory mechanism.

But what if it's a deliberate choice that better suits older people, who've amassed much more information in their brains than younger people?

Researchers from the University of Arizona have now published a study in Perspectives on Psychological Science arguing that shifting from the hippocampus to the frontal cortex could be the brain optimizing itself rather than retreating.

"Prevailing theories of cognitive aging depict late life as a period of compensatory decline – an effort to preserve performance despite progressive neural deterioration," write the researchers in their published paper.

"We propose instead that aging represents a continuation of development: a genetically conserved, adaptive reorganization of memory systems that parallels the brain's earlier-life transitions."

The brain may have evolved to share knowledge rather than retain it in later life. 

(Isaac Quesada/Unsplash)



The researchers point to several previous studies to make their point. For example, there's plenty of evidence of these kinds of changes happening at other periods of life: In childhood, the same shift happens, just in the opposite direction.

There's also a case to be made that these age-related modifications aren't reflecting an overall loss of neural plasticity, but rather a way of redeploying resources.

We know that the hippocampus is particularly demanding in terms of energy, so the brain could be saving resources for when they're most needed.

It's also true that some brain wiring sections actually strengthen in old age, backing up the idea that the brain isn't faltering but intelligently readjusting.

The study points to parallels in the animal kingdom as well. As rats get older, they tend to rely more on what's familiar too, while female African elephants become "repositories of social knowledge" in old age – so might we be doing the same?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7iZT4zBaoc

"Taken together, findings from the animal literature suggest that memory-system reorganization in aging may not be uniquely human, but a general principle across species with extended life spans and complex social structures," write the researchers.

There might be an evolutionary purpose to all this: For those of us lucky enough to make it to old age, the priority becomes passing on information, rather than trying to remember the specifics of day-to-day life.

The case put forward by the study might not only change the way that aging is assessed in the brain, but also provide more insight into age-related conditions like Alzheimer's disease. For example, it might mean the true signs of disease can be more easily separated from brain changes that are actually natural and positive.

Given that Alzheimer's is associated with an overactive hippocampus in its early stages, it's also possible that the disease somehow derails the natural and beneficial shift in brain priorities that should happen.

It's worth pointing out that this study doesn't gather any new evidence, but rather reinterprets existing research to put forward a strong argument.

The next step for what the researchers call their adaptive-aging hypothesis will be to follow real-world subjects over time to analyze changes in the brain to see if signs of this neural reallocation can be found. If so, it could mean a new perspective on aging in the brain, and treating age-related conditions.

"If we look at normative aging as a story of just decline, we are really missing the boat," psychologist Fabian-Xosé Fernandez told Linda Wang at the Association for Psychological Science.

"The older brain is optimized for different things than the younger brain, predominantly the sharing of stored expertise and social relationships."

The Life of Earth

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No Longer Just North And South: A New Material Joins The Third Type of Magnetism

02 Oct. 2026, By I. Farkas

https://www.sciencealert.com/no-longer-just-north-and-south-a-new-material-joins-the-third-type-of-magnetism

(imagedb.com/Shutterstock.com)

Unlike what a certain donut company suggests, the world actually runs on magnetism.

It's essential for generating power, building (electric) vehicles, and powering life-saving medical technologies like cyberpunk-style titanium hearts with levitating rotors.

Magnetism comes in multiple variations, but two are instantly relatable.

In ferromagnetism, the magnetic moments (tiny fields) of a material's constituent particles align in a certain direction to create a bigger magnetic field – the classic north-and-south-pole setup of a fridge magnet. But this generates stray fields that can interfere with computer chips and other electronics.

In antiferromagnetism, the magnetic moments point in opposite directions and cancel out, so there's no overall north or south pole at all. This squashes the stray fields but also the attractive properties that (literally and figuratively) may make a material useful.

(National University of Singapore)



If one could, perhaps, combine the best of both worlds in, say, a versatile yet thin material, it could prove prominent in a world of ever-shrinking electromagnetic technologies.

Surprisingly, scientists have reported doing just that, achieving the first experimental evidence of altermagnetism – a recently confirmed type of magnetism – in a sandwich-like material with numerous future applications.

In a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, a team of physicists created crystals of a material called Co₁/₄TaSe₂. This sounds incredibly abstruse but only comprises three elements: cobalt, tantalum, and selenium (and their ratios).

Combining them in an experimentally useful way required 'baking' them at more than 900 degrees Celsius (1,700 degrees Fahrenheit) across two weeks.

"These materials are distinguished from more conventional antiferromagnets by their ability to generate and detect spin currents without the negative effect of producing stray fields," explains Madhab Neupane, a professor of physics at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and the study's corresponding author.

"This new property makes them very well positioned for use in many different applications – including spintronics, ultrafast memory devices, terahertz networks and energy-efficient electronics."

The Co₁/₄TaSe₂ material, which is not itself new to science, is made of layers that are composed of the metal tantalum and the non-metal selenium.

Between these layers, the researchers sprinkled atoms of the magnetic metal cobalt, to structurally create a quantum jungle gym that could alter the electrons as they run through it.

The cobalt, tantalum, and selenium atoms are represented by blue, green, and gray, respectively. 

(Sprague et al., Nat. Commun., 2026)



To confirm the altermagnetism, the researchers used a quantum modeling method and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES).

The latter basically hits a material with a beam of light, causing it to eject an electron so scientists can determine its energy and its direction.

They thus revealed the material's energetic band structure, a map of where its electrons can and can't exist.

In doing so they noticed it was split, and that the split states carried opposite spin polarizations, which refer to how an elementary particle's spin is aligned to a certain direction – conveniently, particles can only spin "up" or "down."

Of course, the electrons don't actually spin, as Earth does on its axis or a seven-layered sandwich spins on Scooby-Doo's claw before being devoured. Instead, it's more of a mathematically defined angular momentum.

But it is an essential quantum property and, importantly, the researchers showed that the Co₁/₄TaSe₂ material splits the electrons by their spin.

This is vital in the context of the two previously mentioned magnetic types.

Ferromagnetism is good at splitting spins, because its magnetic moments point in the same direction, but it produces stray fields.

Antiferromagnetism produces no stray fields but is not a good spin splitter, because its magnetic moments point in opposite directions.

This combination of qualities may make this easily tunable material a magnificent medium to probe magnetic mysteries:

"Evidence for altermagnetism in a versatile materials platform opens a lot of new possibilities," notes Milo Sprague, an experimental quantum physicist at UCF and the study's lead author.

"There's currently a lot of debate in altermagnetic theory about how the spin-polarized electronic states interact with other magnetic phenomena. Now we have a material that we can easily modify to explore these new questions," Sprague adds.

For example, altermagnetism's origins are ostensible. Further research is required to see how they rise over other forms of magnetism, as electron interactions compete amongst one another.

Finally, in practical terms, while modern hardware may physically transport electrons to process data, emerging spintronics could manipulate data by transferring the electrons' spin states through a 'current' – like a soccer-stadium wave – to increase data storage while reducing the odds of espionage.

Thanks to the versatility and small scale of such recently described layered materials, our technological fate may be minuscule and sandwich-shaped.

But why not? Sandwiches have never failed us before.

As Neupane lays out, "If this approach proves viable, then layered altermagnets will be at the forefront of electronics development."

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Childhood Poverty Linked to More Than 3x Risk of Being Shut Out of Work and Education

By U. of Liverpool, Oct. 2, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/childhood-poverty-linked-to-more-than-3x-risk-of-being-shut-out-of-work-and-education/

NEET stands for “not in education, employment, or training.” It is used to describe young people who are not currently studying, working, or taking part in vocational training. 

Credit: Shutterstock

The struggle to escape poverty can begin long before a first job, with persistent childhood hardship linked to more than triple the risk of being shut out of education and work as a young adult.

Young people raised in persistent poverty were more than three times as likely to be outside education, employment, or training (NEET) at ages 17 and 23 (3.3 and 3.4 times, respectively), compared with those who never experienced childhood poverty. Researchers at the University of Liverpool and the University of Manchester analyzed the UK Millennium Cohort Study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The study follows people from infancy into adulthood. Researchers defined poverty as household income below 60% of the national median, adjusted for household size. Persistent poverty meant experiencing it across multiple stages of childhood.

The gap also appeared when researchers looked at who returned to education or work. Among young people who were NEET at 17, more than half (56%) of those raised in persistent poverty were also NEET at 23. For those who had never experienced childhood poverty, the figure was one in three (33%).

How Childhood Poverty Disrupts Learning

Interviews accompanying the report describe how financial hardship reaches into the classroom. Missing meals, school supplies, or transportation can undermine participation, while money worries and responsibilities at home can make concentration and attendance harder.

Dr. Nicholas Adjei, senior research fellow in public health at the University of Liverpool, said, “Our findings highlight the importance of taking a life course perspective when understanding why some young people become NEET. Experiences of poverty accumulate across childhood and adolescence, shaping educational trajectories, well-being, and access to opportunities over time.”

“Persistent poverty not only increases the likelihood of becoming NEET but also makes it much harder for young people to move out of that status later on. This shows the need for early, sustained support young people throughout different stages of their lives, rather than focusing only on short-term responses once they are already struggling.”

The Cost Of Returning To Work

Interview participants described being unable to afford travel to interviews, course fees, or childcare. Temporary jobs and schedules incompatible with health or caregiving needs created further obstacles.

Iain Porter, senior policy advisor at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said, “The government is right to try and get to the bottom of why so many young people aren’t earning or learning. But there is a piece of the puzzle that often gets missed: poverty. This research shows that there is a clear link between growing up in poverty and being locked out of education and work.”

“To break this cycle, it’s essential that the government tackle the root causes of the problem. We need to ensure that young people grow up in families that can afford the essentials to live a good life so that instead of being distracted by survival, they can thrive at school, college, and the world of work.”

Support Before Young People Fall Behind

The report recommends combining adequate financial support with a trusted person who can help young people navigate education, employment, housing, and mental health services.

Professor David Taylor-Robinson, professor of public health and policy at the University of Liverpool, said, “The UK has persistently higher child poverty rates than many comparable countries, and this matters because poverty drives a wide range of interconnected problems that shape young people’s lives long before they become NEET.”

“Our evidence shows how childhood poverty and adversity contribute to poorer mental health, reduced educational attainment, and a greater risk of long-term economic insecurity and welfare dependency in adulthood. We cannot seriously address high NEET rates without concerted action on child poverty.”

The Life of Earth

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Homo erectus Was Outnumbered 10 to One by Another Human Relative

By La Trobe U., Oct. 2, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/homo-erectus-was-outnumbered-10-to-one-by-another-human-relative/

A representative hominin skull on display. The skull pictured here is not one of the fossils analyzed in the new Drimolen study. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Fossils from Drimolen Cave capture a moment when two contrasting hominin species lived side by side.

Two million years ago, two very different human relatives occupied the same landscape in what is now South Africa. One was Homo erectus, with a larger brain and smaller molar teeth. The other, Paranthropus robustus, had a brain only slightly larger than that of a chimpanzee and massive teeth powered by strong chewing muscles. At Drimolen Cave, P. robustus outnumbered Homo erectus by more than 10 to one.

Until now, however, the earliest evidence of Homo erectus at Drimolen came from DNH 134, a child who was between two and four years old. Because the specimen was so young, researchers could not be certain what adults from this early population looked like.

“Homo erectus is the first species of hominin that researchers broadly agree fits within our own genus Homo and is likely directly ancestral to us. Drimolen preserves evidence for the first appearance of this species 2 million years ago, however, the original fossil, DNH 134, belonged to a child aged between two and four, and there was uncertainty about what the adult version may have looked like,” lead researcher Dr. Jesse Martin said.

An adult Homo erectus at 2 million years

Researchers from La Trobe University, South Africa, and the United States have now identified an adult Homo erectus skull fragment, DNH 127, among 18 newly described hominin fossils from the site. Dated to about 2 million years ago, the specimen strengthens the evidence that Homo erectus was already living in southern Africa at that time. Adult fossils from other parts of the world, including Dmanisi in Georgia, date to about 1.8 million years ago.

“This paper publishes a new adult fossil attributed to Homo erectus, DNH 127, providing further confirmation that this species first appeared in southern Africa 2 million years ago.”

The fossils come from the Drimolen Main Quarry in South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind, one of the world’s richest deposits of human ancestors. The site was discovered in 1992, but many fossils excavated there through 2019 had never been formally published and therefore remained unknown to science. The newly described specimens have been attributed to Homo erectus and P. robustus, with the findings published in Annals of Human Biology.

Two species took different paths

The two species followed markedly different evolutionary paths while sharing the same environment. Homo erectus was evolving a larger brain and smaller molars, changes Martin said may have been associated with meat eating. P. robustus, meanwhile, retained a brain only slightly larger than that of a chimpanzee while developing enormous molars and increasingly powerful chewing muscles for processing tough and hard foods, a combination Martin compared to a mortar and pestle.

“These two human species shared the same landscape and are both preserved in Drimolen cave. While we know that Homo erectus and the lineage leading to us was ultimately the successful one, 2 million years ago P. robustus outnumbered Homo erectus at Drimolen by more than 10 to one. During this time period, it was our ancestors that looked like the outside long-odds chance to survive,” Dr Martin said.

P. robustus teeth grew larger

Comparing the roughly 2-million-year-old P. robustus fossils from Drimolen with specimens from the 1.8-million-year-old Swartkrans Cave allowed the researchers to trace anatomical changes across approximately 200,000 years. Teeth became larger during that interval, along with the muscles used for chewing, providing evidence that the species was undergoing microevolutionary change in response to climatic pressures.

“This paper confirms that the P. robustus fossils from the 2-million-year-old Drimolen Cave are slightly but importantly different from the P. Robustus fossils at the 1.8-million-year-old Swartkrans Cave.

“During this 200,000-year period, P. Robustus teeth became even larger, and so did the muscles associated with chewing. Hominin fossils are so rare that generally the differences between them are huge, and researchers are left to make educated guesses regarding what existed in the missing parts of the fossil record.

“However, the large number of fossils from Drimolen, some of which are published in this paper, allow an unprecedented insight into the micro-evolutionary changes that shaped human ancestors.”

Researchers had previously recognized the distinctive anatomy of the Drimolen population with the subspecies name P. robustus ukusa. Martin said the additional fossils described in the new study support that formal recognition.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Copper Could Be a Secret Weapon Against Antibiotic-Resistant UTIs

By Texas A&M U., Oct. 1, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/copper-could-be-a-secret-weapon-against-antibiotic-resistant-utis/

Bacterial colonies grown in Dr. Subash’s lab help researchers investigate how UTI-causing bacteria respond to the body’s natural defenses. 

Credit: Nadya Pichkasova/Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

The body turns copper into a weapon against urinary tract infections, and scientists hope to strengthen that defense against bacteria that resist antibiotics.

Researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) are investigating how the immune system deploys copper against urinary tract infections (UTIs) and how bacteria survive the assault. Their goal is to identify weaknesses that could help treat infections increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

The project, supported by a $1.48 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), builds on previous findings from Dr. Sarguru Subash, an associate professor in the VMBS Department of Veterinary Pathobiology. His laboratory showed that the body raises copper levels in the urinary tract during infection to help kill invading bacteria.

How Copper Becomes an Immune Weapon

Copper has two very different roles: people and animals need it in small amounts, but under the right conditions, it is toxic to bacteria. The immune system uses that toxicity as part of its early, or innate, response to infection.

Specialized immune cells can engulf bacteria and expose them to a mixture of antimicrobial substances that includes copper. During UTIs, copper levels also rise in urine, according to Subash’s earlier research.

Bacteria, however, have their own protective systems. Because copper occurs naturally in their surroundings, many have evolved ways to pump it out or limit its harmful effects. The new project will investigate the genetic mechanisms that allow bacteria causing UTIs to tolerate increased copper and continue growing.

“We know that copper plays an important role, but that also raises so many questions about how these pathogens adapt to the presence of increased copper,” Subash said. “If we better understand how the bacteria overcome the host-imposed copper resistance, then we can develop therapies that make the bacteria more susceptible to copper and, more broadly, to everything that the immune system throws at them.”

Stopping Bacteria From Gripping the Bladder

The team is also exploring preliminary evidence that copper may disrupt fimbriae, the hairlike structures bacteria use to attach to cells lining the bladder. Interfering with those structures could weaken an infection without relying solely on killing the bacteria.

Attachment is crucial because the urinary tract already has a simple physical defense: the flow of urine. Bacteria that cannot hold firmly to the bladder lining are more likely to be flushed out, Subash explained.

Dr. Sarguru Subash and Veerakit Vanitshavit study how the immune system uses copper to fight bacterial infections and how bacteria adapt to survive those defenses. 

Credit: Nadya Pichkasova/Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Copper’s effectiveness also depends on the other defenses acting alongside it. “Bacteria do have adaptations, but when it’s presented in the context of this cocktail, the bacterial defense mechanisms are not as effective,” Subash said. “Sometimes the balance tips in favor of the host, so we can control the infections. Other times, the balance tips in favor of pathogens. As a result, we get clinical disease.”

Delivering Copper Without Damaging Cells

The researchers will examine the body’s side of the interaction as well, focusing on ceruloplasmin, a protein containing copper. Subash’s previous findings suggest it may help deliver copper during a UTI.

That delivery requires careful control. At high concentrations, copper can damage the body’s own cells, so its transport and storage are tightly regulated. The team will study how ceruloplasmin mobilizes copper during infection and how that process contributes to controlling bacteria.

Examining both copper delivery and bacterial resistance should give the researchers a fuller picture of the point where immune defenses meet an invading organism. It could also help them identify ways to strengthen those defenses through treatment.

Developing Treatments That Work With Immunity

The laboratory has already identified an experimental antimicrobial compound that becomes more effective when copper is present. The next step is to modify and test related compounds, looking for candidates that could work alongside the body’s existing defenses.

This strategy could offer another route for treating infections as bacteria become increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Rather than considering a drug’s effect on bacteria in isolation, the researchers want to understand how its activity combines with the immune response.

“We are very interested in understanding the basic aspects of how the immune system controls pathogens so we can develop next-generation antimicrobials that not only are focused on directly killing bacteria but also work synergistically with the immune system,” Subash said.

A copper-dependent treatment ready for clinical use is still probably years away, Subash cautioned. The current project is an early step toward identifying potential options for difficult-to-treat UTIs.

Potential Benefits Beyond Human UTIs

Some bacteria that cause UTIs can also infect other parts of the body. Discoveries about how they withstand copper could therefore help guide research into treatments for other bacterial infections.

The findings could also matter in veterinary medicine, where recurring UTIs affect animals such as dogs. Before pursuing those applications, the team is concentrating on how the body deploys copper and how bacteria counter it.

“The main innovative aspect of this project is looking comprehensively at how the pathogen responds and how the host uses copper and then tying together both of these basic science discoveries with a translational goal,” Subash said. “It’s a full circle.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Eating Alone Can Literally Change How Your Body Metabolizes Glucose

01 Oct. 2026, By C. Cassella

https://www.sciencealert.com/science-says-who-you-eat-dinner-with-matters-as-much-as-whats-on-your-plate

(urbazon/E+/Getty Images)



Dinner by yourself can be a lonely affair. The lack of social connection could change the way that your body processes your meal.

A new study published in Science Advances has now found evidence that eating with others could help your body balance your blood sugar levels.

In experiments, 108 participants consumed just over 100 grams of white-wheat bread. For the following two hours, researchers tracked their glycemic response.

In one scenario, participants ate the bread on their own. In another scenario, they were accompanied by a close companion.

In the social scenario, blood sugar levels spiked less and returned to baseline faster than in the alone scenario.

The authors argue that this aligns with a "robust phenomenon" in humans.

"Blood sugar regulation is not just about what we eat, but who we eat with," explains Shir Atzil from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

"Our relationships have an active biological role in our physical well-being."

After the same carbohydrate meal, participants' blood sugar rose less when they ate with a close companion (blue) than when they ate alone (red). The top graphs compare the same people in both settings; the bottom graphs compare separate groups. The plots on the right show the total blood sugar response over two hours.

 (Masalha et al., Science Advances, 2026)

Atzil and colleagues argue that their findings provide a proof of concept for the principle of 'social physiology'.

This is a biological framework for understanding how links between our inward and outward lives have evolved over time.

Social physiology could at least partly explain why we, as a species, are incentivized to cooperate: we are interdependent organisms who rely on each other for greater survival.

You can see that in our very blood, even when we aren't physically touching.

"We used to think of the body as an isolated system that regulates itself," explains Atzil.

"Our findings show that human physiology is inherently social. Being close to someone you love lowers the physical energy your body spends on regulating itself. This gives us a direct metabolic benefit to being together and reveals a core evolutionary reason why humans form bonds in the first place: our bodies run better together."

In other social animals, like fruit flies, rodents, pigs, and monkeys, studies suggest that isolation can shorten lifespans, suppress immune systems, or amplify stress reactions.

But for ethical reasons, these sorts of experiments are not conducted among humans.

Instead, researchers use small changes in how the body functions alone versus in social settings to better understand how we change in the presence of others.

Glucose responses are a clever way to do this.

When mice are kept in social isolation, studies have found it alters their insulin signaling and impairs their metabolic function, raising the risk of obesity.

In humans, by comparison, loneliness is associated with dysregulated glycemic control and predicts type 2 diabetes.

"While prior work has focused on the outcomes of social isolation, the present study identifies a direct, quantifiable benefit of social proximity in glucose metabolism," the authors explain.

The team's experiments compared how human bodies respond to the same carbohydrate meal when alone versus in company.

They also ran parallel experiments among 116 participants, testing how the body copes with cold exposure.

When a partner was present, the body's temperature regulation was more efficient, especially when the two people were touching.

But even when no one was touching, there were benefits.

In another set of experiments among 115 adults and 56 mother-infant pairs, participants underwent a stress challenge.

It produced a smaller arousal response, such as increased sweating, when another person was present, even if they weren't physically skin-to-skin.

This arousal response was also ameliorated faster when in company.

The findings suggest that having somebody close by, even if you aren't touching, could help your body run more efficiently.

During cold exposure and a stress test, participants showed smaller physiological responses when a companion was present (blue) than when they were alone (red). 

(Masalha et al., Science Advances, 2026)

What those effects are in the long run is an open question, but population studies generally suggest that loneliness is not good for our overall health.

Evidence suggests that individuals with stronger social ties tend to be healthier, happier, and live longer.

Conversely, social isolation is associated with increased metabolic disorders, cardiovascular disease, cancer, slower wound healing, reduced sleep efficiency, and mortality.

The world's largest study on happiness has been running for 88 years and counting.

After analyzing hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and countless questionnaires, medical check-ups, and in-person interviews with participants, researchers found that close relationships were one of the best predictors of a happy and meaningful life.

Surrounding ourselves with loved ones seems to be inherently good for us.

It could change how our bodies cope on a miniscule level, but with big repercussions.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists predicted Friday 13 November 2026 will be ‘Doomsday.’ Should you be worried?

Published: Sept. 30, 2026, by A. MacEachern, Professor, History, Western U.
https://theconversation.com/scientists-predicted-friday-13-november-2026-will-be-doomsday-should-you-be-worried-290354

In 1960, the journal Science published an article predicting that on 13th November 2026 the human population would approach infinity. 

(Unsplash)

In 1960, Science, one of the world’s leading science journals, published an article with an unambiguous title: Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. It predicted that on this future date – just over a month from today – the human population would approach infinity and effectively annihilate itself.

The outlandishness of the claim landed the article widespread public attention. More surprisingly — because its underlying research and math seemed sound — it also received careful and sustained scientific attention.

The authors — Heinz von Foerster, an Austrian-American professor and cybernetics expert and two of his students, Patricia M. Mora and Lawrence W. Amiot — argued that human populations are exceptional and might grow beyond an exponential rate, at an ever-increasing one.

“Our great-great-grandchildren will not starve,” they argued. “They will be squeezed to death.”

The article was regularly cited, and its predictions appeared remarkably accurate — until around 1993, halfway to the predicted “Doomsday,” when the global population began falling behind its forecasts.

Today, the global birth rate is slightly less than half what it was in 1960. Hopefully, we will all wake up on 13 November to an ordinary day. Nonetheless, this article remains exemplary, for blending rigorous science with the art of stagecraft to staggering effect.

Written by academics, edited by journalists, backed by evidence.Get newsletter
Unique human capacities

The mid-20th century saw increasing societal concern about global population growth and its potential to lead to resource scarcity and geopolitical conflict. Underlying much of this concern was implicit or explicit acceptance of the Malthusian idea that whereas population has the potential to grow exponentially, it is kept constantly under check by its capacity to feed itself.

Heinz von Foerster in 1963. (University of Illinois),

  CC BY-SA



In their article, however, von Foerster and his co-authors argued that as far as populations go, humans may be exceptional.

Given our capacity to communicate and form “coalitions” that help us resolve problems, rising population density might simply mean more opportunities for collaboration, so that our numbers might grow not only beyond an exponential rate but at an ever-increasing one.

They then used 24 estimates of the world population stretching across the past 2,000 years to show that human numbers have in fact continually outpaced expectations. All this was presented in calm, scientific prose and aided by dense mathematical equations.

‘Squeezed to death’

Von Foerster and his co-authors then projected these historical figures into the future, calculating that thanks to ever-increasing growth, in the year 2026 our numbers would near infinity.

Thankfully, the same capacity for collaboration that assisted our species’ development throughout history could now avert this catastrophe. Since we are unlikely to want to reduce our life spans, they concluded, we should work together to reduce the global birth rate by half.

This publication caused an immediate stir. There were stories in Time and The New York Times. It became the subject of a series of Pogo comic strips and many commentators took the article as strictly a tongue-in-cheek comment on population fears.

A population explosion

Rather than the story dying out, a funny thing happened. When Science published letters to the editor from mathematicians and demographers attacking von Foerster and his colleagues’ work — calling it “ridiculous” and “manifestly absurd” — the authors responded with spirited defences that doubled down on the underlying math and its conclusions.

Only around 1993 did the accuracy of von Foerster and colleagues’ predictions begin to falter. (Unsplash/Rob Curran)



Throughout the 1960s through to the 1980s, the “Doomsday” equation became regularly cited — usually at face value — in textbooks on genetics, ecology and demography.

It appeared in stranger places, too. In a 1963 Canadian Parliamentary committee, for example, a witness from the chemical industry prominently cited it as reason chemical pesticides were required: to feed the approaching population explosion. In a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court abortion case leading up to Roe v. Wade, it was cited as why there was no compelling reason for the government to favour increased population.

The Doomsday idea persisted in part because its predictions for future populations turned out to be highly accurate — at least for a while. Its core equation yielded projections that were better than those of most demographers throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Only around 1993 did that accuracy begin to falter and the global population began falling behind the forecasts — because the world began to do what von Foerster and his colleagues recommended it do. Today, the global birth rate is slightly less than half the 1960 rate.

Science and stagecraft

We will probably not all wake up on Friday, November 13 “squeezed to death.” But before simply moving on — prepping for the next doomsday scenario — it is worth asking what we can learn from this one.

For me, the lesson is in how we present our beliefs to the world. Heinz von Foerster was, at one point in his life, a stage magician. Borrowing the classic language of stagecraft, an effective illusion relies on three parts: the setup, the extraordinary turn and the final reveal that returns the situation to normal.

Heinz von Foerster trained as a stage magician. 

(Unsplash/Kyle Smith)

Von Foerster and his co-authors’ article gained attention because it was an ordinary scientific article wrapped in an extraordinary title and conclusion. It retained significance because it was firmly grounded in research and argument.

To draw the world’s attention to a serious matter by way of absurdity — that’s a good trick.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/