Common Mouth Bacteria May Trigger Dangerous Calcium Buildup in the Heart

By American Heart Association, July 16, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/common-mouth-bacteria-may-trigger-dangerous-calcium-buildup-in-the-heart/

Human Chest Cavity illustration: Right lung, left lung, heart. 

Credit: American Heart Association

A gum disease bacterium may contribute to aortic valve calcification through inflammation, according to preliminary human tissue and mouse research.

A bacterium best known for damaging gums may also be involved in the hardening of the heart’s aortic valve. Preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association’s Basic Cardiovascular Sciences Scientific Sessions 2026 points to a possible biological connection between chronic periodontal disease and a serious heart valve disorder.

The condition, called calcific aortic valve stenosis (CAVS), develops when calcium accumulates in the aortic valve, causing it to thicken and narrow. Because this valve controls blood leaving the heart, the narrowing can restrict circulation throughout the body.

CAVS may cause no noticeable problems at first. As it advances, however, patients can develop fatigue, chest pain, shortness of breath, fainting, heart failure, and premature death. Severe cases are generally treated by replacing the damaged valve because no medication has been proven to stop or slow the disease.

The researchers identified a possible pathway through which long-term gum infection could contribute to valve calcification.

4 chambers of the heart: right atrium, right ventricle, left atrium, left ventricle.

 Credit: American Heart Association



“There are currently no medications proven to prevent or slow the progression of CAVS. We hope our findings demonstrating the link between periodontal disease and CAVS will stimulate further research into new preventive and therapeutic approaches for this condition,” said co-lead author of the study, Chenyang Li, M.D., a Ph.D. candidate in the department of cardiology at the State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease of Fuwai Hospital’s National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College all in Beijing.

A gum bacterium emerges as a suspect

The investigation centered on Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis), a bacterium that plays an unusually influential role in gum inflammation and the breakdown of tissue supporting the teeth.

Chenyang Li, M.D., a Ph.D. candidate in the department of cardiology at the State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease of Fuwai Hospital’s National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College in Beijing. 

Credit: Chenyang Li



Previous research has also connected P. gingivalis with inflammation beyond the mouth and with cardiovascular problems, including plaque buildup inside arteries and coronary artery disease. That history made it a plausible candidate for examining the possible link between periodontal disease and damaged heart valves.

Diseased valves contained more bacteria

The researchers first turned to human tissue for evidence. They measured bacterial levels in heart valves removed during replacement surgery, comparing samples from patients with CAVS with samples from people who had other valve disorders.

The goal was to determine whether particular microbes appeared more often in calcified valves. P. gingivalis was not the most common bacterium detected, but its presence differed sharply between valves affected by CAVS and those without the condition.

“We were surprised by how much P. gingivalis was present in the calcified aortic valves,” Li said. “Although it was not one of the most abundant bacteria overall, it showed one of the largest differences between valves with CAVS and valves without CAVS. This unexpected finding led us to investigate its potential role in the development of CAVS.”

The human tissue findings could show an association, but they could not establish whether the bacterium contributed to calcification. To explore that question more directly, the researchers moved to experiments in mice.

Inflammation drove calcification in mice

The researchers exposed mice to either live P. gingivalis or bacteria that had been inactivated by heat. They then examined whether the microbe accumulated in the aortic valve, increased calcium deposits, and produced signs resembling aortic stenosis.

Some animals received antibiotics to test whether reducing the bacteria would change the outcome. In another group, the researchers genetically removed or disabled the inflammatory pathway involving interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β).

Interleukin-1 beta is a signaling protein produced mainly by immune cells. It helps trigger inflammation, the body’s response to infection or injury, but excessive or persistent activity can also damage tissues.

Repeated exposure to live P. gingivalis caused the bacterium to build up in the aortic valves of the mice. The animals also developed more valve calcification and stronger signs of aortic stenosis. Preventive antibiotic treatment reduced those effects.

Inside mouse valve cells, P. gingivalis activated interleukin 1 beta (IL-1b), providing a possible explanation for how infection could encourage calcium buildup.

The researchers then removed IL-1b genetically. Even when P. gingivalis remained present, the mice developed substantially less valve calcification and fewer symptoms, suggesting that the inflammatory pathway played an important role in the damage.

The human link still needs testing

The results do not yet show that P. gingivalis causes CAVS in people. The human tissue analysis identified an association, while the experiments demonstrating a possible mechanism were performed in mice.

“The key message is simple: take good care of your oral health,” Li said. ”Good oral hygiene and treatment of periodontal disease are important for overall health and may also have benefits for cardiovascular health. While it is still too early to recommend specific treatments for preventing CAVS, our findings suggest that periodontal health could be an important piece of the puzzle.”

“This study adds to the growing evidence that oral health and heart health are closely connected,” said Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., M.P.H., FAHA, chief medical officer for prevention for the American Heart Association. “For many people, regular visits to the dentist are their only connection to the healthcare system. That makes dental professionals important partners in spotting health conditions, including periodontal disease early — which can lead to quicker healthcare referrals and results, better health and lives saved.”

Because the findings have not been confirmed in people, they remain preliminary. The researchers have begun a clinical study to investigate whether gum disease and P. gingivalis are linked to CAVS in human patients.

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Ancient Roman Concrete Keeps Getting Stronger, And The Secret Was Hiding in Hadrian's 2,000-Year-Old Toilet

18 July 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-study-reveals-why-ancient-roman-concrete-keeps-getting-stronger

The dome of the Pantheon in Rome is one of the most famous examples of ancient Roman engineering. 

(Livioandronico2013/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The arrow of time flies one way, and with it comes decay.

We build our structures to last as long as possible, but even the toughest materials eventually crack, weaken, and crumble.

Ancient Roman concrete did things a little differently.

Scientists have long known that the concrete built during the Roman Empire seems to grow stronger over time.

Previous research suggested this extraordinary durability was largely due to a reaction between volcanic ash, called pozzolan, and quicklime, which produced exceptionally resilient minerals within the concrete.

Now, scientists have discovered that there's another part of the story: the slow yet steady reactions of carbon dioxide from the air.

"While the pozzolanic reaction is of fundamental importance," says engineer Paulo Monteiro of UC Berkeley, "our findings suggest that carbonation over a long period of time also enhances the durability of concrete and can help it seal cracks as it ages."

The team's discovery, detailed in Science Advances, gives us a new appreciation of even the more mundane Roman structures that were nevertheless imbued with engineering prowess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1cofsNRGcE&t=42s

One of the wondrous things about Roman engineering is how many structures remain in excellent condition where so many contemporaneous buildings have fallen to rubble.

The Pantheon in Rome is the most famous example – a 2,000-year-old temple capped with an enormous dome of unreinforced concrete, the largest structure of its kind in the world.

But to discover the secrets of Roman concrete, Monteiro, his co-lead Xiaohong Zhu of Beijing University of Technology, and their colleagues turned to an unlikely, much less glamorous source.

In the 2nd century CE, the emperor Hadrian had a villa at Tivoli in Italy, much of which is still – you guessed it – standing.

From there, the researchers extracted a small piece of concrete from a communal toilet that once supported imperial bottoms.

Hadrian's villa, also known as Villa Adriana, in Tivoli, Italy. 

(Anna Eden 86/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)



Using a suite of high-resolution imaging techniques, the researchers examined their sample down to the nanoscale.

As expected, they found evidence of the pozzolanic reaction, in which volcanic ash and lime react to form exceptionally durable minerals within the concrete.

But they found something else, as well.

Over centuries, carbon dioxide from the atmosphere had reacted with leftover lime in the concrete to produce calcite – the same mineral that can be found in limestone.

This was no mere by-product of the aging process, the researchers found.

The calcite appears to have made the concrete stronger. It crystallized within tiny pores and cracks, making the concrete denser and gradually sealing weaknesses that would otherwise have spread over time.

The concrete sample the researchers studied (left) and a cross-section (right). 

(Zhu et al., Sci. Adv., 2026)



Earlier studies had identified calcite in Roman concrete, but had not studied it in three dimensions or mapped its architecture.

The work, the researchers say, suggests that calcite may have played an overlooked role in Roman concrete's incredible longevity – not replacing the known contribution from the pozzolanic reaction, but working alongside it.

Scientists had already been working on reproducing Roman concrete.

Carbonation happens naturally in lime-based concrete whether you know it's there or not, but understanding the role it plays could give researchers another tool as they try to engineer concrete that lasts longer while producing less carbon.

Latrines were a common feature at Roman settlements, ranging from double-seaters like this one in modern-day Algeria to lavish lavatories for dozens of people.

 (Le plombier du désert/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)



"Understanding how calcium carbonate crystallization dynamics bind concrete together and contribute to its long-term durability could provide new insights into the long-term mineralogical evolution and natural carbonation of lime-based binders," Monteiro says.

Ancient Roman structures from the grand Pantheon to Hadrian's humble toilet give us mind-blowing examples of concrete that has remained structurally sound for millennia.

That doesn't mean we can simply build as the Romans did.

Modern buildings place far greater demands on their materials, and reinforced concrete faces a challenge Roman engineers never had to contend with: the corrosion of the steel rebar embedded inside it.

What the new findings can do is help researchers as they try to design longer-lasting, more sustainable concrete for the future.

"This study shows how exploring ancient engineering techniques can lead to important revelations," Monteiro says.

"We hope that by unlocking Roman secrets for enhancing concrete durability, we can someday attain sustainable modern infrastructure development."

The birth of modern Man

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The World’s Highest-Living Mammal Is Rewriting the Limits of Life

By A. Lawson, McMaster U., July 17, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/the-worlds-highest-living-mammal-is-rewriting-the-limits-of-life/

The Andean leaf-eared mouse has the same kind of muscle tissue as a marathon runner, one of multiple complex adaptations that allow it to survive in an extremely cold, inhospitable environment. 

Credit: Marcial Quiroga-Carmona

A leaf-eared mouse living more than 6,700 meters (22,000 feet) above sea level in the Andes has shattered assumptions about where mammals can survive.

Near the summit of an Andean volcano, where the air contains barely half as much oxygen as it does at sea level, scientists found something that should not have been there: a living mouse.

The Andean leaf-eared mouse, Phyllotis vaccarum, has been documented above 6,700 meters (22,000 feet), higher than any other mammal known to live. At these elevations, freezing winds sweep across a landscape with almost no vegetation, liquid water, or obvious source of food.

Its presence has overturned a long-standing assumption about the upper limit of mammalian life. Scientists once believed mammals could survive only up to about 5,500 meters (18,000 feet), roughly the elevation of the world’s highest permanent human settlements.

“It was completely unexpected. People did not think mammals could survive at these altitudes, but they’re there,” says Graham Scott, a professor in the Department of Biology who co-authored the study.

How High-Altitude Mice Survive

Now, an international research team has uncovered how these small rodents endure an environment often compared to the surface of Mars. The answer is not one extraordinary trait. The mice have evolved an entire collection of physiological and genetic changes that work together.

Scott and fellow McMaster University biologist Grant McClelland joined researchers studying mice collected along the western Andes in Chile. The species has an unusually broad range, with populations living from sea level to mountain summits more than 6,700 meters (22,000 feet) high. This natural gradient allowed the team to compare extreme highland mice with members of the same species from lower elevations, as well as with a closely related lowland species.

In controlled experiments, the researchers recreated conditions equivalent to elevations approaching 7,000 meters (23,000 feet). The highland mice maintained their ability to generate heat far more effectively than the lowland animals, even when exposed to both severe cold and oxygen scarcity.

“Evolution is a complex process,” says McClelland, a co-author of the study and a professor in the Department of Biology. “When animals encounter really challenging environments, there are a lot of different things they need to cope with, not just the obvious ones.”

Built Like Endurance Athletes

The mice are especially good at keeping their bodies warm while continuing to use oxygen efficiently. That combination is crucial because producing heat requires energy, yet the thin mountain air limits the oxygen available to release that energy.

Their muscles also operate more like those of endurance athletes than short-distance sprinters.

“They’re more like a marathon runner than a sprinter,” explains Scott. “Their muscle cells are packed with mitochondria that allow them to sustain heat-producing activity for longer periods.”

Fat Fuels Life in the Cold

Mitochondria convert nutrients into usable energy. Having more of them allows the mice to maintain heat production for longer periods without quickly exhausting their muscles.

The animals also burn more fat. Fat provides a concentrated source of energy for shivering muscles and specialized tissues that produce heat without movement, helping the mice remain warm through prolonged exposure to freezing conditions.

Yet cold and oxygen were only part of the puzzle.

An Unexpected Diet at the Summit

At such extreme elevations, finding enough food may be just as difficult as breathing. The barren volcanic slopes support little plant life, forcing the mice to eat whatever becomes available. Their diet can include lichens growing on rocks, along with seeds or insects carried upward by the wind.

Genetic evidence suggests that highland populations have adapted to process these unusual foods. Researchers identified changes in genes involved in metabolism and in the removal of potentially toxic plant chemicals. The result suggests that reaching the highest summits required the mice to evolve not only a better respiratory and heating system, but also a digestive system capable of handling an unpredictable diet.

“We were initially focused on the most obvious environmental challenges, things like low oxygen and cold, but there were important factors we didn’t expect, including how these animals deal with what they’re eating,” says Scott.

Evolution Rebuilds the Whole Body

The study, published in Science, shows that extreme survival rarely depends on a single biological breakthrough. Instead, natural selection reshaped the animals’ muscles, metabolism, heat production, fuel use, and ability to tolerate unfamiliar foods.

That complexity may help explain how the species occupies an elevational range extending from the Pacific coast to some of the highest volcanic summits in the Andes.

“Sometimes our assumptions about the most extreme environments animals can live in can be questioned,” says McClelland. “Evolution has a lot of room to experiment.”

Lessons for a Changing Climate

The findings may also offer a lesson for species confronting rapid environmental change. Temperature is only one part of the challenge. Shifting climates can alter oxygen availability, food supplies, water, predators, and competition at the same time.

“We tend to focus on temperatures as the big challenge,” says Scott. “But animals are dealing with many pressures at once, and evolution may push them in ways we don’t always anticipate.”

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A 24-Hour Fast Activates a Microbial Pathway That Helps Heal the Gut

By U. of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, July 16, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-24-hour-fast-activates-a-microbial-pathway-that-helps-heal-the-gut/

RNAscope image of small intestinal crypts showing expression of intestinal stem cell markers Lgr5 (white) and Olfm4 (yellow), Clu+ revival stem cells (red), and ChgA+ enteroendocrine cells (green). Nuclei are counterstained with DAPI (blue). 

Credit: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center



A gut bacterium appears essential to the intestinal repair benefits linked to fasting before radiation.

During radiation treatment for abdominal cancer, the therapy aimed at a tumor can also injure the delicate lining of the small intestine. That damage can lead to severe digestive problems and may restrict how much radiation a patient can safely receive.

The bacterium, Akkermansia muciniphila, or AKK, appears to work with metabolic changes caused by short-term fasting to place intestinal cells into a state that supports regeneration after radiation injury. The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could eventually help researchers develop ways to protect healthy tissue during cancer treatment, although the work has not yet been tested in patients.

Helen Piwnica-Worms, Ph.D., professor of Experimental Radiation Oncology, and Kunal Rai, Ph.D., professor of Genomic Medicine, co-led the research.

“Fasting helps prepare intestinal cells to respond more quickly and effectively after injury, almost like training the cells with an emergency preparedness plan,” Piwnica-Worms said. “This study helps explain how that plan is organized and identifies a key bacterium involved in coordinating the response.”

Helen Piwnica-Worms, Ph.D. 

Credit: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Intestinal damage can limit radiation treatment

Radiation therapy is frequently used against abdominal cancers, including pancreatic, colorectal, and gynecologic cancers. The difficulty is that the small intestine contains rapidly renewing cells that are especially vulnerable to radiation.

When the intestinal lining is injured, patients can experience nausea, diarrhea, and infection. Severe damage can lead to life-threatening complications, which may restrict the amount of radiation doctors can safely deliver.

Earlier preclinical research from the Piwnica-Worms Laboratory showed that fasting before treatment improved intestinal recovery after radiation. That result raised a more difficult question: what changed inside the intestine during fasting, and how did those changes prepare the tissue to repair itself?

Fasting recruits a key gut bacterium

The researchers found that fasting for 24 hours increased the abundance of AKK in the small intestine. That shift mattered because AKK produces propionate, a small molecule created when microbes process nutrients.

Propionate worked alongside other metabolic changes caused by fasting to modify histones inside intestinal cells. Histones are proteins that package DNA, much like spools organizing long threads. Small chemical tags added to these proteins can loosen or tighten access to particular genes without changing the underlying genetic code.

In this case, the tags helped expose genes connected with tissue regeneration. A group of intestinal cells that accumulated during fasting appeared to carry these repair programs in a more accessible state, leaving them prepared to respond once injury occurred.

After radiation exposure, those cells multiplied and helped rebuild the intestinal lining. The sequence offered the researchers a possible explanation for how fasting before treatment could influence recovery afterward.

Repair requires both fasting and AKK

To determine whether AKK was simply present during the response or actually necessary for it, the researchers selectively removed the bacterium. The protective benefit associated with fasting then disappeared.

Kunal Rai, Ph.D. 

Credit: The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Restoring AKK by itself was not enough. The regenerative response returned only when the bacterium was reintroduced together with fasting, indicating that the microbial and metabolic changes worked as a combined system.

The results suggest that fasting alters intestinal cells before radiation arrives rather than merely helping them recover afterward. By changing gut microbes, metabolism, and access to regeneration genes, the process may allow repair to begin more rapidly once tissue is damaged.

This connection between diet, microbes, and gene activity could help researchers understand how healthy tissues organize their response to injury. It may also point toward ways to reduce treatment-related harm while preserving the cancer-fighting effects of radiation.

Future studies will need to determine whether the pathway operates similarly in patients receiving abdominal radiation. Researchers also want to investigate whether it could protect other rapidly dividing tissues, including bone marrow, from damage caused by cancer treatment.

New therapies may avoid fasting

Fasting can be physically difficult or medically inappropriate for people undergoing cancer therapy. For that reason, the researchers are interested in reproducing its protective effects without requiring patients to stop eating.

Possible approaches could include treatments based on AKK, propionate, or other metabolites involved in the repair pathway. Dietary interventions might offer another way to influence the same biological response.

“Fasting is not always practical for cancer patients, and this work supports several other potential ways to enhance recovery after treatment,” Rai said. “Whether through dietary interventions, targeted microbes or their metabolites, the goal is to help repair healthy tissue more effectively while patients receive the cancer therapies they need.”

The Life of Earth

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Neglected Museum Fossils Turn Out to Be The First T. Rex Hatchlings Ever Found

14 July 2026, By M. Irving

https://www.sciencealert.com/neglected-museum-fossils-turn-out-to-be-the-first-t-rex-hatchlings-ever-found

A photo of the baby T. rex puppet used in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. 

(Michael Irving/ScienceAlert)

Jurassic Park was wrong. Again.

In the second movie, hunters find an infant Tyrannosaurus rex and use it to lure the adults into a trap.

But in reality, that baby would have been much smaller, about the size of a cat. And it probably wouldn't have been alone – the nest may have been absolutely crawling with dozens of them.

It likely wouldn't have been very useful as bait either: Its parents probably would have considered losing a baby or two as just part of the process, and wouldn't have cared enough to push a research trailer off a cliff.

So why are we updating our understanding of T. rex's childhood?

In a "vanishingly rare" discovery, paleontologists have found and closely examined fossils of tyrannosaur hatchlings. The remarkable findings are published in the journal Biology – and the implications go way beyond everyone's favorite dinosaur.

"Going through museum collections, my colleagues and I have discovered the first remains of hatchling tyrannosaurs," announced Nick Longrich, paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Bath in the UK.

A size comparison between Tyrannosaurus rex hatchlings and a modern cat. 

(Longrich et al., Biology, 2026)



When people think of dinosaurs, they tend to think of giants with long necks craning into the treetops, huge horned herbivores duking it out, and of course, the biggest land carnivores the planet has ever known.

But we know far less about the smaller species of reptiles, mammals, and other dinosaurs that were running around underfoot. That's because not only did their remains fossilize less frequently than the behemoth's, but modern scientists also tend to favor the big, attention-grabbing bones.

"Paleontologists overlook these little remains, which are almost always isolated bones, in favor of larger and more complete skulls and skeletons," Longrich told ScienceAlert.

"There's just a bias in what people study. Partly the small isolated stuff is hard to study, and partly people just assume it's not that important, so it ends up stuck in a museum and neglected."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd0dR2n9hLA (long vid)

Longrich and his team set out to investigate these fragmented fossils gathering dust in storeroom drawers, expecting to find adult specimens of small dinosaurs. Instead, ironically, the work led the team back to the big guys.

One of the small bones appeared to be a third metatarsal – the middle foot bone – of a theropod dinosaur. But on closer inspection, it didn't look like it came from a fully grown animal.

"The surface of the bone was incredibly porous," Longrich says in a video on his YouTube channel.

"And this is the result of all these little microscopic blood vessels creating this dense network of blood vessels. And these nourish the bone as it grows. So they're providing blood to the bone cells as they deposit bone tissue and remodel the bone. And this is typical of an immature dinosaur."

The tiny metatarsal that started it all. 

(Longrich et al., Biology, 2026)



When the bone was compared to others of its era, the researchers realized only one species fit the characteristics they were seeing.

"This is the foot bone of a very, very tiny T. rex. This is the smallest T. rex that we've ever seen," said Longrich.

After that find, the team began to look more closely at other small fossils of bones and teeth, and realized that many could also be attributed to tyrannosaur hatchlings.

"I was most surprised by how closely the hatchling Tyrannosaurus fossils resembled those of big adults," Eric Snively, paleontologist at Oklahoma State University in the US, told ScienceAlert.

"The foot bone had all the traits of a huge adult Tyrannosaurus; it was just narrower compared to its length. The teeth were chunky and worn, so the babies were biting into bone just like a 10-ton adult sundering bones of a big Triceratops."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rn9Dqa5l9A (long vid)

Importantly, these bones were distinct from Nanotyrannus, a pygmy tyrannosaur species that can be mistaken for a juvenile T. rex. Other bone features excluded the possibility that these tiny tyrannosaurs were just embryos.

In the end, the researchers paint a very different picture of T. rex hatchlings, of which we know almost nothing. They estimate the main specimen to have been about 75 centimeters (30 inches) long and to have weighed around 2.5 kilograms (5.5 pounds).

Scaling back, it could have been as light as 1.7 kilograms when it first hatched. That's much smaller than previous estimates, which suggested tyrannosaurs could have been up to a meter long when they hatched.

From this new size estimate, the team was able to calculate roughly how big an egg these hatchlings emerged from. These were surprisingly small too, given the sheer size of the monster laying them.

That suggests tyrannosaurs laid many eggs: the researchers estimated 20 to 30 per clutch. And that has some fascinating implications for their reproductive strategy.

No complete or certain Tyrannosaurus rex egg has ever been found.

The goal of reproduction is obviously to make more of yourself, and in a general sense, organisms use one of two broad strategies to get there.

They either have lots of offspring, quickly and often, so that it doesn't really matter if some (or most) of them don't live very long – there are plenty of backups. Organisms that use this method, such as rodents, are known as r-strategists.

The other method is to have fewer babies, but invest heavily in making sure they survive. These are the K-strategists, and that group includes whales and, of course, us.

It's a trade-off, for sure: Do you leave dozens of your offspring on a beach to fend for themselves from birth? Or will you still be bringing snacks to their room after two decades? Both strategies seem to work for different species.

Because larger animals and modern dinosaurs (ie, birds) tend to be K-strategists, it was long thought that tyrannosaurs would raise their young with care.

But the new discovery that tyrannosaur young were small and numerous suggests they had more r-strategist tendencies than we thought.

That's not to say T. rex parents were completely (tiny) hands-off, though. They seem to mark a kind of transitional phase that was happening throughout the animal kingdom during the time of the dinosaurs.

"It shows tyrannosaurs are transitional between reptiles like crocodilians and turtles on the one hand, and modern birds on the other," said Longrich.

"Avian-mammal intensive parental investment and care seems to evolve gradually in the Mesozoic. At the same time tyrannosaurs are evolving larger and fewer young (relative to reptiles), we see mammals and plesiosaurs and even insects making similar shifts. Parental investment strategies change a lot in the Jurassic and Cretaceous."

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Bones of Ancient Egyptian Princesses Reveal They Were Kind of Badass

17 July 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-egyptian-princesses-were-skilled-with-powerful-weapons-lost-remains-reveal

(Hashesh et al., Front. Environ. Archaeol., 2026)

Ancient Egyptian princesses actually knew how to use the weapons they were buried with, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.

Any doubts around the women's prowess with the weapons – which include daggers, bows, and maces – have been quashed by a new analysis of the princesses' long-lost mummified remains.

At the apex of the 1890s Egyptomania craze, French archeologist Jacques de Morgan discovered the 4,000-year-old bodies within the Dahshur pyramid complex.

In 1895, scientific investigations were carried out on the two most high-ranking royals in the burial complex, King Hor and Princess Noub-Hotep.

19th-century handwriting is visible on the bones, and the papers they were wrapped with. 

(Hashesh et al., Front. Environ. Archaeol., 2026)

In 1915, the Dahshur bodies were brought to the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, where they were left in a wooden box and forgotten for over a century.

Then, in 2020, Zeinab Hashesh, an archaeologist at Beni-Suef University in Egypt, rediscovered the remains: King Hor and Princess Noub-Hotep, Princess Itaweret, Princess Khenmet, Princess Ita, and another female skeleton whose identity remains unknown.

"Early curators at the Egyptian museum gave the whole box only one number and described it as 'human remains'. That's it," Hashesh told ScienceAlert.

The women's skulls are still nowhere to be seen.

The skulls of Noub-Hotep (B) and the other princesses are missing. 

Only the king's (A) skull remains paired with his body.

 (Hashesh et al., Front. Environ. Archaeol., 2026)



"In 1906, the crania (skulls) were separated from the bodies and sent to the Cairo School of Medicine for examination," Hashesh adds.

"They were eventually lost, which made a complete assessment of the individuals impossible for later researchers."

Now, Hashesh and her colleagues have re-examined the bodies, analyzing bone features along with X-rays to better understand the lives of these ancient people.

The dagger found buried alongside Princess Ita.

(DCHNwam/Flickr)



"Finding and analyzing these skeletons after they had spent 130 years in a box was a profoundly moving experience. As scientists, we felt a sense of responsibility to finally give a 'voice' to these individuals who were central to the Middle Kingdom royal court," Hashesh said.

"There was a mix of scientific excitement and a sense of historical justice in proving that these women were more than just the silent, decorative figures they had been assumed to be."

Turns out, these long-lost women were actually kind of formidable.

"These were not just symbolic gifts but tools they actively used." - Zeinab Hashesh

They were buried with a powerful arsenal of weapons, traditionally associated with males – something that really confused French egyptologists back in 1894 – and which archaeologists have continued to dismiss as "purely symbolic or 'votive' tokens for the afterlife," Hashesh said.

There's plenty of evidence the princesses knew how to use them, based on the state of the muscle attachments on their bones, and the signs of injuries these women sustained in life.

(A) Dagger of Princess Ita, courtesy of the Egyptian Museum;

 (B) Arrows of Princess Noub-Hotep, courtesy of Eman Shawky. 

(Hashesh et al., Front. Environ. Archaeol., 2026)

The princesses' bones developed to sustain heavy muscle use that corresponds directly to the weapons that were found buried with them in their tombs.

For instance, Princess Noub-Hotep and the king both have the kind of robust muscle attachments you see in skilled archers.

"We found pronounced development in the upper limbs of these individuals, which correlates to repetitive, high-intensity actions like pulling a bowstring or stabilizing a weapon, proving these activities were habitual throughout their lives," Hashesh says.

"This directly explains the presence of bows, arrows, and maces in the women's tombs; these were not just symbolic gifts but tools they actively used."

The other princesses bear similar signs of a life of weapon-wielding, for activities like archery and hunting.

"Princess Ita was a young woman aged between 28 and 34 with strong upper-body muscle attachments, suggesting she habitually used weapons like maces or daggers," says Hashesh.

"Princess Khenmet was a woman in her late 30s or 40s who showed signs of thinning bones, but had very robust ligament attachments.

"Princess Itaweret was a young woman aged between 20 and 34 who survived broken ribs and foot fractures; her skeleton shows she was a skilled archer."

The princesses' bodies show many signs of active, rigorous lifestyles, and wear-and-tear specific to the weapons they were buried with.

 (Hashesh et al., Front. Environ. Archaeol., 2026)

This was not a sedentary royal family: they kept up their physical activity throughout their lives.

Hashesh explained that their training may be linked to ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife: that with proper training, it was possible for the spiritual body to survive beyond death.

"These women held the title mesu-nisut ('King's Children'), and their presence was integral to the ritual regeneration of the divine king," Hashesh told ScienceAlert.

"Far from leading sedentary lives of luxury, they were well-conditioned athletes and skilled practitioners of archery and martial arts hunting."

"In the elite sphere of Dahshur, these princesses were viewed as active ritual agents. They were not imitating men; rather, their royal blood and their role in the 'machine for surviving death' required them to be disciplined, powerful actors capable of wielding skilled force," she said.

It's an incredible example of just how much we can learn from what is left behind – and that some of the most exciting discoveries might be hiding in the basement, waiting to be seen with fresh eyes.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Hidden in a Guatemalan Ruin For 1,200 Years Was The Signature of a Maya Mathematical Genius

14 July 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/we-finally-know-the-name-of-a-revered-maya-astronomer-mathematician-sak-tahn-waax

The researchers had a series of hieroglyphs to decipher.

 (Rossi et al., Antiquity, 2026)

The Classic Maya period, from around 250-900 CE, is seen as something of a golden age for the civilization.

During that time, the Maya people made huge leaps forward in terms of architecture, city-building, art, writing, mathematics, and astronomy.

However, in those last two disciplines, scientists have been unable to identify individual scholars who made a difference during this time – until now.

A team of researchers from the US, writing in the journal Antiquity, has identified someone called Sak Tahn Waax, which translates as 'White-chested Fox'. The name of this Indigenous mathematician-astronomer was left alongside a rather impressive mathematical formula.

It's the first time a specific piece of work in mathematics or astronomy from the Classic Maya period has been attributed to a specific individual.

"While artists' and sculptors' signatures for painted ceramic vessels and carved monuments have been identified, the scholars behind computational timekeeping have remained anonymous," says archaeologist Franco Rossi, from MIT.

The finding comes from the Xultun archaeological site in Guatemala. In one of the small buildings there, the researchers discovered more than 50 mathematical and astronomical 'microtexts' – short inscriptions listing dates, numbers, and calculations.

A sketch of the room where the writing was recovered and a scan of part of the microtext.

 (Rossi et al., Antiquity, 2026)



When one of these texts was deciphered, using a combination of drawing, photography, and digitally enhanced images, it was discovered that it not only contained a mathematical formula but also credited the person responsible for it.

The formula itself is unique in Maya texts, the researchers say.

It rather cleverly plots the movement of Venus and other planetary bodies in a way that had no precedent at the time, though the astronomical and calendrical units used in it are familiar.

"The math involves his unique understanding of connections and patterns between several cycles of time, including the 260-day ritual day-count, the solar year, as well as the cycles of Venus and Mars," says Mayanist David Stuart, from the University of Texas at Austin.

And these calculations would have mattered: in the Classic Maya period, dates corresponding to the movement of celestial bodies would've been used to schedule royal events and plan building projects.

Some 16 years after this particular room at the Xultun site was discovered, researchers now have a special and unprecedented discovery to take away from it – based on the scribblings and inscriptions on the walls.

The name as translated by the researchers. 

(Rossi et al., Antiquity, 2026)



"These 'rough draft' calculations and tables are akin to finding an early version of a well-known manuscript, or a sketch of a great artwork," says archaeologist Heather Hurst, from Skidmore College.

"This fills out an important dimension of Classic Maya life that had typically been reconstructed through ethnohistories and Spanish accounts written centuries later."

Given the uniqueness of the formula, the academic behind it may have been keen to get recognition for it, the researchers suggest, which may be why the name was left.

Work is now continuing to analyze the dozens of other microtexts at the same site, some of which may also be the work of the newly identified Sak Tahn Waax.

Correlations can now be drawn to other writings both in terms of the style of the text used and the characteristics of the calculations.

The discovery sits alongside many other incredible Maya works in the fields of astronomy and mathematics – including maps of the Universe and charts of solar eclipses.

This was a civilization that knew its numbers well.

As well as telling us more about the people who made a difference during this fascinating period in Classic Maya history, the discovery also helps historians put the Maya civilization in context with the other nations and empires of the time.

"Contemporaries of the ancient world in India, Iraq, China, and Greece were similarly calculating solar and planetary cycles, predicting eclipses, and charting star progressions, their achievements often ascribed to individual thinkers," says Rossi.

"We can now add Sak Tahn Waax to such thinkers, highlighting the great Indigenous astronomy and calendrical traditions of the Americas."

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Atlantic Ocean Slowdown Could Supercharge California Storms

By U. of California Riverside, July 16, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/atlantic-ocean-slowdown-could-supercharge-california-storms/

Atmospheric river forming over the Pacific Northwest.

 Credit: NASA/NOAA

A new study shows how changes in ocean circulation could reshape global rainfall patterns.

A storm reaching California can begin with changes thousands of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean. Climate modeling suggests that as one of the planet’s major ocean circulation systems weakens, more moisture could be directed toward the West Coast while snowfall declines over Greenland.

The system is known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. It moves warm tropical water northward near the ocean surface, helping keep parts of Europe relatively mild. After the water cools and becomes denser, it sinks and flows southward through the deep ocean.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, examined how a slower AMOC could influence storms and atmospheric moisture far beyond the Atlantic. Their projections indicate that the consequences could extend across North America, South America, Antarctica, Greenland, and the Arctic.

“It is well known that the AMOC is a big player in the world’s climate system, and that it is slowing down. What we didn’t know is exactly how the AMOC might impact atmospheric moisture and storms outside the Atlantic region,” said Mohima Mimi, a UCR doctoral student in climate dynamics and the paper’s lead author.

“It turns out a weakening AMOC will strengthen storms across parts of North America by the end of the century, along the California coast in particular, while reducing them over Greenland and the Arctic.”

A weaker current redirects storm moisture

The study, published in Nature Communications, traced the connection from the ocean to the atmosphere. As the AMOC weakens, it changes patterns of ocean temperature. Those temperature shifts influence how much water vapor the air can carry and alter the strong high-altitude winds that guide storms across the Northern Hemisphere.

The modeling showed that these winds could intensify, allowing storms to carry more moisture toward California. Much of that water would arrive through atmospheric rivers, which are long, narrow streams of vapor that move tropical moisture toward higher latitudes.

Atmospheric rivers are essential to California’s water supply, but their strongest forms can produce flooding, landslides, and extensive infrastructure damage. That makes any projected increase important for both water planning and disaster preparation.

These rivers are long, narrow corridors of water vapor carrying moisture from the tropics to higher latitudes. “In California, atmospheric rivers are a double-edged sword,” Mimi said. “They supply much of the state’s water supply, but as they become stronger, they’re likely to also bring widespread destruction.”

Storm shifts extend across continents

The projected changes were not limited to California. The models also indicated that atmospheric rivers could become more common along the eastern coast of South America and around Antarctica.

Greenland showed the opposite pattern. With fewer storms reaching the region, snowfall would decline, reducing the amount of new ice added to the surface.

These projections were based on a high greenhouse gas emissions scenario in which the AMOC continues weakening through the end of the century. Scientists have already detected signs that the circulation is slowing as human-caused climate change warms the planet, and models suggest that continued high emissions would reinforce that trend.

Greenhouse gases come largely from burning coal, oil, and natural gas. Other major sources include methane from livestock, deforestation, industrial activity, and waste in landfills.

Wei Liu, an associate professor of climate change and the paper’s senior author, said reducing emissions could limit further disruption to the AMOC and lessen its effects on future rainfall patterns.

Better planning could limit damage

Stronger atmospheric rivers would create greater risks for flooding and infrastructure, but they could also deliver more water during individual storms. Communities may be able to make better use of that moisture by improving forecasts and expanding reservoirs or other storage systems.

The projections show why changes in ocean circulation cannot be viewed as a problem confined to the Atlantic. By altering ocean temperatures, atmospheric moisture, and storm-guiding winds, a weakening current could reshape weather patterns across distant regions.

Those shifts could affect drinking water, agriculture, ecosystems, flood control, and ice accumulation across several continents. Understanding the chain of effects gives communities more time to prepare for changes that may otherwise appear unrelated to the Atlantic Ocean.

“This research shows that the effects of the AMOC extend far beyond the Atlantic Ocean,” Mimi said. “Understanding these connections will help us better prepare for future changes in water resources and extreme weather.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

A Lost Human Lineage May Have Left a Genetic Legacy in People Today

By S. C.Reynolds, Bournemouth U., July 15, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-lost-human-lineage-may-have-left-a-genetic-legacy-in-people-today/

A new analysis of ancient tooth enamel is reshaping the story of human evolution in East Asia. Molecular evidence suggests that long-separated human lineages may have exchanged genes far more often than once believed, leaving traces that persist in people today. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Homo erectus may have left a detectable genetic trace in living humans through ancient interbreeding with Denisovans.

For much of the 20th century, human evolution was often pictured as a branching tree. One trunk split into separate limbs, and each ancient human relative, or hominin, occupied its own tidy branch.

That was the version many students learned for decades. Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, spread across the globe, and replaced every archaic human group it encountered. Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and other ancient relatives were treated as evolutionary side paths that eventually disappeared without leaving descendants.

Over the past 30 years, that simple story has fallen apart. Human origins now look less like a clean tree and more like a tangled history of movement, contact, survival, and genetic exchange.

A new study published in Nature by Qiaomei Fu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and colleagues adds another important piece to that revised picture. The team achieved something that would have seemed unreachable only a decade ago: recovering meaningful biological information from Homo erectus fossils that are far too old to preserve DNA.

Instead of genetic sequences, the team extracted ancient proteins from the enamel of six teeth from three Chinese sites – Zhoukoudian (which, in the early 20th century, produced fossil remains known as “Peking Man”), Hexian and Sunjiadong – all dating to around 400,000 years ago.

Homo erectus is widely regarded as the first hominin to leave Africa; the evidence suggests this species had moved into Eurasia nearly two million years ago. It remains the most geographically widespread human ancestor that ever lived. The new study indicates that Homo erectus exchanged genes (probably through interbreeding) with Denisovans in East Asia roughly 400,000 years ago.

The study suggests that some of that genetic legacy, it now appears, was passed on to living people in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and across south-east Asia.

Proteins reveal ancient mixing

Tooth enamel is the hardest tissue in the body, and its proteins survive long after DNA has degraded beyond recovery. What the team found in those proteins is striking. All six specimens share a previously unknown amino acid variant – a tiny molecular signature, a single letter changed in the protein sequence, never seen in any other hominin alive or dead.

This variant clusters these east Asian H. erectus into a distinct group, confirming their identity and settling a long-running debate about whether the unusual Hexian fossils were H. erectus at all. A second variant they share, however, is not unique to H. erectus.

It also appears in Denisovans – a mysterious archaic (non-Homo sapiens) human group known mainly from a cave in Siberia. The corresponding genetic variant turns up in living people at frequencies of 21% in the Philippines and about 1% in India, distributed in a pattern that matches what we’d expect if it entered modern humans via Denisovan ancestry.

The Harbin skull, discovered in north-east China, was recently identified as a probable Denisovan. 

Credit: Fu et al. Cell



The most reasonable interpretation is that H. erectus populations in east Asia passed this variant to Denisovans through interbreeding, and Denisovans later passed it on to the ancestors of modern south-east Asians and Oceanians. This transfer of genetic material from one species to another is known as introgression.

The lineage we once thought was a dead end has, it turns out, left a small but detectable trace in living human genomes – a molecular thread connecting a Peking Man tooth to living people in Asia.

Interbreeding was not rare

But the significance of today’s paper extends well beyond the specific variant or the specific populations involved. What it really shows is that interbreeding between archaic human lineages was not exceptional. It was routine.

Every major hominin lineage we have been able to examine genomically shows admixture. Modern humans outside Africa carry roughly 2% Neanderthal DNA. Papuans and Aboriginal Australians carry an additional 2–5% Denisovan ancestry.

West African populations carry genetic signatures from an unidentified archaic lineage. Even Denisovans themselves, as today’s study adds further weight to, received gene flow from something older and more diverged — likely H. erectus.

A 2019 review in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology documents at least three distinct introgression events from Denisovan-like populations into south-east Asian and Oceanic ancestors alone, some occurring as recently as 20,000 years ago. The picture is not one of clean lineages but of a tangled web of contact and exchange extending across millions of years.

The implications are far-reaching. Our genomes are not the product of a single unbroken lineage emerging from Africa. They are mosaics, assembled from contributions by multiple archaic groups, each adapted to its own regional environment.

Some of the Denisovan-derived variants in Papuan genomes, for instance, appear to influence immune function. The H. erectus-derived variant identified today has unknown functional consequences – that remains an open question – but the precedent from other gene variants that have introgressed (genes that have passed from one species into another) suggests that adaptation to new environments may have been part of the story.

Lost lineages may remain

Perhaps most intriguing is what the new paper implies about all the populations we cannot yet study. H. erectus survived in Indonesia until perhaps 100,000 years ago. Homo floresiensis, the diminutive “hobbit” species, was present on Flores when modern humans arrived. Another human lineage, Homo luzonensis, occupied the Philippines.

None of these populations have yielded DNA, and until today, none had yielded any molecular data at all. Were they also absorbed, at least partially, into the human populations that replaced them? The genomic evidence from living people has not, so far, detected their signal clearly – but the tools available until recently were blunt instruments.

The proteomic approach demonstrated in today’s paper offers a way forward. If proteins can be recovered from H. erectus enamel at 400,000 years, the same approach applied to floresiensis or luzonensis material might finally reveal whether those lineages, too, contributed something to the humans who came after them.

The old metaphor of a tree – a single trunk branching into distinct species – has been quietly replaced in the scientific literature. It might be better to consider the process as a braided river, with many channels running partly together and partly apart, exchanging water continuously.

This new study is one more confirmation that when ancient human populations disappeared, they left traces of themselves behind.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Michael Button, 4 Jul 2026

For most of the twentieth century, scientists believed sophisticated human intelligence emerged around 50,000 years ago. Today, that timeline has been pushed back over a million years. 

From ancient sea crossings and symbolic art to the oldest wooden structure ever discovered, a series of remarkable archaeological finds has quietly transformed our understanding of what early humans were capable of. 

Yet almost nobody has stopped to consider what these discoveries mean when viewed together...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KZzTkmbTsA&t=3s

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/