Scientists Find Out-of-Body Experiences May Occur Between Sleep And Waking

12 Nov. 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-out-of-body-experiences-may-occur-between-sleep-and-waking

(Vitalii Marchenko/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

The liminal space between sleeping and waking could be where the human brain conjures the uncanny.

It's there, in a state that is somehow both or neither, that the sleeping brain may extend tendrils into consciousness, or the waking mind jostle uncomfortably at the edges of sleep.

Such overlap, researchers have now found, may be behind some of the strangest experiences humans report, from the terrors of sleep paralysis to the apparent ability to send one's mind away from the body and wander around without it.

And, in turn, that could tell us something about the very nature of how we experience living in our bodies.

Not everything we experience is easy to explain. We understand itching, and hunger, and jealousy, for example; but some people report sensations or experiences that do not match what we know the body can do.

Some people, for example, report floating or flying sensations; others report intense dread and monstrous presences; while others still report the eerie sensation of leaving their own bodies behind to wander through physical or spiritual spaces.

Scientists refer to strange distortions of bodily perception as unusual bodily experiences, or UBEs.

They can occur during sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming, and even while a person is awake.

And no one really knows why they happen.

But since they so often seem to happen around the boundaries between sleeping and waking, neuroscientist Teresa Campillo-Ferrer of Radboud University in the Netherlands and her colleagues devised a cunning plan to gather more information.

They recruited 35 people who had some experience with the stranger reaches of consciousness through lucid dreaming or meditation, and recorded their brain activity as they ventured into the hazy borderlands between sleeping and waking – during meditation, while drifting off to sleep, and even while dreaming.

The experimental setup used to investigate unusual bodily experiences, including EEG monitoring, meditation and light stimulation, and eye movements to signal when an experience occurred. 

(Campillo-Ferrer et al., Consciousness and Cognition, 2026)

Their equipment was rather less mysterious: EEG caps fitted with dozens of electrodes to record the electrical activity of the brain.

Caps donned, the travelers were dispatched to their preternatural roaming.

Each participant was guided through meditation exercises designed to help them relax and focus on their bodily sensations. The researchers also used flashes of light to encourage unusual experiences as the participants drifted into sleep.

But there was a slight snag. How do you tell a scientist you're having an out-of-body experience when you're asleep?

The researchers had a clever solution. They instructed the participants to move their eyes in a deliberate left-right-left-right sequence whenever they experienced something unusual.

Because eye movements can be detected even during sleep, this gave the team a way to pinpoint when the experiences were taking place in the EEG recordings.

Afterward, they interviewed the participants in detail about what they had felt, seen, and experienced, allowing the researchers to match their subjective accounts to the electrical activity recorded in their brains.

Of the 35 participants, 20 reported 36 UBEs between them – the largest number during meditation, but others during REM sleep, non-REM sleep, and sleep arousals – brief periods of emerging from sleep into wakefulness.

Some participants felt themselves floating, falling, or spinning, even though their bodies remained perfectly still. Others experienced strange vibrations, pressure, or the sensation of being touched by something that wasn't there.

Descriptions of unusual bodily experiences reported by participants in the study. The symbols indicate the types of sensations involved, while the right-hand column shows the sleep or waking state in which each occurred. 

(Campillo-Ferrer et al., Consciousness and Cognition, 2026)

Some lost their sense of where their bodies ended, or even what shape they were. Others experienced paralysis, sometimes accompanied by frightening hallucinations. In 10 cases, participants reported the sensation of being outside the physical body, or somehow elevated above it.

And, in the brain activity of these experiences, an intriguing pattern emerged.

Compared with the participants' normal brain activity during sleep or meditation, the UBEs were associated with a decrease in slower brainwaves, called delta and theta waves, and an increase in faster beta and gamma waves.

The changes were particularly pronounced around the temporal regions of the brain, which help process sensory information and contribute to our sense of our own bodies.

Here's where that pattern gets interesting. The slower brainwave activity appeared to fall somewhere between the patterns typically seen during sleep and wakefulness, while the faster activity more closely resembled that of a waking brain.

In short, the brain activity associated with these strange experiences seemed to combine features of both sleeping and waking, regardless of whether the participants were technically asleep or awake.

The researchers believe that this may be because the brain involved has poor boundaries.

For an awake brain, this means the sleeping brain is intruding on its turf; and for a sleeping brain, wakefulness is seeping in around the edges.

A similar overlap has long been implicated in sleep paralysis – consciousness returns while the body remains temporarily paralyzed by sleep – but its role in other strange bodily experiences is less well understood.

"Taken together, our findings suggest that UBEs may not depend on a specific sleep stage or waking condition, but rather on a state of consciousness that blurs the boundaries between them," the researchers wrote.

"This could explain why UBEs sometimes integrate elements of dream-like experiences with the external environment in which participants are located, such as seeing one's bedroom while experiencing fearful hallucinations during sleep paralysis episodes."

There are still mysteries to unravel. The EEG recordings can't reveal whether the brain as a whole enters an intermediate state, or whether different regions are simultaneously engaged in sleeping and waking activity.

Further research is needed to investigate these possibilities and determine exactly how the brain constructs illusory sensations that feel so real.

But the findings could offer clues to something even more fundamental – how the brain establishes our sense of being anchored deeply inside a body in the first place.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

New Study Rewrites The Rules of The Blood-Brain Barrier

12 Nov. 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/study-rewrites-the-rules-of-the-blood-brain-barrier-including-proteins-that-may-be-involved-in-alzheimers

(THOM LEACH/Science Photo Library RF/Getty Images)

The blood-brain barrier is a powerful thing.

It maintains a strict 'guest list' of who's allowed in and who is banned from entering our most delicate organ.

But a new study, published in the journal Cell today, suggests the blood-brain barrier may be doing far more for our brains than we realized.

The results could one day help scientists find new ways to treat Alzheimer's disease.

"For a century, we've treated the blood-brain barrier as a simple physical boundary protecting the brain from toxins," says the study's senior author, bioengineer Andrew Yang, of the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco.

"We're finding that it's an intelligent interface that plucks the right proteins in the blood, often from distant parts of the body, and delivers them to the right cell types in the brain. Brain health depends on this sophisticated molecular supply line from the body."

The paper includes an atlas of the 92 different proteins that were transported across the BBB in the brains of mice, out of a total of 861 proteins tracked by the researchers.

Once certain proteins entered the brain, they were sent to specific types of brain cells, where they appear to be involved in some pretty important processes.

"We think of blood proteins as messengers carrying signals from distant body parts, and the cells of the blood-brain barrier import only the ones the brain really needs," says Haoyue Zhou, a neuroscientist in Yang's lab at Gladstone.

"But that's just the beginning of the story."

Haoyue Zhou in the Yang Lab at Gladstone Institutes. 

(Michael Short/Gladstone Institutes)



The blood-brain barrier is a known casualty of Alzheimer's disease, physically breaking down as symptoms progress.

Could the BBB's little-understood role in delivering proteins to brain cells have something to do with Alzheimer's?

Yang and team suspect it might.

A protein that originates in the liver, APOA1, was directed towards astrocytes, star-shaped cells that perform multiple important functions in the brain. The arrival of APOA1 to the astrocytes activates a pathway involved in maintaining healthy neural connections.

Earlier research suggests that Alzheimer's disease risk goes up when that pathway fails.

Another protein from the liver, Alpha-1 antitrypsin, travels to the microglia, which are the brain's primary immune cells. In healthy mice, the microglia that took up more of this protein tended to express more genes that are associated with neurodegeneration.

"Before the barrier starts leaking harmful proteins into the brain, it stops letting the beneficial ones through," Zhou says.

"The brain's supply line from the body starts to fail."

They looked at how the proteins facilitated by the blood-brain barrier differed in mice that had been genetically modified to model Alzheimer's-like symptoms (especially amyloid plaques), compared to healthy mice.

In the Alzheimer's model mice, APOA1 levels in the brain were reduced; Alpha-1 antitrypsin uptake increased.

Some mice were then given a liver-targeted gene therapy to increase the amount of APOA1 their livers produced.

This modification meant APOA1 levels in the brain improved. And despite their genetic fate, the mice showed fewer signs of Alzheimer's disease.

"Alzheimer's disease may not start entirely inside the brain; It may start when the brain's supply line from the body is severed," Yang says.

"If that's right, we may be able to fight this disease from outside the brain, by restoring what the brain has lost."

It's important to remember that since this research was conducted in mice, the same may not necessarily go for humans.

We share a lot of evolutionary history with mice, so there are plenty of similarities in how our bodies work. But there are also many crucial differences.

"Generalizability to other neurological disorders and to humans remains to be established, and species differences in BBB receptor expression, plasma composition, and barrier properties may further limit extrapolation," the researchers note.

Plus, the mouse Alzheimer's model is just that – a model. Many results based on these models have not translated well to human patients.

And because the model inherently relies on genetic drivers of the plaques associated with Alzheimer's, it could be missing other factors involved in the disease's development.

Far more research is needed before we will know for sure whether these findings could actually translate into human treatments for Alzheimer's and other brain-related diseases, but Yang is optimistic.

"We now have a map of the proteins the brain needs from the body and the transport system that delivers them," he says.

"We are excited to translate this blueprint into new therapies for Alzheimer's that work from the outside-in, and into next-generation blood-brain barrier shuttles to deliver powerful medicines into the brain."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Study Shows a Single Nuclear Blast Could Disable 99% of Satellites in a Matter of Days

12 Nov. 2026, By P. Dockrill

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-single-nuclear-explosion-in-orbit-could-disable-99-of-satellites-in-a-matter-of-days

(Wladimir Bulgar/NASA/Science Photo Library RF/Getty Images)

High above your head, it's getting a bit crowded.

In low-Earth orbit, more than 13,000 satellites are currently circling the planet. They're the backbone of your daily weather forecast, telephone and data communications, satellite internet services, and much more besides.

They're also total sitting ducks.

A new study warns that a single nuclear detonation at a high enough altitude could disable virtually every satellite in low-Earth orbit, knocking almost all of them out within a month.

If it sounds like science fiction, it isn't. Nukes in space have happened before.

During the Cold War, the US and USSR conducted 18 high-altitude nuclear explosions, ranging from Earth's upper atmosphere and up into space.

The biggest of these – called Starfish Prime – launched in 1962, detonating a 1.4-megaton nuclear warhead at an altitude of 400 kilometers (249 miles) above the Pacific Ocean.

The effects of the explosion ended up disabling several satellites at the time, and the US and Soviets agreed a year later to suspend all above-ground nuclear testing as part of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

The Starfish Prime nuclear test, detonated 400 kilometers above the Pacific Ocean in 1962. 

(US Air Force)



The scary thing is, even a less powerful warhead than Starfish Prime could wreak unimaginable havoc if a low-Earth orbit detonation happened today, according to calculations by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) and Princeton University.

In their study – which hasn't yet been peer-reviewed – the researchers simulated a 1-megaton nuclear explosion 500 kilometers above the South Atlantic, near a vast anomalous region where Earth's magnetic field is unusually weak.

The conditions there – in what's known as the South Atlantic Anomaly – would magnify the effects following the initial blast, trapping radioactive particles in pockets of space, through which satellites would keep traversing as they orbit Earth.

The same phenomenon unfolded after Starfish Prime.

"Electrons from radioactive fission-product decay became trapped in Earth's magnetic field, creating an artificial radiation belt that damaged satellites," the researchers, led by first author Zach Petersen, a UW astronomy-physics major student, explain in their paper.

"Unlike the prompt burst, a trapped belt repeatedly exposes spacecraft as they pass through it. A comparable event today would occur in a much more densely populated orbital environment."

And then some.

In the researchers' simulation – incorporating the 13,300 satellites active in low-Earth orbit as of January this year – a nuclear blast in the region of the South Atlantic Anomaly would disable 25 percent of the entire fleet after one day.

Starfish Prime, seen from Honolulu. 

(US Government/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)

At the end of day three, 78 percent of satellites would be disabled, which would increase to 98 percent after a week, and 99.4 percent by day 15.

Even in a scenario where spacecraft were given strengthened radiation protection, 99.3 percent of all satellites would be disabled within 30 days.

In another hypothetical situation, deploying a much weaker 100-kiloton warhead, neutralizing 99 percent of satellites would take a year.

But radiation wouldn't be the only peril.

As soon as a detonation occurs and the first satellites lose control over their maneuverability, it would increase the risk of collisions in space, with the researchers estimating approximately 20 resulting collisions within the first two years.

After 10 years, the collisions would have left approximately 3,900 new fragments of space junk orbiting Earth.

"Continued collisions among long-lived objects are expected to sustain debris production beyond the simulated decade, with the possibility of a slow buildup and eventual runaway growth on century timescales," the team writes, noting that sending new satellites up after the calamity would also be a gamble.

"Restoring orbital services would require more than replacing the lost spacecraft: new satellites would need to survive the remaining radiation and debris. The prospect of rapid infrastructure loss followed by years of disruption reinforces the need to prevent the deployment and use of nuclear weapons in space."

Or, in simpler terms, as nuclear policy researcher James McKeon described the findings in a post online:

"Tl;dr: it would be bad. Very bad. Very, very bad. We must do everything we can to prevent this from ever happening."

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Skin Regenerates Differently in Males And Females, Study in Mice Reveals

10 Nov. 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/skin-regenerates-differently-in-males-and-females-study-in-mice-reveals

(Frederic Cirou/PhotoAlto/Getty Images)

Every 6–7 weeks, depending on age and body part, we get an entirely new outer layer (epidermis) of skin, due to the constant renewal of skin cells.

Now, new research suggests there are significant differences in how this happens in males and females.

This has only been shown in mice so far, so we'll have to see whether it's the same in people, but the discovery could eventually lead to treatments that are better tailored depending on sex – for burns, wounds, skin conditions, and even skin cancers.

The findings come from an international team of researchers, led by experts from the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Belgium and the University of Cambridge in the UK, who have published their work in Nature.

Using a microscopy technique that enables living cells to be imaged through the skin, the researchers followed the stem cells that develop into epidermal skin cells across five months – an unusually long period for this kind of study.

Faster wound healing was one of the differences noticed in the female mice.

 (Engelman et al., Nature, 2026)



"We initially set out to understand how the skin renews itself, and whether there is a hierarchy with stem cells at the top," says medical oncologist Dan Engelman from ULB.

"We were surprised to discover strong differences in the way stem cells renew the skin in females and males."

Stem cells act as source material for all kinds of different cell types in the body. In the bottom layer of the epidermis, stem cells multiply, forming both new stem cells and cells destined for the epidermis, where they act as a protective layer and are eventually shed.

Through their detailed, extended analysis, the researchers discovered there's also an intermediate stage, where division is limited – this helps to amplify cell production, and the presence or absence of this stage has long been debated by scientists.

Then there were the differences between the sexes.

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

"Critical to these conclusions was the discovery of sexual dimorphism in epidermal fate, with female mice showing a highly synchronized pattern of cell division, differentiation and delamination that contributes to accelerated wound healing," write the researchers in their published paper.

In plainer terms, female cells are renewed in a more synchronized, coordinated way, with divided cells working in pairs and making the same choices at the same time (to divide again or head for the outer layer). For males, cells act in a more individual way.

The researchers compare it to rowers synchronizing their strokes, and further tests on the mice suggested that it's partly why wounds heal faster in females (this is something scientists already know about, though the explanation isn't fully clear).

"It opens up a wide range of new questions, spanning from fundamental stem cell biology to clinical issues such as wound healing, cancer development, and autoimmune diseases," says developmental biologist Cédric Blanpain from ULB.

The researchers went further, removing the testes or ovaries from the mice to cut out testosterone or estrogen production, then replacing those hormones to see how it affected skin cell production.

Manipulating the hormones showed testosterone sped up the rate at which new skin cells left the bottom layer – without it, the male skin cells behaved more like female ones. In the female mice, removing the estrogen removed most of the coordinated actions the researchers had previously observed.

Again, it's important to note that the study was in a small group of mice, though initial tests the team carried out on human skin cells in the lab suggest the same mechanisms are at play. More research will be needed to know for sure.

Expanding the analysis of the human skin cells is the obvious next step for the researchers, to see if this really is another way the sexes differ.

"Sex is a parameter too often overlooked in biology and medicine," says Blanpain.

"We will now investigate the differences between males and females during the formation and progression of skin cancers, as well as the molecular mechanisms responsible for these differences."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Einstein's Equations Reveal Gravity Can Break And Reconnect Like Magnetic Fields

10 Nov. 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/einsteins-equations-reveal-gravity-can-break-and-reconnect-like-magnetic-fields

An artist's impression of spacetime distorted by gravity.

 (koto_feja/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Everywhere you go in the Universe, gravity exists.

It's inextricably woven into its fabric, forming stars and planets, and choreographing the dance of galaxies.

It's what keeps our world together and us upon it – yet even after more than a century of studying gravity by way of Einstein's theory of general relativity, scientists are still discovering surprising new ways it can behave.

But a new discovery by physicists Luca Comisso of Columbia University and Felipe A. Asenjo of Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile may take the relativity biscuit.

Their new calculations suggest that gravitational fields may be able to break and reconnect in new configurations – just like magnetic fields do on the Sun.

"We are not modifying general relativity or introducing new physics beyond it. Rather, we are identifying physical principles that have remained unrecognized for more than a century," Comisso told ScienceAlert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1-3eClv_TY

Our everyday experience of gravity is of a force that keeps us more or less on the ground. But there's more to it than just attraction. According to relativity, gravity is described by a field – the curvature of spacetime caused by mass and energy, which influences how matter and light move through the Universe.

The equations describing this curvature are a masterpiece of physics, allowing physicists to predict everything from the bending of starlight to the gravitational waves produced by colliding black holes – and they've survived test after test in the classical Universe.

But the Universe has other kinds of fields, too.

We only have to look to the Sun to find some – vast magnetic fields threading through the charged solar plasma, whose tangled strands can break and reconnect in a process called magnetic reconnection, unleashing the energy that powers solar flares.

And, as Comisso and Asenjo have now demonstrated mathematically, gravity may have a similar trick in its repertoire.

"We had suspected that gravity might share some properties with magnetic fields, since it has long been known that Einstein's equations can be rewritten in forms that resemble the equations of electromagnetism," Comisso explained.

"However, we did not know how far this analogy would extend. It was only after working through the analytical calculations, step by step at the blackboard, that we realized just how closely gravitational fields could follow the same principles that govern magnetic fields in plasmas."

The revelation began with an earlier paper the pair published alongside a third co-author, physicist Maricarmen A. Winkler of Adolfo Ibáñez University.

Their calculations showed that, under certain conditions, gravitational fields can behave as though their connections are frozen in place, preserving the links between different regions even as spacetime evolves.

They realized that this behavior has a striking analog in the magnetic fields of electrically charged plasma, where field lines can remain connected even as the plasma flows and changes shape.

But, as we have already established, magnetic fields don't always behave this way. When the conditions that keep their field lines connected break down, those connections can rearrange themselves through magnetic reconnection, changing which regions are linked by the magnetic field.

So, it seemed natural to wonder if the same could be true of gravity, too.

To find out, Comisso and Asenjo returned to Einstein's equations, using a mathematical formulation that reveals similarities between gravity and electromagnetism.

They investigated what happens when the conditions that preserve gravitational field connections break down, and found that, under certain circumstances, the fields can reconnect in new configurations – a process they call gravitational reconnection.

"Instead of lines extending through three-dimensional space, the gravitational field forms sheets extending through four-dimensional spacetime (three dimensions of space and one of time)," Comisso explained.

"Like magnetic field lines, these sheets are not physical objects, but mathematical structures that help us visualize the gravitational field. As spacetime evolves, these sheets can stretch, bend, and, under certain conditions, break and reconnect in a new arrangement."

"This does not mean that spacetime itself tears apart, but rather that the gravitational field changes how different regions of spacetime are connected."

A schematic illustration of gravitational field sheets, mathematical structures whose connections can change through gravitational reconnection.

 (Comisso and Asenjo/APS 2026)



If this process occurs in the Universe, its effects wouldn't necessarily be something we could see or even feel. Even the gravitational ripples from colliding black holes – arguably the most hefty events the Universe can pull off – change the length of LIGO's 4-kilometer arms by less than the width of a proton.

But the physics implications, now – there, we're talking.

Physicists can currently use supercomputers to simulate the dramatic changes in spacetime that accompany massive events like black hole collisions or core-collapse supernovae.

But being able to calculate how spacetime evolves doesn't necessarily reveal the underlying physical mechanisms responsible for energy transfer.

This is where gravitational reconnection could be useful, and magnetic reconnection on the Sun gives a real-world example. Physicists can simulate the behavior of solar plasma, but identifying magnetic reconnection as a mechanism responsible for releasing its energy gives them a deeper understanding of what is happening and why.

"What I find particularly remarkable is that these principles give us a new way to understand the complex dynamics of spacetime in relatively simple physical terms," Comisso said.

"Just as magnetic reconnection has transformed our understanding of how magnetic energy is released in plasmas, gravitational reconnection could provide a similarly powerful framework for understanding how gravitational fields evolve and exchange energy and momentum with matter."

There's still a great deal to learn, however. For now, gravitational reconnection is a theoretical possibility, not a phenomenon that scientists have observed in nature.

An artist's impression of two black holes spiraling toward one another, emitting gravitational waves. Such mergers are among the environments where gravitational reconnection might occur.

 (LIGO/T. Pyle)


The researchers believe gravitational reconnection could occur in a variety of astrophysical settings, such as merging black holes or collapsing stars.

Numerical simulations, Comisso said, could help identify the conditions under which it happens and characterize how the process unfolds.

One particularly tantalizing possibility is that gravitational reconnection might leave a distinctive signature in the gravitational waves emitted by colliding black holes. If it does, those simulations might reveal what to look for in LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA data.

"Our work provides the theoretical foundations for gravitational reconnection, but we still need to determine the precise conditions under which it occurs in nature and understand its role in astrophysical phenomena," Comisso said.

"For us, this is one of the most exciting questions that our research has opened up, and one we are eager to investigate further."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

An Ancient Virus May Hold the Secret to What Makes the Human Brain Different

By Lund U., Nov. 10, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/an-ancient-virus-may-hold-the-secret-to-what-makes-the-human-brain-different/

An ancient virus that infected chimpanzees millions of years ago may have contributed to a surprising difference between human and chimpanzee brain development.

 Credit: Shutterstock

Could a virus that infected chimpanzees millions of years ago help explain how the human brain became different?

Researchers at Lund University have discovered that ancient viral DNA embedded in the chimpanzee genome silences a gene involved in early human brain development. Their study, published in Science Advances, found that the gene, LINC00662, remains active in human brain organoids, where it helps support the development of nerve cells and the connections between them.

The finding offers a way to explore how humans and chimpanzees developed different biological traits despite sharing much of their genetic makeup. Evolution can change how existing genes are used, as well as which genes a species carries.

“The virus we investigated specifically affected chimpanzees. Yet humans and chimpanzees have largely the same genetic makeup. That is why it is important to understand the differences in how genes are regulated. Our findings suggest that one gene, LINC00662, plays a significant role in early human brain development,” says Johan Jakobsson, professor of molecular neurogenetics at Lund University.

How Viral DNA Silences A Gene

The genetic remnant belongs to PTERV1, an endogenous retrovirus. Its DNA became embedded in the chimpanzee genome during an ancient infection and has been inherited ever since. The researchers found copies of the viral sequence at numerous locations throughout chimpanzee DNA.

Those sequences are systematically shut down through methylation, a chemical process that helps regulate gene activity. At the LINC00662 location, the inherited viral insertion also keeps the neighboring gene silent.

Johan Jakobsson, Professor of Molecular Neurogenetics at Lund University.

 Credit: Tove Smeds



To examine this difference during brain development, the team grew brain organoids from human and chimpanzee stem cells. These miniature, three-dimensional structures resemble brain tissue and reproduce some features of its early development.

“The gene was strongly expressed in the human organoids, but not at all in the chimpanzee organoids,” says Patricia Gerdes, a postdoctoral researcher in molecular neurogenetics at Lund University.

Removing the Virus Restores Gene Activity

The researchers then tested whether the viral sequence caused the shutdown. Using the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool, they removed it from chimpanzee cells. LINC00662 became active again.

“This shows that it is in fact the viral insertion that is responsible for the gene being switched off in chimpanzees,” says Patricia Gerdes.

A separate experiment explored the gene’s role in humans. When the team used CRISPR to silence LINC00662 in human brain organoids, genes involved in nerve cell development and the formation of connections between those cells became less active.

For Jakobsson, the results show how an infection can leave a lasting genetic change across a population, while helping explain how gene regulation can protect the brain or contribute to damage. The team will next investigate whether other viral remnants influenced brain evolution and whether such sequences are linked to brain diseases.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Theory predicting an older Universe without dark matter or dark energy passes key cosmological tests, warranting further investigation

By B. Rizk, Media Relations Advisor, uOttawa, Nov. 6, 2026

https://www.uottawa.ca/faculty-science/news-all/theory-predicting-older-universe-without-dark-matter-dark-energy-passes-key-cosmological

Andromeda Galaxy captured in the vast deep space

 - Photo: Jason Pittman - pexels.com

An alternative model in which the Universe is 26.7 billion years old and needs neither dark matter nor dark energy has held up against several major cosmology tests, according to a new University of Ottawa study.

One model, many observations

During 2025 and 2026, Rajendra Gupta, Adjunct Professor in uOttawa’s Department of Physics, and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Nikolaos Samarasnorth_eastexternal link tested the CCC+TL model against a range of important astronomical observations.

CCC+TL stands for “covarying coupling constants plus tired light.” The model suggests that what is usually attributed to dark matter and dark energy could instead come from evolving fundamental constants that govern how forces and particles interact.

Scientists have searched for dark matter and dark energy for decades, but neither has been directly detected. The standard cosmological model, known as ΛCDM, also faces questions raised by observations of surprisingly mature galaxies in the early Universe.

“Most emerging models explain only a limited set of observations,” Professor Gupta says. “A new model must not conflict with the pillars of cosmology and astrophysics, and our findings meet that challenge, including the yet-to-be-published Cosmic Microwave Background challenge”

CCC+TL changes the Einstein and Friedmann equations, which describe gravity and the expansion of the Universe. That meant the researchers couldn’t just modify the standard model and existing computer codes. For each test, they developed CCC+TL compliant equations and code.

Age comparison against redshift in CCC+TL and ΛCDM models

What the tests found

The model’s results agreed with several major observations. Its predictions for the amounts of hydrogen, helium and other light elements formed shortly after the Big Bang matched those of the standard model. It also agreed with cosmic-chronometer measurementsnorth_eastexternal link, which use the ages of galaxies to estimate how fast the Universe has expanded over time.

In a recent paper published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a prestigious astronomy journal, the researchers also applied the model to all 175 galaxies in the SPARC databasenorth_eastexternal link and found it could reproduce their rotation curves without dark matter. A separate study of time dilation in supernova observationsnorth_eastexternal link also supports the model, although that paper is still under review.

The team looked at the Bullet Clusternorth_eastexternal link too. There, the extra gravitational effect the model predicts rather than the dark matter tracks the galaxies, not the hot, X-ray-emitting gas. The researchers call this an early proof of concept that needs more study.

“Observations attributed to dark matter and dark energy likely originate from covarying coupling constants,” adds Professor Gupta, whose paper on the origin of dark matter and dark energynorth_eastexternal link explores the idea.

PHYSICS
“We predict that galaxies exist well beyond the distances the James Webb Space Telescope has reached”

Rajendra Gupta
— Adjunct Professor in uOttawa’s

 Department of Physics


More time for early galaxies to form

The model could also help explain why astronomers keep finding large, mature galaxies so early in cosmic history.

In the standard model, the Universe was about 300 million years old during cosmic dawn. Under CCC+TL, it would have been about 4.6 billion years old at the same observed redshift. That extra time gives galaxies longer to grow and develop. In the researchers’ calculations, early galaxies come out about 12 times larger in size and mass than the standard model predicts, as reported in Galaxies 13, 115north_eastexternal link.

“Impossible early galaxies become predictable galaxies,” Professor Gupta explains. “We predict that galaxies exist well beyond the distances the James Webb Space Telescope has reached.”

That prediction may soon be tested. The James Webb Space Telescope’s GLIMPSE programnorth_eastexternal link plans to search for galaxies at redshifts that may exceed 50. In the standard model, there may not be enough time for massive galaxies to form that early. CCC+TL has no such limit.

A model worth further study

“The success should encourage astronomers to take the new model seriously. It is challenging to understand and apply, but we believe it extends the physics of the Universe beyond ΛCDM limits,” concludes Professor Gupta.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

A Monster Solar Storm Turned a Protected Region Around Earth Into a Particle Accelerator

By Nagoya U., Nov. 9, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-monster-solar-storm-turned-a-protected-region-around-earth-into-a-particle-accelerator/

Ultrarelativistic electrons in an impenetrable barrier following a solar superstorm. 

Credit: Miyoshi et al., Geophysical Research Letters 2026

A solar superstorm appears to have turned a normally sheltered region near Earth into a natural particle accelerator, boosting electrons to energies capable of penetrating some satellite shielding.

Protecting spacecraft from radiation means understanding where hazardous particles can appear, especially during severe solar storms. Near Earth, an invisible boundary was thought to keep exceptionally energetic electrons out of a relatively protected region. During and after the geomagnetic superstorm of May 2024, Japan’s Arase space probe, operated by JAXA, detected large numbers of them well inside it. Some had energies exceeding three megaelectronvolts, enough to pass through some satellite shielding.

Researchers led by Nagoya University analyzed Arase’s observations to determine how these electrons appeared in a region that normally excludes them. Their evidence suggests the particles gained energy there, rather than entering it already highly energized. The distinction matters because it means a radiation hazard can develop within the supposedly protected region itself. 

An electron barrier with uncertain origins

Earth’s magnetic field traps charged particles, including protons and electrons, in two doughnut-shaped regions called the Van Allen radiation belts. These particles can damage the hardware and electronics of spacecraft passing through the belts. At the inner edge of the outer belt, roughly three times Earth’s radius from the planet’s center, the most energetic electrons usually seem to encounter an invisible wall. Under typical conditions, the region inside this boundary is devoid of these extremely fast-moving electrons.

Detailed schematic outlining the process of electron acceleration inside the impenetrable barrier. 

Credit: Miyoshi et al, Geophysical Research Letters, 2026

Scientists first identified the apparent barrier in 2014, but its origin remains incompletely understood. One possible explanation involves “plasmaspheric hiss,” low-frequency radio waves that sound like static when played through a speaker. These waves occur in Earth’s magnetosphere, the region of space dominated by its magnetic field. Human-made very-low-frequency radio transmissions used to communicate with submarines underwater may also help shape the boundary by scattering radiation-belt electrons into Earth’s atmosphere.

“One of the key questions was how these highly energetic electrons appeared inside the barrier,” said Yoshizumi Miyoshi, a professor at the Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research (ISEE) at Nagoya University and the study’s lead author. “Were they transported inward from the outer radiation belt, or were they accelerated locally within this region?”

Chirping waves may accelerate electrons for days

The intense solar activity behind the May 2024 superstorm brought northern lights to Hokkaido and as far south as Japan’s Hyogo prefecture. In space, the storm dramatically eroded Earth’s plasmasphere, a region filled with relatively cool charged particles. Its outer boundary retreated unusually close to the planet, leaving the area around the usual electron barrier much less densely populated with plasma. Hotter electrons could then reach farther inward and generate natural, low-frequency electromagnetic waves known as chorus waves.

Arase detected intense chorus waves repeatedly sweeping upward in frequency. “When converted into audio, it sounds like a bird song,” Miyoshi said. These waves ripple through Earth’s magnetic field and can transfer energy to electrons when their oscillations match the electrons’ spiraling motion around magnetic field lines.

“Typically, the plasmasphere recovers on a timescale of about two days,” Miyoshi said. “During the May 2024 superstorm, however, it took approximately 4.3 to 4.7 days for the plasma density to recover to more than half of its pre-storm level in the observed region.”

The resulting low-density conditions persisted for several days, potentially allowing chorus-wave activity and the continued acceleration of electrons inside the previously impenetrable barrier.

Chorus waves rising in frequency recorded by Arase in March 2018 converted into audio. 

Credit: Erg Science Center

Evidence of acceleration within the barrier

To distinguish local acceleration from the inward movement of already energetic electrons, the researchers analyzed electron phase space density, or PSD. This quantity describes how electrons are distributed according to their energies and motion. Using measurements from multiple Arase orbits, the team examined how PSD varied with distance from Earth while accounting for changes in the electrons’ motion.

A distinct local peak developed near the usual barrier boundary and grew stronger over time. That growing peak provided evidence that electrons were gaining energy within the region, rather than simply being transported inward from the outer radiation belt.

Miyoshi said the findings, published in Geophysical Research Letters, show that even parts of near-Earth space considered relatively protected from extremely energetic electrons can experience substantial increases in radiation during severe space weather. The observations also offer insight into how Earth’s magnetosphere responds to extreme solar activity and underscore the value of continuously monitoring the space environment around the planet.

“This discovery highlights the need to understand and predict how energetic electrons behave under extreme space weather conditions,” Miyoshi said. “Such knowledge is important for assessing radiation risks to spacecraft and improving future space weather predictions.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

A New Iron Age? Scientists Uncover a Potential Game Changer for Clean Energy

By Karlsruhe Inst. of Tech., Nov. 9, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-new-iron-age-scientists-uncover-a-potential-game-changer-for-clean-energy/

Iron dust flame at lab scale. For presentation purposes, the photo has been rotated by 90 degrees. 

Credit: Janik Hebel

Scientists are exploring how iron powder could transform renewable energy storage and transportation while giving aging coal power plants a new purpose.

Iron powder could help transform old coal power plants into a source of climate-neutral electricity, according to a new study from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Researchers found that this recyclable fuel could help keep Europe’s power supply stable during extended periods of weak wind and sunlight, particularly in regions where other forms of energy storage are limited.

The process relies on a cycle in which iron powder is burned to generate heat, producing iron oxide, commonly known as rust. Hydrogen produced using renewable energy can then remove the oxygen from the iron oxide, restoring the metal so it can be used again. “This works in a cycle that emits no carbon dioxide or environmentally harmful substances,” said Julia Schuler from KIT’s Institute for Industrial Production (IIP).

Turning Coal Power Plants Into Iron-Fueled Facilities

One potential advantage is that iron powder could be used in existing coal power plants without replacing all their equipment. “When burned, iron powder behaves very much like coal. We wanted to find out whether it was possible to repurpose existing coal power plants to iron-firing,” said Schuler.

According to Schuler, most modifications would involve the equipment responsible for generating heat. Other major components, including steam turbines, generators, and connections to the electricity grid, could remain in service. Germany may be particularly well suited to this approach because of its large fleet of coal power plants and the possibility of retaining existing heating networks and other infrastructure.

Transporting Renewable Energy Without Hydrogen Pipelines

Iron powder could also provide a practical way to move renewable energy across long distances. Electricity generated by coastal wind farms or solar facilities in desert regions could be used to produce hydrogen, which would convert iron oxide into iron. The resulting powder could then be transported to another location and burned to recover the stored energy.

Unlike hydrogen, which requires specialized pipelines, import terminals, and underground storage facilities, iron powder is relatively straightforward to transport and store for extended periods. This could reduce the infrastructure investment needed to move renewable energy between regions. Surplus renewable electricity generated within Europe could also be used to regenerate iron locally through an intermediate hydrogen production step.

Computer Models Reveal Where Iron Could Be Most Useful

To investigate the technology’s potential, KIT scientists built on findings from the Clean Circles research project. In a study funded by Stiftung Energieforschung Baden-Württemberg (Baden-Württemberg energy-research foundation), they expanded the established PERSEUS energy model to include iron-fueled power plants, facilities for regenerating iron, and the infrastructure needed for storage and transportation.

The researchers then simulated the development of a climate-neutral European energy system through 2050, comparing iron with competing technologies such as batteries, hydrogen storage, and hydrogen power plants. Iron-fired power plants appeared in the lowest-cost energy system across every scenario examined, although the results did not suggest that iron would replace hydrogen.

The greatest benefits emerged in countries with limited hydropower resources or few suitable locations for underground hydrogen storage. In these regions, iron could help maintain electricity supplies during prolonged shortages of wind and solar generation. It could also reduce demand on hydrogen pipelines and import facilities when their capacity becomes constrained.

The Challenges That Could Determine Iron’s Future

“Iron might play a very special, but economically meaningful role for reaching climate-neutrality and in reliably making renewables available,” said Schuler.

Whether a new “iron age” emerges in electricity generation will depend largely on two unresolved technical and economic questions: how extensively existing coal power plants must be modified and how efficiently iron oxide can be converted back into reusable iron. The simulations indicate that iron could complement hydrogen in a climate-neutral energy system, but its practical competitiveness will depend on how these processes perform outside the model.

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Discover Greenland’s Ice Sheet Once Retreated 60 Miles

By U. at Buffalo, Nov. 8, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-greenlands-ice-sheet-once-retreated-60-miles/

Tundra vegetation is seen on the Greenland landscape in this photo from 2012. A University at Buffalo-led study found that summer temperatures at Camp Century on Greenland were 4.7 degrees Celsisus higher during an ice-free period 416,000 years ago.

 Credit: Josh Brown, University of Vermont

Sediment beneath a secret Cold War base reveals a time when warmer summers helped push Greenland’s ice more than 60 miles back from its current edge.

About 416,000 years ago, the ground beneath Greenland’s Camp Century was exposed to the sky. A new University at Buffalo-led study estimates that summers there were 4.7 degrees Celsius (8.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than today, offering a rare glimpse of the conditions that accompanied a major retreat of the ice sheet.

“It’s striking that a period of moderately warmer temperatures coincided with such a substantial retreat of the ice sheet,” says lead author John Michael Aguilar, a postdoctoral fellow at the UB RENEW Institute.

Published in Climate of the Past, the research also points to a crucial factor in Greenland’s future: how long higher temperatures persist.

A Climate Record Beneath A Cold War Base

Camp Century housed the U.S. Army’s failed Project Iceworm, a secret plan to hide nuclear missiles beneath Greenland’s ice. During drilling in the 1960s, researchers recovered sediment from nearly a mile (1.6 kilometers) below the surface. Those samples have since become an unlikely archive of Greenland’s climate.

Earlier work showed that the sediment last saw sunlight approximately 416,000 years ago. Exposing the ground at Camp Century would have required the ice sheet’s edge in that region to retreat more than 60 miles (97 kilometers) from its present position.

The new study goes beyond establishing that the ice disappeared. By examining fatty molecules produced by bacteria and preserved in the sediment, the team reconstructed the summer temperatures that accompanied that retreat.

“The types and proportions of these molecules change depending on the temperature,” Aguilar says. “By comparing them with similar molecules found in modern Arctic lakes, we were able to estimate how warm it was at Camp Century.”

The study’s findings come from ancient sediment recovered from nearly a mile below the ice sheet at Camp Century in the 1960’s.

 Credit: Andrew Christ, University of Vermont

Why the Length of Warming Matters

The researchers believe their findings provide the first quantitative estimate of summer temperatures on land anywhere in Greenland during this ancient warm period. Such records are exceptionally difficult to recover because later advances of the ice sheet eroded most sediment from that time.

Surprisingly, Camp Century remained covered by ice even when Greenland experienced similarly warm summers roughly 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, after the last Ice Age.

One possible explanation is that the earlier warm period lasted much longer, potentially tens of thousands of years. Sustained warmth would have given the ice sheet more time to melt, suggesting that peak temperatures alone cannot explain how far it retreats.

“This work gives us a better understanding of how the ice sheet responds to sustained warming and what may be possible in the future,” says corresponding author Elizabeth Thomas, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in UB’s College of Arts and Sciences.

What Ancient Melting Means for Greenland’s Future

The findings arrive as scientists anticipate substantial Arctic warming. Depending on emissions, average annual Arctic temperatures could rise by 3.3 to 10 degrees Celsius (5.9 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of this century, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

With that warming ahead, Thomas cautions against assuming that Greenland’s ice will respond as slowly as it did during the ancient warm period.

“Today’s human-caused warming is more intense than the warm period 400,000 years ago,” Thomas says. “And climate projections suggest that this warmth could persist for hundreds or thousands of years. Both the magnitude and duration of warming are important to understanding how the ice sheet will respond.”

Forgotten Sediment, Decades of Discovery

The samples nearly slipped out of scientific view. Chester Langway, who led the Camp Century ice core drilling, brought them to UB in 1975. They remained in its Central Ice Core Storage Facility and Information Exchange until his retirement in the mid-1990s, then spent more than two decades largely forgotten at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

A chance freezer cleanout in 2018 brought the sediment back to researchers’ attention. Thomas has studied it with University of Vermont collaborators ever since, and its remarkable history became the subject of an Emmy Award-winning documentary.

For Thomas, the latest study brings years of work with Aguilar together. Measuring the molecules was familiar territory; translating them into a reliable comparison with modern temperatures was much harder.

“The type of molecular analysis we did in this study is something we do all the time in my lab, but interpreting the results was unusually challenging. We had to account for how the land’s elevation changed as the ice sheet grew and melted, which affects how temperatures can be compared across time,” Thomas says. “What may look like a routine analysis actually took years to figure out. It’s been quite a journey, not unlike the journey these sediment samples took to get here.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Less Than 42 Minutes of Bright Light Daily Is a Stronger Predictor of Dementia Than Obesity, Study Finds

08 Nov. 2026, By C. Cassella

https://www.sciencealert.com/less-than-42-minutes-of-daily-bright-light-is-a-stronger-predictor-of-dementia-than-obesity-study-finds

(recep-bg/E+/Getty Images)

Each morning, when we open our eyes to a bright new day, our brain's 'master clock' synchronizes our body and its rhythms with the Sun.

The more light that we are exposed to on a daily basis, the better it may be for our brains in the long run.

According to recent research among nearly 88,000 older adults, those who are exposed to more daily light are less likely to develop dementia over the next decade or so.

The longer the exposure to light, either natural or artificial, the stronger the association.

In fact, spending at least 42 minutes a day exposed to bright light (5,000 lux or more) was associated with a 17 percent lower relative risk of dementia.

That's a better predictor of dementia than six other traditional risk factors, including obesity, alcohol consumption, air pollution, and hearing loss.

For 'night owls', the association was even stronger. Greater daytime light exposure was linked with up to a 41 percent lower risk of dementia.

The findings, published in General Psychiatry, support the idea that light-based interventions hold promise for people at risk of cognitive decline.

"These findings position daytime light exposure as a novel, robust and measurable indicator of dementia risk," write the study authors, led by researchers at Guangzhou Medical University in China.

"They could inform future research into light-based interventions and public health guidelines that recommend increased daytime light exposure as a low-cost strategy to support brain health, particularly in high-risk populations."

An illustrated version of the study's abstract.

 (Zheng et al., General Psychiatry, 2026)

Many dementia patients suffer from sleep disorders or disruption to their sleep-wake cycles, and yet surprisingly little research has investigated light exposure and its connections to cognitive decline.

The human body's circadian clock tells us when to wake up and go to sleep, and it is naturally synchronized with sunlight.

When light enters the eyes, it activates the brain's master clock, thereby regulating the rest of the body's daily rhythms.

Sunlight on the skin, meanwhile, stimulates vitamin D production, which is also tied to dementia risk.

Previous studies have shown that brighter nights and darker days can disrupt circadian rhythms, but it remains unclear how this affects brain health in the long run.

In the recent analysis, researchers examined data from the UK Biobank, in which participants wore a light sensor continuously for seven days.

Those who were exposed to more daytime light during this week-long period had a significantly lower risk of dementia roughly eight years later.

This was particularly evident for night owls (as opposed to morning people), individuals with higher nighttime light exposure, and those who carried genetic risk factors for dementia.

For instance, those who carry the APOE ε4 allele and are exposed to more daytime light had up to a 27 percent lower risk of dementia.

"No prior study has investigated associations between average daytime and nighttime light exposures and dementia risk," the authors note.

It's not known how light exposure might impact cognitive decline, but in this observational research, participants exposed to more daytime light tended to have greater brain volume or surface area in parts of the medial temporal lobe.

This region plays an important role in memory and is often one of the first areas affected by dementia.

It's also possible that light is impacting the brain in a more indirect way, too.

Previous studies, for instance, have found that daytime light levels can predict lower risks of major depressive disorder, which is a risk factor for dementia.

"Therefore, ensuring brighter daytime light exposure (e.g., ≥ 1000 lux) may be a simple means of preventing psychiatric disorders and dementia," the authors of this recent study suggest.

"This is particularly relevant given that people in modern society spend nearly 90 percent of their day indoors under artificial lighting, which typically provides insufficient brightness (∼300–500 lux) during the day."

Perhaps a brighter day today could lead to a brighter brain tomorrow.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/