More Young People Than Ever Before Are Getting One Type of Cancer, And It's Mystifying Scientists

14 Aug. 2026, By G. Meyerowitz-Katz

https://www.sciencealert.com/more-young-people-than-ever-before-are-getting-one-type-of-cancer-and-its-mystifying-scientists

(Sebastian Kaulitzki/Science Photo Library/Getty Images)

As a general rule, you are lucky to be living in 2026. It's a good time to be alive.

You are, on average, healthier than any other humans who have ever lived, with a longer life expectancy, less infectious disease, and even lower rates of dying from most chronic diseases once we correct for age.

Cancer is a great example of this. Cancer rates have been stable or falling for decades. Even better, cancer mortality – that is, how likely you are to die from cancer if you get it – has plummeted.

There are many cancers that were death sentences in the 90s which are now considered a form of chronic disease like diabetes or emphysema due to new treatments.

There's one place where the disease seems to buck this trend – colorectal cancer in young people.

While rates of colorectal cancer – which includes both colon and rectal cancers – have fallen overall, there's been a recent uptick in cases in people under the age of 50, which is considered young when it comes to cancer.

This has almost no impact on the total number of colorectal cancer diagnoses, because the absolute number of people getting colorectal cancer at young ages is still very low.

However, it's a very confusing finding.

Rates of colorectal cancer are generally a bit lower in older people, but rising in younger people, and we have no good idea why that's happening.

There are, of course, some proposed explanations.

Some people point to pesticides or herbicides like picloram, which have been linked to colorectal cancer risk. There are two problems with this idea.

For one thing, picloram and many other chemicals are used a bit less today than they were in the 80s and 90s. It's unclear how those chemicals could cause more cancer in a specific age group in the 2020s even though they aren't being used as much as they used to be.

Also, older people tend to have more exposure to these chemicals. This makes sense – regulation was much looser in past decades and it's quite likely that your parents had more pesticides in their food than you do.

It makes no sense for colorectal cancer to be increasing in young people but decreasing in older people if this sort of environmental issue is to blame.

The same general problem holds true for many environmental exposures. People have linked per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS, often called 'forever chemicals') to colorectal cancer.

Again, however, exposure to PFAS is not neatly divided by age and in some cases older people may have been far more exposed to these chemicals than the younger group who is getting more cancer.

It's hard to find an exposure that could explain this increase.

(koto_feja/Getty Images)



Most of the things that we know are possible causes of colorectal cancer are more common for older people than younger ones. There are very few environmental issues that are more common now than they were when older generations were growing up.

Another potential explanation is obesity. We know that obesity causes more colorectal cancer, and younger people are definitely more obese now than they were in the past.

Again, this is not a compelling explanation because older people are also more obese, so it can't be the only impact on cancer risk. Modeling suggests that at most 15 percent of colorectal cancer is explained by people gaining weight, perhaps less.

The colorectal cancer mystery is made more confusing by the fact that the trend is not consistent across countries. It's not even consistent in groupings of countries.
A 2019 study found that colorectal cancer rates in young people were stable or decreasing in nearly half of the countries analyzed.

A more recent study from 2025 had similar findings. This just muddies the water further – it's unclear what could be causing colorectal cancer rates to increase in young people in the UK and US but decline in Italy and Lithuania.

Perhaps the most likely explanation of all of this complexity is that it's all down to testing.

While we know that screening recommendations are unlikely to be the main reason for the increase – if nothing else, screening recommendations have only recently changed to include younger age groups but the trend has been going since the 90s – but these aren't the only changes to the healthcare system in recent decades.

It could be that young people are simply more likely to get a test for colorectal cancer for all sorts of reasons, and that this has impacted the number of people who get diagnosed.

It's also possible that the trend is related to how countries report data. When we talk about disease statistics, we are always talking about the measured rate of a condition. Cancer registries have been improving for a long time, which may be part of the reason that younger people are being recorded as having more cancer.

However, even these explanations are not that convincing. It's hard to understand how they could impact younger people and older people in different ways.

There is definitely an increase in recorded rates of colorectal cancer in young people in some countries, but the reason remains a bit of a mystery. We know that many explanations are a bit unlikely, but the true cause is very hard to identify.

The Life of Earth

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Swarming Jellyfish Just Shut Down a Nuclear Reactor For The Second Time

14 August 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/swarming-jellyfish-just-shut-down-a-nuclear-reactor-for-the-second-time

A different nuclear power plant.

 (Santiago Urquijo/Moment/Getty Images)

It seems animals may have had just about enough of human activity and technology.

Jellyfish have shut down a nuclear reactor in northern France for the second time, and it's far from the only attack nature has launched on our infrastructure in recent years.

Whether the gloopy marine creatures were taking aim at French energy policy or simply got lost isn't clear – there's been no official comment from their side.

However, given that this has happened two years in a row, and on exactly the same date each time, it does feel rather coordinated.

Four units at the Gravelines nuclear power plant were shut down on August 11, 2025 due to the "massive and unforeseeable presence of jellyfish" in the pumping stations for the water used to cool the reactors, EDF announced. 

(Sameer AL-DOUMY/AFP)



As Politico reports, the Gravelines nuclear power plant spent hundreds of thousands of euros in 2025 to stop this happening again, only to see a repeat 12 months later.

The shutdown happened as a precautionary measure after an overload of jellyfish clogged up the pumping systems that the plant relies on to function.

All jokes aside, the incident is a serious consequence of climate change.

Increasing temperatures in the water can produce more of the plankton and animals that jellyfish feed on, as well as accelerating life cycles and extending breeding seasons.

French utility provider EDF says that fishing vessels are now patrolling the waters around the clock in order to keep jellyfish blooms away from the nuclear power plant. Full-capacity operations are expected to return in the coming days.

Pecking ravens were caught in the act at LIGO.

 (Robert Schofield)



It's not just jellyfish that have a habit of disrupting human energy infrastructure.

Last year in Connecticut, a single raccoon caused more than a thousand power outages, as reported by CT Insider.

It's not clear exactly what the raccoon did, but we do know it somehow got into a substation and caused damage to the equipment in there.

The unwitting act of sabotage left more than 2,500 customers in the area without power at one stage – though repairs were swiftly carried out.

Sometimes these kinds of animal accidents strike closer to the heart of science – such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Washington.

The CERN site is currently undergoing major maintenance and upgrade work. (CERN)



Here, as the logbooks from July 2017 record, ravens getting refreshment by pecking at an ice-covered cooling pipe were causing vibrations that affected the delicate instruments at the observatory. The bird pecks were essentially leading to glitches in the data.

After suspecting ravens could be to blame for certain aberrations in the observatory's measurements, researchers on site captured photos of the birds in the act. What's more, when pecks on the pipe were created artificially by the observatory team, they led to the same data glitches as before.

The site was then adapted to present freezing on the cooling pipes, reports Forbes – which meant the ravens had to drink somewhere else.

Then there's the mysterious case of the CERN baguette.

A 2009 bulletin for the CERN particle physics laboratory (where the Large Hadron Collider is based) explains the incident, where a power cut in the site's cryogenic systems needed repairs across a couple of days to be carried out.

No one really knows what caused the power cut, but feathers and a piece of bread were found at the scene. The popular theory is that a small piece of baguette may have interfered with the machinery somewhere along the line.

As entertaining as these stories might be, they're also a reminder of the way human activity is encroaching on the natural world around us.

Without meaning to, we're giving animals our diseases, changing their habitats, and shifting their behavior in numerous ways.

With that in mind, some pushback is perhaps to be expected.

A 2022 study published in Scientific Reports, from researchers in the US and Indonesia, detailed how macaque monkeys in Bali have learned to rob items from humans and then barter for food before returning them.

From jellyfish to monkeys, and electricity substations to gravity wave detectors, there are signs the animal kingdom isn't best pleased with Homo sapiens.

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Scientists Discover a Hidden World of Fungi 1,640 Feet Beneath Michigan

By U. of Michigan, Aug. 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-a-hidden-world-of-fungi-1640-feet-beneath-michigan/

Fungal colonies cultured from deep subsurface water samples reveal a surprisingly diverse community of fungi living hundreds of feet beneath Earth’s surface. University of Michigan researchers identified 689 fungal species, including 13 potentially new to science. 

Credit: Ronan Montgomery-Taylor, University of Michigan

A hidden ecosystem beneath Michigan contains abundant fungi and other complex life that may affect underground carbon.

Far beneath Michigan, water trapped inside ancient rock contains a dense and unexpectedly diverse community of fungi. A University of Michigan study suggests that these organisms are far more abundant in the deep subsurface than scientists once assumed, forming ecosystems hundreds of feet below the surface.

Led by University of Michigan doctoral candidate Quinn Moon, the research is believed to provide the first successful measurement of fungal abundance at a deep subsurface site, reaching 1,640 feet underground. Water collected from gas wells contained 689 distinct fungal species, including 13 that had never been formally described.

Genetic analysis and microscopy revealed that a drop of this underground water may hold about as many fungal cells as a drop of seawater. Researchers estimated roughly 250 cells per drop, which would amount to more than 12 trillion fungal cells in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

A study led by University of Michigan researchers found that organic-rich rocks and water deep below ground teem with life: they are packed with fungi and other tiny organisms. Credit: John Megahan, University of Michigan



The samples also contained other complex organisms, including tardigrades, commonly known as “water bears,” and tiny segmented worms. Evidence suggests that these organisms form an underground food web in which some consume other species and some may survive as parasites. The findings were published in The ISME Journal.

“Our study challenges the idea that it’s inhospitable for more complex life like fungi in the deep subsurface, and under favorable conditions, eukaryotes can actually be quite abundant,” Moon said. “We propose in the paper that we may be meaningfully underestimating the biomass and diversity of fungi on the planet because we’ve never incorporated the subsurface into estimates of global fungal biodiversity.”

Tim James, senior author of the study, is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and curator of fungi at the University of Michigan Herbarium. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, or CIFAR, funded the work and brought together Earth scientists and fungal biologists to investigate whether fungi could inhabit deep regions of the planet.

Moon is leveraging this collection of organisms to better understand how fungal life in the subsurface influences the global carbon cycle. 

Credit: Quinn Moon, University of Michigan



Ice Age water may have carried life

The researchers searched for subsurface organisms within the Antrim Shale, an organic-rich rock formation buried beneath much of the Great Lakes region. They collected water from gas wells extending between 650 and 1,640 feet into the shale. Hydrologists, biologists, and geologists then worked together to determine where the water originated.

Their investigation relied on stable isotopes, forms of the same element that contain equal numbers of protons but different numbers of neutrons. The isotope patterns indicated that much of the underground water probably came from ice sheets that melted across Michigan near the end of the last Ice Age.

The analysis also suggested that much of the water “was last in contact with the surface 11,000 years ago,” Moon said.

Research is ongoing to screen the fungi’s ability to break down coal, shale, oil, plastic and other difficult substrates. 

Credit: Quinn Moon, University of Michigan



As the glaciers melted, water may have transported fungi and bacteria downward through porous and fractured layers of rock. The organisms apparently settled into cracks within the Antrim Shale, where they began consuming organic material preserved inside the formation.

Measurements of carbon dioxide and methane provided additional evidence that this ancient material in the shale supports the base of the underground ecosystem.

“For a long time, there wasn’t evidence that eukaryotes can be abundant in the deep subsurface. People have found traces of them using environmental DNA, but they’ve been chalked up to being transient or dormant,” said Moon, a researcher in James’ lab.

A research team led by University of Michigan isolated and grew more than 200 kinds of fungi from the deep subsurface. The collection is now the first public collection of deep subsurface fungi, and is stored at the U-M Herbarium. 

Credit: Quinn Moon, University of Michigan



Deep fungi could alter carbon models

Moon said similar ecosystems may exist in deep rock formations around the world. Geological layers that contain oil and gas reservoirs could also shelter undocumented communities of fungi and other eukaryotes, organisms whose cells contain nuclei.

Their presence could change how researchers think about carbon stored below ground. Carbon enclosed within rock is often treated as securely sequestered, but fungi, bacteria, and other organisms may transform part of that ancient material into gas. If so, subsurface carbon could be more biologically active than current estimates recognize.

“Regardless of whether these fungi originated in or were introduced to these deep spaces, many fungi possess adaptations that allow them to grow and influence the carbon dynamics deep in the earth,” James said. “Fungi need to be incorporated into models of carbon cycling and sequestration in the subsurface.”

Scanning electron microscope image showing fungal growth on a rock surface, highlighting the ability of fungi to thrive in deep subsurface environments hundreds of feet below Earth’s surface. 

Credit: Quinn Moon University of Michigan



A public collection preserves hidden diversity

Researchers isolated and cultivated more than 200 types of fungi recovered from the deep subsurface. Studying these organisms could reveal how fungi endure extreme conditions, how hidden ecosystems operate, and how biological activity affects carbon stored within Earth’s crust.

The specimens now form the first publicly available collection of deep subsurface fungi and are preserved at the University of Michigan Herbarium.

“The discovery opens a window into a world that is dark, ancient, and almost entirely hidden—but is far from lifeless,” Moon said.

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Metal From Beyond Our World Found in Rings Worn by Ancient Mediterranean Elites

13 Aug. 2026, By I. Farkas

https://www.sciencealert.com/metal-from-beyond-our-world-found-in-rings-worn-by-ancient-mediterranean-elites

Some of the items that likely incorporated iron from meteorites.

 (Gounelle & Mantzourani, J. Archaeol. Sci., 2026)

Despite their association with planet-pulverizing destruction and extinction, space rocks can be a cosmic gift.

The meteorites that are too puny to blow up our Earth provide insights into wholly alien environments, including those that are far older than the solar system.

Meteorites may have been even more precious millennia ago, both symbolically and as a much-appreciated source of iron for pre-Iron Age societies.

These include the legendarily influential pre-Greeks, like the Minoans of Minotaur-ian fame and Mycenaeans of the Iliad and Odyssey, who brandished flashy rings made from meteorites to assert their prominence and power, a recent study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science suggests.

The 33 archaeological sites where the analyzed items were excavated. Numbers in red indicate where nickel was found in the items, indicating meteorites.

 (Gounelle & Mantzourani, J. Archaeol. Sci., 2026)



Throughout history, people around the world crafted meteorites into tools, weapons, and jewelry: scrapers in Greenland; axe-like votives in China; jewels in pre-Columbian America; auspicious talismans protected herders and their camels in Egypt, where King Tut's famously tantalizing space dagger continues to fascinate.

But Bronze Age Greece seems to lack these items.

So the researchers explored two overarching questions. First, did the Minoans and Mycenaeans also incorporate meteoritic iron into their diverse, craftily created implements? Second, when did these mighty metallurgical workers begin smelting iron?

During their 'five-year odyssey', the researchers analyzed the chemical composition of over 100 artifacts from what is now Greece, focusing on 91 iron objects, mostly rings, bracelets, and knives, dating from the Bronze Age circa 3,800 to 3,000 years ago.

Using non-destructive X-ray fluorescence, the researchers detected that 13 of these objects contain nickel and may have been forged using iron from meteorites.

Interestingly, all 13 of these items are fancy, Skyrim-worthy finger rings that incorporate other metals like gold or silver. The rings also feature bezels that may have held signets, such as royal seals.

A selection of the items analyzed in this study. Those with red dots are likely to incorporate iron from meteorites. 

(Gounelle & Mantzourani, J. Archaeol. Sci., 2026)



Additionally, most of the rings originate from luxurious funerary sites, like tombs in Mycenae. In true fantasy fashion, one ring was discovered in a Minoan necropolis, still adorning the finger of a supposed high priest.

"These observations led us to speculate that rings likely made out of meteorites may have been popular power symbols among prominent individuals, members of the Minoan and Mycenaean palatial elite," the researchers explain.

The meteoritic iron may have been imported from Egypt rather than locally found. The Greek geography is unkind to meteorites, which may disintegrate or be swallowed by the sea.

Egypt's arid deserts, which protect meteorites from oxidation and dissolution, are much better suited to their accumulation.

The researchers also determined that 78 of the iron objects used smelted iron, rather than cosmic iron, and that such smelted iron objects may have appeared as early as 1400 BCE during the Bronze Age – though only two of these, a pendant and a ring, were made before 1200 BCE.

Curiously, compared with finds from Anatolia, "the use of man-made iron seems to have been somehow delayed in Greece," the researchers note, mentioning the possibility that these items were imported from places like Cyprus.

The meteorite-ring craze lasted until around 1200 BCE and may have died out for various reasons, such as supply or demand difficulties, or the simplest, most human reason of all: sartorial fickleness.

It's "possible that the meteoritic finger ring fashion, almost exclusive to Minoan and Mycenaean Late Bronze Age, has 'naturally' faded away as does any fashion," the researchers conclude.

The birth of modern Man

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Melting Sea Ice Could Be Changing the Clouds Above the Arctic

By U. of Birmingham, Aug. 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/melting-sea-ice-could-be-changing-the-clouds-above-the-arctic/

Scientists have identified a previously unknown Arctic process that rapidly produces particles capable of seeding clouds near the edge of melting sea ice. 

Credit: Shutterstock

As Arctic sea ice melts away, it may be doing more than exposing open ocean. Scientists have found that the retreating ice could also help create many of the tiny particles needed to form clouds.

Scientists have discovered a previously unknown natural process in the Arctic that can rapidly increase the number of particles capable of forming clouds. Observed near the boundary between melting sea ice and open ocean, the process is driven by marine emissions and sunlight and could influence cloud cover, sunlight reflection, and the pace of future climate change.

The discovery adds a previously missing piece to an already complicated Arctic climate system. Clouds can change how much solar energy reaches the ocean and ice below while also affecting the escape of heat back toward space. Their overall effect depends on factors including season, location, cloud properties, and the surface beneath them. Scientists are still working to understand how these interactions will evolve as Arctic sea ice disappears.

Published in Nature Geoscience, the study was led by the University of Birmingham with an international team that included researchers from China and Spain. The scientists found that the boundary between open ocean and sea ice acts as an especially active source of the chemical ingredients needed to make new atmospheric particles.

How Arctic Cloud-Forming Particles Develop

Cloud droplets do not usually appear from water vapor alone. They form around tiny airborne particles known as cloud condensation nuclei. Sources can include sea spray, dust, pollution, and particles created through chemical reactions in the atmosphere.

In this newly documented Arctic pathway, iodine, sulfur compounds, and organic chemicals released from the ocean and surrounding environment react in sunlit air. The resulting molecules can first create extremely small particles and then help them grow until some become large enough to seed cloud droplets. Laboratory research had already shown that iodine oxoacids and other compounds can participate in atmospheric particle formation, but the new study demonstrates the mechanism under real Arctic conditions.

Co-author Dr. James Brean, Assistant Professor in Atmospheric Science at the University of Birmingham, said, “Our findings provide the first real-world validation of a recently identified atmospheric chemistry mechanism involving iodine oxoacids and sulfuric acid. Until now, this process had only been demonstrated in laboratory experiments at the CLOUD chamber at CERN.”

The measurements came from an expedition aboard the Royal Research Ship Discovery around Greenland and the Davis Strait during spring and summer 2022. The research was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Sunlight and Marine Emissions Drive Particle Formation

What the team saw was not an isolated curiosity. New particles appeared on more than 80% of the sunny days studied, indicating that this chemistry occurs frequently in the region.

The new particles form when sunlight transforms a mixture of naturally emitted chemicals, including:

Iodine compounds released from the ocean, sea ice, and coastal environments.

Dimethylsulfide, produced by marine plants and algae.

Organic compounds released naturally from the ocean or land.

Previous Arctic measurements had already linked new particle formation to substances including sulfuric acid, ammonia, marine organic compounds, and, in some cases, iodine. The new findings reveal how strongly several of these chemical pathways can work together near the sea ice boundary.

Newly Discovered Molecules Help Particles Grow

The researchers also identified a new category of atmospheric compounds called iodine-containing oxygenated organic molecules (I-OOMs).

These molecules appear to solve an important part of the particle formation puzzle. Creating a microscopic particle is only the beginning. It must survive and grow substantially before it can serve as a nucleus for a cloud droplet. The newly detected organic molecules appear to assist that growth.

Dr. James Brean added, “These newly identified compounds help small particles grow into larger particles that can seed clouds – we believe this is the first time such molecules have been observed and implies important new pathways for iodine chemistry.”

Marginal Ice Zone Becomes a Particle Hotspot

The most dramatic activity occurred in the marginal ice zone, the shifting band where open seawater meets melting sea ice. This environment is also highly biologically productive, providing abundant marine emissions that can feed atmospheric chemistry.

During one event, researchers measured cloud-seeding particle concentrations rising from roughly 50 to 1,500 per cubic centimeter.

That location is particularly significant because the marginal ice zone changes as the Arctic loses ice. Satellite observations have documented a major long-term decline in Arctic sea ice, exposing increasing areas of open water during the melt season. Snow-covered sea ice is also highly reflective, sending roughly 50% to 70% of incoming solar energy back upward, while darker ocean water absorbs far more of that energy.

What the Discovery Could Mean for Arctic Climate

The newly identified particle pathway introduces another potential consequence of that transformation. As ice retreats, more biologically active ocean and ice edge environments may become exposed to sunlight and the atmosphere, potentially changing the supply of particles available for cloud formation.

Corresponding author Zongbo Shi, Professor of Atmospheric Biogeochemistry at the University of Birmingham, who led the study, said, “Our discovery is important because these new particles can influence clouds, which play a critical role in determining how much heat is retained or reflected. More clouds or thicker clouds in the warming season could potentially accelerate ice melt while cooling down the open ocean.

“The Arctic has warmed more than three times faster than the global average over the past 40 years, making it one of the most sensitive regions on Earth to climate change. Understanding how natural emissions influences clouds is critical for predicting climate changes in this region. Our discovery will help climate models to improve understanding of how climate change is affecting the Arctic and how the region itself influences global climate.”

Because current climate models do not yet include this process, its potential impact on the Arctic remains absent from projections. The team is now working to incorporate the newly identified mechanism into future modeling.

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Ancient Neanderthal DNA May Give Some People More Muscle

By Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Aug. 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/ancient-neanderthal-dna-may-give-some-people-more-muscle/

A growth hormone receptor inherited from Neanderthals remains present in some modern populations – and appears to amplify growth-related signaling.

 Credit: Stock

A Neanderthal-derived growth hormone receptor still carried by some people today appears to amplify growth-related signals in cells.

Some people alive today still carry a version of the growth hormone receptor inherited from Neanderthals, and its effects can be measured in their bodies. Neanderthals were typically more powerfully built than most modern humans, with skeletal evidence of substantial muscle mass as well as features including pronounced brow ridges and relatively short tooth roots.

Growth hormone plays an important role in the development of muscles and bones. Produced by the pituitary gland at the base of the brain, it circulates through the bloodstream and acts by attaching to receptors on the surfaces of cells, which transmit the hormone’s signal into the cell.

Researchers led by Hugo Zeberg of Karolinska Institutet and Philipp Kanis of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology examined the Neanderthal form of this receptor. They identified two changes that are absent from the receptor version found most commonly in modern humans.

Neanderthal receptor strengthens growth signals

When the researchers tested the Neanderthal receptor in laboratory-grown cells, those cells showed a stronger response to growth hormone. They grew 40 percent more than cells carrying the more common modern human receptor. Most of the increased response could be traced to one of the two Neanderthal-specific changes.

The receptor variant entered the modern human gene pool through interbreeding with Neanderthals about 47,000 years ago. Its frequency varies substantially today. In some South Asian populations, as many as 24 percent of people carry it, and it is also particularly common in East Asia. Among Europeans, the frequency is around 0.5 percent.

“What struck me most was that two very different types of evidence told the same story,” says Philipp Kanis, first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “Cells grown in the laboratory responded more strongly, while data from more than a million people showed signs of the same effect in the body. It is rare to see laboratory and population evidence fit together so clearly.”

Effects appear after childhood

The influence of the Neanderthal receptor does not appear to become evident during early growth. After examining body measurements from more than 6,000 children, the researchers found no association with growth through age eleven. The findings suggest that its effects could emerge later, possibly near puberty, when growth hormone levels rise substantially. Among adults, carriers of the Neanderthal version had an average of about 270 grams more muscle mass.

“As someone who does CrossFit, I was delighted to find Neanderthal genetics and muscle mass coming together in the same study,” says co-author Miriam Berreiter. “But even a Neanderthal growth hormone receptor is no substitute for training.”

Skull and teeth retain subtle traces

The inherited receptor variant was also associated with small differences in the skull and teeth. People who carried it tended to have a slightly shorter rear portion of the lower jaw and shorter tooth roots, both of which more closely resemble features typical of Neanderthals.

“It is fascinating that one genetic change inherited from Neanderthals can still have an effect on the human body today,” says Hugo Zeberg, senior author of the study. “But this is only one of many genetic influences on growth and body shape. It cannot explain the Neanderthal body type on its own, and it certainly does not determine a person’s overall appearance.”

The birth of modern Man

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https://www.sciencealert.com/just-7-days-of-meditation-can-rewire-your-brain-study-suggests

12 Aug. 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-found-a-way-that-energy-could-outpace-the-speed-of-light

(Hans Strand/Corbis Documentary/Getty Images)

Some truths about the Universe seem absolute.

Entropy flows one way. Gravity sucks. And nothing can outrun the speed of light.

But a quirk of how sound waves interact in water may have just shown how something can appear to.

According to two researchers, interference between waves traveling along two different paths can make their combined energy peak appear sooner than the peak of a wave traveling directly from source to receiver.

It works underwater with sound – which means that, theoretically at least, it could also work with waves of light in a vacuum. And it wouldn't even need to break physics.

"We prove the speed of information is less than or equal to the speed of light in a vacuum, so the effect does not violate special relativity," acoustician John L. Spiesberger of the University of Pennsylvania and oceanographer Eugene Terray of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution write in a paper accepted for publication in Physical Review E.

The research emerges from earlier work studying how sound behaves underwater – and it all starts with whales.

Researchers studying whales calling to each other in the ocean can track down where a whale is by recording using multiple hydrophones – basically, the timing of the signal arrival at each hydrophone allows signal triangulation.

But Spiesberger and his colleagues found that, in some situations, this method could produce significant errors. In a 2025 paper, they elucidated a phenomenon that could explain why.

If the whale was close enough to the surface, some of the sound of its call would travel directly to the hydrophone, while some would reflect off the underside of the water's surface.

If the two waves overlapped at the hydrophone, their interference would shift the peak of the received wave, making it appear to arrive later – that is, at a slower effective speed than the direct wave alone.

The previous work showed that the interference could make sound appear to move more slowly – but when Spiesberger started looking at different, more realistic pulse shapes, he noticed something extraordinary.

Under the right conditions, the effect could work in the opposite direction.

Interference between direct and reflected sound waves can shift the energy peak later (b), or earlier (c), than the direct wave alone (a). 

(Spiesberger & Terray, PRE, 2026)

You have the pulse traveling directly, and the pulse bouncing off a flat surface. If you tweak the timing between them just so, interference reshapes the combined pulse so that the peak reaches the receiver before the peak of the direct pulse.

In one simulation, the researchers modeled sound traveling underwater at a speed of 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) per second.

The resulting energy peaks, they found, could appear to travel at 1,694.5 and 2,782.5 meters per second – the latter of which is nearly double the speed of sound in the simulation.

Here's the thing, though. This phenomenon may not be limited to sound. The researchers posit that it should work for light in a vacuum, too.

"Our conjecture that the direct + reflected path effect exists for electromagnetic waves provides a mechanism for superluminal propagation distinct from microwave tunneling, quantum tunneling, and anomalous dispersion," Spiesberger and Terray write.

"These yield effects occurring at speeds exceeding light speed in a vacuum, yet the speed of information is less than the speed of light in a vacuum. Hence, we explore if the direct + reflected path effect also conveys information at speeds less than light speed in a vacuum."

Now, according to special relativity, information cannot exceed the speed of light in a vacuum. But there's a distinction to be made between the energy peak of the wave and the information it carries.

To test the speed of the information, the researchers modeled the transmission of two different signals, represented by a 1 and a 0. Up to a certain point known as time zero, the two signals are identical; at time zero, the source switches to either 1 or 0, which then propagates towards the receiver along the direct and reflected paths.

The point at which the receiver can reliably tell whether the signal is 1 or 0 marks the point at which new information has successfully reached the destination.

And the researchers found that this information could not travel any faster than the wave carrying it along the direct path. Interference can shift the energy peak forward, but it couldn't create information at the receiver before that information had traveled there the old-fashioned way.

Curiously, though, although interference couldn't push information beyond the speed limit, it did give it a little speed boost. The researchers weren't sure why.

The next step is to experimentally try it – either with sound or with light – to see what happens.

"Should the direct + reflected path effect occur for electromagnetic waves, and should it yield superluminal speeds, it would be the simplest method for doing so among other superluminal phenomena," Spiesberger and Terray write.

"Classical physical effects are sometimes echoed in quantum mechanics, and it might be worth considering if the direct + reflected path has analogies in the quantum world."

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A Week-Long Meditation Retreat Produced Psychedelic-Like Brain Changes, Study Finds

11 Aug. 2026, By P. Dockrill

https://www.sciencealert.com/just-7-days-of-meditation-can-rewire-your-brain-study-suggests

(miniseries/E+/Getty Images)

It's only reasonable to assume that attending a seven-day meditation retreat would have a calming and restorative effect on a person.

After all, guided meditation classes, healing rituals, and sessions on how to achieve transcendental states… it sounds pretty good, right? Sure beats catching the bus to work.

But these kinds of activities could be much more transformative than we realized.

In unison, they appear to have a surprisingly dramatic and deep effect on the body and the mind, scientists say.

A study published in Communications Biology in 2025 found that attending a seven-day meditation retreat was associated with a kind of neural reprogramming in participants, potentially yielding changes that could be positive for our health.

"This isn't about just stress relief or relaxation," said biomedical researcher Hemal Patel from UC San Diego.

"This is about fundamentally changing how the brain engages with reality and quantifying these changes biologically."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rRzTtP7Tc

While the findings don't demonstrate cause and effect – this was only a small observational study – they suggest the effects of meditation and related activities could be more powerful and wide-ranging than we realized.

Patel and his team studied 20 healthy adults who were randomly selected from more than 500 attendees at a meditation and health retreat in San Diego.

During the seven-day retreat, participants attended daily lectures emphasizing the body's self-healing abilities, the mind's capacity to shape reality, and the healing power of present-centeredness and mystical-type experiences.

They took guided meditation sessions, in which they practiced conscious breathing techniques, and were involved in group healing rituals, where 'healers' would meditate while focusing their attention on one of the group.

Of the 20 participants in the study – 14 female, 6 male, with an average age of about 46 – 11 of the group were advanced meditators (with at least six months' experience with the techniques), while the other 9 were novices.

The effects of meditation and related activities could be more powerful and wide-ranging than we realized. 

(ArtistGNDphotography/Getty Images Signature/Canva)



In addition to attending the retreat activities discussed above, the study participants also undertook several tests before and after the event.

This included having their brains scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), blood plasma tests, and filling out a questionnaire designed to measure people's experience of mystical states and feelings – even in the absence of psychedelic drugs, which were not consumed by the study participants.

After taking part in the meditation retreat, the participants showed significant changes in multiple tests.

While we can't conclude the meditation activities caused these changes – there was no control group to compare against, for example, it's purely observational data – what the researchers found is definitely interesting.

The fMRI data showed that after the meditation, brain activity was reduced in the default mode network, which is associated with self-referential and internally directed thought. Brain activity was also reduced in the salience network, which helps detect both internal and external stimuli.

Meditation appeared to reduce the level of segmented activity in the brain, inducing a whole-brain functional state where information flowed more efficiently, the researchers report.

To test whether the meditation activities may have affected the participants' neuroplasticity, the researchers applied the participants' post-meditation blood plasma to neurons in a dish, observing that the cells grew significantly longer neurites (extensions branching from the cell) than pre-plasma-treated cells.

Other markers of change detected in participants' blood included a shift towards glycolytic metabolism, signals of immune modulation, and increases in endogenous opioids (naturally occurring pain-relief chemicals) in the body.

Post-retreat responses in the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ–30) showed participants with significantly increased scores (from 2.37 to 3.02), which the researchers say is comparable to results seen with psychedelic use.

"We're seeing the same mystical experiences and neural connectivity patterns that typically require psilocybin, now achieved through meditation practice alone," said Patel.

"Seeing both central nervous system changes in brain scans and systemic changes in blood chemistry underscores that these mind-body practices are acting on a whole-body scale."

It's worth noting that one of the co-authors of the study, Joe Dispenza, is the CEO of the company Encephalon, which hosts the meditation retreats described in the study, in addition to selling access to other meditation and healing content.

Other caveats to note include that this is only a small study, and it's not one that can show causality, which the researchers acknowledge, calling for future studies that could implement more rigorous, controlled designs to measure how and if meditation might be triggering these changes.

But while we should be cautious about how we interpret these findings, they are certainly not the first to suggest meditation can have powerful effects.

Another recent study captured evidence of meditation reshaping brain activity, and other research shows meditation can help with pain relief, or reduce the burden of stress and aging.

Quite how far these effects may go, we still aren't really sure.

But we're getting closer to understanding.

"We've known for years that practices like meditation can influence health," Patel said.

"But what's striking is that combining multiple mind-body practices into a single retreat produced changes across so many biological systems that we could measure directly in the brain and blood."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Sitting Up Straight Could Actually Help You Make Better Decisions

By McGill U., Aug. 11, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/sitting-up-straight-could-actually-help-you-make-better-decisions/

Sitting upright was linked to a more positive mood and more effective risk-taking in a study of nearly 200 people. 

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New research suggests that even a small shift in posture may influence both mood and the ability to take calculated risks.

In a McGill University experiment involving nearly 200 participants, people encouraged to sit upright reported stronger feelings of pride and performed better in a game that balanced risk against reward. Those who leaned over a low desk generally took fewer risks and earned less.

The findings suggest that ordinary features of a room, including desk height and screen placement, may shape behavior in subtle ways without people noticing.

Jorge Armony, a professor in McGill’s Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology and the study’s senior author, emphasized that the effects were modest and observed under controlled laboratory conditions. Still, he said the results offer further evidence that physical position can influence emotional experience and decision-making.

How Researchers Changed Sitting Position

Rather than asking participants to sit in a particular way, the researchers changed the environment around them. This distinction was central to the experiment.

After completing initial computer tests, participants moved to a tablet for what they believed was an evaluation of a mobile application. Some used a tablet raised on a stand and placed on an adjustable table, naturally encouraging a straighter sitting position. Others worked with the tablet lying flat on a lower desk, causing them to bend forward.

Upright Posture and Smarter Risk-Taking

The volunteers then played a computerized game known as the balloon analog risk task. Each time they inflated a virtual balloon, they increased the potential reward. But every additional pump also raised the chance that the balloon would burst and erase the earnings from that round.

Participants sitting upright tended to inflate the balloons further and collect larger rewards. Their behavior was not simply reckless, according to the researchers, because they also performed more successfully overall.

“This suggests they were not acting more impulsively but rather were engaging in more effective risk-taking,” Armony explained.

The difference also appeared in participants’ emotional responses. In a questionnaire, the upright group reported significantly greater feelings of pride, an emotion associated with positive mood.

Testing the Power Pose Debate

Debate over posture’s psychological effects has continued for years, particularly following widely publicized research on “power poses.” Critics have argued that people in such experiments may guess the study’s purpose and respond in ways they think researchers expect.

The McGill team designed its experiment to reduce that possibility. Participants received no instructions about how to hold their bodies. Instead, the position of the tablet and desk quietly guided their posture.

Interviews conducted afterward indicated that most participants did not realize posture was part of the experiment. The study also found that the results remained after accounting for possible complications such as physical discomfort and awareness of the manipulation.

What the Findings Really Mean

To confirm that the setup produced a measurable physical difference, the researchers used video analysis software to track the angle of each participant’s neck. Earlier posture experiments often relied on instructions without objectively measuring whether people consistently adopted the intended position.

The study does not show that sitting straighter will radically improve someone’s judgment, confidence, or success. Posture is only one of many factors that may affect mood and behavior, and the researchers cautioned against treating it as a dramatic life-changing technique.

Still, the findings raise a broader possibility: everyday surroundings, including the design of our workspaces, may quietly shape how we feel and make decisions.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Industrial Chicken Farming Is Supercharging the Spread of a Dangerous Foodborne Bacterium

BY U. OF OXFORD, AUG. 10, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/industrial-chicken-farming-is-supercharging-the-spread-of-a-dangerous-foodborne-bacterium/

Professor Samuel Sheppard, Science Lead for Digital Microbiology and Bioinformatics at the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI). 

Credit: Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI)

The global expansion of chicken farming has created conditions that allow Campylobacter to spread, mix and adapt more readily.

Commercial poultry farms now hold billions of chickens, creating a vast habitat where bacteria can move, mix and adapt. An analysis from the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Research at the University of Oxford found that industrial poultry production has increased the movement of Campylobacter more than 100 times, allowing strains once associated with wild birds to circulate widely among farmed chickens.

Campylobacter is the world’s most common bacterial cause of diarrhea. In the UK, it produces more than 3.5 times as many cases of gastroenteritis each year as all other monitored foodborne bacteria combined. Treatment is also becoming more difficult as antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the ability of bacteria to withstand drugs intended to kill them, continues to rise.

To reconstruct how poultry farming changed the bacterium, researchers analyzed nearly 2,800 Campylobacter genomes collected from chickens and wild birds in 30 countries (including the UK and USA) between 1979 and 2024. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), indicates that the global growth of chicken production has given different strains more opportunities to spread, exchange genetic material and acquire traits that support survival.

Expanding flocks transformed bacterial spread

The worldwide chicken population has grown seven-fold since the 1960s, reaching approximately 31 billion birds. Chickens now represent about 70% of all bird biomass on Earth. This expansion has made affordable animal protein available on an enormous scale, but it has also produced favorable conditions for bacteria to circulate and evolve.

Genomic analysis identified changes associated with Campylobacter adapting to life in chickens. The affected genes were involved in antimicrobial resistance, tolerance of oxidative stress, acquisition of metals and motility, all of which can improve bacterial survival within modern poultry production systems.

Oakem Kyne, PhD researcher at the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI). 

Credit: Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI)



Professor Sam Sheppard, Professor of Microbial Genomics and Evolution at the University of Oxford and senior author of the paper, said: “Industrial farming has created one of the largest animal habitats on the planet. Our findings provide new evidence that human-driven environmental change can increase the spread of infectious diseases.

“As chicken populations have grown, bacteria that were once largely confined to wild birds have gained far more opportunities to enter poultry flocks, spread and become established. Understanding these evolutionary consequences is essential if we are to reduce future risks from zoonotic disease and antimicrobial resistance.”

Dense flocks can amplify new strains

The findings suggest that enormous, densely packed flocks may function as ecological ‘pathogen sponges,’ taking in bacterial strains from different sources and amplifying them.

Mathematical modeling showed that after chicken populations pass a critical size, Campylobacter strains originating in wild birds can continue circulating within poultry without repeated introduction. This can happen even when those strains are initially poorly suited to chickens.

The findings have direct relevance to human infection. An earlier IOI study associated 80% of human Campylobacter infections in Oxfordshire with poultry meat and found that many of those infections were resistant to antibiotics.

Farming practices shape bacterial evolution

Oakem Kyne, a DPhil student at the University of Oxford and first author of the paper, said: “As Campylobacter strains adapt to life in poultry, they can acquire traits that help them survive in challenging environments, including traits linked to antimicrobial resistance. Understanding how farming practices influence bacterial evolution is an important step toward reducing the burden of foodborne disease.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

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

11 Aug. 2026, By P. DOCKRILL

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

(Alexander Krivitskiy/Unsplash)

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

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

The answer, research suggests, is pretty far.

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

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

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

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

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

But researchers say there has to be more to it.

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

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

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

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

(disqis/Getty Images)



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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