NASA Captures a Strange Formation on Earth With a Surprising Lunar Connection

By L. Doermann, October 16, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-captures-a-strange-formation-on-earth-with-a-surprising-lunar-connection/

A giant patch of Moon-like rock stands out in southern Madagascar, revealing an ancient geological connection between Earth and the Moon.

 Credit: NASA

A NASA astronaut captured a stunning 600-million-year-old rock formation in Madagascar that shares a surprising geological connection with the Moon.

A striking patch of bright rock in southern Madagascar has an unexpected connection to the Moon. Surrounded by rocks that were twisted and stretched by ancient geological forces, the formation contains anorthosite, the same type of rock that makes up much of the Moon’s bright highlands.

Viewed from space, the unusual formation stands out against Madagascar’s dry, rugged landscape. Anorthosite is an igneous rock found in abundance on the Moon, where it forms the highly reflective regions known as the lunar highlands. These pale regions are so prominent that they can be distinguished from Earth without a telescope.

Although closely associated with the Moon, anorthosite is also found in several places on Earth, including eastern Canada, Scandinavia, southern India, and Madagascar. In southern Madagascar, it forms a distinctive, roughly circular feature that is particularly noticeable in photographs taken from orbit.

NASA Astronaut Captures Ancient Moon-Like Rock Formation

On August 28, 2026, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed the Saririaky anorthosite massif, a large body of rock exposed at Earth’s surface.

Anorthosite forms when magma cools and solidifies beneath the ground, allowing relatively large mineral crystals to develop. Rocks produced through this process are known as intrusive igneous rocks.

Scientists believe the Saririaky massif originated during the late Precambrian, making it at least 600 million years old. Today, the exposed formation extends across approximately 100 square kilometers (40 square miles).

The surrounding landscape provides evidence of the enormous geological forces that have acted on the region since the rock formed. Researchers have identified the massif within a ductile shear zone, an area where rocks were gradually stretched and distorted under intense heat and pressure.

These conditions caused the surrounding rocks to undergo metamorphism, changing their structure and producing long, roughly parallel patterns that extend from north to south.
Ancient Continental Collisions Reshaped Madagascar

Geologists suspect that this dramatic transformation occurred during the assembly of Gondwana, the enormous supercontinent that once united landmasses now separated by oceans.

As portions of present-day Africa, India, Madagascar, Australia, and Antarctica collided, tremendous pressure deformed the rocks caught between them. The resulting geological structures preserve evidence of those ancient continental movements.

Some researchers have suggested that a second anorthosite massif, located approximately 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Saririaky within the same shear zone, may once have been connected to it.

According to this hypothesis, the immense forces associated with continental collision stretched and separated the original rock body. This process can produce a structure known as boudinage, in which a relatively resistant layer of rock is pulled apart into distinct segments as the surrounding material deforms.

How Earth’s Moon-Like Rocks Reveal Lunar History

Beyond their importance to understanding Earth’s geological past, anorthosite formations also provide scientists with valuable opportunities to investigate the Moon’s earliest history.

The Moon’s anorthosite rocks are more than 4 billion years old. Scientists believe they formed when the young Moon was covered by a vast ocean of molten rock. As this magma cooled, anorthosite crystallized and became a major component of the Moon’s outer crust.

Samples collected by Apollo astronauts have given researchers direct evidence of these ancient lunar materials. However, because the available Moon rocks are limited, scientists also examine similar formations on Earth to better understand their composition and formation.

One especially useful comparison comes from the Beartooth Mountains in Montana, where anorthosite closely resembles its lunar counterpart in chemical composition.

By examining these terrestrial formations, researchers can gain additional insights into the processes that shaped the Moon billions of years ago. Madagascar’s ancient anorthosite also illustrates how Earth’s own geological history has transformed rocks that share important characteristics with those found on our closest celestial neighbor.

Astronaut photograph ISS075-E-85249 was taken on August 28, 2026, using a Nikon Z9 digital camera equipped with a 400-millimeter lens. The image was captured by an astronaut from the Expedition 75 crew and supplied by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. It has been cropped, adjusted to enhance contrast, and processed to remove lens artifacts.

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Scientists Find a Way to Turn Desert Sand Into 'Living Sand' That Holds Water Six Times Longer

16 Oct. 2026, By E. Öz

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-a-way-to-turn-desert-sand-into-living-sand-that-holds-water-six-times-longer

(Khalifa University)

For farmers working sandy ground, watering is only part of the job.

Water drains quickly through the gaps between grains, while wind can carry the loose sand away. Keeping plants alive means holding moisture around their roots and keeping the sand in place.

Scientists have now tested whether fibers produced by bacteria and fungi can bind those grains together.

Growing microbes directly in sand created a material they call "living sand," which tests showed could cut water loss by six times.

In a separate approach, they grew thin sheets of bacterial cellulose and placed them between sand layers, reducing water permeability about 28-fold in laboratory tests.

The study, published in Carbohydrate Polymers, involved researchers at Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland's Empa research institute, and ETH Zurich.

In soil, roots, fungal threads, and fibers produced by microbes help hold particles together. The researchers tested whether similar microscopic networks could strengthen sand and change how water moves through it.

Sand samples reinforced with microbial fibers retain their shape in water. 

(Khalifa University)



They used a cellulose-producing bacterium, Komagataeibacter medellinensis, and two strains of the fungus Schizophyllum commune. The fungal strains belong to the same species but have different growth characteristics.

Cellulose gives plant cell walls much of their strength. Some bacteria also produce it, releasing extremely fine fibers that can form a mesh around nearby particles.

The study included sand collected from dunes near Al Ain in the UAE, along with standardized laboratory sand for certain strength tests. Researchers sterilized the sand before adding the microbes and nutrient solutions.

Microscope images showed bacterial cellulose attached to grain surfaces and linking neighboring grains.

Microscopy image showing biopolymer fibers connecting sand grains.

 (Khalifa University)



"This creates a kind of natural composite material," Gustav Nyström, who heads Empa's Cellulose and Wood Materials laboratory, said.

The bacterial treatment produced stronger samples than the fungi. Within seven days, a sand column about 6 centimeters tall held together well enough to be removed from its mold and cut into pieces. Those pieces stayed intact when placed in water.

The fungi also bound grains together, but their samples were more fragile. Some broke apart during removal from the molds or when cut after drying.

For the second approach, the researchers grew cellulose sheets separately and inserted them between layers of sand. The sheets acted as reinforcing fabric, helping distribute the force applied to the material.

In a demonstration using a 10-kilogram load, an untreated sand cube collapsed much more than a cube reinforced with cellulose sheets. Sheets grown for longer generally made the samples tougher. The sheets also produced the largest reduction in water permeability.

To test this, the researchers poured water into sand-filled tubes and timed how fast it drained out of the bottom. They compared untreated sand with sand containing fibers grown among the grains and sand containing a separately grown cellulose sheet. Each group had three replicate samples.

The inserted sheet cut permeability (or how fast the water passed through) to roughly one twenty-eighth of the untreated sand's value, while fibers grown directly inside the sand reduced it about six-fold.

The researchers also measured how much water the samples could hold. For sand containing fibers grown directly among the grains, this measurement rose from about 20.2 percent to 25.5 percent. The scientists describe that increase as slight.

The team suggests microbial fibers could provide biodegradable alternatives to some synthetic materials used to stabilize soil. Stronger connections between grains might also help limit wind erosion, although the experiments did not measure dust emissions.

"This approach allows us to introduce organic matter and water into the sand and stabilize it somewhat," said Nyström.

Three researchers, Blaise Tardy, M-Haidar A. Dali, and Mohamed Hamid Salim, disclosed a pending patent application in the paper's competing interests statement.

The work remains a laboratory study. The microbes received water and nutrients under controlled conditions, and their growth required oxygen. Growth was uneven along the bacterial sand column, and the top section was much weaker than the bottom.

The experiments did not test crop growth or establish how long the material would survive desert conditions.

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New 'Golden Tree' Coral Is So Strange It Needed Its Own Family on The Tree of Life

17 Oct. 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-golden-tree-coral-is-so-weird-scientists-had-to-create-a-new-family-on-the-tree-of-life

The newly discovered coral lives in strange conditions that seem inhospitable to life. 

(ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute/Breedy et al., ZooKeys, 2026)

In the twilight deeps of the Eastern Pacific Ocean, a magical sight can be found on a seamount off the coast of Costa Rica.

As the underwater vehicle SuBastian glides over a rocky outcrop oddly coated with a fuzzy pink patina and punctuated with basket-shaped gleaming white sponges, a majestic yellow form emerges from the darkness.

It looks like a golden tree, so vividly yellow you can imagine it glowing.

Then, as the camera zooms closer, you can see the pink fuzz moving – a thick carpet of stars from which the golden tree blooms.

The stars, of course, are not real stars, but a teeming multitude of pink brittle stars; nor is the golden tree a real tree.

Instead, it's a species of octocoral unlike any scientists have ever seen – one so unusual that it required a whole new branch of the tree of life to accommodate its strangeness.

In a paper describing the species, researchers led by Odalisca Breedy of the University of Costa Rica have named the coral Laurinque elenya – a name derived from Tolkien's Elvish language Quenya, meaning "golden tree of the stars".

You can see the golden coral forest for yourself in the footage from SuBastian's dive, starting at around the 20-minute mark in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXayC1TUaA

Corals – for all the resemblance many of them bear to plants – are animals, and they take many different forms adapted to life beneath the waves.

Octocorals are one specific group containing more than 3,000 species, named for the eightfold symmetry of the tiny polyps that line their branches.

They are a diverse bunch, and their number includes some very strange colonies indeed – so when Laurinque was found at depths of 360 to 529 meters (1,181 to 1,735 feet) during dives in 2019 and 2023, it would not have surprised scientists to find it had a few idiosyncrasies.

But Laurinque wasn't just another eccentric aunt in a family full of them.

Its colonies can grow more than a meter tall and 1.2 meters wide, with densely branching structures covered in unusually elongated polyps – the tiny animals that collectively make up a coral colony.

These polyps can partially retract into the branches, and the microscopic skeletal structures that support the coral, called sclerites, have a distinctive assortment of shapes.

Closeups of the branches and polyps of the fascinating coral.

 (ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute/Breedy et al., ZooKeys, 2026)



Together, these features – found in different octocoral groups, but not together in a single species in this way – made it difficult to match Laurinque with any known family of octocorals.

And its DNA only exacerbated the conundrum.

The researchers analyzed three genetic markers from the coral's DNA, comparing them with sequences from other octocorals to see where their mysterious specimen belonged on the evolutionary family tree.

They got a match on a mitochondrial gene.

Then they got another one on the other mitochondrial gene.

Normally, this would be good news – a slam dunk that could confidently place a vexing species into a clean category.

Unfortunately, both markers matched with different octocoral families. One placed it strongly in Incrustatidae. The other was equally strong for placement in Eunicellidae.

And they couldn't even use the third marker – ribosomal DNA – as a tiebreaker. It was magnificently inconclusive.

The magnificent golden hue disappears when the coral dies, as seen here in a specimen preserved in ethanol. 

(Fiorella Vásquez/UCR; Breedy et al., ZooKeys, 2026)



So, after several years of not knowing, they had to bring out the big guns – the collection of new specimens, followed by an analysis of hundreds of genetic regions from Laurinque. And that, finally, yielded an answer.

The coral, Breedy and her colleagues found, is closely related to Eunicellidae – but still distinct from it, the first known member of the Laurinqueidae coral family.

"I saw the octocoral garden for the first time in 2019, and I was impressed by the beauty of the landscape, which inspired, later the elvish name of the taxa. I thought the species could belong to a known family and genera, but after the preliminary morphological analysis I realized that it was something very different that I could not match with the known taxa," Breedy said.

"In 2023 we collected more samples and thanks to the exhaustive molecular analyses made by my colleagues, Cathy McFadden, Catalina Murillo and Andrea Quattrini, we were able to determine the taxonomic placement of the stunning species, in one of the most enigmatic sites."

ROV SuBastian collecting samples of Laurinque.

 (ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute/Breedy et al., ZooKeys, 2026)



But there's more than a whole new coral family to the discovery.

The golden coral gardens grow in waters with extremely low oxygen levels, at temperatures between 8 and 11 degrees Celsius (46 and 52 degrees Fahrenheit).

These conditions would be inhospitable to many animals, yet Laurinque forms elaborate, ethereal underwater forests, its branches rising above a seafloor almost completely obscured by brittle stars.

Such coral gardens are important habitats in the deep ocean. Their intricate, three-dimensional structures provide places for other animals to shelter, feed, and thrive, helping support biodiversity in a deeply challenging environment.

And Laurinque may not be confined to Costa Rica. The researchers report possible sightings off Panama and the Galápagos Islands, although these have yet to be confirmed.

For now, the golden tree of the stars remains a poignant and magical reminder of how much of Earth's biodiversity is still waiting to be discovered – even in places where life seems almost impossible.

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Meet D-Rex: Ancient Fungus as Tall as a Traffic Cone Has Just Been Discovered in China

16 Oct. 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-uncover-d-rex-gigantic-new-king-fungus-from-china-traces-its-roots-to-65-million-years

D. rex's fruiting bodies were discovered in the forests of Yunnan Province.

 (Song et al., Frontiers in Fungal Biology, 2026)

Yunnan Province in China is famous for its mushrooms and fungi, but somehow, scientists have only just come across a new species that has rightly earned the name 'king'.

Named Dianjunus rex (or D. rex for short), its gigantic, club-like fruiting bodies can grow up to 50 centimeters tall, which is about one and a half feet, or the height of a traffic cone.

A researcher holds up two D. rex fruiting bodies to show off their impressive size.

(Provided by Indunil Senanayake)



But its impressive size is not the only exciting thing about this fungus. Its genes also contain clues about a major moment in the history of life on Earth.

Mycologist Indunil Senanayake of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and her colleagues describe the new species in a paper published in Frontiers in Fungal Biology.

D. rex is the only known member of its family, Dianjunaceae.

"This remarkable species… provides a rare window into the evolution of extreme fungal body forms," says Senanayake.

"The discovery illustrates how much fungus biodiversity remains to be discovered in East Asian forests."

The fungus in its natural habitat. 

(Provided by Indunil Senanayake)



The researchers found the Dianjunaceae family split off from its closest known relatives about 65 million years ago, by comparing its DNA to hundreds of other fungi whose evolutionary history is well-known.

"This timing raises an intriguing possibility," says Senanayake.

The family emerged just 1 million years after the Chicxulub asteroid impact, which triggered a mass extinction event.

The dramatic changes to Earth's climate that resulted from the asteroid wiped out three-quarters of plant and animal species on Earth, including, famously, all non-avian dinosaurs.

"After the mass extinction, forests experienced dramatic changes, including the sudden availability of large amounts of dead plant material," Senanayake says.

"For wood-associated decomposing fungi, such environmental disruption may have created new ecological opportunities."

This isn't the first time scientists have proposed that the dinosaur-killing asteroid led to a worldwide fungal 'boom'. Fossils found in North Dakota, Colorado, and New Zealand show that massive spikes in fungal activity followed in the wake of this mass extinction.

Fungi typically prefer cooler temperatures and acidic environments. The cooler and darker conditions that arise when geological calamities shade our skies – as Chicxulub did – could have easily set the scene for an era dominated by fungi.

Close examination of D. rex under a microscope reveals its identifying features, including its asci and spore-producing structures (h-p).

 (Song et al., Frontiers in Fungal Biology, 2026)

D. rex is related to fungi like morels, truffles, and cordyceps, in the phylum Ascomycota. Like all fungi, Ascomycetes live as mycelium, below the ground or inside the substrates (wood, poop, your toenails, etc.) upon which they feed.

D. rex is often found at the base of oak trees, including the Chinese cork oak (Quercus variabilis) in the forests of the Yunnan Province in south-western China. The specimens on record so far were growing on the decaying roots or stumps of these trees.

D. rex's fruiting bodies were discovered in the forests of Yunnan Province. 

(Song et al., Frontiers in Fungal Biology, 2026)

When it comes time to reproduce, D. rex sends out its gigantic white fruiting bodies, which are called stromata. These serve the same purpose as mushrooms do for other fungi, broadcasting spores into the air so more D. rex may flourish on the forest floor.

But it's unclear why D. rex's stromata are quite so gargantuan – the largest of any Ascomycete on record. Some specimens the researchers collected weighed a whopping 2.2 kilograms.

"A fruiting body which towers above surrounding vegetation and debris could have better dispersal of spores by wind in dense forests," Senanayake proposes.

"However, such a large structure requires substantial energy investment, suggesting that this strategy likely evolved only where the ecological benefits outweighed the costs."

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Scientists Say That a Honey Bee Colony May Actually Be a Single Living Organism

By Lund U., Oct. 16, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-say-that-a-honey-bee-colony-may-actually-be-a-single-living-organism/

Viewing honey bee colonies as superorganisms could reshape modern beekeeping, raising important questions about parasite management and practices that interfere with natural colony behavior. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A new study challenges traditional ideas about honey bee colonies.

A honey bee colony may be more than a society of thousands of insects. A new study proposes that the entire colony functions as a single living organism, with its own development, reproductive cycle, and biological lifespan. This perspective could challenge some of the most common practices in modern beekeeping.

Researchers Hannes Bonhoff of Lund University and Heikki Helanterä, a professor of evolutionary biology and genomics at the University of Oulu in Finland, argue that a queen and her colony together constitute a superorganism. Rather than treating the queen, 200 to 300 drones, and tens of thousands of workers as separate individuals, their framework considers the colony an animal whose members function much like specialized cells in a body.

A Honey Bee Colony That Grows, Ages, and Dies

“We have analyzed what it means for a bee colony to be a single organism, which opens up new insights into the fascinating life of the honey bee,” says Bonhoff.

Under this interpretation, a colony develops through stages comparable to those of a mammal, progressing from an embryo and fetus to a juvenile and adult. Bonhoff argues that colonies also undergo biological aging and eventually die after several years. The comparison treats the colony’s development as a whole, rather than focusing on the much shorter lifespans of its individual bees.

The superorganism concept is not new, but the researchers apply it to the colony’s life cycle, including how it reproduces and cares for its offspring. This approach raises questions about whether certain behaviors traditionally understood as collective insect activity might instead be viewed as functions of a larger biological individual.

Swarming May Be a Form of Parental Care

Honey bee colonies reproduce through swarming, when the established queen leaves the hive with roughly half the colony to find a new nesting site. A new queen remains in the original hive, where she becomes the reproductive center of the next colony generation.

In the researchers’ framework, this process resembles an animal producing offspring and providing extensive parental care. The developing colony inherits an established nest, food resources, shelter, and the support of experienced workers.

“When this superorganism reproduces, the offspring are cared for with great dedication by the parent, in some cases even at the cost of the parent’s life,” says Bonhoff.

The departing queen and her swarm face the risks of finding and establishing a new home, while the next generation develops in familiar surroundings. Established workers can also provide valuable foraging information through the honey bee dance language, which communicates the locations of food sources.

“Parental care therefore goes so far that the offspring inherits the mother’s nest, whilst she herself risks her life by swarming away to settle elsewhere,” says Bonhoff.

What This Could Mean for Modern Beekeeping

The proposed framework could have practical implications for managing honey bee populations. Beekeepers commonly replace queens and prevent swarming to maintain productive colonies. However, the researchers suggest that interfering with these natural processes may disrupt the colony’s reproductive and developmental cycle.

The study also raises questions about controlling Varroa mites, parasitic arachnids that threaten honey bee populations worldwide. Understanding the colony as an organism with distinct life stages could influence how beekeepers approach parasite management, although the proposed perspective does not itself establish a more effective treatment.

“Modern beekeeping methods are based on the idea of keeping the colony young and healthy indefinitely. Our study shows that such interventions fundamentally conflict with the natural reproductive strategy and the ability to cope with parasites,” says Bonhoff.

The research originated in Bonhoff’s master’s thesis at Lund University, supervised by Helanterä and Niklas Wahlberg, a professor of systematic biology at Lund. Wahlberg believes the work contributes to understanding how biological individuality can extend beyond a single insect.

“The concept itself has been around for a long time, but this is the first time it has been applied in a genuine biological context. It’s fascinating to think that, just as individual cells make up an organism, individual bees with different roles make up the superorganism,” concludes Wahlberg.

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For Decades, the Arctic Melt Season Kept Growing. Then It Stopped

By J. Riordon, NASA's Earth Science News Team, Oct. 15, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/for-decades-the-arctic-melt-season-kept-growing-then-it-stopped/

The Arctic melt season lengthened dramatically for decades, but its average duration has barely changed since around 2010. Scientists think changing clouds and increasingly thin sea ice may be behind the shift, though the pause could prove temporary.

 Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison based on data from Boisvert, L., et al.

For much of the satellite record, the Arctic sea ice melt season kept getting longer. Then, around 2010, that long-running trend unexpectedly flattened.

Over several decades, Arctic sea ice generally began melting earlier in the spring and refreezing later in the fall. That extended the time each year when ice was melting and contributed to major reductions in sea ice across the Arctic. A new NASA-led study now shows that while the melt season has lengthened dramatically since satellite monitoring began, its average duration has changed relatively little since about 2010.

Arctic Melt Season Is Now About 40 Days Longer

The researchers found that the Arctic sea ice melt season is now approximately 40 days longer than it was in 1979.

Most of that increase occurred before 2010. Since then, the average length of the melt season has remained fairly steady, even though conditions can still differ substantially from one year to the next.

To track the change, researchers analyzed satellite observations spanning 1979 through 2023. They identified when sea ice began to melt each spring and when freezing resumed in the fall.

Their analysis showed that the longer melt season was caused primarily by later fall freeze-up, rather than by a major shift toward much earlier spring melting.

“Previously, there was more of this multiyear ice that didn’t melt away each summer,” said Linette Boisvert, a co-author on the study and ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Now that the ice is thinner and there’s less of it, there’s a lot more variability.”

On average, however, the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice thickness and extent that characterized the 2000s appears to have paused for the time being.

Since the start of the satellite record, the Arctic sea ice melt season has lengthened in most decades, particularly in the 2000s. 

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison based on data from Boisvert, L., et al.

Why the Arctic Melt Trend Slowed

To understand what may have caused the change, the researchers examined the Arctic’s energy balance. This describes the difference between the heat entering the region from the Sun, atmosphere, and ocean and the infrared energy escaping back into space.

During the 2000s, rapid losses of sea ice exposed larger areas of dark ocean water. Bright ice reflects much of the Sun’s energy, while darker seawater absorbs more of it.

That additional stored heat helped keep the ocean warmer later into the year, delaying fall freeze-up and extending the melt season.

In the left map above, the darkest red areas identify places where the melt season increased most rapidly during that decade. In some locations, it lengthened by as much as 5 days per year.

At the same time, the Arctic ice cover itself was undergoing a major transformation. Much of the sea ice that remains today is younger and thinner than the multiyear ice that once covered a much larger share of the Arctic Ocean. Thinner ice reacts more strongly to short-term changes in clouds, storms, and winds.

Since 2010, the melt season appears to have stabilized.

 Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison based on data from Boisvert, L., et al.



Changing Clouds Are Influencing Arctic Sea Ice

Since 2010, shifts in cloud patterns have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching certain parts of the Arctic Ocean.

Researchers say that change has contributed to a melt season that still fluctuates considerably from year to year but has shown relatively little long-term change over the past decade or more.

The right map above illustrates that shift. Lighter reds and blues represent much smaller rates of change during that period.

The findings do not suggest that climate change has stopped reshaping the Arctic.

The region continues to warm nearly four times faster than the global average, and the remaining sea ice is far thinner than it was several decades ago.

Instead, the study suggests that the Arctic may have entered a different stage, with year-to-year weather conditions now playing a larger role in determining the duration of the melt season.

“Melt season length is much more dependent on atmospheric effects,” Boisvert said. “They seem to be playing a bigger role because the ice is generally thinner and more vulnerable to begin with.”

The Current Pause Could Be Temporary

Researchers caution that the recent leveling off may not continue indefinitely.

Thick Arctic sea ice still survives year-round in areas north of Greenland and around the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

If that remaining thick ice continues to thin, the Arctic could move into another period of rapid sea ice loss. Such a shift could cause the melt season to begin lengthening again.

For now, the findings highlight the importance of continued satellite monitoring of Arctic sea ice, as well as the energy balance that controls how the ice forms, melts, and refreezes.

Scientists still do not know whether the recent stabilization represents a lasting shift in the Arctic melt season or only a temporary pause before another period of rapid change.

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Antibiotic Resistance Is Making This Dangerous Gut Bacterium Even Harder To Kill

By Monash U. , Oct. 14, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/antibiotic-resistance-is-making-this-dangerous-gut-bacterium-even-harder-to-kill/

Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) is a bacterium that can cause severe diarrhea and inflammation of the colon, particularly after antibiotic treatment disrupts the normal gut microbiome. It spreads through hardy spores that can persist on surfaces, making it a persistent challenge in hospitals and other healthcare settings. 

Credit: SciTechDaily.com



An antibiotic resistance gene helps a dangerous gut bacterium build tougher spores that can survive hospital disinfectants.

A hospital surface can be disinfected and still harbor dormant spores of Clostridioides difficile, a bacterium that causes diarrhea that can be deadly for already sick patients. Researchers have now found that an antibiotic resistance gene can help the bacterium produce tougher spores, allowing them to survive hospital-grade cleaning products and high laundry temperatures.

Monash University researchers traced this added resilience to a change in how the bacterium builds its spores. Their study, published in Nature Communications, reveals how acquiring a gene that protects against an antibiotic can also strengthen the form the bacterium uses to spread.

A protein swap builds tougher spores

C. difficile spores behave much like plant seeds, waiting for suitable conditions to become active again. The human gut provides one such opportunity, making survival outside the body a crucial part of the bacterium’s journey between patients.

“Spore survival matters because spores are the main way these pathogens spread between people and through hospitals, homes, and the environment,” said first author Dr. Yogitha Srikhanta, a postdoctoral research fellow at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute.

Antibiotic resistance is supercharging dangerous gut bacteria to withstand even hospital-grade disinfectants intended to kill them. 

Credit: Desirel Ng/Monash University

The resistance gene produces a protein that takes the place of a key protein used to build spores. With that replacement in place, the bacterium can continue making spores despite an antibiotic that would otherwise block the process. The resulting spores are also tougher, extending the gene’s effects beyond resistance to the drug itself.

“Antibiotics are helping bacteria evolve in ways we hadn’t anticipated,” said lead researcher Professor Dena Lyras, director of Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and interim dean of Monash’s Sub-Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences.

Spore survival could help resistance spread

Bacteria that stop responding to antibiotics can leave infections difficult or impossible to treat. The World Health Organization identifies antimicrobial resistance as a major global health threat and estimates that it contributes to millions of deaths each year. The Monash team describes its study as the first to uncover a link between antibiotic resistance and bacterial spores, connecting treatment resistance with the ability to survive outside a patient.

Antibiotic resistance is supercharging dangerous gut bacteria to withstand even hospital-grade disinfectants intended to kill them. 

Credit: Desirel Ng/Monash University

Srikhanta cautioned, “A resistance gene that changes how spores are built could make infections harder to control and help resistant strains spread more easily.

“We are now investigating ways to deal with this new type of antibiotic resistance.”

Targeting the spores could offer a way to interrupt that spread, although the researchers have yet to establish a solution. Lyras said, “Our new research shows just how sophisticated their evolution is, with the potential to have disastrous impacts on humans.

“They are not only better at building tolerance to drugs we develop, but making new versions of themselves that can survive better in particular environments, like surfaces where cleaning products are commonly applied.”

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Healthy Coral Reversed Bleaching in Its Neighbor With Just 1 Week of Contact

15 Oct. 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/healthy-coral-reversed-bleaching-in-its-neighbor-with-just-1-week-of-contact

(Danny Collins)

Corals cannot survive long without the algae that live inside their bodies.

But under stress from factors like heat, pollution, and UV exposure, these algae can become toxic to the coral, which evicts them.

Without their algal symbionts, corals turn white, in what is known as coral bleaching. A 'bleached' coral has limited time to acquire new algal symbionts before it starves to death.

With the threat of coral bleaching events growing each year, Stanford scientists have found a technique that could help rescue corals on the brink of death.

"While bleached corals may be dying, they are not dead yet," says Stanford marine scientist Danny Collins. "The question we wanted to answer is, once a coral has bleached, what can we do?"

A clue came from his colleague Steve Palumbi, who had noticed something interesting in a lab tank.

After just a few days, the color returns to a bleached coral. 

(Danny Collins)

Two pieces of Pocillopora damicornis coral collected from the same colony had fallen onto each other. One was bleached, and the other was healthy. But at the point where they were touching, color was returning to the bleached fragment.

The healthy coral was transferring its symbiotic algae to its neighbor.

"What we've found is that if we put a healthy coral in contact with a bleached coral, the healthy coral actually sends over algal symbionts and nutrients to the bleached coral, fully recovering it in a short period of time," Collins says.

"I was blown away watching the actual color of this healthy coral slowly spread over into this bleached coral."

Direct contact is essential. Just a few millimeters between the two pieces of coral was enough to totally prevent transfer, as the researchers demonstrated in lab experiments. To transfer the algae, the two corals are actually fusing together, Collins explains.

Without direct contact, the corals cannot fuse to transfer algae. 

(Danny Collins)



"Their tissues are growing and creating a nutrient bridge, allowing for the flow of nutrients and symbionts between those cells," he says.

"The healthy coral can jump-start the recovery of the bleached coral, by sending over these symbionts… We can take away the healthy coral, and the bleached coral can now recover itself."

Just one week of contact with healthy coral was enough to jump-start a complete recovery in the bleached pieces, which took up to seven weeks in total. This is an order of magnitude faster than recovery times seen in wild bleached populations.

A healthy piece of coral can offer life support to its bleached neighbor.

 (Danny Collins)



The rate of recovery was the same for corals left touching for the full seven weeks, or separated after one week, which means that after initial inoculation, the algae is replicating inside the recovering bleached corals.

The natural recovery of symbionts after a bleaching event can take months, by which time the coral has died.

The technique may have worked in the lab, with genetically identical pieces of coral sourced from the same colony, but it's still unclear whether the same approach would work out in the ocean, on wild, bleached reefs.

Theoretically, this technique could offer crucial life support to corals on the edge of death.

But it might not be practical at scale if bleaching events continue to become more frequent, persistent, and widespread, which they are expected to do if humans do not stop burning fossil fuels.

It's the emergency medicine of coral reefs, rescuing individual 'patients' at the pointy end of a growing systemic health crisis.

Perhaps this discovery will help reefs survive long enough to see us change our ways.

"These new insights into how corals can naturally recover give us hope for the future," says marine ecologist Fiorenza Micheli.

"They open the door to what's possible and may lead to the breakthrough we need to accelerate reef restoration."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

What Killed Europe’s Ancient Wild Cattle? Scientists Find a Disturbing Answer

By Lund U. , Oct. 10, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/what-killed-europes-ancient-wild-cattle-scientists-find-a-disturbing-answer/

Aurochs skull from Scania from the Biological Museum at Lund University. 

Credit: Lucas Gölén

The fate of Scandinavia’s aurochs warns conservationists worldwide that curbing hunting alone may not save species facing depleted genetic diversity and fragmented habitats.

The cattle on today’s farms descend from aurochs, wild animals that once roamed much of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. They disappeared from Scandinavia thousands of years before the species became extinct worldwide, and researchers have been trying to understand why those northern populations were lost so early. New findings suggest that hunting was only part of the explanation.

Hunting drove a sharp decline in the Swedish population and the complete disappearance of aurochs from the Danish island of Zealand. In southern Sweden, small numbers survived until at least 6,500 years ago, but their surroundings were changing.

Dense forests replaced formerly open landscapes, a shift thought to have contributed to their eventual disappearance. An international team led by Lund University now attributes these early northern extinctions to the combined effects of human pressure, depleted genetic diversity, and the fragmentation and deterioration of habitat.

Reconstruction of an aurochs.

 Credit: Erika Rosengren



Aurochs lost genetic diversity before isolation

Aurochs started colonizing Scandinavia 11,700 years ago, after the last Ice Age ended, and the researchers found that this migration probably involved a population bottleneck, a sharp reduction in numbers that left the survivors with less genetic diversity.

“I found it incredibly interesting to see how the genetic diversity of the aurochs decreased as you moved north from mainland Europe up through Jutland and then dropped further across Zealand and Scania. It’s a textbook example of a bottleneck in evolutionary genetics,” says Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, an associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and a senior author of the study.

Erika Rosengren with a mounted aurochs skeleton from the Biological Museum at Lund University. 

Credit: Gunnar Menander

Genetic evidence showed that Scandinavian aurochs remained in contact with the main European population beyond 10,000 years ago, when they had previously been thought to have become isolated. The researchers instead place complete isolation at the flooding of the land bridge around 8,000 years ago, when the Danish-Swedish straits formed.

“These ancient case studies reveal long-term patterns – which species are most vulnerable, how ecosystems shift and transform over time, and when and how human activity began shaping these environments,” says Erika Rosengren, a doctoral student in historical osteology at Lund University and the paper’s lead author.

Erika Rosengren next to a mounted aurochs skeleton at the Biology Museum in Lund. 

Credit: Gunnar Menander



Connected habitats could help prevent extinctions

Scandinavia was among the first regions to lose aurochs, which once roamed much of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. Their final disappearance from Poland in the 17th century ended a decline that had lasted 8,000 years. Human activity was the main cause of that global extinction, although the reasons for the much earlier Scandinavian losses had remained unclear.

“Our results add nuance to our understanding of human impact on animal populations. They confirm that species rarely disappear because of a single factor. Conservation plans must therefore be comprehensive and consider multiple stressors at the same time. Our results support the need to establish ecological corridors for threatened wildlife, rather than isolated nature reserves,” concludes Rosengren.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

A gut microbe makes a fatty acid that cuts artery plaque in half in mice

OCT. 14, 2026, by A. Zinin, Medical Xpress
edited by L. Lock, reviewed by R. Egan

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-gut-microbe-fatty-acid-artery.html

Summary diagram depicting the role of pentadecanoic acid in the modulation of hepatic cholesterol metabolism and atherosclerosis progression. 

Credit: Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-11142-x

A common gut bacterium produces a molecule that slows cholesterol production in the liver. When researchers gave the molecule to mice prone to artery disease, the animals developed roughly half as much fatty plaque as untreated controls.

The molecule acts on the same enzyme targeted by statins, the widely used cholesterol-lowering drugs. That connection offers a concrete explanation for something harder to untangle: how bacteria living in the intestine might influence the health of arteries elsewhere in the body.

Researchers at institutions including Sun Yat-sen University and Shenzhen Bay Laboratory in China identified the substance as pentadecanoic acid. Their study, published in Nature, followed its effects from bacterial production to cholesterol clearance.

Following a bacterial clue

Observational studies over the past two decades have shown that the gut microbiota plays an important role in metabolic health, and disruptions can lead to common disorders including diabetes, liver disease and cardiovascular disease. More recent cause-and-effect studies are trying to pinpoint the molecular mechanisms that drive the development of these conditions.

Investigating this connection, the researchers began with existing gut microbiome data from people with and without atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, in which fatty deposits accumulate in artery walls. Several bacterial species were more abundant in healthy people, with Bacteroides uniformis standing out.

Was the bacterium helping protect arteries, or is it simply more common in healthier people?

To find out, the researchers gave it to male mice genetically prone to atherosclerosis that were fed a high-fat diet. After 12 weeks, treated mice had less plaque in their aortas and lower blood levels of LDL, often called "bad" cholesterol. Heat-killed bacteria did not produce the same benefits.

The key appeared to be something the living microbes produced. The team separated substances released into the bacterial culture fluid, testing which one helped the laboratory-grown liver cells take up LDL. Repeatedly narrowing the mixture led them to pentadecanoic acid.

Given directly to mice three times a week for eight weeks, the fatty acid lowered cholesterol and reduced plaque buildup by about half.

Making less, taking in more

The next puzzle was to untangle how a fatty acid could help clear cholesterol from blood.

Experiments showed that pentadecanoic acid binds to and inhibits HMG-CoA reductase, an enzyme needed to make cholesterol. As cholesterol production fell, liver cells increased their supply of LDL receptors: proteins that capture cholesterol-carrying particles from the bloodstream.

The two effects worked together. The liver made less cholesterol and took in more from circulating blood.

The researchers tested that explanation by disabling LDL receptor production specifically in the mouse liver. Without those receptors, neither the bacterium nor the fatty acid provided its usual protection against plaque buildup.

Changing the bacterium supplied another check. Engineered strains that made less pentadecanoic acid still colonized the gut but offered substantially weaker protection. That finding helped connect the bacterial product to the arterial benefit.

Can the effect carry over to people?

Pentadecanoic acid is a saturated fatty acid found in foods such as dairy fat. The study strengthens the evidence that gut microbes also supply it, but showing a protective mechanism in mice does not establish a treatment for people.

Human findings offer reasons to investigate further, alongside reasons for caution. A small 2024 trial in women with fatty liver disease found that adding pentadecanoic acid to a Mediterranean-style dietary intervention further reduced LDL cholesterol. However, a 2026 analysis of two long-running studies found no association between higher blood levels of the molecule and a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease.

The molecule is already marketed as a heart-health supplement. Yet "the clinical evidence supporting a cardiovascular benefit remains limited," cardiovascular specialist Ben Chen of Australia's Monash Victorian Heart Institute told Nature's news team.

It should be noted that the new experiments used only male mice, and human diets and gut communities could change the response seen in the animal experiments. Co-author Xiangyu Mou also disclosed a pending patent covering the molecule's use against atherosclerosis.

Sharing an enzyme target with statins gives researchers a promising mechanism to pursue. Larger human trials would need to establish whether supplying the fatty acid—or encouraging gut bacteria to make more of it—could safely reduce the artery disease that causes heart attacks and strokes.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Wolves Were Supposed To Save Yellowstone. Scientists Say the Real Story Is Very Different

By R. Luque-Lora, U. of Edinburgh, Oct. 13, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/wolves-were-supposed-to-save-yellowstone-scientists-say-the-real-story-is-very-different/

Since their reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park in 1995, wolves have become a celebrated example of how restoring predators can revive damaged ecosystems. But decades of ecological research suggest their influence on the park’s wildlife and vegetation is far more complex than the popular narrative suggests. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Yellowstone’s wolves helped reduce elk numbers, but tree recovery remained limited, challenging the popular story that their return restored the park’s ecosystem.

You might be among the 46 million people who’ve seen a video showing how wolves changed Yellowstone, or you may have heard some other version of this story. Yellowstone, which covers nearly 3,500 square miles of the western United States, was the world’s first national park. Its pioneering reintroduction of wolves, which began in 1995, set a worldwide precedent for conservation.

The first half of the story is well established. Wolves were eradicated from Yellowstone in the 1920s. With the wolves gone, populations of elk (a large species of deer) overgrew. Elk overgrazed the park’s riverbanks, turning groves of willow and aspen and beaver ponds into bare grasslands.

This process was swiftly reversed, or so the story goes, when wolves were reintroduced. Not only did wolves kill elk, keeping their numbers in check, but they also scared them away from the valleys, giving trees a chance to regrow.

A range of beneficial effects followed: beavers moved back and rebuilt their dams, and the regrown shrubs attracted more bears, who further helped keep elk in check.

It’s a neat and captivating story, widely cited as evidence that wolves can restore ecosystems and reforest the land. Unfortunately, reality is much more complicated.

Wolves did not, by and large, restore Yellowstone. Understanding the science behind this fact can teach us a lot about how ecosystems work. Even more interestingly, reflecting on why so many people are keen to believe this story can tell us a lot about ourselves, and our relationship with nature.

Why wolves did not save Yellowstone

The story originated with scientific studies in the early 2000s, built on a theory known as “trophic cascades”: the idea that changes at the top of the food chain can waterfall down to its very bottom. For example, wolf eats elk eats willow: so, more wolves equals fewer elk equals more and taller willows.

This idea was later popularized far beyond the scientific literature, notably by British rewilding advocate George Monbiot, whose 2013 Ted Talk was used to voice-over the viral Yellowstone wolves video.

But with a further two decades of data to draw on, scientists have found that this linear chain of causes and effects is an oversimplification of ecology. Wolves eat elk, yes, but so do humans and bears and mountain lions.

Reductions in elk populations, caused by this varied suite of carnivores, did allow some degree of tree recovery in some parts of the national park. But that recovery has been exaggerated and falls far short of the landscape-wide reversal (from elk-dominated grasslands to willows and beaver ponds) that is often portrayed in popular accounts.

The park’s lead wolf biologist described the reality as more of a “trophic trickle” than a cascade.

Another reason why wolves did not radically transform Yellowstone is that elk aren’t so scared of wolves after all. This might sound odd—who’s ever heard of prey that’s not scared of its predators? Actually, it’s feeding that takes priority in elk behavior: hungry animals will seek good grazing, predators or no predators.

Why we wanted to believe

For all its scientific shortcomings, the story satisfies some of our deepest beliefs and cravings.

First of all, the idea that nature is a balanced machine where the pieces fit precisely and interact like clockwork. Take a single cog away, and the machine falls apart: elk run rampant and the ecosystem collapses. Put the cog back, and in the blink of an eye, things run smoothly as they used to.

But ecosystems aren’t machines: they are dynamic, ever-changing, and often unpredictable.

Second, and more perversely, the story satisfies the common belief that only humans can disrupt nature’s harmony, and that it’s only by leaving nature alone that the balance is restored.

For instance, in the viral video about wolves in Yellowstone, there is not a single image of a human being. The narration describes the wolves as having “turned up” and says, “The number of beavers started to increase.” In fact, the wolves were flown in from Canada, and beavers had been deliberately released into the park’s surroundings. These human interventions are absent from the story the video tells.

In a way, this is a continuation of a much older view of wilderness as something untouched and unpeopled. This view of nature inspired the founding of many national parks, Yellowstone included—eventually displacing millions of people from landscapes that were later presented as pristine.

Third, the Yellowstone story satisfies the craving to conceive of nature as a healing power. It’s the ecological equivalent of “nature cure” stories in popular culture, in which damaged people recover by going on an outdoor journey. What the Yellowstone story portrays, if you like, is a nature-nature cure: in this case, it is not a person but a wilderness that is healed by nature.

Wolves can be worth saving regardless of whether they save Yellowstone. Personally, I think ecologists should learn to say, simply, that they love wolves – and that these objects of their love need serve no purpose beyond themselves.

Before turning to the humanities, I was trained as a conservation biologist. Many biologists, like my earlier self, tend to think of emotions as too soft to include in their publications by contrast with data (especially numerical data), which is seen as hard and indisputable.

Now, though, this seems upside down to me. We don’t need a theory of trophic cascades to justify loving wolves. It is love and sorrow that are solid and beyond dispute, not fickle arguments about the balance of nature.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/