Something Made Earth's Molten Core Reverse Direction in 2010

26 May 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/something-made-earths-molten-core-reverse-direction-in-2010

Earth's magnetic field is generated in the outer core, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below sea level. 

(ESA/AOES Medialab)

Something strange is going on, deep below the ground beneath our feet.

In the molten ocean of iron churning in Earth's outer core, a section deep beneath the Pacific Ocean suddenly reversed direction and started moving eastward against the planet's usual westward flow.

This happened in 2010, according to satellite measurements of Earth's magnetic field, and scientists are still trying to figure out what caused it.

"The large-scale flow reversal beneath the Pacific raises new questions about the behavior of Earth's deep interior," explains geoscientist Frederik Dahl Madsen of the University of Edinburgh.

"Scientists now want to understand whether the reversal represents a short-lived fluctuation, part of a repeating oscillation, or a new stable equilibrium for core circulation. Continued monitoring will be essential to determine how the flow evolves over the coming years."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adcbctPjPb8

Change in our planet's interior is no mere trivial curiosity. What happens there is crucial for our planet's habitability.

It's from the roiling, molten, conducting metal at Earth's heart that the planetary magnetic field is generated, as kinetic energy is converted into magnetic energy that expands into a protective cage of magnetic field lines wrapping around the planet. This core engine is called the geodynamo.

The magnetic field is vital to our continued existence. It helps keep the atmosphere we breathe in and harmful cosmic radiation out.

But understanding it means using those external magnetic fields to delve into the chthonic darkness deep in Earth's belly.

A visualization of Earth's external magnetic field.

 (ESA)



By studying changes in Earth's magnetic field, scientists previously determined that the molten outer core generally flows in a westward direction.

Then, in 2011, something unexpected happened. Scientists saw hints that the flow beneath the Pacific was moving eastward.

Now, after examining 27 years of satellite data from 1997 to 2025, Madsen and his colleagues have pieced together a picture of what might be happening down there.

Most of the outer core's motion is dominated by a circulation pattern called the eccentric planetary gyre.

The researchers' analysis reveals that, in 2010, in the region beneath the Pacific Ocean, part of the outer core abruptly departed from this pattern, shifting from a weak westward flow before 2010 to a strong eastward one after 2012.

Outer core flow under the Pacific (center-right in each map) in 1999 (top) and 2016 (bottom).

 (ESA)

This flow continued to strengthen until 2020. As of the most recent measurements, it appears to be weakening again.

The phenomenon didn't appear to be a small eddy or localized disturbance, but accounted for around 5 percent of the outer core's surface flow. Nor was the signal consistent with the circumspheric zonal bands observed on fluid bodies such as Jupiter and Saturn.

Rather, it seemed to have a large, wave-like structure – as though a chunk of molten core material suddenly thought better of where it wanted to go, surging in the other direction.

This was deeply unexpected. Scientists had assumed that the large-scale flow of Earth's outer core was more or less stable and consistent. This finding suggests that there are processes that can influence it strongly enough to alter its behavior in bulk – and that our planet's interior may be more dynamic and variable than we thought.

What could have caused the sudden change is not known for sure, but other measurements from around the same time suggest something big was happening around 2010.

Every 5.8 years or so, the length of Earth's day changes slightly, a phenomenon that has been linked to Earth's core. In 2010, there was a disruption to this cycle that did not resolve until 2014.

There were also seismic signs that the inner core's behavior may have changed around this time.

Satellites also recorded a series of geomagnetic jerks in 2017 – abrupt glitches in Earth's magnetic field linked to turbulent activity deep inside the core. The researchers believe this activity may be related to the earlier changes that occurred in 2010.

None of this is dangerous to us surface-dwellers, but since Earth's magnetic field plays such a critical part in protecting us from space weather, understanding the engine that drives it will help scientists improve forecasting.

"This research raises intriguing questions about how Earth's deepest layers are dynamically connected," says mission scientist Elisabetta Iorfida of the ESA's Swarm satellite project.

"As the magnetic field continues to evolve, satellite missions are providing an increasingly detailed view of the dynamic processes unfolding deep inside our planet, revealing that Earth's core may be far more variable and complex than once believed."

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Unveil the Hidden Electrical Structure of the U.S., Exposing Serious Risks

By Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, May 27, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-unveil-the-hidden-electrical-structure-of-the-u-s-exposing-serious-risks/

Over the course of nearly 20 years, scientists installed and collected data at more than 1,800 magnetotelluric data stations around the country. The measurements collected have allowed scientists to develop new tools that can detect solar storms before they strike, helping to determine locations most at risk for negative impacts.

 Credit: Adam Schultz, Oregon State University

Researchers created the first detailed electrical map beneath the United States, improving the ability to monitor solar storm risks and understand hidden geological structures.

A solar storm on the scale of the event that triggered a nine-hour blackout in Québec in 1989 could cause far greater disruption if it struck the eastern United States today. Scientists have now developed improved methods to detect these storms before they hit by mapping hidden electrical structures beneath the ground, revealing how underground geology can influence damage to power grids.

After 18 years of research and measurements taken at more than 1,800 locations nationwide, the United States Magnetotelluric Array (USMTArray) has completed the first large-scale survey of the continent’s underground electrical properties. In a new study, researchers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) unveiled a three-dimensional map showing how electrical currents move through buried rocks, fluids, and ancient geological formations. The map exposes hidden structures and conductive pathways deep beneath North America.

The USMTArray measures natural fluctuations in Earth’s electric and magnetic fields at the surface. Because electrical conductivity underground is influenced by minerals, fluids, and temperature, these measurements allow scientists to examine structures ranging from shallow sediment layers to ancient formations more than a billion years old that support the continent’s foundation.

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) move from the surface of the Sun towards Earth through space. 

Top: CME is generated as an outflow of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun, moving through space to Earth over a matter of hours. 

Bottom: The magnetic fields of the CME and outflowing solar wind interact with Earth’s magnetic field, which shields it from greater effect. This interaction causes the auroras at the poles.

Credit: Hayley Bricker/EarthScope



“Magnetotelluric data, which measures natural electric and magnetic field variations on the Earth’s surface to map subsurface electrical resistivity, responds very strongly to things like fluids and melt,” said Anna Kelbert, an Earth Science Project Scientist at the CfA and the lead author of the new paper.

New 3D Earth Map Could Improve Solar Storm Warnings

Kelbert said the USMTArray also provides a three-dimensional view of electrical resistivity extending from Earth’s surface down into the mantle. “That gives us a fundamentally different window into the Earth compared to seismic data.”

The findings carry important practical implications. During geomagnetic storms, energy released from the Sun can generate electrical currents that move through the ground and into power infrastructure. The 1989 Québec blackout demonstrated the danger when storm-driven geoelectric fields overwhelmed the Hydro-Québec power system, cutting electricity to millions of people.

Kelbert and her colleagues found that during the same storm, geoelectric field amplitudes at a site in Maine reached 22.79 volts per kilometer (36.7 volts per mile). At that intensity, the ground conducted electricity far beyond the limits most power systems are designed to withstand. Electrical grids are built to manage alternating current, not direct current.

“I believe that anything above 1 V/km is considered a threat by the power grid industry,” Kelbert said. “For anything like 20 V/km, if the geoelectric field of that amplitude was oriented along a typical 200-km power line in Maine, we’d be looking at voltages of 4,000 V, which would be driving a strong quasi-DC current across that line.”

Solar Storms Pose Growing Threat to Power Grids
A prolonged surge of direct current can overload transformers, causing overheating and potentially destroying equipment that is expensive and slow to replace. A major event larger than the 1989 blackout could leave large parts of the country without power for an extended period.

The Northern Lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, are more active when there are solar flares on Earth’s Sun, or when an intense coronal mass ejection forces plasma from the Sun into space. That same ejection can cause geomagnetic storms on Earth, which can in turn cause damage to Earth’s electrical grid. Scientists from the USMTArray project have collected data over nearly 20 years to develop new tools that can predict where and when these storms will strike.

Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

Kelbert said the USMTArray significantly improves the ability to assess these risks. In the past, researchers relied on simplified one-dimensional models to estimate how electricity moved underground. The new survey shows that underground geology across the United States is far more complicated. Geoelectric risks can vary sharply even between locations only a few miles apart, with some nearby areas showing differences as large as sites separated by hundreds of miles.

Today, information from the USMTArray feeds into a real-time hazard map operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS). The system tracks electric fields across the country during geomagnetic storms, helping scientists and emergency officials estimate risks at specific locations with far greater detail than before.
Massive Survey Reveals Ancient Structures Beneath North America

The project began in 2006 with the goal of building a detailed image of North America’s deep geological structure. The resulting three-dimensional electrical model traces the movement of ancient landmasses that collided long ago, maps stable continental regions that have survived for billions of years, and reveals how North America formed. Unlike seismic techniques, these electrical measurements can identify features such as inactive ancient subduction zones marked by conductive materials like graphite and sulfide minerals buried deep underground.

Because the map can identify underground fluids and electrically conductive minerals, researchers say it may also help locate valuable resources, including mineral deposits and underground heat sources.

“There is still a gap between knowing the geoelectric fields in real-time and using this information to make timely operational decisions,” Kelbert said. “Prediction, not just detection, is the next frontier.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

New Treatment Could Reverse Osteoarthritis Within Weeks

By L. Marshall, U. of Colorado at Boulder, May 26, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/new-treatment-could-reverse-osteoarthritis-within-weeks/

Researchers have developed experimental osteoarthritis therapies that appear to trigger damaged joints to heal themselves in animal studies. The approaches, which include a regenerative injection and a biomaterial repair system, could point toward a future where joint degeneration is treated by restoring tissue rather than replacing it. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Experimental osteoarthritis therapies repaired damaged joints in animals and may enter clinical trials within 18 months.

A new experimental treatment may one day allow arthritic joints to heal themselves — without major surgery. In animal studies, researchers successfully regenerated damaged cartilage and restored aging joints to a healthy state within just weeks.

The breakthrough therapies include a single regenerative injection that delivers healing bursts of medicine over time and a biomaterial repair system designed to recruit the body’s own cells to rebuild damaged cartilage and bone.

The findings were promising enough that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) announced that the research will advance to the next phase of a project worth up to $33.5 million. The effort is part of ARPA-H’s Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis (NITRO) program, led by Dr. Ross Uhrich.

The multidisciplinary team behind the work includes scientists and engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder, CU Anschutz, and Colorado State University.

“In two years, we were able to go from a moonshot idea to developing these therapies to demonstrating that they reverse osteoarthritis in animals,” said principal investigator Stephanie Bryant, professor of chemical and biological engineering at CU Boulder. “Our goal is not just to treat pain and halt progression, but to end this disease.”

Stephanie Bryant works with Laurel Stefani, a biomedical engineering PhD candidate from Richardson, TX. 

Credit: Casey Cass/CU Boulder



Osteoarthritis Treatment Limitations Drive New Approaches

Osteoarthritis is the third most common disease in the United States and affects about one in six people over age 30 worldwide. The condition breaks down cartilage, the protective tissue that prevents bones from rubbing together. As the disease progresses, it can also damage bone, alter joint structure, and make movement extremely painful.

Current treatment options are limited mainly to pain management or joint replacement surgery. There is no cure, so the Colorado researchers are pursuing two new strategies.

Stephanie Bryant, professor of chemical and biological engineering, in her lab at the BioFrontiers Institute at CU Boulder. 

Credit: Casey Cass/CU Boulder



One approach uses an existing FDA-approved drug that has been adapted for osteoarthritis treatment. Bryant and her team created a patented particle delivery system that can be injected directly into a joint and slowly release the medication over several months.

For patients with major cartilage or bone damage, the researchers also developed engineered proteins that can be delivered arthroscopically and hardened in place. The material attracts the body’s progenitor cells to repair the damaged area.
Animal Studies Reveal Rapid Joint Repair

In animal studies, arthritic and injured joints treated with the injection returned to a healthy state within four to eight weeks. When researchers repaired holes in bone or cartilage, they observed what Bryant described as “full regeneration and repair of the defect.” The therapies also showed strong regenerative effects in human cells taken from patients undergoing joint replacement surgery.

NITRO was the first ARPA-H program and was created to develop “minimally invasive therapeutics that fully regenerate damaged joints.” Two years ago, the program awarded the Colorado team up to $33.5 million based on milestone achievements.

After successfully completing phase one, the researchers are now moving into phase two.

“It’s super exciting to be a part of the very first program of ARPA-H and to be one of the first teams to advance to the second phase,” said Bryant.

Principal Investigator Stephanie Bryant in the lab with a student at the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder. 

Credit: Casey Cass/CU Boulder



Researchers Envision Affordable Regenerative Care

Dr. Evalina Burger, professor and chair of the Department of Orthopedics at CU Anschutz, said osteoarthritis affects a wide range of patients, from older adults struggling with everyday activities to athletes forced to leave sports because of chronic joint pain.

“At the moment, the options for many patients are either a massive, expensive surgery or nothing. There’s not a lot in between,” said Burger, who has been following the team’s research with interest.

 “That’s why ARPA-H is so important.”

Burger and Bryant hope the treatments could eventually offer patients in the early stages of osteoarthritis a low-cost, single-dose therapy that keeps joints healthy for years. Patients with tissue damage could potentially receive treatment during a single doctor visit followed by a quick recovery.

The team plans to publish the animal study results in a peer-reviewed journal later this year. The researchers have also launched Renovare Therapeutics Inc. to help commercialize the technology.
Clinical Trials Could Begin Within 18 Months

If future studies continue to show positive results, Bryant said clinical trials could begin in as little as 18 months.

“This could be a real game-changer for patients,” said Bryant.

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Scientists Unravel the Mystery of Angola’s Giant “Ghost Elephants”

By C. Adami, Stanford U., May 23, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-unravel-the-mystery-of-angolas-giant-ghost-elephants/

The first photo of a ghost elephant captured by a motion-controlled camera. The eyes glow in this night shot. 

Credit: Courtesy The Wilderness Project Archive

DNA taken from elephant dung revealed that Angola’s elephants living at high elevations belong to a distinct genetic lineage connected to elephants in Namibia.

For more than 10 years, conservation biologist Steve Boyes pursued reports of “ghost elephants,” nighttime giants said to live in a remote high-altitude wetland in eastern Angola. In 2024, a motion sensor camera finally photographed them. Boyes then asked Stanford scientists to help answer a deeper question: Who are these elephants, and where did they come from?

DNA recovered from elephant dung offered an unexpected answer. The ghost elephants are genetically different from any population that had been sequenced before, and their closest known match is with elephants in Namibia, hundreds of miles to the south.

Dmitri Petrov, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, led the genomic analysis. “DNA is the molecule of life, and people have figured out how to read it faster and faster,” Petrov said. “It’s very powerful.”

The search for the elephants and the Stanford science behind it are featured in a new National Geographic documentary by Werner Herzog. The film follows Boyes, a National Geographic Explorer, as he travels to Lisima Ly Mwono, a high-altitude wetland so isolated that the team had to carry motorbikes across rivers to get there.

Katherine Solari and Dmitri Petrov receive DNA samples of a ghost elephant from Steve Boyes. 

Credit: Skellig Rock, Inc.



The elephants are larger than others in the region, active at night, and previously known only through local sightings. Boyes thinks they could be living descendants of the largest living land mammal ever recorded, an elephant named “Henry,” which was killed in Angola in the 1950s and whose remains are located at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Boyes brought dung samples to Petrov and Katie Solari, a senior scientist in the Petrov Lab and associate director of the Program for Conservation Genomics at Stanford. The Petrov Lab brings together biologists, physicists, and mathematicians who use genomic tools to investigate evolutionary adaptation. Former Stanford researcher Jordana Meyer, the senior scientist on the project, was the key connection that brought the work to the Petrov Lab. Ellie Armstrong, another former Stanford researcher, also contributed.

Hunting for DNA data

In the lab, the researchers put the samples into a “bead basher,” a machine that breaks open cells so DNA can be released. The extracted DNA was then sent to a sequencing machine capable of reading the full genome.

“This was a really great example of using non-invasive samples because you can’t even see the animal,” Solari said. “The best we can do is get their feces and then throw all our genomic techniques at it to get tissue-level information.”

Petrov and Solari have been refining this method in different mammals, mainly in Africa. Their work has shown that when a fecal sample is fresh enough, scientists can collect the outer mucus layer, which can function much like a tissue sample.

Luchazi tribal hunters carry a motorcycle across a river while assisting researchers on a journey to study ghost elephants in the Angolan Highlands. 

Credit: Skellig Rock, Inc.



“Hopefully that sample has more elephant DNA in it than the other things that are in a fecal sample, which is also going to include DNA from their diet, microbiome, and parasites,” Solari explained.

After the team obtained the ghost elephants’ genome, they shared the data with Carla Hoge, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago in the lab of John Novembre, so she could compare it with sequences from other elephants. The effort quickly ran into a limitation. “Surprisingly, when we started this project, there wasn’t a lot of genetic information available for elephants,” Solari said. “There were a few captive individuals that had been sequenced and aren’t helpful for this use case.”

Because the original ancestry of captive elephants is often unclear, Petrov and Solari needed genomic data from wild elephant populations near the ghost elephants to determine whether the groups were related.

Meyer and Solari spent months collecting blood and tissue samples from other elephants in the region where the documentary was filmed so the comparison could be completed.

“Carla’s analyses have shown that the ghost elephants are actually quite distinct from anything that we have sequencing for,” Solari said. “We’ve been able to tell that they’re most genetically similar to elephants in Namibia, rather than in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, which is surprising.”

Master tracker Xui receives instructions on collecting DNA samples from researcher Jordana Meyer.

 Credit: Skellig Rock, Inc.




The researchers were not able to prove a genetic link between the ghost elephants and Henry. For now, the only strong genetic evidence from Henry is mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only through the mother, and it does not connect him to the ghost elephants. Solari said additional data could eventually resolve the question.

The ghost elephant dung samples have already provided more than ancestry clues. They enabled Hoge to identify individual elephants, determine their sex, and assess whether any were closely related.

“The fact that we can see distinct individuals is really important,” Petrov said. “It’s a very established method, which we’re now using to understand how big the population is. It’s great that we can get all this information without ever disturbing the animals.”

“A lot of these populations we work on are endangered, so the question of conservation becomes central,” he continued. “We try to figure out how we can go into nature and learn about how these ecosystems work so that ultimately we can protect them.” Solari has applied the same fecal DNA method to count snow leopards in Pakistan, another elusive species that cannot be studied well through observation alone.

Stanford scientists have also used environmental DNA (eDNA) in related research at the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve (‘Ootchamin ‘Ooyakma), an accessible living laboratory. eDNA is genetic material that organisms leave behind in water, soil, or air, and it provides a noninvasive way to monitor ecosystems.

Science and poetic truth

Petrov said he appreciated the project’s storytelling dimension, as well as the chance to work with the Film and Media Studies Department on a campus screening of the movie last October. The screening included a panel discussion with Herzog, Petrov, Solari, and Pavle Levi, the Osgood Hooker Professor in Fine Arts.

According to Petrov, the discussion gave scientists and artists a chance to consider how data and storytelling can meet. “It added poetry to the whole process,” he said. “I think there are very few places where you could have that conversation other than here at Stanford.”

The film documents one stage of the work, but the scientific questions continue. Researchers still want to understand why the ghost elephants seem to trace back to Namibia rather than to a population closer to the Angolan highlands. “You solve one puzzle, and another puzzle shows up, and then we solve that one,” Petrov said. “It’s fun.”

The Life of Earth

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Ming Dynasty Surgeons Used Poison as an Anesthetic, Ancient Tools Reveal

26 May 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/ming-dynasty-surgeons-used-poison-as-an-anesthetic-ancient-tools-reveal

A pair of surgical scissors from the Ming Dynasty tomb of physician Xia Quan. 

(Ling et al., Antiquity, 2026)



Traces of red material crusted on ancient surgical tools may not be a record of pain, but rather the absence thereof.

Metal scissors and tweezers recovered from a Ming Dynasty tomb in Jiangyin County, China, retain what scientists believe may be the earliest direct chemical evidence of surgical anesthesia – a substance used for painless medical treatment.

It's the first discovery of its kind and highlights the sophisticated medicine of the Ming Dynasty.

The kicker? That substance appears to be aconitine, a highly toxic compound derived from the group of plants that includes wolfsbane.

Its presence on the tools of a revered surgeon – Xia Quan, who lived around 1348 to 1411 and in whose tomb the tools were found in 1974 – implies a very high level of skill and precision.

The scissors and tweezers from Xia Quan's tomb. 

(Ling et al., Antiquity, 2026)



"Six centuries ago, a Ming Dynasty surgeon performed an operation with a pair of iron scissors and tweezers, and today we have read the traces of anesthetic medicine left on those instruments using a beam of laser light," says Congcang Zhao of Northwest University in China.

"This is the first time humanity has found direct chemical evidence of anesthetics on ancient surgical tools, proving that our ancestors already knew how to safely alleviate patients' pain with highly toxic herbs."

Throughout history, humans have used some pretty strange substances as medicaments, but some evidence suggests that, at least in some cases, our ancestors' understanding of pharmacology was actually rather sophisticated.

The tomb was excavated in the 1970s, and its artifacts are now at Jiangyin Museum.

 (Ling et al., Antiquity, 2026)

There's also a surprising amount of physical evidence of successful, skilful surgeries from around the world, dating back thousands of years.

Ancient Chinese texts record the extensive use of pharmaceutical substances, often with detailed documentation of their ingredients, but physical traces of those substances are rarely preserved well enough to sample and study.

This brings us to Xia Quan, whose grave goods included a relatively large suite of tools of the surgical trade.

Fifty years ago, when the rusty tools were discovered, researchers lacked the techniques to determine what residues, if any, still clung to their iron surfaces.

Now, however, researchers have access to tools that can analyze even the most minuscule samples.

"Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopic imaging is an advanced optical technique that can be used to accurately identify material compositions and map component distribution," Zhao says, "effectively overcoming the key challenges in residue research of minimal sample availability and the need to preserve archaeological material."

Results of micro-Raman spectroscopy on the particle from the tweezers. 

(Ling et al., Antiquity, 2026)



The scissors and tweezers, housed in the Jiangyin Museum, were ideal candidates for the analysis because both contained difficult-to-clean crevices where residues could persist, particularly near the handles, where residue may have been protected from later contamination and cleaning.

Because the museum has a strict policy against removing artifacts from the premises, the researchers used a portable instrument to take measurements of these spots, with stunning results.

Three tiny, reddish particles – one from the tweezers and two from the scissors – were consistent with aconitine, likely extracted from Aconitum carmichaelii, or Chinese wolfsbane, a flowering plant that has long been used as a poison.

Wolfsbane is also known as monkshood for the hood-like petals that crown its flowers. (TeunSpaans/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)



According to contemporaneous texts, medical practitioners employed several techniques to mitigate the drug's toxicity, including treatment with urine from young boys, boiling in vinegar, and soaking in a black soybean decoction.

After those precautionary measures, the prepared aconitine powder would likely have been applied to the patient's skin to numb the area before attempting a painful procedure.

The discovery of the substance on surgical tools matches neatly with the textual record, showing that Ming Dynasty practitioners had a sophisticated understanding of how to safely prepare and administer toxic compounds to aid treatment.

"Combined with records of anesthetic prescriptions in Ming Dynasty medical texts, the study confirms that Aconitum was employed as a topical anesthetic, safely and precisely applied during surgical procedures," Zhao explains.

"Ming physicians used iron surgical instruments and controlled the toxicity of aconitine through topical application, compound prescriptions, and strict procedural controls, demonstrating a practical ability to balance drug potency with patient safety."

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Bees and Birds Are Drinking Alcohol From Flowers

By U. of California - Berkeley, May 25, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/bees-and-birds-are-drinking-alcohol-from-flowers/

Scientists found alcohol in the nectar of many flowers, meaning hummingbirds and bees are regularly drinking fermented nectar.

 Credit: Shutterstock

As bees and hummingbirds move from flower to flower collecting nectar and pollinating plants, they may also be consuming small amounts of alcohol.

In the first large-scale study examining alcohol in floral nectar, biologists at the University of California, Berkeley detected ethanol in at least one flower sample from 26 of the 29 plant species they tested. Most of the nectar samples contained only trace amounts, likely created when yeast fermented the sugars naturally present in nectar. One sample reached 0.056% ethanol by weight, which is roughly 1/10 proof.

Hummingbirds May Consume Human Equivalent of One Drink

Although the alcohol concentrations are very low, nectar makes up a major part of the diet for many pollinators. Hummingbirds, for instance, consume between 50% and 150% of their body weight in nectar every day. Based on those feeding habits, researchers estimate that an Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna), a species commonly found along the Pacific coast, may ingest around 0.2 grams of ethanol per kilogram of body weight daily — about the equivalent of a human consuming one alcoholic beverage.

The animals appear unaffected despite repeatedly consuming fermented nectar throughout the day. Earlier experiments from the same research group found that hummingbirds willingly drink sugar water containing up to 1% alcohol, though they become less interested when concentrations rise higher.

An Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna) feeding on flowers of an Island Mallow (Malva assurgentiflora), which was one of the plant species included in the study. 

Credit: Ammon Corl/UC Berkeley



Could Alcohol Affect Pollinator Behavior?

Scientists say the alcohol may still influence animals in subtle ways. Other compounds found naturally in nectar, including caffeine and nicotine, are known to affect the behavior of pollinators.

“Hummingbirds are like little furnaces. They burn through everything really quick, so you don’t expect anything to accumulate in their bloodstream,” said doctoral student Aleksey Maro, who analyzed the nectar alongside postdoctoral fellow Ammon Corl. “But we don’t know what kind of signaling or appetitive properties the alcohol has. There are other things that the ethanol could be doing aside from creating a buzz, like with humans.”

“There may be other kinds of effects specific to the foraging biology of the species in question that could be beneficial,” said Robert Dudley, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. “They’re burning it so fast, I’m guessing that they probably aren’t suffering inebriating effects. But it may also have other consequences for their behavior.”

Maro, Corl and Dudley published the findings in the journal Royal Society Open Science with coauthors Rauri Bowie and Jimmy McGuire, both professors of integrative biology and curators at Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7PwTN81zGg&t=1s

UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Ammon Corl sampling nectar from a sapphire tower flower (Puya alpestris) in the UC Botanical Garden in Berkeley, California. 

Credit: Aleksey Maro/UC Berkeley

Experiments Reveal Alcohol Tolerance

According to Dudley, one of the team’s earlier experiments involved placing alcohol-containing sugar water in a feeder outside his office. The study showed that Anna’s hummingbirds readily drank the solution when alcohol levels stayed below 1% by volume. However, visits to the feeder dropped by about half when the concentration reached 2%.

“Somehow they are metering their intake, so maybe zero to 1% is a more likely concentration that they would find in the wild than anything higher,” he said.

Another experiment, led by former graduate student Cynthia Wang-Claypool, found that feathers from several birds, including Anna’s hummingbirds, contained ethyl glucuronide, which is a metabolic byproduct of ethanol. That finding suggests the birds are not only consuming alcohol but processing it in a manner similar to mammals. Researchers say the results add to growing evidence that many animals, including human ancestors, may have evolved a tolerance for alcohol and in some cases even a preference for it.

“The laboratory experiment was showing that yes, they will drink ethanol in their nectar, though they have some aversion to it if it gets too high,” Corl said. “The feathers are saying that, yes, they will metabolize it. And then this study is saying that ethanol is actually pretty widespread in the nectar they consume.”

UC Berkeley doctoral student Aleksey Maro using a capillary tube to extract nectar from a Crinodonna lily (Amarcrinum memoria-corsii) in the UC Botanical Garden.

 Credit: Ammon Corl/UC Berkeley



Comparing Alcohol Intake Across Species

The scientists collected nectar samples and measured ethanol levels using an enzymatic assay. They then estimated daily alcohol intake for birds living in habitats where these flowers naturally grow. Because reliable nectar consumption data exist for only a few species, the researchers focused on two hummingbird species, including the Anna’s hummingbird, and three species of sunbirds. In South Africa, sunbirds feed on several plant species found in the UC Botanical Garden, including honeybush (Melianthus major). Sunbirds occupy a similar ecological role in Africa as hummingbirds do in the Americas.

The team compared the birds’ estimated alcohol intake with that of other nectar-feeding animals, including the European honeybee and the pen-tailed tree shrew, along with fruit-eating chimpanzees and humans consuming one standard American drink daily (0.14 grams/kg/day).

The pen-tailed tree shrew had the highest estimated intake at 1.4 g/kg/day, while the European honeybee had the lowest at 0.05 g/kg/day. The nectar-feeding birds consumed similar amounts, ranging from 0.19 to 0.27 g/kg/day when feeding on flowers native to their environments.

Interestingly, the feeder experiments suggest Anna’s hummingbirds may actually consume more alcohol from fermented sugar water in artificial feeders (0.30 g/kg/day) than from fermented nectar in flowers.

Evolutionary Adaptations to Ethanol

The study is part of a broader five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation aimed at collecting genetic data from all hummingbird and sunbird species. Researchers hope to better understand how these animals adapted to challenging environments and specialized diets, including high altitudes, sugar-rich nectar and naturally fermented nectar.

“These studies suggest that there may be a broad range of physiological adaptations across the animal kingdom to the ubiquity of dietary ethanol, and that the responses we see in humans may not be representative of all primates or of all animals generally,” Dudley said. “Maybe there are other physiological detoxification pathways or other kinds of nutritional effects of ethanol for animals that are consuming it every day of their lives. That’s the interesting thing — this is chronic through the course of the day, but that’s a lifetime exposure post-weaning. It just means that the comparative biology of ethanol ingestion deserves further study.”

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

The Modern World Was Built on a Very Strange Idea

Michael Button History,  21 May 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYm6W6vAdU

For most of human history, people did not believe all humans were equal. 

The weak were not protected. Human dignity was not universal. Power, hierarchy, and domination were treated as the natural order of the world. 

So where did modern morality come from? 

In this video, we explore how Christianity may have radically transformed the moral imagination of the West - and why the values we take for granted today may be far newer, stranger, and more fragile than we think.

 Inspired partly by the ideas of Tom Holland and his book Dominion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYm6W6vAdU

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

This discovery changed human history by 350,000 years

The British Museum,  May 21, 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ZuS0m1Oso

When did humans have the technology to make fire?

 Recently, the answer to that question has changed - pushing the date back from 50,000 years ago to 400,000 years ago. 

But how do we know this? 

Join John Harding as he meets the team behind this groundbreaking discovery. They show us where this fire took place, the evidence that confirms that humans were making this fire, and tell us why this is such a significant discovery, and why the control of fire was such an important moment in our shared human past.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-ZuS0m1Oso

The birth of modern Man

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Discover Common Medications May Secretly Alter Your Gut for Years

By SciTechDaily.com, May 24, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-common-medications-may-secretly-alter-your-gut-for-years/

Researchers found that many commonly prescribed drugs, not just antibiotics, were linked to long-lasting microbial changes that could reshape how scientists interpret microbiome data. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A new study suggests the gut microbiome may retain long-term signatures of past medication use, with some drugs leaving detectable effects years after treatment ends.

Your gut may carry a record of medications you stopped taking years ago.

A large study from the University of Tartu Institute of Genomics suggests that prescription drugs can leave lasting marks on the gut microbiome, the vast community of bacteria and other microbes that helps shape digestion, immunity, metabolism, and overall health. The findings challenge a common assumption in microbiome research: that only the medications someone is taking right now need to be considered.

The researchers analyzed stool samples and prescription records from 2,509 participants in the Estonian Microbiome cohort, part of the Estonian Biobank. Because Estonia’s health records allowed the team to look back at years of medication use, they could compare a person’s current gut microbes with both recent and older drug exposure.

Long-Term Microbiome Signatures

Of the 186 drugs studied, 167 were associated with some type of microbiome difference. Even more surprising, 78 showed long-term effects, meaning their microbial signatures could still be detected well after treatment had ended. In some cases, these traces remained visible more than three years after the last recorded use.

Antibiotics were not the only drugs with lingering effects. The study found long-lasting microbiome changes linked to antidepressants, beta blockers, proton pump inhibitors, glucocorticoids, biguanides, and benzodiazepines, a class of medications often prescribed for anxiety or insomnia.

“Most microbiome studies only consider current medications, but our results show that past drug use can be just as important, as it is a surprisingly strong factor in explaining individual microbiome differences,” said lead author Dr. Oliver Aasmets.

Repeated Drug Use May Strengthen the Effect

The study also suggests that repeated drug use may have a cumulative effect. For some medications, the more prescriptions a person had filled in the previous five years, the stronger the microbiome signal appeared to be. This “additive” pattern had already been seen with antibiotics, but the new analysis found similar effects for some human-targeted drugs, including beta blockers, benzodiazepines, and glucocorticoids.

One of the most unexpected findings involved benzodiazepines. Their impact on the overall gut microbiome was comparable to that of broad-spectrum antibiotics, and their effects were still detectable years later. The researchers also found that drugs within the same class were not always equal. Alprazolam and diazepam, for example, are both benzodiazepines, but they appeared to affect gut microbes differently. Similar differences were seen among beta blockers and proton pump inhibitors.

Implications for Future Research

That detail could become important if future studies confirm that some medications are gentler on the microbiome than others while offering similar clinical benefits. However, for now, the results do not mean patients should stop or change prescribed medications.

The team also examined a smaller group of 328 participants who provided a second stool sample after a median follow-up of 4.4 years. These follow-up samples helped confirm that starting or stopping certain medications was followed by predictable changes in gut bacteria. Despite the smaller sample size, the researchers verified long-term effects for proton pump inhibitors, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and antibiotics such as macrolides and combination penicillins.

“This is a comprehensive systematic evaluation of long-term medication effects on the microbiome using real-world medical health records,” said corresponding author Professor Elin Org. “We hope this encourages researchers and clinicians to factor in medication history when interpreting microbiome data.”

The authors note that the study has limits. It focused on prescription drugs, so over-the-counter medications were not included. The analysis also relied on purchased prescriptions as a proxy for actual drug use, which may not always reflect whether someone took the medication exactly as prescribed.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Chuck's photo corner to May 24, 2026

It's been a cooler week again with one or two hot days finally. Some nights have still been a little frosty. One thing that hit me this week was how my world closed in as shrubs and trees leafed out and flowered. Wide open winter spaces are now contained with vegetation.

out my office window

Walking in Rachelle's back lot

The snowmound spirea this morning out the front door, flowers almost ready to open

these red ground squirrels are small, but this guy was even smaller, a new addition to the yard

The sand cherry has opened up

Sunset earlier this week taken from the veggy garden space.

Lilacs opened this week

The apple tree getting pollinated, mostly bumble bees about this year so far.

the apple tree, the other tree are still a little too small to bloom, maybe next year.

the oregano is looking healthy

Oregano: the most powerful natural antibiotic hiding in your kitchen

sunset over the duck pond, I'm pretty sure the duck have a nest in the back yard once again this year.

a closer look

The pear is blooming well

barberry flowers,  a primary source of berberine

Now, you might be wondering, what foods can you eat to naturally increase your intake of berberine? Well, several plant-based foods contain this beneficial compound. Barberry, which is one of the plants from which berberine is derived, is an obvious choice. But there are other options too.

The last day for the tulips

Finally a warm enough day to change the winter tires, I do a bunch of oiling, and check the brakes at the same time. Made an appointment at the garage for brake work this year.

last years catalpa beans, the seeds are not actually beans at all

forget me nots 

elderberry flowers, I just found out this shrub as great rat repelling properties.

pear flowers.

Enjoy the day

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/