Longer Breastfeeding Linked to Fewer ADHD Symptoms in Children

By The U. of Bergen, Aug. 27, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/longer-breastfeeding-linked-to-fewer-adhd-symptoms-in-children/

A study of more than 37,000 families links breastfeeding duration with later differences in ADHD symptoms. 

Credit: Stock

A baby’s first meals may shape attention for years, with longer exclusive breastfeeding linked to fewer ADHD symptoms through age eight.

Researchers at the University of Bergen examined data from 37,600 families in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). The association appeared in both boys and girls and was strongest when the children were ages three and five, although it remained detectable at age eight.

Breast milk contains long-chain fatty acids, amino acids, antibodies, beneficial bacteria, and other substances involved in brain growth and immune development. Scientists have long investigated whether these components, breastfeeding itself, or related family and health factors could shape a child’s later development.

“It is well established that psychiatric symptoms and disorders can be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors,” says Berit Skretting Solberg, a psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Bergen’s Department of Biomedicine and a senior consultant at Betanien Hospital.

Tracking Breastfeeding and ADHD Symptoms

Six months after giving birth, mothers answered questions about exclusive breastfeeding, partial breastfeeding, and when they introduced other liquids or solid foods. The researchers used those responses to estimate how long each child had received only breast milk.

“We found that the longer a child was exclusively breastfed (up to six months), the lower the level of ADHD symptoms at ages three, five, and eight years,” says Solberg.

Breastfeeding of any kind was associated with lower symptom levels, but the pattern became stronger as its duration and intensity increased. The clearest association occurred among children who were exclusively breastfed for longer, up to the six-month limit examined in the study.

Genetics Complicates the Connection

Breastfeeding and ADHD may be connected in several directions, making the results difficult to interpret. ADHD is strongly influenced by genetics, and traits shared between parents and children can affect both feeding experiences and later behavior.

Mothers with ADHD symptoms tend to breastfeed less and are also more likely to have children who develop ADHD symptoms. Babies who already display early traits associated with ADHD may also be more difficult to breastfeed.

“This may partly explain the relationship between lower breastfeeding and increased ADHD symptoms in children,” says Solberg.

To separate these overlapping influences as much as possible, the team adjusted its analysis for known genetic susceptibility to ADHD and sociodemographic factors. The researchers also compared siblings from the same families who had experienced different breastfeeding patterns, helping to account for some shared genetic and household influences.

A Moderate Association Remained

“Even after these adjustments, there was a clear but moderate protective effect of the duration of exclusive breastfeeding on later ADHD symptoms,” Solberg explains.

MoBa does not perfectly represent Norway’s wider population. Its participants tend to have higher education levels and are more likely to breastfeed, often for longer, than the population overall. Solberg said the association might be larger in communities where breastfeeding is less common, although further research would be needed to test that possibility.

One Possible Influence Among Many

“As with other observational studies, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions about causality,” says Solberg, emphasizing the need for further research.

ADHD is a complex neurodevelopmental condition rather than the result of any single experience or parental decision. Genetics remain the leading influence, while numerous biological and environmental factors may affect how symptoms emerge. Breastfeeding can also be limited or impossible for medical, practical, or personal reasons, and this study does not imply that feeding choices determine whether a child develops ADHD.

“In our society, heredity is likely the strongest risk factor for ADHD. However, since ADHD, like other neurodevelopmental disorders, is influenced by multiple factors, our study suggests that the extent of breastfeeding may also help protect against the development of ADHD symptoms in young children.”

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Blackbirds Somehow Know When a Snake Is Too Dangerous To Attack

By Oregon State U., Aug. 26, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/blackbirds-somehow-know-when-a-snake-is-too-dangerous-to-attack/

Red-winged blackbirds treated two similar-looking snake threats very differently, aggressively striking gopher snakes while rarely making contact with rattlesnakes.

 Credit: Shutterstock

Red-winged blackbirds largely avoided striking rattlesnakes while aggressively attacking gopher snakes, revealing a striking difference in nest defense behavior.

At nests across western Oregon, red-winged blackbirds readily confronted many threats to their young, but rattlesnakes prompted a strikingly different response. Even though the birds likely had little or no experience with vipers, they were remarkably reluctant to physically attack them.

The research, published in Behavioral Ecology, tested how red-winged blackbirds responded to several potential nest predators found in western Oregon, including scrub jays, ground squirrels, and nonvenomous gopher snakes.

Led by Shelby Lawson of Oregon State University, the researchers used realistic but inanimate models of the animals, placing them on platforms a few meters from blackbird nests. Red-winged blackbirds are known for aggressively defending their nests.

The birds were also presented with cowbirds, which are brood parasites – they lay their eggs in someone else’s nest, forcing another species to expend resources raising them – along with song sparrows (as a control species; sparrows don’t prey on blackbird nests) and rattlesnakes.

Clockwise from upper left: Gopher snake, rattlesnake, squirrel, jay, cowbird, sparrow. 

Credit: Shelby Lawson

Rattlesnakes triggered unusual restraint

Although rattlesnakes are native to western Oregon, they were largely eliminated west of the Cascade Range during the 1800s, so blackbirds living there today probably rarely encounter them. Yet across tests at dozens of nests – roughly half featuring eggs and half containing nestlings – the birds struck a rattlesnake only once. Gopher snakes, by comparison, were struck more than 80 times.

“We don’t know whether that’s because they recognized the danger or if there’s something about the viperid features or the rattle that gave the birds pause,” said Lawson, a postdoctoral researcher in David Kikuchi’s integrative biology lab in the OSU College of Science.
Nest defense depends on parental risk

The experiment also provides a new test of parental investment theory, a biological framework for understanding when animals devote more effort or accept greater danger to protect their offspring and when they prioritize their own survival.

Red-winged blackbirds have been studied extensively in this context, Lawson said. Their defensive behavior changes according to how much danger a predator poses to the nest and whether approaching that predator also puts the parent at risk.

“For example, they might physically beat up an egg-eating jay or squirrel near their nest, but in response to something like a hawk that could eat them, they might choose to keep their distance and alarm-call instead,” she said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwZZ3x4APpQ

Nesting red-winged blackbirds react to an apparent scrub jay. Credit: Russell Campbell

Across the experiment, blackbirds reacted more aggressively to predator models than to controls. They also did not simply become more cautious around all snakes, despite snakes generally posing greater danger to adult birds than most of the other predators included in the tests.

Blackbirds and other passerines—perching birds, as opposed to raptors, waterfowl, hummingbirds, penguins, etc.—typically respond more cautiously to predators capable of killing them, Lawson said. By contrast, they often directly attack animals such as crows and squirrels that primarily threaten their offspring.

“In our experiment, the gopher snakes and rattlesnakes represented medium-sized adults that would be unlikely to pursue healthy adult blackbirds but definitely able to injure them during close-range nest defense,” Lawson said. “And obviously a rattlesnake’s venom makes it inherently more dangerous to deal with.”

Venom changed strikes, not overall response

Despite that additional danger, the blackbirds otherwise responded to rattlesnakes much as they did to gopher snakes, including swooping toward them. The major difference was that the birds almost never made physical contact with the vipers.

“Neither snake was struck during incubation, but during the nestling stage the focal birds—the ones whose nest it was—routinely struck gopher snakes, and neighboring blackbirds regularly got in the act too,” she said.

“This is the first paper to test responses of breeding birds to both nonvenomous and venomous snakes within a parental investment theory framework, and it shows that we need to be including snakes in these kinds of tests more often,” Lawson added. “We still don’t fully know how birds recognize or make decisions regarding snakes despite them being a major threat to their nests, and this study is a good step toward understanding that.”

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NASA Finds Earth Microbes Could Hide in the Moon’s Deep Shadows

By J. Holland, U. of Maryland, Aug. 28, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/nasa-finds-earth-microbes-could-hide-in-the-moons-deep-shadows/

Shadows near the Moon’s south pole may create temporary refuges where microbes carried by astronauts can withstand otherwise lethal conditions.

 Credit: Shutterstock

Microbes carried to space by human explorers could survive in shaded areas near the moon’s south pole, according to researchers from NASA and the University of Maryland.

Even on the moon, where extreme temperatures and intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation make the surface deeply hostile to life, some microbes from Earth may find temporary refuge. New modeling suggests that shaded pockets near the lunar south pole could allow certain bacteria and fungi to survive for as long as a week.

The NASA-led research, published in Science Advances, could matter as human exploration expands across the moon and eventually reaches Mars.

“When we created lunar maps with purple, red and blue representing different surviving microbe species, we were surprised at how colorfully they turned out,” said study co-author Stefano Bertone, an associate research scientist in the University of Maryland’s Department of Astronomy. “So much for ‘nothing can survive on the moon.’”

Human exploration raises contamination risks

The results underscore how differently microbes can respond to extreme lunar conditions and why their persistence matters for future exploration. As people establish a longer-term presence on the moon and eventually travel to Mars, biological material carried from Earth could make it harder to separate naturally occurring ancient chemistry from contamination introduced by astronauts.

Humans constantly shed microbes into their surroundings. A patch of skin about the size of a pinky nail, for example, can contain roughly a million bacteria. An astronaut’s footprint could therefore leave hundreds of millions of living bacteria behind on the lunar surface. Even with stringent sterilization procedures, “there’s potential for a lot of human contamination of the lunar landscape and, inevitably, the science we do there,” Bertone said.

Understanding and planning for that contamination will be important wherever human missions travel.

“We need to understand what was there before us, because when we go to Mars to search for signs of life beyond our planet, we will want to make sure it’s not stuff we brought,” said Prabal Saxena, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who led the new study.

Lunar shadows can shelter microbes

Determining where microbes could persist requires understanding how sunlight reaches the moon’s polar terrain. Because the moon has only a slight axial tilt, the sun remains very low above the horizon near the poles. Even modest rises in the landscape can therefore block sunlight from depressions and low-lying areas, creating cold shadows that can preserve water and reduce exposure to damaging radiation.

Earlier studies concluded that microbial survival was highly unlikely in the places humans have already visited on the moon, primarily near the equator. Those models, however, did not account for how local topography changes environmental conditions. That omission becomes especially important near the lunar poles, where craters, slopes, and other surface features create extensive shadows and where future human exploration is now focused.

“Incorporating the bumps and craters was a key to this study,” Bertone said. “The question was, how well can the moon’s surface topography shield some areas from UV, and is it enough to keep any of our study organisms alive?”

Microbial survivability in the Moon’s polar regions. Top panels show 24-hour UV exposure; bottom panels identify areas where microbes may survive based on UV and maximum summer temperature, with permanently shadowed regions in black. Panels highlight survivability near the north and south poles, including De Gerlache, while white squares mark Artemis III candidate regions and circles indicate 85° latitude. 

Credit: University of Maryland

The researchers simulated microbes commonly associated with spaceflight environments and/or human skin in three areas near the lunar south pole that are candidate landing regions for the upcoming Artemis III mission. They constructed detailed environmental maps using elevation and temperature measurements from instruments aboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, then combined those data with models describing how radiation reaches the lunar surface.

Bertone also applied ray tracing, a technique that follows the movement of light and can model effects such as reflection, refraction, soft shadows, and more. He combined it with measurements from the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter—which provides precise topographical information including surface brightness, slopes, and roughness.

“We can trace the path of light from the sun to the moon considering the sun’s position and every bump and boulder that causes a ray to bounce and pivot before reaching the surface,” he explained. “Even what are called permanently shaded regions get light, and therefore UV, indirectly. It’s all extremely nuanced, and this method lets us account for small details.”

Some microbes could persist for days

The simulations revealed “survivable niches” of varying sizes where microbes might persist for as long as seven days. Aspergillus stood out for its resistance to UV radiation and could potentially survive across 15 to 30% of areas that receive at least some sunlight during lunar winter.

Every microbe examined had potentially survivable locations in all three modeled regions. Aspergillus could persist for at least seven days across 3% of the mapped terrain, while all five microbes could potentially survive in portions of the De Gerlache Rim’s permanently shaded regions even after scattered UV light was taken into account.

Survival, however, does not mean the microbes would be able to grow. Organisms persisting under these conditions would remain in a cryptobiotic state, with growth possible only if suitable conditions later developed. There is currently no evidence that the moon provides key requirements for microbial growth and reproduction, including liquid water, which typically requires an atmosphere and moderate temperatures.

Even so, survival has to occur before growth is possible, making microbial persistence an important consideration for both exploration and scientific research, Bertone said.

The moon could test microbial limits

The lunar south pole could also provide researchers with a natural laboratory for studying just how far microbial survival can be pushed. Carefully controlled experiments in shaded terrain could reveal how Earth organisms respond to environmental conditions that are difficult to reproduce accurately in laboratories on Earth.

The researchers next plan to develop more detailed illumination models, use higher-resolution topography, and expand microbial experiments. One approach, called shape from shading, can reconstruct 3D planetary terrain, craters and surface slopes from 2D photographs by analyzing light intensity, shadows and surface angles. Together, these efforts could provide a clearer picture of how human-associated microbes persist after reaching the moon.

“In planning human operations to the moon or elsewhere, we need to know everything we can about what’s been left behind,” Bertone said.

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Scientists Analyzed Earth's Hidden Seed Vaults And Made a Disturbing Realization

28 Aug. 2026, By P. Dockrill

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-analyzed-earths-hidden-seed-vaults-and-made-a-disturbing-realization

(Jonathan Kemper/Unsplash)

The iconic 'Doomsday Vault' – aka Norway's Svalbard Global Seed Vault – is perhaps the world's best-known seed bank.

Holding over a million seed samples from plants from almost every country, the monolithic fortress is like a global insurance policy, ensuring the world of tomorrow has vital seed backups to grow food and other essential crops in an uncertain future.

But for all the Doomsday Vault's impressive collection, nature has it comprehensively beat.

The world's biggest seed bank is actually hidden beneath your feet, in what's called the soil seed bank – nature's own vast repository of seeds lying in wait on the ground, in the dirt, or scattered among leaf litter.

Unlike Svalbard's meticulously coordinated donations, deposits in the soil seed bank are a chaotic affair, with seeds falling randomly onto the ground, carried on the wind, or dispersed via floods.

Despite the randomness, it amounts to a staggeringly large reserve of seeds, new research shows.

In a study published in Nature Communications, scientists analyzed a global database of the soil seed bank, containing 3,096 records of soil samples collected from 94 countries across all seven continents.

Something is happening to the world's biggest seed bank, the one beneath your feed.

 (Cora Mueller/Shutterstock)



Millions of seeds and seedlings were counted and identified in those samples, as part of some 1,400 studies.

Those seeds are an immense reservoir we can now put some numbers to.

The team's calculations suggest that globally, there's an average of more than 5,000 seeds hidden in the soil for every square meter of surface, across land, wetland, and aquatic environments worldwide.

"In the broadest sense, if you put your finger to the earth, you are likely to be pointing at a seed," the researchers explain in their paper, led by co-first authors and ecologists Alistair Auffret from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Emma Ladouceur from the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada.

"The high density of seeds in the soil is a testament to the formation of soil seed banks as an important component of plant population and community dynamics, and a valuable strategy for many plant species to facilitate establishment following disturbance."

Be that as it may, the researchers uncovered a pattern in the data, and it's one that could limit the effectiveness of the soil seed bank's vital role in regenerating vegetation after disturbances such as severe weather, which can wipe out plants on the surface.

The pattern in seed species richness parallels the biodiversity crisis we're seeing in plant life. (sbayram/iStock/Getty Images)



While it's long been known that different habitats support differing levels of plant diversity and density – deserts are sparse, and rainforests are packed – less is known about how this extends to the soil seed bank, especially on a global scale, as most studies of the soil seed bank are limited to specific regions.

Using their global database, assembled by some of the same team and first published in 2024, the researchers found a surprising contrast in seed populations across different regions.

"Across the world's biomes and ecosystems, patterns in species richness in the seed bank often diverged from patterns of seed density," the team reports.

In other words, soils that contained seeds from a wide variety of plant species did not have high numbers of seeds themselves – and areas with high seed density often didn't show a great diversity of species.

One example of this is tropical ecosystems, which show high species richness in the soil seed bank, but low seed density. On the other side of the scale, arable (farmland) ecosystems had low species richness, but a high density of seeds.

More concerningly, the researchers found evidence that human activity could be negatively impacting the soil seed bank, especially with regard to the diversity of seed species present in the environment.

"Strikingly, we also found that the richness of soil seed banks appeared higher in undisturbed compared to degraded habitats, suggesting how across the world's ecosystems, soil seed banks also reflect the ongoing depletion of biodiversity as a result of anthropogenic activities," the researchers write.

"This indicates that the potential for seed banks to contribute to the recovery and restoration of degraded ecosystems might be limited."

If further research confirms this, it's a new perspective on the biodiversity crisis already evident in plant life at the surface – only now mirrored in their seed precursors hidden underground.

"Our findings are concerning," the researchers explain, "matching general trends of reduced biodiversity in the established vegetation over time, and have consequences for the potential of passive restoration to reverse biodiversity losses."

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The Immune Systems of 110-Year-Olds Are Hiding a Remarkable Secret

By Cell Press, Aug. 27, 2026
https://scitechdaily.com/the-immune-systems-of-110-year-olds-are-hiding-a-remarkable-secret/

The immune systems of people who live past 110 may be doing something unusual. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Rare cancer-killing T cells expand markedly in some exceptionally old adults, suggesting the immune system may continue adapting even at extreme ages.

Among people who live past 100, the immune system may not simply weaken with age. Instead, rare immune cells known as CD4 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CD4 CTLs), which can kill tumor cells in some cancers, appear to become increasingly prominent. These cells multiply through a process called clonal expansion when the immune system responds to threats, and research published August 19 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports suggests they may also be involved in healthy aging among supercentenarians.

“Immune aging is not simply a process of decline,” says first author Kosuke Hashimoto, an associate professor at the University of Osaka in Japan. “The selective expansion of certain T cells suggests that, even in extreme old age, the immune system may continue to adapt to age-related challenges.”

CD4 CTLs have emerged as a cellular feature of supercentenarians, people who reach age 110 or beyond. In the new study, researchers found evidence that these uncommon cells continue expanding and adapting in this exceptionally old population.

“CD4 CTLs are an atypical and relatively rare T cell population,” Hashimoto says. “So, their marked increase in supercentenarians may provide important clues as to how the immune system is maintained in extreme old age.”

CD4 killer T cells rise with age

Researchers examined blood samples from 28 adults divided into three age groups: 70–99, 100–109, and 110 and older. Median CD4 CTL levels rose steadily across those groups, from 4% to 9.6% and then 17.6%, respectively.

The pattern suggests that expansion of these cells may begin around age 100, although it was not limited to centenarians and supercentenarians. One participant younger than 100 actually had the highest proportion of CD4 CTLs in the study.

The researchers next analyzed participants’ T cell receptors and found that clonal expansion was helping drive the increase. CD4 CTLs can make copies of themselves when the immune system encounters a threat. Across the study, the largest clone represented an average of 33.3% of all CD4 CTLs, suggesting that some older adults may be responding to persistent immune challenges. In one centenarian, a single clone made up 53.8% of the CD4 CTLs in the blood sample.

Cancer protection remains an open question

To investigate what these dominant cells might be responding to, researchers compared receptor sequences from each participant’s leading CD4 CTL clone with sequences stored in a public database. Nearly three dozen matches came from people with cancer, including lung, breast, and liver cancers.

None of the centenarians or supercentenarians in the study had been diagnosed with those cancers, leading the researchers to propose that the expansion of these cells might represent early immune responses to abnormal targets.

“Some CD4 CTLs may recognize cancer-related targets, although their exact targets remain unknown,” Hashimoto says.

The study examined T cells circulating in blood and cannot establish that having more CD4 CTLs protects against cancer or causes exceptional longevity. Hashimoto says the researchers now plan to investigate how these cells behave within human tissues.

“As we age, abnormal cells, including senescent and cancerous cells, become more common,” Hashimoto says. “Our findings suggest that immune adaptation to these changes may contribute to exceptional longevity.”

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Meet The Gaia Hypothesis: The Theory That Earth Regulates Itself Like a Living Thing

28 Aug. 2026, By E. Öz

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-strange-hypothesis-that-suggests-earth-may-be-alive

Earth photographed by the Apollo 17 crew on 7 December 1972. 

(NASA)

Earth has survived asteroid impacts, volcanic catastrophes, ice ages, and dramatic changes in the Sun's brightness. Yet it has remained habitable for billions of years.

Was that merely extraordinary luck? Or could life itself have helped keep the planet suitable for life?

It sounds like something from science fiction. Yet the idea was developed by a respected British scientist and went on to influence how researchers think about the relationship between life and the planet.

Known as the Gaia hypothesis, it proposes that Earth's living organisms, atmosphere, oceans, soil, and rocks form one enormous interconnected system.

Through countless feedback loops, this system may help maintain conditions in which life can continue.

In other words, life may not simply exist on Earth. It may be helping to run it.

To understand what that means, think about your own body.

(helivideo/iStock/Getty Images Plus)



When you become too hot, you sweat. When you become cold, you shiver. Your body continually makes adjustments to keep its internal conditions within a safe range. This process is called homeostasis.

British chemist James Lovelock wondered whether Earth might do something broadly similar. This was the provocative possibility that he explored with American microbiologist Lynn Margulis during the 1970s.

Photosynthetic organisms help replenish atmospheric oxygen. Microorganisms produce and transform gases and compounds involving methane, nitrogen, sulfur, and other elements. Together, biological processes continually reshape the atmosphere and Earth's surface chemistry.

None of these organisms understands what it is doing. There is no planetary control room and no committee of microbes deciding how warm Earth should be.

Their actions change the environment – and those environmental changes then affect the organisms. The result is an immense network of feedback loops linking life, air, water, and rock.

To demonstrate how something resembling planetary regulation could emerge without intelligence, Lovelock and Andrew Watson developed a model of a fictional planet called Daisyworld.

This hypothetical Daisyworld is home to only two kinds of life: black daisies and white daisies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCxIqgZA7ag

Black daisies absorb sunlight and warm their surroundings. White daisies reflect sunlight and cool them. When the planet becomes cold, black daisies thrive and help warm it. As temperatures rise, white daisies gain the advantage and help cool it down.

The daisies are not trying to save their planet, the researchers propose. They are simply growing under the conditions that suit them. Yet their competition acts like a planetary thermostat, keeping temperatures suitable for life longer than would otherwise be possible.

This thought experiment does not prove that Earth is alive, of course.

But it shows that a planet could appear to regulate itself without consciousness, foresight, or a master plan.

The hypothesis has always had its skeptics. Biologists pointed out that if organisms appear to regulate the planet 'for the benefit of' life as a whole, natural selection offers no obvious mechanism to have produced that – selection acts on individuals within a species, not on planets.

Daisyworld was built partly to answer that criticism, showing that self-regulation can emerge from ordinary competition rather than cooperation or foresight.

And this is where the Gaia hypothesis becomes more than an entertaining thought experiment.

If Earth resembles a self-regulating system, it is tempting to assume that the planet will correct the damage humans cause. But Gaia is not a protective mother who will always restore the world we know.

A system can regulate itself in ways that are disastrous for some of its inhabitants.

Earth has endured mass extinctions before. Life continued, but countless species disappeared. A self-regulating planet is therefore not necessarily one that remains safe for every species – including us.

This leads to the most unsettling question raised by Gaia: are humans triggering a planetary change that could destroy us while creating conditions suitable for whatever life comes next?

Burning fossil fuels and destroying ecosystems are now altering the atmosphere, oceans, and climate on a planetary scale. Some of these changes can activate feedback loops that make the original problem worse.

Melting ice reveals darker land and water that absorb more sunlight, causing additional warming. Thawing permafrost releases greenhouse gases. Dying forests can release the carbon they once stored.

Beyond certain tipping points, parts of the system may continue changing even if humans later reduce the pressure that started the process.

Some researchers have therefore asked whether humanity could become part of a more deliberate form of planetary regulation.

A 2022 study described Earth as having an "immature technosphere." Our technology is powerful enough to change the entire planet, but our collective intelligence is not yet advanced enough to control the consequences.

As ScienceAlert has previously reported, intelligence exists on Earth, but humanity has not yet achieved a mature form of planetary intelligence.

The Gaia hypothesis does not prove that our planet thinks, plans, or cares whether humans survive. Its warning may be more disturbing than that.

Earth will respond to the changes we cause. But its response will not necessarily be designed to save us.

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Billions of Invasive Fish Have Taken Over the Great Lakes. Scientists Say We Can Still Stop Their Next Invasion

By D. Campbell, U. of Toronto, Aug 25, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/billions-of-invasive-fish-have-taken-over-the-great-lakes-scientists-say-we-can-still-stop-their-next-invasion/

Round goby are small but highly invasive fish that can disrupt freshwater ecosystems by competing with native species and consuming fish eggs and young.

 Credit: Shutterstock

The slow inland spread of round goby may give conservation managers a valuable window to protect rivers and streams before the fish become firmly established.

Round goby are now so deeply established in the Great Lakes that scientists estimate their population in the billions, making complete eradication unrealistic. For decades, the small invasive fish has been among the region’s most damaging introduced species.

Research from U of T Scarborough, however, suggests there is still time to prevent the invasion from reaching the same scale elsewhere.

In a study published in the Journal of Great Lakes Research, postdoc Piatã Marques and Professor Nick Mandrak argue that governments and conservation agencies should shift their strategy as round goby move beyond the Great Lakes and into rivers, streams, lakes, and other inland waters.

“The Great Lakes are essentially lost when it comes to round goby,” says Mandrak, a renowned invasive species expert.

“They’re established throughout the lakes, they number in the billions, and we’re never going to fully remove them from those systems. Now we’re seeing them move into connected and isolated waters where we still have a chance to slow or even stop their spread.”

They may be small, but invasive round goby can have a significant impact on local aquatic ecosystems.

 Credit: Don Campbell/University of Toronto



The researchers found that round goby advance much more slowly through smaller waterways, potentially giving managers time to contain or even eliminate local populations before they become firmly established.

Native to the Black and Caspian seas, round goby reached the Great Lakes in the early 1990s through cargo ship ballast. They have since colonized all five Great Lakes, where they compete aggressively with native fish for food and habitat, eat fish eggs and young, and disrupt aquatic food webs.

Although a round goby is only about as long as a smartphone, its ecological impact can be substantial. Aggressive behavior, a voracious appetite, and an ability to tolerate varied environmental conditions have helped the species reach populations numbering in the billions.

Students in Mandrak’s lab, including postdoc Piatã Marques (center), have found populations of round goby living in Toogood Pond Park in Markham. 

Credit: Don Campbell/University of Toronto



The invasion is moving farther inland

Marques says round goby are now entering a different stage of their expansion.

“Over roughly the last 15 years, we’ve started seeing round goby moving upstream into inland waters, including rivers, streams and ponds,” he says. “These freshwater systems contain some of Ontario’s richest biodiversity, including endangered species, so this is an area of concern.”

One potentially threatened species is the redside dace, an endangered fish found in streams across the GTA. Researchers are concerned that round goby could compete with it and other native fish for food while further altering inland freshwater ecosystems.
Slower spread creates time to intervene

Using more than 20 years of GTA river monitoring records collected by local conservation agencies, Marques and Mandrak found that round goby typically move upstream by only a fraction of a kilometer to about two kilometers each year. That relatively slow pace may provide an important opportunity to intervene before populations expand dramatically.

Professor Mandrak is a renowned invasive species expert. He says while round goby might never be eliminated from the Great Lakes, there is still hope in protecting smaller inland bodies of water. 

Credit: Don Campbell/University of Toronto



Because rivers and streams are smaller and easier to access than the Great Lakes, targeted control is more practical. The researchers suggest that trapping, electrofishing, physical barriers, and rapid response programs could reduce local numbers and, in some locations, potentially eliminate the fish.

Developing effective control strategies also requires understanding how round goby adjust to these unfamiliar habitats, Marques says. Researchers in the Mandrak lab are examining what the fish eat, how they compete with native species, whether urbanization helps them travel upstream, and what allows them to establish themselves successfully in new freshwater environments.

The researchers are also testing environmental DNA (eDNA), which can identify fish from genetic material left in water samples. This approach could reveal an invasion even when individual fish are difficult to capture.

“They’re very flexible in terms of the conditions they can tolerate,” says Marques. “They can feed on many food sources, and we think they’re changing how they reproduce and survive as they move upstream. We’re trying to understand exactly which characteristics allow them to persist in these new environments.”

Marques says the broader goal is to provide resource managers with practical information about which control methods are most effective and how much effort is required to suppress local populations.

Research in the Mandrak lab is looking at what round goby eat, how they compete with native species, whether urbanization helps them move upstream and why they’re able to successfully colonize new freshwater systems. The ultimate goal is to help control the spread of the fish. 

Credit: Don Campbell/University of Toronto

Urban streams may ease their expansion

The researchers are also investigating whether urban development is unintentionally making some waterways easier for round goby to colonize. Road salt and other pollutants raise concentrations of dissolved ions in streams, potentially creating conditions that favor a species originally adapted to brackish waters in Eurasia and helping it move farther inland.

For Mandrak, the findings point to a broader lesson about managing invasive species before they become overwhelmingly abundant.

There is still an opportunity to protect these inland ecosystems,” he says. “If we act before round goby becomes established in rivers and streams, we have a better chance of protecting native biodiversity. If we wait until the invasion reaches the same scale we’re seeing in the Great Lakes, it will be too late.”

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Forget Acid Rain: Electrically Charged Raindrops Can Corrode Metal in a Way We Never Knew About

27 Aug. 2026, By D. Nield

https://www.sciencealert.com/forget-acid-rain-electrically-charged-raindrops-can-corrode-metal-in-a-way-we-never-knew-about

(Artem Hvozdkov/Moment/Getty Images)

Metals everywhere need to be protected from corrosion, from beloved cars to iconic buildings, sculptures, and ships.

However, according to new research, there's a source of corrosion we didn't know about – and haven't been accounting for.

That source is electrically charged water. Water can get charged in many ways, from passing through a thundercloud to sliding across different surfaces.

Knowing that water can both become charged and corrode metal, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany wanted to see if there might be a connection.

The team's experiments showed that water carrying an electrical charge could create holes in a conventional protective coating on copper through an intense electrical process known as dielectric breakdown.

"We demonstrated that these charged drops can cause the coating to break down electrically and lead to corrosion of the metal," write the researchers in their published paper.

"As spontaneously charged water drops form naturally, this previously overlooked corrosion mechanism may contribute to the degradation of cultural heritage sites, buildings, ships, cars and other metal components."

The researchers ran a series of experiments using different materials and set-ups.

The researchers found that electrical charges built up as water droplets moved over surfaces, which damaged different materials to varying degrees. 

(Ni et al., Nature, 2026)



In the first, water droplets rolled across four common surfaces (a plant leaf, a thin PVC foam board, polystyrene, and quartz coated with a water repellent), then fell onto copper samples coated with either Teflon or polystyrene.

In another, the droplets slid across a continuous Teflon surface coating two adjacent materials.

The researchers measured the charge of the water drops as they slid and the corrosion patterns after thousands upon thousands of droplets had struck or slid over the coated metal surfaces.

Together, the experiments showed that water droplets caused damage to coated metals like copper and gold – not only from the impact of hitting them, but also by just moving across them.

Using a powerful microscopy technique, the researchers could see the damage and characterize the products of the corrosive reactions that had occurred.

When electrically neutral water drops were added to the protected copper, no damage occurred.

Close-ups of some of the damage observed in the metal coatings after 3,000 charged drops.

 (Ni et al., Nature, 2026)

Scientists only recently realized that sliding water droplets can become charged through an exchange of charges with the surface (similar to how static electricity works).

This new work furthers our understanding of the impact those charged droplets have on everyday materials.

Once the metal is exposed, it's vulnerable to corrosion. It's not that scientists haven't noticed rain and water breaking down metals before – it's a widely known issue – but we may have to rethink how we attribute this damage and protect against it.

"Conventional understanding attributes the coating failure induced by water drops mainly to two mechanisms: physical abrasion caused by moving drops, and chemical degradation from acidic substances and pollutants in the drop," write the researchers.

The results are telling, but the study was limited to lab experiments. For now it's not clear how much rainwater, for example, could be carrying an electrical charge that's significant enough to damage metal.

However, this is a distinct possibility. Future studies should be able to establish a clearer picture of just how much material degradation is due to these charged water drops.

"Charged drops can be generated naturally in clouds, thunderstorms, ocean waves, fountains, and waterfalls, or when sliding over hydrophobic materials before hitting the coated metal," write the researchers.

"They also occur in industrial processes such as electrostatic spraying, inkjet printing and reactions in chemical and pharmaceutical production. Consequently, this cause of corrosion may be relevant in many everyday or industrial processes."

If scientists can better quantify the threat of electrically charged water to protected metals, they could also develop improved coatings to guard against the dielectric breakdown observed here.

Now that they know what to look for, the study team believes similar corrosion could well be happening in other materials too, beyond those they tested.

"Naturally charged drops can cause a coating to break down electrically, thereby initiating or exacerbating corrosion of the coated metals," write the researchers.

"Our findings can improve anti-corrosion strategies and emphasize the need for protective materials capable of resisting charge-induced damage from water drops."

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A Hidden Gut Reaction May Explain Why Vegetables Are So Good for You

By Karolinska Inst., Aug. 26, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-hidden-gut-reaction-may-explain-why-vegetables-are-so-good-for-you/

A newly identified gut pathway may transform nutrients from vegetables into molecules with effects far beyond the intestine. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Gut bacteria may turn dietary nitrate and iron into molecules that support cardiovascular and metabolic health.

Vegetables such as beets and leafy greens provide nitrate and iron, but part of their biological effect may depend on what happens after those nutrients reach the gut. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have found that gut bacteria can transform dietary nitrate and iron into biologically active molecules that may help protect against cardiovascular and metabolic disease. The findings were published in Cell.

Nitrate is naturally abundant in vegetables, particularly beets and leafy greens such as spinach, arugula, and lettuce. Plant foods including beans, whole grains, and green vegetables also contain nonheme iron. The researchers found that gut microbes can combine nitrate and nonheme iron from the diet to form molecules called dinitrosyl iron complexes (DNICs). These compounds are then absorbed and carried to tissues throughout the body, with particularly high levels reaching the liver and kidneys.
Gut bacteria are essential for DNIC formation

To trace where these molecules came from, the researchers conducted experiments using mice, cells, bacteria, and human samples. Advanced analytical techniques detected DNICs in multiple tissues, but the compounds were completely absent in germ-free mice. That difference indicated that the gut microbiota plays an essential role in producing them.

Andrei L. Kleschyov. Credit: Karolinska Institutet



“Our results show that gut bacteria can convert components in food into biologically active molecules that influence important bodily functions,” says Andrei L. Kleschyov, Senior Researcher at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, the study’s first and co-corresponding author.
Higher DNIC levels improved health markers

The researchers then raised DNIC levels in an animal model of cardiovascular and metabolic disease, either by providing dietary supplements containing nitrate and iron or by administering synthetically produced DNICs. Both approaches were associated with improvements across several measures of cardiovascular and metabolic health.

“Among other things, we observed lower blood pressure and improved vascular function, better blood sugar control and reduced fat accumulation in the liver. The results help to explain why a diet rich in vegetables, which contain both nitrate and iron, is linked to a lower risk of several diseases,” says Mattias Carlström, Professor of Cardiorenal Physiology at the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet, one of the study’s shared last authors together with Professor Jon Lundberg at the same department, and co-corresponding author.

Mattias Carlström. 

Credit: Andreas Andersson



Human effects still need testing

According to the researchers, the findings reveal a previously unknown way that diet and particular gut microbes can interact to produce molecules with potentially beneficial effects. However, much of the evidence comes from experimental models, so further studies are needed to determine how important the pathway is in people.
The next challenge is developing reliable ways to measure DNICs in humans and tracking how they are produced, move through the body, and influence different physiological processes. Researchers also want to determine whether diet or changes to the gut microbiota can alter DNIC levels in ways that might eventually help prevent disease.

The research was funded by, amongst others, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the European Research Council (ERC), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Diabetes Wellness Sweden and the Karolinska Institute.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

An Ancient Shark Graveyard Has Been Found in The Egyptian Desert

22 Aug. 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/an-ancient-shark-graveyard-has-been-found-in-the-egyptian-desert

(Anton Petrus/Moment/Getty Images)

The desert sands of Egypt have been dry for thousands of years.

As difficult as it is to picture now, however, much of that desert was once submerged beneath a sea that covered much of the northern perimeter of the African continent.

Nor was it a dead sea – evidence suggests that, during the Cretaceous period, it may have been a tropical wonderland, where rising currents lifted nutrients into the water column to feed a thriving ecosystem.

Now, buried in what was once the floor of that long-ago sea, on the Abu-Tartur Plateau, paleontologists have found evidence of its lushness: the teeth of sharks that would have thrived amid the bounty of fish.

And not just one shark. The total number of different species found in that layer of the Duwi Formation now numbers at least seven – offering a glimpse of the rich marine ecosystems that once flourished along the northern edge of Africa.

The 14 teeth represented five species. 

(Yassin et al., Cretac. Res., 2026)



"Collectively, this assemblage highlights a nutrient-enriched, high-productivity marine ecosystem along a phosphogenic shelf margin," writes a team led by paleontologist Tarek Yassin of Cairo University in a paper published in Cretaceous Research.

During the Cretaceous period, between about 145 to 66 million years ago, our Earth was a very different place. Under a greenhouse climate driven by tectonic activity, the world was warmer, with little to no polar ice; higher sea levels meant that much of the land we inhabit today was underwater, including northern Africa.

We know this at least partially because of phosphate. Phosphorite deposits commonly form where marine productivity is high, and phosphorus is being intensively cycled and concentrated.

A diagram illustrating how oceans once covered the region. 

(Yassin et al., Cretac. Res., 2026)

The extensive phosphate deposits of the Duwi Formation therefore preserve not just the remains of this ancient sea, but clues to how productive its waters once were.

In previous research, Yassin and his colleagues had identified two shark species in a handful of teeth found in the fossil bed – an intriguing signal, since a community capable of supporting multiple large predators requires a productive food web beneath them.

So they went back to Abu-Tartur to see if they could find out more.

And the black and yellow layers of the Duwi phosphate ponied up the goods. They found another 14 shark teeth – representing another five shark species, none of which had been identified at Abu-Tartur.

When all you have is teeth – and with ancient sharks, that's usually the case – subtle differences can be the sole metric on which a species diagnosis hangs.

With the Duwi teeth, the differences were not always subtle.

Several of the teeth were long and slender, like a needle. Others were broad and serrated, probably better suited for slicing than penetrating. One tooth was prominently curved like a karambit. Some had small, fang-like side projections, called cusplets; others did not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brbx7cMte68

Based on other fossil records around the world, the researchers identified these teeth as belonging to five extinct species: Cretalamna cf. maroccana, Scapanorhynchus cf. raphiodon, Serratolamna cf. serrata, Squalicorax bassanii, and Squalicorax pristodontus.

All five are new records for Abu-Tartur.

Two were new for Egypt entirely – Serratolamna cf. serrata and Squalicorax bassanii.

One stood out as extraordinary. Scapanorhynchus cf. raphiodon – the one with the needle teeth – may represent the first known occurrence in Africa. In addition, it could be the most recent example on the fossil record, the researchers said – all other specimens are significantly older.

Those identities, however, paint a much more interesting picture than "a bunch of sharks".

As their teeth might suggest, they may not have been directly competing, but occupying different ecological niches in a rich marine environment.

"The presence of Squalicorax could suggest an input from nearshore/inner shelf settings, while the occurrence of Scapanorhynchus reflects deeper-water conditions on the outer shelf and slope," the researchers write.

"Lamniform taxa such as Cretalamna and Serratolamna further support stable open-shelf conditions."

The researchers believe that the secret to this richness may have been upwelling.

Nutrient-rich waters rising from deeper in the ocean would have delivered phosphorus and other nutrients to the sunlit surface waters, driving intense primary productivity – plankton that came to feast.

That would have supported small fish and invertebrates, then predators such as Squalicorax and Cretalamna, with Cretoxyrhina and marine reptiles higher up the food web.

But this is where the shark "graveyard" gets interesting. There was very little sediment accumulation during the time that the sharks lived, so the phosphate bed represents a more condensed span of time than you might find somewhere with more mud.

Consequently, the teeth are a time-averaged accumulation from multiple ecological niches, not evidence that seven shark species lived at the same time and all died there together.

But it does add to evidence that these ecosystems were common across the northern edge of Africa during the Late Cretaceous. Other phosphate deposits from places such as Morocco and Syria record large numbers of shark species hanging around – suggesting the entire region was a great place to conduct shark business.

Today, little remains of that shark paradise. The Tethys is gone, the seafloor has become desert, and the predators that prowled its waters vanished millions of years ago.

Like a projector from the past, however, just a scattered handful of teeth embedded in a rock can conjure up an entire lost world.

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A 35,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Pelvis May Explain Why Men and Women Walk Differently

By Tel-Aviv U., Aug. 25, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-35000-year-old-neanderthal-pelvis-may-explain-why-men-and-women-walk-differently/

Neanderthal fossils hint that the modern male pelvis, not the Neanderthal one, may be the evolutionary outlier. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Why do men and women walk differently? 

A Neandertal pelvis from 35,000 years ago, when Neanderthals still coexisted with modern humans, may help explain why.

Every step humans take places the pelvis under a repeating mechanical load as the body drops and rises again. A study from the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, published in Scientific Reports, suggests that this everyday movement may help explain a major anatomical difference between men and women.

By comparing Neanderthal and modern human pelvises, researchers reached an unexpected conclusion: rather than the Neanderthal pelvis being the unusual form, as long assumed, the modern human male pelvis may represent the evolutionary departure.

The researchers propose that its structure developed into a biomechanical shock-absorbing system that stores energy and improves the efficiency of long-distance walking.

Neanderthal fossils hint that the modern male pelvis, not the Neanderthal one, may be the evolutionary outlier. 

Credit: Shutterstock



Why do men and women walk differently? A Neandertal pelvis from 35,000 years ago, when Neanderthals still coexisted with modern humans, may help explain why.

Every step humans take places the pelvis under a repeating mechanical load as the body drops and rises again. A study from the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, published in Scientific Reports, suggests that this everyday movement may help explain a major anatomical difference between men and women.

By comparing Neanderthal and modern human pelvises, researchers reached an unexpected conclusion: rather than the Neanderthal pelvis being the unusual form, as long assumed, the modern human male pelvis may represent the evolutionary departure.

The researchers propose that its structure developed into a biomechanical shock-absorbing system that stores energy and improves the efficiency of long-distance walking.

A reconstruction of the skeleton. 

Credit: Tel Aviv University



Modern male hips may improve walking efficiency

A key difference lies in the placement of the hip joints. In modern human males, they sit farther forward on the pelvic ring than they do in modern human females or male Neanderthals. According to the researchers, that shift created a mechanical arrangement in which the anterior thigh muscles attached to the front of the pelvis can act like a spring while body weight bears on the back of the pelvis.

Professor Rak explains that with every step of bipedal walking, the body’s center of mass moves downward. That movement places stress on the joints and requires energy to lift the body again for the following step.

Under the proposed model, the geometry of the male pelvis allows the thigh muscles to soften the downward movement, store potential energy during the step, and release it immediately afterward– effectively “springing” the body upward into the next step.

Proposed evolutionary scenario for the development of the modern human pelvis. 

Credit: Tel Aviv University

The researchers, therefore, describe the pelvis as a natural shock-absorber and energy-return system. This arrangement may lower energy use, make walking more efficient, and provide an advantage during long-distance travel on foot. Moving the hip joints forward also appears to have required other anatomical changes, including a thicker pubic bone and a deeper front portion of the pelvis capable of handling the altered mechanical loads.

Childbirth preserved the ancestral pelvic pattern

Modern human females, according to the researchers, could not undergo the same full set of modifications. Childbirth requires the pelvis to remain relatively shallow while preserving a sufficiently wide birth canal. As a result, the female pelvis may have remained closer to the ancestral configuration, the same general arrangement seen in male Neanderthals.

Professor Ella Been of Ono Academic College, a co-author of the study, adds: “This study demonstrates that questions about human evolution are not confined to the distant past. Understanding the evolution of our walking mechanism can contribute to contemporary research in biomechanics, musculoskeletal medicine, rehabilitation, and injury prevention. The perspective provided by the Neanderthals helps us better understand the modern human body.”

Professor Rak argues that the findings reverse the traditional way of framing pelvic evolution. In this interpretation, the Neanderthal pelvis is not the anatomical anomaly that demands explanation. Instead, the distinctive pelvis of the modern human male represents the evolutionary innovation.

The researchers say their biomechanical model could account for a substantial portion of sexual dimorphism in the human pelvis, meaning the anatomical differences between females and males. The work also suggests that even macroscopic human anatomy, despite centuries of study, may still contain previously overlooked structures, geometric relationships, and biologically important mechanisms.

The birth of modern Man

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