Bee Bacteria Could Fix a Major Flaw in Plant-Based Milk

By Technical U. of Denmark, April 18, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/bee-bacteria-could-fix-a-major-flaw-in-plant-based-milk/

Scientists have introduced a high-throughput technique that can rapidly screen entire microbial communities for useful traits, revealing unexpected candidates from insect-associated microbiomes. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A new microdroplet-based technique allows scientists to quickly pinpoint bacteria that can boost vitamin B2 levels in soy drinks.

Researchers at the DTU National Food Institute have developed a faster way to identify bacteria that can both support fermentation and boost vitamin B2 levels in soy drinks. In this study, they analyzed the microbiome (the complete bacterial community) from bumblebees by isolating individual microbes in microscopic droplets and testing their ability to produce the vitamin.

“Our research shows that it is possible to screen entire microbial communities directly and rapidly, and that promising bacteria can be identified from environmental samples without prior isolation and analysis of individual bacteria. This can make the development of new starter cultures faster and more targeted,” says Associate Professor Claus Heiner Bang-Berthelsen from the DTU National Food Institute.

The findings were published in the journal LWT – Food Science and Technology.

Researchers have discovered promising bacteria in bumblebees

Plant-based dairy alternatives often contain fewer vitamins and minerals than cow’s milk, with vitamin B2 (riboflavin) commonly lacking.

To address this, the team focused on finding bacteria that could grow in soy drinks while naturally producing vitamin B2 during fermentation. They turned to bumblebee gut bacteria as a source of candidates.

“Bumblebees live close to plants, and their guts contain many microorganisms that are already adapted to plant-based environments. That is why it was interesting for us to test whether we could find bacteria in bumblebees capable of producing vitamin B2 in soya drinks,” says Postdoc Hang Xiao from the DTU National Food Institute.

Tested the bacteria in microscopic droplets

To carry out the screening, the researchers adapted a technique known as droplet screening. Each bacterium from the bee gut was enclosed in a tiny droplet that acted as its own miniature culture chamber, allowing millions of cells to be tested within hours using a microfluidic system.

“Unlike conventional agar plate-based methods for microbial cultivation and screening, we encapsulated the bee gut bacteria in microscopic droplets so that each droplet contained only one bacterium and acted as an enclosed culture chamber. In this way, the individual bacterium could be analyzed at ultra-high speed by using our microfluidics screening platform, enabling us to screen millions of bacterial cells within just a few hours,” says Hang Xiao.

Because soy drinks are typically cloudy and interfere with measurements, the team created a transparent soy medium to improve accuracy.

“By making the soya liquid transparent, we were able to both screen the bacteria in an environment resembling their future application and, at the same time, obtain more stable droplets and more precise measurements,” says Claus Heiner Bang-Berthelsen.

The bacteria were exposed to roseoflavin, a compound similar to riboflavin that encourages the growth of strong vitamin B2 producers. The brightest glowing droplets, indicating the highest vitamin production, were then selected.

“This droplet-based microbial screening approach saved months of work and significantly reduced the resource use compared with conventional screening methods,” says Claus Heiner Bang-Berthelsen.

A particular Lactococcus lactis strain stood out

Among the microbes identified, a strain of Lactococcus lactis stood out. When tested in real products, it performed especially well in soy drinks.

“The results suggest that the bacterium works not only under laboratory conditions, but also in actual foods containing a significant amount of protein,” says Hang Xiao.

The strain continued producing vitamin B2 even when the drinks were already fortified with high levels of the vitamin, showing stable performance. It also demonstrated the ability to use a wide range of sugars, making it a flexible option for fermentation.

However, the bacterium was less effective in rice, oat, and some almond drinks, likely due to their lower protein content. The researchers believe a sufficient level of fermentable protein is needed for optimal growth and vitamin production.

“The exciting thing about the method is that it can not only identify vitamin B2-producing bacteria in soy drinks. It can also be adapted to identify other interesting substances, provided they can be detected using fluorescence. However, the method only works if the medium is transparent and has a low fluorescence background,” says Hang Xiao.

The Life of Earth

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Landmark Study Links Never Marrying to Significantly Higher Cancer Risk

By R. Dzombak, U. of Miami Miller School of Medicine, April 18, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/landmark-study-links-never-marrying-to-significantly-higher-cancer-risk/

New research reveals a striking link between never being married and elevated cancer risk across multiple types, with especially strong patterns in preventable cancers.

Cancer risk is higher among never-married adults, particularly for preventable cancers, likely due to behavioral and social factors.

Adults who have never married may face a much higher risk of developing cancer than those who are or have been married, according to a large U.S. study analyzing more than 4 million cases. The elevated risk was seen across nearly all major cancer types and was especially strong for preventable cancers linked to infections, smoking, and reproductive factors.

Conducted by researchers at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, the findings were published in Cancer Research Communications.

“These findings suggest that social factors such as marital status may serve as important markers of cancer risk at the population level,” said Paulo Pinheiro, Ph.D., study co-author and a Sylvester physician-scientist whose lab conducts population-based cancer epidemiology.

The results do not suggest that marriage itself protects against cancer or that people should marry for health reasons.

Health Awareness and Prevention Implications

“It means that if you’re not married, you should be paying extra attention to cancer risk factors, getting any screenings you may need, and staying up to date on health care,” said Frank Penedo, Ph.D., associate director for population sciences and director of the Sylvester Survivorship and Supportive Care Institute (SSCI).

“For prevention efforts, our findings point to the importance of targeting cancer risk awareness and prevention strategies with attention to marital status,” he added.

“These findings suggest that social factors such as marital status may serve as important markers of cancer risk at the population level,” said Paulo Pinheiro, Ph.D., study co-author and a Sylvester physician-scientist whose lab conducts population-based cancer epidemiology. 

Credit: Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center



Marriage has already been linked to earlier cancer detection and better survival outcomes. Married people often benefit from stronger social support, greater financial stability, and higher adherence to treatment plans.

However, most prior research has focused on outcomes after diagnosis. Only a limited number of smaller, older studies examined whether marital status affects the likelihood of developing cancer in the first place.

Study Design and Research Scope

“We wanted to know who is more likely to get cancer: married people or unmarried people?” Pinheiro said.

To answer this, researchers examined data from 12 states, covering more than 4 million cancer cases within a population exceeding 100 million people between 2015 and 2022. The analysis focused on malignant cancers diagnosed in adults aged 30 and older and compared cancer rates by marital status, while accounting for age, sex, and race.

Credit: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine



Participants were grouped into two categories: those who were or had been married, including married, divorced, and widowed individuals, and those who had never married. The study began in 2015 to include same-sex couples after the legalization of gay marriage in the United States. About 20% of adults in the dataset had never married.

Pinheiro expected to find some links, given known associations between marriage and lifestyle factors such as smoking, routine health care, and parenthood. Still, the strength of several findings exceeded expectations.

Key Cancer Risk Differences by Marital Status

People who had never married showed significantly higher cancer rates than those who were or had been married. In some cases, the differences were striking. Never-married men had about five times the rate of anal cancer compared with married men, while never-married women had nearly three times the rate of cervical cancer compared with women who were or had been married.

Both cancers are strongly linked to HPV infection, suggesting differences in exposure and, for cervical cancer, screening and prevention. For cancers such as ovarian and endometrial, differences may partly reflect the protective effects of childbirth, which is more common among married individuals.

Dr. Frank Penedo says that while the Sylvester study doesn’t mean marriage prevents cancer, it does spotlight populations who may be at greater risk. 

Credit: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine



“It’s a clear and powerful signal that some individuals are at a greater risk,” Penedo said.

Patterns also varied by sex. Never-married men were about 70% more likely to develop cancer than married men, while never-married women had about an 85% higher risk compared with women who were or had been married.

Gender Patterns and Cancer Trends

This finding slightly reverses a broader trend in which men often gain more health benefits from marriage. In this study, women appeared to benefit somewhat more.

The strongest links between marital status and cancer were seen for cancers tied to infection, smoking, or alcohol use, and for women, reproductive cancers such as ovarian and endometrial cancer.

Weaker associations were observed for cancers with well-established screening programs, including breast, thyroid, and prostate cancers.

Differences also appeared across racial groups. Never-married Black men had the highest overall cancer rates. At the same time, married Black men had lower cancer rates than married White men, suggesting a particularly strong protective association of marriage in that group.

Study Limitations and Future Research Directions

The study has several limitations. People who smoke less, drink less, and maintain healthier lifestyles may also be more likely to marry, which could influence the results.

Still, the link between marital status and cancer risk was stronger among adults over age 50, suggesting that the benefits associated with marriage may become more important over time as risk factors accumulate.

The analysis did not include unmarried individuals in long-term partnerships, a group that may be relatively small but could be important to study in the future, according to Pinheiro.

Future research could break down the married category further into married, divorced, and widowed individuals and follow participants over longer periods to better understand how changes in marital status affect cancer risk.

Conclusions on Marriage and Cancer Risk

Overall, the researchers emphasized that marriage does not directly prevent cancer.

“But the association between marriage status and cancer risk is an interesting, new observation that deserves more research,” Pinheiro said.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Reveal Eating Fruits and Vegetables May Increase Your Risk of Lung Cancer

BY KECK MEDICINE OF USC, APRIL 19, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-reveal-eating-fruits-and-vegetables-may-increase-your-risk-of-lung-cancer/

Emerging research points to a surprising association between high-quality diets and lung cancer risk in young non-smokers. Scientists suspect hidden environmental exposures may be involved. 

Credit: Shutterstock

Researchers investigating a rise in lung cancer among younger non-smokers have uncovered a puzzling pattern linked to diet and environmental exposure.

A diet packed with fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is widely considered healthy and typically seen as a cornerstone of disease prevention.

But new research from the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Keck Medicine of USC, suggests the relationship may be more complex.

Findings presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research indicate that non-smoking Americans under 50 who follow these diets may face a higher risk of developing lung cancer.

“Our research shows that younger non-smokers who eat a higher quantity of healthy foods than the general population are more likely to develop lung cancer,” said Jorge Nieva, MD, a medical oncologist and lung cancer specialist with USC Norris and lead investigator of the study. “These counterintuitive findings raise important questions about an unknown environmental risk factor for lung cancer related to otherwise beneficial food that needs to be addressed.”

Jorge Nieva, MD, is a medical oncologist and lung cancer specialist with Keck Medicine of USC and lead investigator of the study. Credit: Ricardo Carrasco III



Nieva and his team suggest that pesticide exposure could help explain the pattern. According to Nieva, commercially produced (non-organic) fruits, vegetables, and whole grains tend to carry higher pesticide residues than dairy, meat, and many processed foods. He also noted that agricultural workers who are regularly exposed to pesticides often have higher rates of lung cancer, which supports this hypothesis.

The study also found that young women who do not smoke are diagnosed with lung cancer more often than men, and they tended to report diets higher in produce and whole grains.

A New Epidemic of Lung Cancer

Lung cancer has traditionally affected older adults, with an average age of onset of 71, and has been more common in men and in people who smoke.

Since smoking rates have declined since the mid-1980s, overall lung cancer cases in the United States have dropped. An exception has emerged among non-smokers age 50 and younger, especially women, who are now more likely than men to develop the disease.

To better understand this shift, researchers launched the Epidemiology of Young Lung Cancer Project and surveyed 187 patients diagnosed with lung cancer by age 50. Participants shared information about demographics, diet, smoking history, and diagnosis.

Most participants had never smoked and developed a form of lung cancer that differs biologically from smoking-related cases. A 2021 study from the Epidemiology of Young Lung Cancer Project and the Genomics of Young Lung Cancer Project found that lung cancer subtypes in people under 40 are distinct from those seen in older adults.

Researchers evaluated diet quality using the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), which scores overall diet on a scale from 1 to 100. Young non-smoking patients had an average score of 65, compared with the U.S. average of 57. Women in the study generally scored higher than men.

These patients also reported eating more fruits, vegetables, and whole grains than the general population. On average, they consumed 4.3 daily servings of dark green vegetables and legumes and 3.9 servings of whole grains, compared with 3.6 servings of dark green vegetables and legumes and 2.6 servings of whole grains among U.S. adults.

More Research Needed

Nieva emphasized that the possible link between pesticide exposure and lung cancer, particularly in young people and women, requires further study.

The researchers did not directly measure pesticide levels in foods. Instead, they estimated exposure using published data on average pesticide levels in food groups such as fruits, vegetables, and grains. The next step is to confirm the connection by measuring pesticide levels in patients’ blood or urine. This approach could also help determine whether certain pesticides carry greater risk than others.

“This work represents a critical step toward identifying modifiable environmental factors that may contribute to lung cancer in young adults,” said Nieva. “Our hope is that these insights can guide both public health recommendations and future investigation into lung cancer prevention.”

Reference: “Dietary patterns in young lung cancer: mutation-specific environmental associations” by Sarah D. Gorbatov, Marisa A. Bittoni, Anna H. Wu, Allison Harper, Kotait Virginia, Narjust Florez, Barbara J. Gitlitz and Jorge J. Nieva, 21 April 2026, American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2026.

The research is supported by the Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute, a nonprofit focused on advancing lung cancer research and care, as well as AstraZeneca, the Beth Longwell Foundation, Genentech, GO2 for Lung Cancer and Upstage Lung Cancer.

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Chuck's picture corner to Apl. 19, 2026

It's been a wet week with several foggy days. Yesterday was the warmest day of the year so far reaching the low 20's C. The snow had all gone till this morning's snow fall. It has been a small one but enough to turn half the landscape white for an hr. or two.

not sure what these are called but always the first to flower in the season

one of my christmas cactus decided to flower again

from my sedum collection growing on less than an inch of soil on the old paved front walk

tulips coming along

a robin on one of the garden posts

the elderberry begins

willows are slow starting this year

the duck pond behind the barn is larger than most years

This hoya has decide to flower again.

one of my oxalis (shamrock)

daffodils coming along going to flower well, they are growing fast.

a tulip amongst the day lillies

pumping water from the basement 3x a day now

another misty day

Enjoy the day

Cheers

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Prove There Are Just Six Degrees of Separation in a Social Network

BY BAR-ILAN U., APRIL 18, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-prove-there-are-just-six-degrees-of-separation-in-a-social-network/

A long-observed social phenomenon suggests that people across the globe are separated by surprisingly few connections.

 Credit: Stock

A simple pattern links billions of people: just a few connections apart. New research suggests this may be an unavoidable feature of human networks.

Most people have experienced it. You mention a name, and someone responds, “I know someone who knows them.” Somehow, even in a world of billions, people are often linked by just a handful of connections. For decades, this idea has been summed up as “six degrees of separation.” Now, researchers say this pattern is not just a social curiosity. It may be an unavoidable outcome of how humans build relationships.

The concept became famous in 1967, when Harvard psychologist Stanley Milgram launched a simple but clever experiment. He mailed letters to randomly selected people in the Midwest, asking them to get the message to a specific individual in Boston. The catch was that they could only pass the letter to someone they knew personally, ideally someone who might be closer to the target.

Not every letter reached its destination. In fact, most did not. But the ones that did revealed something striking. On average, it took only about six steps, or “handshakes,” to connect the sender and recipient. This result gave rise to the idea that we live in a “small world” separated by roughly six degrees.
Evidence from Modern Networks

Although Milgram’s study had limitations, including the many letters that never arrived, later research supported the finding. Studies of Facebook users show that people are typically five to six connections apart. Similar patterns appear in email networks, actor collaborations, scientific partnerships, and even messaging platforms like Microsoft Messenger. Across very different systems, the same short distances keep appearing.

Why does this happen? A study published in Physical Review X, involving researchers from Israel, Spain, Italy, Russia, Slovenia, and Chile, offers an explanation based on how people build relationships.

In any social network, individuals aim to improve their position. It is not just about having many connections, but about forming the right ones that place them at important points within the network. For example, being connected to people who link different groups can increase access to information and influence.

But connections come with a cost. Maintaining friendships takes time and effort. Because of this, people constantly adjust their social ties, forming new ones while letting others fade. This ongoing balancing act shapes the structure of the entire network.

A Mathematical Explanation

According to the researchers, this process eventually settles into a stable pattern. Each person reaches a position that balances their desire for influence with the limits of maintaining relationships. Remarkably, when the team modeled this behavior mathematically, the result consistently produced networks where the average separation between individuals is about six steps.

“When we did the math,” says Prof. Baruch Barzel, one of the paper’s lead authors, “We discovered an amazing result: this process always ends with social paths centered around the number six. This is quite surprising. We need to understand that each individual in the network acts independently, without any knowledge or intention about the network as a whole. But still, this self-driven game shapes the structure of the entire network. It leads to the small world phenomenon, and to the recurring pattern of six degrees.”

These short paths are more than an interesting observation. They play a central role in how networks function. The rapid spread of information, trends, and ideas depends on the fact that people are only a few steps apart.

The same structure also allows diseases to travel quickly. The COVID pandemic highlighted how fast infections can move through global networks. In just a handful of transmission steps, a virus can reach distant parts of the world.

At the same time, this interconnectedness can have positive effects. As Prof. Barzel notes, “This collaboration is a great example of how six degrees can play in our favor. How else would a team from six countries around the world come together? This is truly six degrees in action!”

The Life of Earth

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Tiny Microbes Hiding in Soil May Help Pull Rain From The Sky, Study Reveals

19 April 2026, By D. R. ANDRADE-LINARES, THE CONVERSATION

https://www.sciencealert.com/tiny-microbes-hiding-in-soil-may-help-pull-rain-from-the-sky-study-reveals

(kickimages/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Tiny organisms on the ground – bacteria and fungi – have a "superpower" that allows them to reach up into the atmosphere and pull down the rain, according to a recent study.

To understand how a microbe can control a storm, we first have to look at how clouds become rain. High up in the atmosphere, water doesn't always freeze at 0 °C. Temperatures are normally much lower at cloud level, but pure water can stay liquid down to a bone-chilling -40 °C.

Most rain starts as ice. In the atmosphere, clouds are full of "supercooled" water – liquid that is colder than freezing but hasn't turned to ice yet because it has nothing to hold onto.

For a cloud to turn into rain or snow, it needs a "seed"– a tiny particle for water molecules to grab onto so they can crystallize into ice, then fall from the clouds as rain.

Dust, soot, and salt – swept into the clouds by wind – can do this, but they aren't very good at it. They usually require the temperature to drop significantly before they start working. This is where biology enters the frame.

Meet the ice-makers

For decades, scientists have known about ice-nucleating proteins (INpros) found in certain bacteria like Pseudomonas syringae. Bacteria travel from plant leaves into the clouds to trigger rain. They use special proteins to force water to freeze at temperatures as high as -2 °C.

However, the recent discovery published in the journal Science Advances has revealed a new player in the climate game: fungal INpros.

While bacteria keep their ice-making proteins tucked away on their "skin", fungi (mainly Fusarium and Mortierella) secrete these proteins into the soil around them.

Their structure makes these fungal proteins water-soluble and smaller than the bacterial ones, and with a high ice-seeding activity, which makes them more effective cloud seeds.

For a cloud to form, it needs a 'seed'. 

(Anton Kudryashov/Pexels)

Making it rain

This leads us to the bio-precipitation cycle. Imagine a forest floor covered in these fungi. As the wind kicks up, their microscopic ice-making proteins are launched into the clouds. Once there, they act as powerful "seeds".

Even in relatively warm clouds (above -5°C), these fungal proteins can force water to crystallize into ice. As these ice crystals grow, they become heavy and fall. As they drop through warmer air, they melt and turn into rain.

This creates a loop:fungi grow in the damp soil of a forest
proteins from the fungi are swept into the sky rain is triggered by these proteins, watering the forest below growth of more fungi is triggered by the rain, starting the cycle over again.

Unlike the Pseudomonas bacteria, which use ice to "attack" and damage crops to access their nutrients, these Mortierella fungi are peaceful plant partners. They aren't looking to destroy.

Instead, they secrete their ice-making proteins into the surrounding soil, which seems to create a protective shield from harsh conditions and a nutrient-rich environment that helps both the fungus and the plant flourish.

The new discovery about fungi is exciting because it shows that even organisms buried in the soil can influence the atmosphere, adding a new dimension to this ancient partnership between life and the sky.

It's a missing piece in the puzzle of how life and the global climate shape one another. This ice-making ability probably gives the fungi a survival edge.

They use ice to pump moisture toward their mycelia (a vast, underground web of tiny fungal threads), shield themselves from jagged frost damage, and hitchhike through the clouds to reach new homes.

The evolutionary heist

The new research also uncovered how fungi of the Mortierellaceae family gained the ability to create ice. When the researchers studied the fungi's genetic code, they found that these fungi didn't evolve this trait on their own.

Millions of years ago, they "borrowed" the genetic code for it from bacteria, through a process called horizontal gene transfer.

Think of it as a biological "copy and paste". While most animals only inherit DNA from their parents, microbes can swap snippets of genetic code with their neighbors, giving them an instant evolutionary upgrade.

However, these fungi are much more efficient at making ice than the bacteria because the fungus secretes (sweats out – meaning they exist outside the fungal cell) these proteins, they can coat the environment around it and stay active in the soil after the fungus has moved on.

These proteins are incredibly hardy. They can wash into streams, dry up into dust, and get swept into the sky by the wind.

Why this matters

This discovery could change how researchers view conservation. If we clear-cut a forest – stripping every tree away and leaving the land bare, we aren't just losing trees. We might be breaking the biological engine that triggers regional rainfall.

As we face a changing climate with more frequent droughts, understanding these fungal INpros could be vital. We might one day use these natural, biodegradable proteins for "cloud seeding" to create rain.

Many countries (like the UAE, China, and parts of the US) already have cloud-seeding programs to protect crops from frost. But this kind of cloud seeding relies on silver iodide – a heavy metal that can linger in the environment.

The fungal proteins offer a natural, biodegradable alternative. They could also protect crops from frost. By forcing ice to form early and smoothly, they release a tiny burst of heat that acts like a thermal blanket for the plant.

We could use them to make snow on ski slopes with less energy, create better-tasting frozen foods by preventing large ice crystals from damaging food cells, or even develop eco-friendly cooling systems that don't rely on harsh chemical refrigerants.

The next time you're caught in a sudden downpour, take a deep breath. That "smell of rain" might just be the scent of these little organisms telling the clouds it's time to let go.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Scientists Found 5.5 Million Bees Living Beneath a New York Cemetery

18 April 2026, By J. Cockerill

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-found-5-5-million-bees-living-beneath-a-new-york-cemetery

Millions of ground-nesting solitary bees of the Andrena regularis species call an Ithaca cemetery home. 

(Adapted from Hoge et al., Apidologie, 2026)

Millions of buried creatures burst forth each spring from beneath the soil of a cemetery in Ithaca, New York.

It's not the return of the living dead; it's one of the world's largest aggregations of ground-nesting bees, ravenous for pollen.

Entomologists at Cornell University estimate that East Lawn Cemetery is home to around 5.5 million individual regular miner bees (Andrena regularis), a species that does not live in a colonial hive, as honeybees do, but instead spends most of its life in solitude in underground burrows.

And though A. regularis was already a known inhabitant of the cemetery, with records of the species' presence dating back to 1935, it wasn't until 2021 that the full scale of this nearby bee aggregation became apparent.

Rachel Fordyce, a technician at a Cornell entomology lab, discovered the massive nesting aggregation after finding a sneaky free parking spot a few blocks from campus.

While crossing the cemetery grounds on her way to work one spring day, she was able to capture a jarful of bees to show her colleagues that this site might be worth checking out.

a) An area of high nest density at East Lawn Cemetery, b) female A. regularis in flight, c) male A. regularis emerging from nest for the first time, d) female A. regularis at nest entrance, e) female A. regularis on apple flower at Cornell Orchards, and f) female Nomada imbricata inspecting nest entrance of A. regularis. 

(Hoge et al., Apidologie, 2026)

In New York, A. regularis emerges from the ground around April each year to eat pollen, mate, and, for females, to dig brood burrows in which their larvae, well-stocked with pollen and nectar, can spend the winter growing in preparation for next spring's flight.

"This species overwinters as adults, which is relatively rare, and that's part of the reason why they come up out of the ground so early in the spring, timed to the apple bloom," says biologist and the paper's first author Steve Hoge, a Cornell undergraduate student at the time of the research.

The research team began fieldwork in the spring of 2023, setting up 10 emergence traps: tents measuring 36 square centimeters (5.6 square inches), open at the bottom, placed over the bees' nests, which funnel insects into a plastic collection jar, trapping them in 70 percent ethanol.

Each collection jar provided a small snapshot of the ecosystem, from which the entomologists could extrapolate. They collected these emergence samples over 48 days, yielding a total of 3,251 insects from 16 species.

Bee density varied widely between traps, and extrapolations from small datasets are always an imperfect way of gauging population size.

Nonetheless, this field survey suggests the East Lawn Cemetery has an average of 853 A. regularis bees nesting in every square meter (10.8 square feet) of its sandy loam soil.

Which means that as many as 5.56 million bees could have emerged from the site in the spring of 2023.

"I'm sure there are other large bee aggregations that exist around the world that we just haven't identified, but in terms of what is in the literature, this is one of the largest," says Hoge.

A. regularis was, by far, the most abundant species at the site, but these bees don't have full run of the plot; they have plenty of neighbors. One of them is the 'cuckoo' bee Nomada imbricata, a species that happens to be A. regularis's most common brood parasite.

"The research elevates the value of solitary ground-nesting bees and shows just how abundant these bees are, how important they are as crop pollinators, and that we need to be aware of these nest sites and preserve them," says Cornell entomologist Bryan Danforth.

These bees' contribution to the local economy is nothing to scoff at. A. regularis is a known pollinator of apples and blueberries. Previous research has shown these bees contribute greatly to the pollination of New York's iconic apples.

A cemetery may seem a grim place for these harbingers of springtime, but it's actually a pretty ideal location for ground-nesting species like A. regularis.

"The peacefulness, the lack of pesticides, and the fact that, overall, the ground is rarely disturbed, all make cemeteries good habitat for bees," Danforth says.

The majority of bee species are ground-nesting – 75 percent – but relatively little is known about them, no doubt in part due to their reclusive lifestyles.

Danforth and the team are concerned that many more aggregations of bees, like the East Lawn Cemetery population, could be overlooked and at risk.

"These populations are huge, and they need protection," Danforth says. "If we don't preserve nest sites, and someone paves over them, we could lose in an instant 5.5 million bees that are important pollinators."

Out of this research, Danforth and team have established a global community science project to encourage people around the world to take notice of, and record, their local ground-dwelling bees.

The Life of Earth

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It's Official: Antarctica's Iconic Emperor Penguins Are Endangered

18 April 2026, By M-A. Lea et al., The Conversation

https://www.sciencealert.com/its-official-antarcticas-iconic-emperor-penguins-are-endangered

(David Merron Photography/Moment/Getty Images)

In 1902, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott spotted a large group of large black and white birds at Ross Island, Antarctica. This was among the many milestones of Scott's famous Discovery expedition: the first breeding colony of emperor penguins.

Now, only 124 years since this penguin colony was discovered, emperor penguins have officially been listed as endangered, along with the Antarctic fur seal.

As the world warms, Antarctic krill are shifting southwards and sea ice is shrinking at record levels. And these unprecedented changes are having a domino effect on these species.

These are the first penguin and pinniped – marine mammals that have front and rear flippers – to be given this conservation status in the Southern Ocean. Their perilous situation is a critical turning point, and shows how rapidly the Antarctic environment is changing.

At the same time, the spread of highly contagious avian influenza, or bird flu, adds a new and immediate threat to Southern Ocean wildlife, compounding the pressures of climate change on stressed species.

An Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella) with its pup. The number of fur seals has dropped by over 50% since 1999. 

(Johnny Johnson/The Image Bank/Getty Images)

Dramatic declines linked to climate change

The first emperor penguin breeding colony was discovered at Cape Crozier, on Ross Island, during Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery expedition in 1902.

A decade later, Scott's Terra Nova expedition returned, in part to collect emperor penguin eggs. It was an ill-fated expedition, immortalised in Apsley Cherry-Garrard's famous book, The Worst Journey in the World.

In the 1960s, Scott's son, Sir Peter Scott, one of the founders of modern conservation, helped establish the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List.

Just 124 years after those early discoveries at Cape Crozier, that same framework has now been used to classify emperor penguins as endangered.

The swift arc from discovery to extinction risk is a striking reminder of how quickly the species' fortunes have changed.

Over nine years, between 2009 and 2018, emperor penguin numbers fell by 10%. Their numbers are expected to halve by 2073.

A Southern elephant seal pup. The species (Mirounga leonina) is now officially listed as vulnerable. 

(elnavegante/Getty Images)



The decline is more pronounced for Antarctic fur seals. Hunted to the brink of extinction in the early 1880s, by 1999 their numbers had rebounded to an estimated 2.1 million mature seals. But since then, the global population has decreased by more than 50%, to about 944,000 mature individuals.

In just a decade, they have been reclassified on the IUCN's Red List, going from of "least concern" – those species that are widespread and at low risk of extinction – to "endangered".

The IUCN's red list is the comprehensive information source on the extinction risk status of species. This shows the remarkable speed at which these seals are declining.

Climate change and bird flu

Both of these dramatic declines are linked to climate change. Warming ocean temperatures and a reduction in sea ice affect the availability of the Antarctic fur seal's key prey, Antarctic krill.

Krill are shifting southwards and moving deeper, potentially making them less accessible to some predators. Competition with a growing population of whales has also increased.

Emperor penguins, by contrast, are completely dependent on sea ice. They use it as a stable platform for courtship, incubating their eggs and rearing chicks.

But as sea ice declines and becomes less reliable, their breeding success is increasingly threatened. If the ice breaks up before chicks are fully developed, many are unable to survive.

At the same time, the spread of highly contagious bird flu adds a new and immediate threat to Southern Ocean wildlife. High mortality associated with avian influenza has also caused the uplisting of the southern elephant seal to "vulnerable" this week.

Some elephant seal populations have experienced more than 90% of pups dying, alongside sharp declines in breeding adults. These represent tens of thousands of animals lost, with many Antarctic fur seals also dying as a result of bird flu outbreaks.

We need to know more

Emperor penguins, Antarctic fur seals and southern elephant seals are three of the more widely researched Southern Ocean predators.

But there is still a lot we don't know, because of the remote location and the difficulty of sustaining research over time. And there are many species we know far less about.

Antarctic ice seals, including Weddell seals, crabeater seals, leopard seals, and Ross seals, have "unknown" population trends on the IUCN red list, meaning there is not enough data to know if numbers are declining.

These recent listings make clear the urgent and ongoing need for improved, real-time monitoring. We need to know much more about wildlife health and population trends, the Antarctic environment and sea ice quality.

Human-driven threats facing Antarctic wildlife are many, and cumulative. To respond, we need to better protect Antarctic habitat and the species that live there.

We need to reduce the interaction of marine species with industrial fishing. And we must improve how we assess current and suspected threats in Antarctica, when there is growing evidence of impacts.

Defining these animals as endangered is a stark reminder of how quickly Antarctica is changing before our eyes.

Without a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and sustained conservation action, these species may be lost forever.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Nature Might Pulse to a Universal Rhythm – 2 Beats Per Second

18 April 2026, By M. STARR

https://www.sciencealert.com/nature-might-pulse-to-a-universal-rhythm-2-beats-per-second

(Photography by Jessie Reeder/Moment/Getty Images)

A surprising number of creatures across a wide swath of sizes, species, and communication methods all seem to time their signals to the same basic beat.

According to an analysis of communication signals across the animal kingdom, from bird mating dances to frog songs to human music to firefly flashes, the tempo of these signals clusters around 2 beats per second.

Given how long all these species have been evolving independently of one another, this common signature could tell us something about the origins of communication.

"There seems to be an abundance of organisms signaling or communicating at a relatively narrow band of tempos. They all seem to stay around 2 or maybe 3 hertz. In principle, they could communicate at other rhythms," says mathematician Guy Amichay of Northwestern University in the US.

"Physically, there is nothing preventing them from communicating at, say, 10 hertz, yet they do not. To explain this phenomenon, we propose that this tempo of 2 hertz might be easier to understand because it resonates with your brain. It resonates with the human brain, firefly brain, sea lion brain, frog brain, and so on."

The work started in Thailand. Amichay has been studying how animals use synchrony in communication, and one animal known for its breathtaking, synchronized mating displays is the firefly. While in the field, he and his colleagues noticed that the chirping of crickets seemed to sync up with the fireflies' pulsing light.

"At some point, I thought that the flashing of the fireflies and the chirping of the nearby crickets were in sync with each other," Amichay says.

It wasn't until they were reanalyzing the recordings that the researchers realized that the animals weren't synchronizing with each other at all. Each species was blithely engaged in its own mating ritual. It just so happened that they had similar tempos.

That seemed like a wacky coincidence, so the scientists did what scientists do: They got busy investigating. They turned to published studies on faunal communication, sampling two dozen species across six groups – insects, amphibians, birds, fish, crustaceans, and mammals.

They also randomly selected 50 signals from the xeno-canto database, 10 from each of the five animal groups into which the database is divided – birds, bats, frogs, grasshoppers, and land mammals.

The range of the signal types included firefly flashes, cricket chirps, frog calls, birds' mating displays, sound and light pulses from fish, and vocals and gestures from mammals.

From there, it was a matter of determining the tempo of each communication signal, then plotting them all into a graph. And this is where the research transitioned from "Huh, that's interesting" to "This is really something".

Across eight orders of magnitude in body weight, and across land, air, and sea, most species tend to communicate at a basic "carrier frequency" of 0.5 to 4 hertz – 0.5 to 4 beats a second. And yes, that includes humans; as the researchers note, a great many rock and pop songs are written at 120 beats per minute – which is two beats per second.

"That rhythm fits our body; it fits our limbs," Amichay explains.

"We walk roughly at 2 hertz, so it's easy for us to dance to music that's 2 hertz. Of course, more experimental music can have drastically different beats. But if you turn on the radio and hear Taylor Swift – that's often 2 hertz."

We know that humans and other animals are capable of signaling outside that range. Biophysicist Vijay Balasubramanian of the University of Pennsylvania supplied the clue. Neurons need time to process information before firing again – and the optimal timing for that seems to be about, you guessed it, half a second.

So the team conducted an exploratory experiment to determine if this could be the reason for the clustering. They built a computer model of a neural circuit and observed how it responded to pulsed signals with different periods.

The circuit had the strongest response to the 2-hertz signal.

"We suspect that getting the 'carrier' signal in the right tempo range is key to communicating efficiently," says engineer Daniel Abrams of Northwestern University.

"It might not be that the tempo itself conveys any information, but it just serves as a baseline for getting attention, with actual content sent on top of it like musical notes following along with the beat in a song."

There are some limitations to the study. Our planet contains millions of animal species; 74 communication types constitute just a drop in the ocean, and there may be a selection bias at play due to our tendency to pay more attention to signals at that frequency.

Nevertheless, the discovery is a surprising one that warrants further study.

"It's tempting to think there's a deeper connection here – that maybe we're all on the same shared wavelength," Amichay says.

"But we're still exploring what this might mean."\

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Humans Returned to Britain 500 Years Earlier Than Scientists Thought

By A. Palmer, U. of London, April 17, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/humans-returned-to-britain-500-years-earlier-than-scientists-thought/

New research suggests humans returned to the British Isles earlier than once believed, arriving during a subtle but crucial shift in summer temperatures. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A modest rise in summer temperatures may have been enough to bring humans back to post-ice-age Britain centuries earlier than expected.

The return of humans to the British Isles following the retreat of the last ice sheet, which once covered much of the northern hemisphere, occurred around 15,200 years ago, roughly 500 years earlier than earlier estimates suggested.

This migration took place alongside a rapid increase in summer temperatures in southern Britain, according to our research.

These shifting environmental conditions made it possible for people to move north into Britain, which at the time remained connected to the European mainland. They followed migrating herds of reindeer and horses that were moving into newly suitable grazing landscapes.

After the last ice age, north-west Europe experienced at least two major transitions from colder to warmer climates, with these temperature changes likely unfolding over relatively short timescales measured in decades.

Our latest research addresses the first of these transitions in the Late Upper Paleolithic period (14,000 to 11,000 years ago). In areas such as north-west Europe, including where the British Isles are today, humans successively abandoned and then returned to areas at the abrupt transitions between cold and warm periods.

Broadly, evidence of humans from fossil records showed them migrating to where the environmental conditions supported their survival.

Old timelines left a mismatch

The repopulation of the British Isles after the last ice age is an excellent period to explore the relationships between climate and environment, and the reappearance of humans in this region.

In previous studies, the evidence has been somewhat difficult to read due to uncertainty of the dating methods and incomplete records of environmental and climate conditions. The traditional view had been that the north-west European climate warmed from ice-age temperatures around 14,700 years ago, and humans reoccupied Britain at that time.

Graph shows the timing of returns to British Isles of reindeer and humans after the last ice age, and related temperatures in Llangrose Lake. 

Credit: Adrian Palmer

However, revised preparation techniques in the early 2000s for the dating of human remains and associated artifacts showed the earliest appearance of humans occurred prior to the warming of 14,700 years ago.

This finding was difficult to understand, as it coincided with what were then considered cold glacial climates that would have been unlikely to support the resources people needed to survive in Britain.
Lake sediments changed the climate picture

Our study used new calibrations of radiocarbon ages that confirmed the age of those human remains to between 15,200 and 15,000 years ago. So, if humans really were present in the British Isles, could they have survived in cold climates – or was our picture of past environments at this time incorrect?

Clearer insight came from Llangorse Lake (Lake Syffadan) in south Wales, where the lake sediments spanning the last 19,000 years record the abrupt climate change in detail. In addition, the lake’s location lies close to the cave in the Wye Valley where the earliest British evidence for human remains after the ice age were found.

By extracting fossil pollen, chironomids (non-biting midges), and chemical analysis of the lake sediments, an unexpected picture of the climate emerged – one that showed previous climate reconstructions for the region were incorrect.

The chironomids were used to reconstruct summer temperature, and this showed the climate warmed in a different pattern than has been identified in other parts of north-west Europe and Greenland. An abrupt temperature shift from 5–7°C to 10–14°C occurred at 15,200 years in Britain – 500 years earlier than previous evidence had suggested.

Just prior to this climate warming, the presence of human prey, such as reindeer and horses, is more consistently detected in southern Britain around 15,500 years ago. These animals were exploiting the newly available grazing grounds, with people tracking the herds northwards and enduring the moderately warmer summer climatic conditions.

A small climate shift changed human movement

Examining archaeological records along with environmental and climatic archives allows more precise reconstructions of when humans were able to repopulate previously inhospitable regions. This is helped by re-evaluating old radiocarbon dates of human evidence in the landscape, and by generating more precise environmental records from the time – including more precise timings of the transitions from cold to warm periods.

This provided us with a fuller picture of human responses to changes in temperature (and their impact on the environment) in the Late Upper Palaeolithic period. Human survival was the driver of these movements, and following prey into new areas was important. But only a relatively small change in summer temperatures was required to enable this migration.

Our research provides better understanding of human behavior and resilience to climate change after the last ice age around 15,000 years ago. But understanding these environmental triggers from the past helps create new perspectives on human responses to them even now.

These basic factors have not gone away. The response observed in this study might provide clues on future human behavior as our polar regions warm and glaciers melt, showing how the potential for human migration could be increased.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

A Medieval Japanese Diary Just Helped Scientists Detect a Dangerous Solar Event

By A. Skov, Okinawa Inst. of Sci. and Tech. (OIST) Graduate U., April 17, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/a-medieval-japanese-diary-just-helped-scientists-detect-a-dangerous-solar-event/

Until recently, Apollo 17 was the last time humans left low-earth orbit to visit the Moon. Several solar proton events occurred in the same year as Apollo 16 and 17; had these coincided, the astronauts would have been exposed to deadly radiation without protection. 

Credit: NASA

A new technique using tree-ring carbon data and historical records uncovered a solar event from 1200–1201 CE, offering insights into past solar activity and improving space weather predictions.

On Earth, intense solar activity often shows up as colorful auroras that appear harmless. Beyond the protection of our planet’s magnetic field, however, the Sun can become far more dangerous, releasing powerful flares and massive bursts of charged particles.

These eruptions can lead to solar proton events, or SPEs, where high-energy particles race toward Earth at speeds reaching 90% of the speed of light. In 1972, a series of SPEs occurred between the Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 missions.

If astronauts had been in space at the time, they would have faced potentially fatal radiation exposure. As future missions aim to return humans to the Moon, understanding these unpredictable events is increasingly important.

The asunaro cypress tree samples, unearthed at Shimokita Peninsula in northern Aomori Prefecture. The sample is provided by Tohoku University. 

Credit: Hiroko Miyahara/OIST



Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have developed a new way to detect past SPEs. Their approach uses medieval records to guide highly precise carbon-14 analysis of buried asunaro trees in northern Japan.

By combining these methods, the team identified an SPE that took place between the winter of 1200 and the spring of 1201 CE, a period of intense solar activity. The results were published in the Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series B.

A hand-copied version of Fujiwara no Teika’s diary, Meigetsuki, from the Edo period. The page shown includes references to “red lights in the northern sky” on the right-hand side. 

Credit: National Archives of Japan



Detecting Sub-Extreme Solar Proton Events

Professor Hiroko Miyahara from the OIST Solar-Terrestrial Environment and Climate Unit explains, “Previous studies on historical SPEs have focused on rare, extremely powerful events. Our paper provides a basis for detecting sub-extreme SPEs—events that occur more frequently and are around 10-30% of the size of the most extreme cases, but still hazardous. Sub-extreme SPEs are more challenging to detect, but our method now allows us to efficiently identify them and better understand the conditions under which they are more likely to occur.”

Most of the high-energy protons produced during SPEs are blocked by Earth’s magnetic field. Near the poles, where magnetic field lines open into space, or during especially strong events, some particles can penetrate the atmosphere. When they collide with atmospheric gases, they create carbon-14, which spreads through the atmosphere and becomes part of living organisms.

Red aurora over Engaru, Hokkaido, Japan. 

Credit: Tomohiro M. Nakayama

Scientists can track past solar activity by measuring carbon-14 levels in preserved organic material such as buried trees. This method can reveal changes over the past 10,000 years. Thanks to highly precise techniques developed over more than a decade, researchers can now detect smaller variations that were previously invisible, making it possible to identify sub-extreme SPEs.

Combining Historical Records and Scientific Analysis

Because this high-precision method takes significant time and effort, the team first needed clues about when to search. They found one in Meigetsuki, the diary of Japanese courtier and poet Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241), who recorded seeing “red lights in the northern sky over Kyoto” in February 1204 CE.

Although SPEs do not directly cause auroras, they often occur alongside solar activity that does. This helped researchers narrow their focus. They analyzed carbon-14 levels in asunaro wood recovered from Aomori Prefecture and discovered spikes that point to a sub-extreme SPE.

An Edo-period illustration of Fujiwara no Teika. 

Credit: Kikuchi Yosai



Using dendroclimatology, a method that compares tree ring growth patterns linked to climate, the team dated the event to between the winter of 1200 and the spring of 1201 CE. This timeframe aligns with reports from China describing a rare low-latitude red aurora.

Reconstructing Solar Cycles and Space Weather Risks

“The high-precision data not only allowed us to accurately date sub-extreme solar proton events, but it also lets us clearly reconstruct the solar cycles of the period,” adds Miyahara. “Today, the Sun’s activity fluctuates over eleven-year-long cycles, but we’ve found that the cycle was just seven to eight years long back then, indicating a very active Sun. The SPE we have dated occurred at the peak of one of these cycles.”

The findings help fill important gaps in the historical record of solar activity and improve understanding of hazardous space weather. Miyahara notes that carbon-14 analysis alone is not enough.

“Historical literature provides a candidate time window, and dendroclimatology enables direct intercomparison between detected SPE and reports of sunspots and auroras recorded in literature. Integrated approaches like these are necessary to accurately reconstruct past solar activity, helping us better understand the characteristics of extreme space weather,” concludes Miyahara. “For example, while the SPE we found occurred near the peak of the solar cycle, some of the prolonged low-latitude aurora recorded in the literature seems to fall near the minimum of our reconstructed solar cycle. This is unexpected, and we’re excited to look further into what solar conditions could cause this.”

The Life of Earth

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