One of Earth’s Driest Deserts Just Turned White

By K. Hansen, NASA Earth Observatory, Sept. 11, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/one-of-earths-driest-deserts-just-turned-white/

Back-to-back winter storms brought a rare burst of snow to Chile’s Atacama Desert in August 2026, turning parts of one of the driest regions on Earth dramatically white.

In August 2026, a series of powerful winter storms transformed parts of northern Chile’s Atacama Desert, covering the famously dry landscape in an unusual layer of snow.

Snow is not unheard of in the Atacama. Significant falls occurred in 2025 and, before that, in 2011. But one of the August 2026 storms stood out because of its remarkable reach. Snow spread westward from the Andes across the desert and came close to the Pacific coast.

Atacama Desert captured by satellite on August 6, 2026.

NASA Satellites Capture a Snow-Covered Desert

The OLI (Operational Land Imager) aboard the NASA USGS Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 satellites captured images of the region on August 6 (above) and August 14 (below), before and after a stretch of severe winter weather.

The images provide a detailed look at the Chajnantor plateau within the Altiplano-Puna volcanic complex. The high plateau is home to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), one of the most powerful radio telescopes on Earth.

When heavy snow and strong winds arrived, ALMA temporarily suspended operations. Its antennas were placed in a protective survival mode designed to help the observatory withstand severe conditions.

Atacama Desert captured by satellite on August 14, 2026.

Snow Spreads Toward the Pacific

The weather became even more extraordinary later in the month.

A second storm covered a much larger area with fresh snow. An image taken on August 19 by MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) aboard NASA’s Terra satellite shows the extent of the snowfall.

Snow stretched west from the Andes, crossed the hyper-arid heart of the Atacama, and reached areas close to the Pacific coast south of the Chilean port city of Antofagasta. Several other major astronomical observatories are located in this coastal region, and some also suspended operations during the storm.

A blanket of snow spans a vast area of northern Chile, from the Andes to near the Pacific coast, captured in this image on August 19, 2026, by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Terra satellite. 

Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin



An Unusual Atmospheric Setup

Winter precipitation in northern Chile is often associated with cutoff lows, low-pressure systems that become separated from the main jet stream and can occasionally drift into the region.

A cutoff low was responsible for the significant snowfall seen in 2025, according to René Garreaud, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Chile.

The late August 2026 storm also developed from a cutoff low, but its origins were especially unusual. The system broke away from an exceptionally large trough, an elongated region of relatively low atmospheric pressure. That trough extended across a huge portion of the Southern Hemisphere, reaching from the southern tip of South America into the subtropics.

Combined with plentiful moisture near the coast, the atmospheric disturbance produced precipitation across an unusually broad area. Rain and snow extended offshore, along the coastline, through the heart of the Atacama, and over the Andes.

The resulting precipitation reached levels “rarely seen in the otherwise extremely arid region,” Garreaud said.

Nearly a Year’s Rain Many Times Over

Not all of the precipitation arrived as snow.

In Taltal, a coastal city in northern Chile, nearly 40 millimeters (1.6 inches) of rain fell over just three days. According to Garreaud, that amount was roughly 10 times the city’s average annual rainfall.

“We see these kinds of events only a few times, if any, per decade.”

For a landscape defined by extreme dryness, such a sudden influx of water can quickly become dangerous.

The heavy precipitation triggered destructive mudflows and flash flooding across parts of northern Chile. The National Disaster Prevention and Response Service (SENAPRED) reported that thousands of people were affected and hundreds of homes suffered major damage.

El Niño Sets the Stage

The storms arrived during an unusually wet winter in north central Chile, with a strengthening El Niño providing the broader climate backdrop, Garreaud noted.

August was not the first month to bring damaging weather. A major storm in July also caused significant impacts across Chile’s Norte Chico region.

El Niño can alter the large-scale atmospheric patterns that normally help keep northern Chile exceptionally dry. During El Niño, the subtropical Pacific high, which usually suppresses storms and rainfall in the region, tends to weaken. At the same time, a blocking high often develops over the South Pacific near the southern tip of South America.

Together, those changes can shift the Southern Hemisphere storm track closer to the equator, making it easier for powerful weather systems to reach normally arid parts of Chile.

In August 2026, that unusual setup helped bring widespread snow, intense rain, flooding, and mudflows to a region better known as one of the driest places on Earth.

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4.6-Billion-Year-Old Meteorite Reveals a Surprisingly Strong Primordial Magnetic Field

By J. Chu, Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Sept. 10, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/4-6-billion-year-old-meteorite-reveals-a-surprisingly-strong-primordial-magnetic-field/

Artist’s illustration of the infant solar system, showing dust, rock, and gas surrounding the young Sun as magnetic fields thread through the protoplanetary disk. 

Credit: Hernán Cañellas

Ancient meteorite minerals reveal a surprisingly strong magnetic field from the solar system’s first 200,000 years.

About 4.6 billion years ago, before the Sun and planets existed in their familiar forms, the solar system was a vast cloud of gas and dust. Within a few million years, this “solar nebula” collapsed and flattened into a disk, setting the stage for matter to gather into the Sun and the planets that orbit it.

Gravity has long been considered the main force behind this transformation. New evidence from some of the oldest known meteorite material, however, suggests that magnetism was also involved.

MIT researchers detected traces of ancient magnetic fields in microscopic grains preserved inside a meteorite found in Antarctica in 2008. The grains, known as calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions, or CAIs, formed during the solar system’s first 200,000 years and are the oldest known material from this period.

The measurements indicate that a magnetic field was already present during the solar nebula stage. The researchers estimate that it was stronger than Earth’s magnetic field today and likely helped move primordial material inward as the early Sun was forming.

“This transition, from a spherical cloud to a protoplanetary disk, is one of the most significant events in all of solar system history,” says Benjamin Weiss, the Robert R. Shrock Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at MIT. “It has long been theorized that gravity caused this, but our measurements show magnetism likely played a role.”Weiss and his colleagues report the findings in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Magnetism may have shaped the earliest solar system

Magnetic fields can arise when electrically charged matter moves. In the infant solar system, the collapsing cloud of gas and dust may have generated a plasma filled with charged particles. As those particles moved through the forming disk, they could have created and sustained a magnetic field.

If such a field existed, Weiss and his colleagues reasoned, it should have influenced material throughout the disk. As that material condensed, tiny magnetic minerals could have recorded the strength of the surrounding field and preserved that information for billions of years. If those minerals later reached Earth, their “remanent magnetization” could provide evidence of the ancient field and its possible role in shaping the solar system.

Illustration of primitive rocky material and meteorite inclusions forming near the young Sun, preserving clues to the magnetic environment of the earliest solar system.

 Credit: Hernán Cañellas

The researchers had already found signs of magnetism dating to about 2 million years after solar system formation began. By then, scientists think the Sun had formed, and the planets were beginning to assemble, suggesting that magnetic fields were involved during the early stages of planet formation.

“Nowadays people don’t debate whether magnetism is present when planets are forming. But the debate is around the very early solar system, before planets are forming, when there’s just a disk,” says Borlina, who led the new study as an MIT graduate student and is now an assistant professor at Purdue University. “That’s where the debate still resides, and that’s where we’re operating now.”

An unusually pristine meteorite preserved the record

The new work pushed the search farther back, asking whether a magnetic field was already present while the Sun itself was still coming together. The researchers examined DOM 08006, a meteorite discovered in 2008 in the Dominion Range along the East Antarctic Ice Sheet that has since been studied extensively.

DOM 08006 is among the most primitive meteorites ever found. It contains mineral grains dating to the earliest stages of solar system development, possibly from before the Sun had fully formed, and it has preserved much of its original mineral composition.

“Other meteorites went through many different processes over this 4.5 billion-year history,” Weiss says. “They were formed in the solar nebula, then added to bodies with water, then got destroyed, moved to the asteroid belt, and then landed here. But somehow, DOM has experienced less alteration than any other meteorite.”

That unusually pristine history made the meteorite a promising place to search for a magnetic record from the solar system’s infancy. CAIs embedded within DOM could potentially have retained traces of any magnetic field that surrounded them when they formed.

“We know they are the oldest things we have of the early solar system,” Borlina says. “But CAI’s are very complex and are not all the same, even within a 1-millimeter piece of the meteorite. So we have to carefully identify what types they are.”

The researchers separated tiny grains from pieces of the meteorite and identified several CAIs containing naturally magnetic minerals, including iron. They then subjected those grains to a series of measurements designed to detect any magnetism that remained.

The ancient field exceeded Earth’s today

The tests revealed traces of an ancient magnetic field preserved inside the grains. From those signals, the researchers estimate that the early solar system contained a field measuring roughly 150 to 600 microteslas, about three to 12 times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field today.

“We think these kinds of magnetic fields were helping to move gas from the protoplanetary disk, in toward this central star, the Sun,” Borlina says. “Gravity is also playing a role. But we are now showing that, if you want to fully understand how the Sun and planets formed, you should include magnetic fields in the ingredients that make them.”

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Scientists Create a New Form of Ice at More Than 2,000 °C

09 Sept. 2026, By M. Starr

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-create-a-new-form-of-ice-at-more-than-2000-c

(jhorrocks/E+/Getty Images) 

Water is one of the most commonplace, essential substances in the human world. 

We literally can't function without its properties as a near-universal solvent. It falls from the sky. We bathe in it, drink it, and immerse ourselves in it for fun. 

But if just considered as a liquid, water is extremely weird, behaving in ways completely at odds with other liquids. It becomes less dense when it freezes. Its surface tension is bizarrely high. So is its boiling point. And, based on its molecular weight, it should be a gas at room temperature.

 And that's all at normal, ambient Earth conditions. 

Tweak the pressure and the temperature a few notches, and water's outlandish behavior gets even more out of hand. Scientists have now demonstrated one of the weirdest forms of ice yet – under preposterous pressures up to 2.3 million atmospheres, and tremendous temperatures up to 2,630 kelvins (2,357 degrees Celsius, or 4,274 degrees Fahrenheit).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hbwUuHI5co

At those temperatures, you'd normally expect water to emphatically be a gas – even partially sundered into its constituent oxygen and hydrogen atoms. But something interesting happens at the astronomical pressures found deep inside planets.

When water transitions from a liquid to a gas, or vapor, it expands. Under crushing pressures of millions of atmospheres, this expansion is stymied. Instead, water can remain extraordinarily dense, taking on exotic forms unlike any ice we encounter at Earth's surface.

One of these is superionic ice – a deeply odd state of matter that's neither entirely solid nor entirely liquid. Its oxygen atoms remain fixed in a rigid crystal lattice, as they would in a solid. But the hydrogen nuclei are mobile, diffusing through that lattice more like particles in a liquid.

At slightly different sets of conditions, the arrangement of the oxygen atoms shifts into different configurations known as phases. There are some twenty-something known phases of water ice, a few of which become superionic under extreme conditions. Scientists are always looking for more.

And it's not just weirdness for weirdness's sake. Superionic ice is thought to exist deep inside Uranus and Neptune, where its unusual properties may play a role in generating the planets' equally unusual magnetic fields.

The oxygen-hydrogen do-si-do of superionic ice. (Goran tek-en/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)



In their new experiments, a team led by physicist Alexis Forestier of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission subjected tiny samples of water to the sorts of extreme conditions expected in the interiors of ice giant planets.

They squeezed the samples between the tips of diamonds to pressures as high as 230 gigapascals, while using lasers to heat them to thousands of degrees. That's 2.3 million times Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level – the pressure at the center of Earth, for context, is around 360 gigapascals.

Then, using an extremely narrow beam of synchrotron X-rays, they probed for changes in the crystal structure of the ice.

What emerged was a configuration predicted theoretically but never unambiguously observed in experiments: hexagonal close-packed, or hcp, ice. As the hcp crystal was heated, its expansion also showed a signature of superionic behavior, suggesting it entered the superionic state at around 1,700 kelvins.

The name refers to the arrangement of the oxygen atoms. Imagine you're packing identical balls in layers; there are a number of different ways those layers can be stacked while packing the balls as tightly as possible.

One previously identified form of superionic ice has a face-centered cubic, or fcc, structure. In the newly identified hcp ice, the layers are stacked in a different sequence. The researchers found evidence that one can transform into the other as the layers shift position.

This transformation seems to occur as conditions grow more extreme.

The conditions under which the researchers observed the new hcp ice phase (filled triangles and filled circles) show its emergence at extreme pressures and temperatures. (Forestier et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2026)

At 155 gigapascals and 2,000 kelvins, the signal observed from the X-ray probe was a mix of fcc and hcp.

Dialing up to 197 gigapascals and 2,250 kelvins, the hcp signature became stronger relative to fcc.

By the final set of conditions – 219 gigapascals and 2,630 kelvins – the fcc signature had almost vanished, and hcp clearly dominated.

Intriguingly, this may not have been the first time the researchers had produced hcp ice.

Looking back at data from an earlier experiment, they realized that a previously unidentified X-ray diffraction peak observed above 130 gigapascals was likely the signature of hcp ice – they just hadn't recognized it at the time.

Their results suggest that, at pressures above around 200 gigapascals, hcp may become the more stable arrangement of superionic ice.

It seems like a relatively small change – literally on the atomic scale – but the difference could mean big things for the Solar System.

If hcp ice conducts electricity differently from fcc ice, its presence deep inside Uranus and Neptune could change models of how material and electrical charge move through their interiors – processes thought to be involved in generating the planets' strange, messy, lopsided magnetic fields.

We don't actually know about the properties of hcp ice yet, though. The stuff has only just been discovered. The researchers invite further theoretical work to tease apart those properties – especially its mechanical plasticity and electrical conductivity.

Further experiments will also be needed to pin down exactly where, across the extremes of pressure and temperature, hcp ice is stable relative to its fcc counterpart.

Water is really weird, and superionic ice is even weirder. Scientists have only just scratched the surface of what this strange molecule can do; in a way, it feels fitting that we need to rely on it to stay alive.

Stay frosty, water. Or hot. You do you.

The Life of Earth

https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/

Your Body Keeps Producing Cannabis-Like Chemicals Throughout a Marathon

09 Sept. 2026, By E. Öz

https://www.sciencealert.com/your-body-keeps-producing-cannabis-like-chemicals-throughout-a-marathon

(RUN 4 FFWPU/Pexels/Canva)

Running a marathon is hard. Luckily, your body has its own chemical support system to help it cope.

As the kilometers pass, the body produces more natural messengers called endocannabinoids. These help regulate pain, stress, mood, energy use, and recovery.

Endocannabinoids are a normal and useful part of the body. Their rise may help it adapt to physical strain, but more is not automatically better.

Despite their name, endocannabinoids are not cannabis, and the body is not producing a drug.

The brain is packed with cannabinoid receptors – and if you think of them as locks, endocannabinoids are the body's keys.

Cannabis compounds, including THC, can fit some of the same locks, which is why these natural chemicals are sometimes described as "cannabis-like."

Endocannabinoids may contribute to the famous "runner's high": the happiness, calm, reduced anxiety, and dulled pain some people experience during long runs.

This feeling was once credited to endorphins. But they do not readily cross the barrier between the blood and brain, leading researchers to rethink the familiar explanation.

Most human studies have tracked exercise-related endocannabinoids for less than an hour. In a new BMC Medicine study, researchers investigated what happens when people run for several hours or longer.

Researchers collected blood samples from ultramarathon runners completing distances of up to 230 kilometers. (Courtesy of Katrin Ringe and Michael Siebers (Marathonstudie and TTdR3))



First author and psychiatrist Michael Siebers of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany and colleagues conducted two field studies with experienced endurance runners.

In the first, 19 participants completed a marathon around Lake Baldeney in Essen, Germany. On another day, the same people walked for exactly as long as they had run.

Blood was collected before the marathon, during two brief stops mid-marathon, again at the finish, and finally after 45 minutes of rest. Participants rated their happiness, anxiety, and pain.

The researchers tracked a number of different endocannabinoids in the runners' bodies, including two well-known ones that seem to be related to the runner's high: anandamide and 2-AG.

Anandamide takes its name from ananda, the Sanskrit word for bliss – and it lived up to that name. As the participants ran, the amount in their blood steadily increased. From 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) onward, levels were significantly higher than during the matched walk and remained elevated 45 minutes after the finish.

The second messenger, 2-AG, is thought to have broader roles in immune regulation, inflammation, energy use, and tissue recovery. It behaved differently, rising near the end of the marathon and remaining elevated during recovery.

"Anandamide and 2-AG are produced and degraded through different biochemical pathways, so it is not surprising that they followed different time courses," Siebers told ScienceAlert.

Previous research has linked anandamide more consistently with mood and features of the runner's high. The later rise in 2-AG may instead reflect the body's efforts to manage inflammation, energy demands, and recovery.

However, Siebers cautioned that this remains a hypothesis. The two messengers have overlapping functions, and scientists cannot yet give each one a separate job.

The runners' feelings changed too. Compared with walking, marathon running was associated with greater happiness and lower anxiety. Pain, however, increased significantly after 28 kilometers of running.

Participants provided repeated blood samples during the endurance-running study. (Courtesy of Katrin Ringe and Michael Siebers (Marathonstudie and TTdR3))



The second field study involved 36 experienced athletes running 100, 160, or an astonishing 230 kilometers in the TorTour de Ruhr ultramarathon. Blood samples were taken before and after.

Levels of both anandamide and 2-AG increased after all three distances. Surprisingly, longer did not necessarily mean more: levels of some endocannabinoids were higher after the standard marathon than after the ultramarathons.

Exercise intensity may matter more than duration alone. Ultramarathon runners usually move more slowly to conserve energy, while extreme fatigue, pain, and depleted energy stores may change the body's chemical response.

There was another puzzle. Although the ultramarathoners' endocannabinoid levels rose and their anxiety fell, their happiness did not increase significantly. Only 12 of the 36 reported a runner's high during the race.

"The runner's high is a difficult phenomenon to capture scientifically," Siebers said. "It is transient and highly individual – rather like trying to capture fog in a jar."

Because happiness was measured only before and after the ultramarathons, brief periods of runner's high may have been missed. Extreme fatigue and pain may also have drowned out any feeling of bliss.

"Elevated endocannabinoid levels alone are not sufficient to produce a runner's high," Siebers explained.

The study cannot prove that these chemicals caused the psychological changes, because they were measured in the blood rather than directly in the brain. A previous study in mice offered stronger evidence that cannabinoid receptors help reduce anxiety and pain after running, but the same causal link has not been demonstrated in humans.

The groups were also small, and factors such as sleep, food, and stress were not fully controlled.

Still, the findings provide an unusually detailed look at the chemical journey inside the body during real-world endurance running.

These natural messengers may provide happiness, calm, pain relief, or simply help the body endure the next kilometer. But their effects appear far more complicated than a simple runner's high.

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Belly Fat, Not Age, May Be The Bigger Driver of Low Testosterone

10 Sept. 2026, By C. Cassella

https://www.sciencealert.com/belly-fat-not-age-may-be-the-bigger-driver-of-low-testosterone

(kali9/E+/Getty Images)

Aging may not impact your testosterone levels as much as you might think.

From the age of about 35, studies suggest that circulating levels of this sex hormone in men usually begin to decline.

But it's only very gradual.

There's another overlooked factor that could have a bigger impact: where fat is stored in the body.

According to a new analysis, published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, visceral fat, or deep fat in the abdomen, may be the more precise metabolic determinant of testosterone suppression.

This specific type of fatty tissue can wrap around vital organs like the liver, stomach, and intestines, and it has many receptors for testosterone, making it especially sensitive to this circulating hormone.

In a review of health data from nearly 5,000 men in the US, aged 20 to 59, the presence of visceral fat was strongly associated with testosterone suppression.

In fact, in this age bracket, it seemed to influence testosterone concentrations significantly more than chronological aging.

After accounting for fat distribution, age showed only modest associations within the study's age range.

The two review authors, research physiologists Karl Friedl and Adam Potter, of the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, conclude that deep belly fat should be the "primary adiposity correlate of low testosterone in US men".

Visceral adipose tissue area and total testosterone in US men aged 20–59 years, adjusted for age and body mass index (BMI). (Friedl & Potter, Journal of the Endocrine Society, 2026)



Previous research has similarly found that among middle-aged men, fat-related measures exert a greater influence on testosterone levels than age.

For instance, a 2007 study of 1,667 men found that gaining 4 to 5 body mass index (BMI) points was linked to a decline in testosterone, and this was comparable to roughly 10 years of aging.

Such results also broadly align with research from 2013, which tracked 1,382 men over the course of five years.

The study authors concluded that age-related declines in T levels are "not inevitable", but instead are explained by smoking behavior and health status, particularly obesity and depression.

But using BMI to measure obesity also has its flaws.

Today, BMI and waist circumference remain the most common measures of excess body weight, but they aren't necessarily the best measures of cardiometabolic health.

While obesity is largely consistent with lower testosterone levels, men with similar BMIs and waist circumferences can still demonstrate substantially different levels of this hormone.

It's possible, for instance, that a young man with a BMI in a healthy weight range has a high percentage of hidden visceral fat, and this may be impacting his testosterone levels.

By contrast, an older, muscular man with lower visceral fat could be deemed to have a higher risk of testosterone issues just because of his age and BMI score.

In cases like these, visceral fat levels may be the more important consideration.

It's unclear why testosterone production is so closely linked to visceral fat, but researchers have a few ideas.

Deep fat in the abdomen can promote insulin resistance, and this, in turn, may cause a downstream impact on how certain cells in the testes convert cholesterol to testosterone.

Visceral fat can also stimulate inflammatory pathways that could disrupt the body's hormone signaling pathway, increasing the conversion of testosterone to estradiol.

"Current guidelines appropriately recognize obesity as a risk factor for low testosterone, but our findings suggest that adipose distribution, particularly visceral adiposity, may provide additional information beyond total body mass alone," explain Friedl and Potter.

This means that interventions that reduce visceral fat, including drugs like Ozempic or Wegovy, may address the issues of low testosterone more directly than testosterone replacement therapy alone.

"These observations underscore the importance of characterizing the underlying adiposity phenotype and considering reversible metabolic contributors before initiating testosterone therapy," the study authors conclude.

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Scientists Are Making Concrete With Human Poop – And It Gets 42% Stronger

09 Sept. 2026, By M, Starr
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-making-concrete-with-human-poop-and-it-gets-42-stronger

Could the concrete of the future contain a little bit of poop?

 (Lighthouse Films/Getty Images)

Concrete is, quite literally, the foundation of the modern world.

Almost every construction project in the world uses the material in some form. There's just one problem, and that's a big one: Making one of its central ingredients – cement – is horrendously bad for the environment.

The act of heating and processing limestone to make cement is one of the world's foremost sources of carbon dioxide emissions – so, understandably, scientists have been looking for ways to mitigate this problem.

And researchers led by civil engineer Raghuvesh Tiwari of Manipal University Jaipur in India may have just hit upon an ingenious solution that takes care of two environmental birds with one stone.

By mixing in biochar made from the human poop slurry processed at fecal sludge treatment plants, their concrete "yields significant improvements in concrete properties," they write in a paper accepted for publication in Scientific Reports.

Fecal-sludge biochar before (left) and after grinding and sieving for use in concrete. 

(Tiwari et al., Sci. Rep., 2026)



Concrete owes its extraordinary usefulness to a combination of properties. It's malleable when wet, and can be poured into almost any shape, yet cures into a material strong enough to support enormous loads and durable enough to last for decades (or millennia).

It's usually made from a few things in specific quantities: sand, gravel, water, and the cement itself – which is primarily made using limestone.

Unfortunately, that ingredient mix is finicky – altering the balance, or substituting some of the cement for something else, can produce concrete that is not as strong or durable as the real McCoy. It's not going to be very useful as a building material if it literally cracks under pressure.

One increasingly promising cement substitute is biochar, a carbon-rich material made by heating organic matter in an oxygen-poor environment.

The beauty of biochar is that it can be made from many kinds of organic matter.

And humans produce quite a large amount of organic matter – up to around 400 grams of poop per person per day, which isn't much on an individual level, but when you get several million people doing it, it's kind of astonishing that our sewers are as effective as they are.

Anyway, all those daily tons of poop have to go somewhere, which is where the dots start to connect.

In India, fecal sludge treatment plants have been established to safely manage human waste, which can be processed into biochar through pyrolysis – so the researchers figured, if sawdust, wood, rice husk, and other biochars are effective at making concrete, ¿por qué no los poop?

To put it to the test, Tiwari and his colleagues obtained fecal-sludge biochar from a treatment plant in Warangal, India.

To make the biochar, fecal sludge is dried, then heated in a low-oxygen environment at temperatures between 350 and 450 degrees Celsius (662 to 842 Fahrenheit) to produce biochar. The biochar is then ground and sieved into a fine powder.

The researchers used this powder to replace varying amounts of cement – 5, 10, and 15 percent – in conventional concrete, then subjected the resulting poopcrete to a battery of tests to see how well it held up.

The biochar concrete specimens being prepared and tested for compressive strength.

 (Tiwari et al., Sci. Rep., 2026)

And, incredibly, a little bit of poop made the concrete better.

The researchers measured the shrinkage, compressive strength, flexural strength, water absorption, and porosity of their different mixes, and this is where it got really interesting.

Overall, the strongest concrete was generally produced when 5 percent of the cement was replaced with poop biochar.

But the poopcrete had another interesting trick: It continued to gain substantial strength as it cured. The researchers report that after 91 days, the 5 percent mix had recorded average increases of 20 percent in compressive strength and 36 percent in flexural strength.

At 10 percent cement replacement, those increases were even larger: 21 percent for compressive strength and a whopping 42 percent for flexural strength.

Compressive strength of concrete containing different proportions of fecal-sludge biochar after 28, 56, and 91 days of curing.

 (Tiwari et al., Sci. Rep., 2026)

The poopcrete didn't appear to pay for its strength in some of the other properties the team tested.

At 5 percent, it generally absorbed less water and had lower porosity than conventional concrete, while its drying shrinkage was also lower. At 10 percent, its performance remained broadly comparable to ordinary concrete.

But there is – isn't there always? – such a thing as too much poop.

At 15 percent cement replacement, the concrete still grew stronger as it cured, but its overall strength lagged behind the 5- and 10-percent versions.

So why does adding a little poop make concrete stronger?

The researchers think several effects work together. For one, poop biochar is highly porous, riddled with tiny cavities that can soak up water and gradually release it as the concrete cures.

This effectively turns the biochar particles into tiny internal reservoirs, keeping water available for the chemical reactions that harden and strengthen the cement.

Under the microscope, the structure of concrete changes as increasing amounts of cement are replaced with biochar. From top left: 0, 5, 10, and 15 percent biochar. (Tiwari et al., Sci. Rep., 2026)

But the poop isn't just sitting there holding water.

The biochar is rich in silica, which can react with compounds produced as cement cures to form more of the calcium silicates that help give concrete its strength.

In other words, it's pozzolanic – the same broad class of chemical reactions famously exploited in ancient Roman concrete, just with, well, human feces instead of the volcanic material the Romans used.

Finally, the fine biochar particles can fill gaps in the concrete and improve the way its ingredients pack and bond together.

The researchers could actually see the result under a microscope. Concrete containing 5 percent biochar had a denser, more tightly bonded structure than conventional concrete.

But at 15 percent, that structure began to deteriorate, with more pores, cracks, and poorly bonded regions appearing.

Now, we're not going to run out and start building skyscrapers out of poopcrete tomorrow. The researchers note that more work is needed to assess how it performs under real-world conditions, such as freeze-thaw cycles, salinity, and extreme temperatures.

There's also the matter of heavy metal accumulation, which is a known problem with sewage sludge. Locking potentially harmful heavy metals up in concrete could be a bonus, but it's not known how well they will stay locked up, or whether they will leach out over time.

The study also did not assess the impact of this method on carbon emissions.

However, replacing even a fraction of concrete's cement with a material made from a waste stream humans produce in inexhaustible quantities could potentially tackle two problems at once.

And if there's one thing we can rely on humans to produce in consistently large quantities, it's definitely poop.

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MIT Engineers Create a Living Circuit Board From Bacteria

By A. Trafton, Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Sept. 8, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/mit-engineers-create-a-living-circuit-board-from-bacteria/

MIT researchers have engineered bacteria that can function as transistors, allowing them to create “living circuit boards” like those shown. 

Credit: Courtesy of the researchers, edited by MIT News

MIT researchers have engineered bacteria to behave like transistors, making it possible to build living “circuit boards” that can be printed onto growth material in a Petri dish.

In conventional electronics, transistors act as switches that control whether electrical current flows. In the biological system developed at MIT, engineered bacteria perform a similar role by regulating the movement of small signaling molecules that carry information to other parts of the circuit.

The team created two types of bacterial transistors and three additional bacterial strains that act as relays between them. Together, those five strains provide a flexible toolkit that can be arranged into many different circuit designs. In their new study, the researchers used the system to build circuits capable of combining two or three inputs, as well as directing an incoming signal to a selected destination within the circuit.

“We’ve built some initial computer architecture components that are commonly used, but any operation can be built with these five strains,” says Hamid Doosthosseini PhD ’25, an MIT postdoc and the lead author of the new study.

Living Circuits Could Be Added to Plants

The researchers ultimately hope to create biological circuits that could be placed on plant leaves or roots. Those circuits could process information about changing environmental conditions, including drought or attacks by pests, and then help trigger an appropriate response.

Christopher Voigt, head of MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, is the senior author of the paper, which was recently published in Nature Chemical Biology. Former MIT postdoc Haorong Chen is also an author of the paper.

Turning Cells Into Biological Transistors

Synthetic biology circuits are usually built by engineering cells to produce proteins and transcription factors that interact in specific ways. A circuit might, for example, detect a target molecule and then activate the production of a particular output.

These systems can perform several kinds of logic operations, but they face important limitations. To prevent unwanted interactions within a circuit, researchers generally need different transcription factors for different functions. Because only a limited number of suitable transcription factors are available, there is a ceiling on how complicated a circuit can become inside one cell. Packing too many circuits into a single cell can also strain the machinery the cell uses to make proteins.

The researchers created their circuits by printing colonies of bacteria onto plates containing agar, a growth medium. This GIF shows a time-lapse of the bacteria growing over 7 days. 

Credit: Courtesy of the researchers



The MIT team approached the problem differently. Rather than placing an entire circuit inside one cell, they engineered individual cells to work as transistor-like components. Those cells can then be arranged in different combinations to build a wider range of circuits.

For the transistors, the researchers used a bacterium called Pantoea agglomerans, which commonly grows on surfaces, including plants. They engineered two forms of the bacterial transistor, both controlled by a molecule called OC-6. One is switched on by OC-6, while the other is switched off.

Each transistor can also detect another molecule, OC-12. Depending on whether OC-12 is present and whether the transistor is active, the cell produces a signaling molecule known as OHC-14.

Wiring Bacterial Colonies Together

The team also engineered three strains of Pantoea agglomerans to act as biological relays. These strains convert the OHC-14 signal into a new output that can then be passed to another transistor. In this way, the researchers can “wire” bacterial components together in a manner similar to the layout of an electronic circuit board.

One possible arrangement is a bidirectional switch. Two transistors can detect OC-12 and then route that information toward different relay strains depending on a separate switch input. The signal can then move into additional transistors that continue processing the information.

To build the circuits physically, the researchers printed bacterial colonies onto plates containing agar, a growth medium. Neighboring colonies were placed about 5 millimeters apart.

That spacing is important because it limits how far each chemical signal can travel. A signal reaches only the nearest colony, which can then pass information to the next component. This creates a controlled path that allows information to move through the circuit in one direction.

Bacterial Circuits Perform Logic Operations

The researchers showed that a single transistor could carry out several kinds of logic operations depending on where it was positioned in the circuit, including “multi-input,” “or,” and “imply” gates.

They also combined transistors into more advanced systems. These circuits were able to add two signals, process larger numbers of signals at the same time, and function as a demultiplexer. A demultiplexer takes one incoming signal and directs it toward one of several possible outputs depending on a control signal.

The largest circuit demonstrated in the study contained 24 connected bacterial colonies and was designed to add two inputs together.

“This work shows that we can get toward more complicated functions by linking up simpler functions in individual cells,” Voigt says. “Computationally, there’s nothing that your iPhone can do that these circuits couldn’t do.”

Slow Computing With a Biological Purpose

These living circuits are dramatically slower than electronic computers. Each calculation takes about eight hours to complete.

For the kinds of biological applications the team has in mind, however, that speed may be more than adequate.

“We’re not trying to replace computers, but rather put computational control into biology. If you have bacteria on the root of a plant, or the plant itself is doing the computing, running a simple calculation overnight is fast enough relative to a growth season,” Voigt says.

In agriculture, such circuits might eventually be placed on plant roots to detect different forms of stress. When a particular signal is detected, the circuit could trigger a biological response, such as producing a fungicide.

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A Low-Plastic Diet Has Detectable Impacts on Urine Levels Within a Week, New Experiment Shows

09 Sept. 2026, By C. Cassella

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-new-study-put-people-on-a-low-plastic-diet-it-changed-the-chemicals-in-their-urine

(Kinga Krzeminska/Moment/Getty Images)

Plastic is virtually unavoidable in 2026, but there may be ways to reduce your exposure to some of its associated chemicals.

Two of the best places to start may be in the grocery store and the kitchen.

A randomized controlled trial involving 60 participants in Australia has found that using plastic-free kitchenware and buying food with minimal plastic contact may change what chemicals the body is exposed to.

After seven days of this particular, low-plastic intervention, the urine levels of three plastic-associated chemicals were up to 60 percent lower than in the control group.

The findings are published in Nature Medicine.

"Our results showed strictly adhering to a diet of food which has not touched plastic, whether that is during production or packaging, can reduce plastic chemicals in our body in as little as a week," says principal investigator and senior author Michaela Lucas, a clinical immunologist at the University of Western Australia.

"If this also carries major health benefits is something that's currently under further investigation."

(Theerawit Jirattawevut/iStock/Getty Images Plus)



Today, more than 16,000 chemicals are used to manufacture plastics, and some are known to be hormone disruptors in the human body with potentially hazardous effects.

In their study, Lucas and her colleagues examined two major types in particular: phthalates and bisphenols (BPA and BPS).

Phthalates are plasticizers that can migrate into our food from plastic packaging, plates, or utensils.

Bisphenols migrate into our food from the coating inside cans, as well as from food containers, cooking utensils, drink bottles, water pipes, and cling film.

"To date, little is known about the causal health effects of BPS; however, its use in certain food-contact materials has been regulated in the European Union," explain Lucas and her colleagues in the paper.

First, the research team considered the plastic exposure of 211 participants, and they found ubiquitous exposure to plastic-associated chemicals.

A hundred percent of participants excreted at least six plastic chemical metabolites on any given day.

Processed and packaged foods seemed to be important contributors.

Participants who had the lowest relative levels of plastic-associated chemicals rarely consumed fast food, highly processed foods, foods in plastic packaging, or microwaved foods in plastic.

To find out more, the research team ran a randomized trial involving 60 of the participants.

They wanted to determine if eating only foods that had been processed, stored, prepared, and consumed in glass, steel, or wood could reduce phthalate and bisphenol levels in the urine.

And in some cases, the trick worked. Not every chemical responded in the trial as scientists had hoped, but a few key ones did.

The five different groups in the experiment. 

(Harray et al., Nat. Med., 2026)

In the seven-day experiment, participants were either randomized to the control group or to one of four intervention groups.

These interventions included eating food produced, processed, packaged, and delivered with as little plastic contact as possible; eating low-plastic food without using plastic cooking equipment or utensils; using only low-plastic personal care products, such as shampoo; and a final combo of all three interventions.

Co-first author Amelia Harray says the team went to great lengths to minimize plastic exposure.

"Our dietitians worked with over 100 farmers and food producers to educate and transform their food handling processes and packaging to reduce plastic exposure from paddock to plate," Harray explains.

"Participants had access to any type of food they would usually consume – pasta, salads, meats, butter, chocolate, fruit, and snacks – which allowed energy intake to remain the same."

In the end, their rigor paid off.

While changes to personal care products had the least impact on plastic-associated chemicals in urine, a strict adherence to low-plastic foods had the best outcomes.

In the group given low-plastic food and kitchenware, mono-n-butyl phthalate levels were 38 percent lower, monobenzyl phthalate levels were 54 percent lower, and bisphenol A levels were 60 percent lower than the control group.

"By delivering participants low-plastic food and providing them with plastic-free kitchenware, such as stainless-steel pots, pans, kettles, toasters and wooden chopping boards, we showed that changing what you eat and how you prepare food could reduce plastic chemicals in the body," says Harray.

Both phthalates and bisphenols have short half-lives and are expected to be rapidly cleared from the body.

No one yet knows exactly what these chemicals may be doing to our long-term health.

But numerous epidemiological studies have found associations between these pollutants and health issues like cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and infertility.

Unfortunately, at this point we don't yet know what a 'safe' level of plastic in the body is.

If a health burden exists, however, it will likely increase over time unless we intervene. Plastic from the past is not going anywhere anytime soon, and plastic production is still on the rise to this day.

"This trial has delivered a message of hope that we can actively reduce plastic chemical levels in our bodies but is linked to significant changes in the way we produce and package our food," says Lucas.

It will take an effort, but the payoff may be worth it.

The Life of Earth

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Pomegranates Could Unlock a New Treatment for Heart Failure

By King's College London, Sept. 7, 2026

https://scitechdaily.com/pomegranates-could-unlock-a-new-treatment-for-heart-failure/

Researchers found that urolithin A improved relaxation in engineered human heart tissue and reduced several hallmarks of heart failure in laboratory models. 

Credit: Shutterstock

A compound produced in the body after eating pomegranates improved heart function by up to 80% in experimental models of a type of heart failure with limited treatment options.

For people with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, the heart can still pump blood but struggles to relax and refill properly between beats. In experimental models of this difficult-to-treat condition, a naturally produced compound called urolithin A improved measures of heart function by as much as 80%.

Scientists at King’s College London found that urolithin A, which the body produces after people consume foods such as pomegranates, walnuts, and some berries, improved the heart’s ability to relax, reduced scarring, and limited harmful enlargement in experimental models.

The findings could ultimately be relevant to nearly half a million people in the UK who have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction. The condition accounts for about half of all heart failure cases and occurs when the heart retains its pumping ability but becomes too stiff to relax properly between beats, reducing how effectively it fills with blood. Symptoms can include breathlessness, fatigue, difficulty exercising, and poor quality of life.

A single engineered heart tissue attached to two posts. When the tissue contracts, the posts move back and forth. 

Credit: King’s College London



Treatment options remain relatively limited because the condition can arise from several different factors, including aging, high blood pressure, and diabetes. Since the heart can continue pumping normally while struggling to relax and fill, conventional heart failure treatments are less effective. Clinicians instead concentrate on managing underlying conditions and recommending lifestyle changes such as weight loss and blood sugar control.

Dr Joseph Burgoyne, senior author of the study, King’s College London, said: “This type of heart failure is becoming increasingly common as populations age and rates of obesity and diabetes rise. Despite its growing burden, treatment options remain limited because the disease is complex and varies considerably between patients.”

Engineered heart tissues each grown between fixed posts. 

Credit: King’s College London



Urolithin A activates a relaxation pathway

Interest in urolithin A has grown because the compound has been linked to healthy aging and mitochondrial function, the process through which cells generate energy.

Dr. Joseph Burgoyne. 

Credit: King’s College London

The researchers found for the first time that urolithin A activates a protein called PKGlα, which contributes to both blood vessel function and relaxation of heart muscle. The compound acts on a specific amino acid within the protein, triggering a pathway associated with cardiovascular benefits.

Heart function improved in experimental models

Animal models given urolithin A showed improvements of up to 80% in measures of heart function compared with untreated models. Laboratory testing also found that the compound helped heart tissue relax more effectively and reduced fibrosis, the harmful buildup of scar tissue. It also limited enlargement of heart muscle cells compared with controls, helping preserve normal cellular function.

The researchers then tested urolithin A in engineered human heart tissue made from human stem cells, a laboratory model designed to closely reproduce the structure and function of human heart muscle. Treatment significantly improved relaxation in this tissue, providing additional evidence that the effects could be relevant to human heart function.

Human trials are still needed

Urolithin A has already been evaluated in human studies and has shown a favorable safety profile, unlike many compounds that remain at an earlier experimental stage.

However, more research is required before these findings can be translated into treatment for patients. The results identify both a potential therapeutic target and a naturally derived compound that researchers can investigate further for this challenging form of heart failure.

Engineered heart tissues in a petri dish after being removed from the posts. 

Credit: King’s College London



Dr Joseph Burgoyne, senior author of the study, said: “This type of heart failure remains one of the most challenging forms of heart disease to treat. Our findings identify a completely new therapeutic target and show that urolithin A can activate this pathway to improve heart relaxation and reduce disease severity. This raises the exciting possibility of developing new treatments that improve clinical outcomes and quality of life for people living with the condition.

“While there isn’t enough evidence to suggest that people should eat pomegranates to treat heart failure, these findings raise the possibility that dietary approaches that enhance urolithin A production may help alleviate this condition.”

Dr Joseph Burgoyne is a cardiovascular scientist at King’s College London who studies the molecular processes that regulate heart and blood vessel health. His research examines how cells respond to oxidative stress and how those responses affect blood pressure, heart function, and vascular health, with the aim of identifying new treatments for conditions including hypertension and heart failure.

Engineered heart tissues with solution. 

Credit: King’s College London



Professor James Leiper, Director of Research at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) makes up roughly half of all heart failure cases in the UK, and can be debilitating. This early-stage study in experimental models suggests that urolithin A may help to improve the heart tissue’s ability to relax and fill with blood between beats, reducing the harmful changes to the heart muscle seen in HFpEF.

“While these findings are promising, the benefits have so far been seen in animals and engineered human tissue, so clinical trials involving people are needed to test if this approach is effective for patients. In the meantime, a healthy, balanced diet remains one of the best ways to look after your heart. Eating plenty of fruit and vegetables is linked to better heart health, but it’s important to remember that no single food can prevent or treat heart disease on its own.”

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Scientists Find a Fungus That Could Protect The Body From Radiation

07 Sept. 2026, By P. Dockrill

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-find-a-fungus-that-could-protect-the-body-from-radiation

Mucor racemosus.

 (Oggogg/Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0)

Mold isn't typically something you want growing inside your body.

But in the case of Mucor racemosus, there may be compelling reasons to make an exception.

That's because this symbiotic fungus that lives inside the human gut appears capable of protecting us from radiation, according to a new study in PNAS.

It might sound a bit hard to believe, but this isn't the first time we've seen fungi doing weird things with radiation.

We know that there are different kinds of radiation-resistant fungi, including species that survive being blasted with up to 200 times the fatal human dose of X-rays.

There's also the funky world of radiotrophic fungi, which use radiation as an energy source – like the bizarre fungus living its best life in the radioactive remains of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.

M. racemosus has a different kind of parlor trick for radiation, but it's no less impressive.

In their research, a team of scientists from China found the fungus can confer protection from radiation to its host through a couple of different mechanisms, suggesting M. racemosus may be a beneficial presence in the gut.

In experiments with mice exposed to radiation, the researchers found that animals administered M. racemosus experienced less weight loss, inflammation, and oxidative stress than control mice that weren't given a fungal dose, suggesting M. racemosus provided the treated animals with a radioprotective effect.

This radioprotective effect was boosted when the researchers preadapted the fungus to the oxygen-poor conditions of the gut.

When germ-free mice (raised to be free of microorganisms) were administered the fungus, they too showed reduced markers of radiation damage compared to control animals, suggesting M. racemosus helps to protect against the harms of radiation independent of host microbiota.

"These results demonstrate that M. racemosus directly alleviates radiation-induced intestinal injury in mice," the researchers explain.

As for how M. racemosus achieves this, subsequent testing on irradiated intestinal cells and mice revealed three amino acids produced by the fungus that might explain its radioprotective effects – L-glutamic acid, L-aspartic acid, and DL-lysine.

According to the researchers, these three amino acids directly facilitate DNA repair and intestinal tissue recovery after radiation exposure.

But that's not the only way the fungus does its thing.

Another chemical produced by the fungus, called methylthioadenosine (MTA), plays an important radioprotective role too, even if it doesn't work directly to heal radiation damage like the three amino acids.

Instead, it seems that M. racemosus's MTA production modulates the growth of a bacterium called Limosilactobacillus reuteri and also reprograms it to increase production of a chemical called methionine, higher levels of which seem to boost radiation protection.

In a final experiment to gauge the therapeutic potential of M. racemosus, the researchers gave irradiated mice a cheese fermented with the fungus, and found it reduced intestinal inflammation, enhanced intestinal barrier integrity, and lowered systemic markers of inflammation, compared to mice fed cheese without the fungus.

A lot more research will need to be done before we can conclude that everybody should be eating M. racemosus as part of a balanced diet, but the researchers note that the fungus already occurs naturally in or is added to some fermented foods, and is FDA-approved for dietary use.

However, because M. racemosus may present a health threat to immunocompromised individuals, we should tread carefully in terms of figuring out how the fungus might best find a home in the food pyramid or your medicine cabinet – and maybe some of its pals too.

"More broadly, these findings establish filamentous fungi as underappreciated yet influential agents in the microbiota–host axis," the researchers write, "with potential applications for mitigating radiation-induced damage and other health conditions."

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