<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVywlgRJXsc
</div><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Some children read facial expressions when making food choices.</figcaption></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-other-people-s-reactions-influence-children-s-eating-habits">Other people's reactions influence children's eating habits</h2>



Many children are finicky eaters, but research explains how <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-have-learned-why-so-many-kids-dislike-vegetables/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">watching others eat and social modeling</a> influence the eating habits of children.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Study Methodology Demonstrates Social Learning Impact</h2>



Researchers at <a href="https://www.aston.ac.uk/hls/school-of-psychology" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Aston University School of Psychology</a> have published findings in Frontiers in Psychology that illuminate the neurobiological foundations of food preference development through observational learning. The investigation employed controlled video stimuli featuring adults consuming raw broccoli while displaying systematically varied facial expressions to measure participant responses.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Asymmetrical Response Patterns Identified</h2>



The research, conducted with 204 female participants, revealed a pronounced asymmetry in social modeling effects. Negative facial expressions during vegetable consumption significantly diminished observer food preference ratings, while positive expressions failed to produce corresponding increases in vegetable appeal. This finding challenges conventional assumptions about the bidirectional nature of social influence in dietary behavior formation.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Evolutionary Psychology Framework Applied</h2>



Dr. Katie Edwards and her research team propose that these results reflect adaptive mechanisms developed through evolutionary processes. The heightened sensitivity to disgust expressions likely functions as a protective system, enabling individuals to identify potentially harmful foods through social cues without direct risk exposure.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Clinical and Educational Implications</h2>



These findings carry substantial implications for pediatric nutrition interventions and family meal dynamics. The research suggests that parental expressions of distaste during vegetable consumption may inadvertently reinforce children's existing food aversions through unconscious social transmission pathways.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Future Research Directions</h2>



The study establishes a foundation for expanded investigation into real-time social modeling effects and cross-demographic applicability. Researchers emphasize the necessity for longitudinal studies examining actual consumption behaviors rather than preference ratings alone, particularly within family contexts where social learning occurs most frequently.



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Social modeling affects our food choices

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVywlgRJXsc Some children read facial expressions when making food choices. Other people's reactions influence children's eating habits Many children are finicky eaters, but research explains how watching others eat and social modeling influence the eating habits of children. Study Methodology Demonstrates Social Learning Impact Researchers at Aston University School of Psychology have published findings in Frontiers in Psychology that illuminate the neurobiological foundations of food preference development through observational learning. The investigation employed controlled video stimuli featuring adults consuming raw broccoli while displaying systematically varied facial expressions...

Space just dealt astronomers a curveball - one that’s 82 light-years from home, potentially capable of answering fundamental questions about some of the strangest objects in our galaxy: brown dwarfs.



Brown dwarfs are neither stars nor <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-map-twin-stars-to-discover-hidden-planets-with-unprecedented-accuracy/">planets</a>. They're caught in between. Too small to fuel the nuclear fusion that powers true stars, but too massive to be planets, they’ve always been difficult to define. 



Now, a strange new quadruple system might give researchers exactly what they’ve needed to make sense of these in-between objects.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-two-stars-two-dwarfs-one-orbit">Two stars, two dwarfs, one orbit</h2>



Astronomers have discovered a system with not just one, but four objects locked together in space. Two <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/planets-orbiting-red-dwarf-stars-may-not-be-habitable-ultraviolet-uv-radiation/">red dwarf stars</a> orbit each other on one side. 



On the opposite, two brown dwarfs are in another close pair. And these two pairs, in concert, orbit a common center of mass - like an intergalactic waltz taking more than 100,000 years to complete a full rotation.



This unusual system is called UPM J1040−3551 AabBab. It's located in the constellation <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/hundreds-of-glittering-galaxies-captured-in-the-antlia-cluster/">Antlia</a>, about 82 light-years away from us. That might sound far, but on a cosmic scale, it’s relatively close. 



The researchers who found the system used data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite and NASA’s WISE mission. These tools helped them spot the signs of two separate objects moving in sync through space. 



Because the orbit is so slow, scientists couldn’t see it directly. Instead, they matched angular velocity - basically, the speed and direction of the objects’ motion.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-red-dwarfs-meet-brown-dwarfs">Red dwarfs meet brown dwarfs</h2>



The system breaks down into two main parts. The brighter pair, UPM J1040−3551 Aab, consists of two red dwarfs. These are small, cool stars that appear orange in visible light. 



You’d never spot them with your naked eye - not even the closest red dwarf, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/proxima-centauri-the-closest-star-to-earth-is-extremely-violent/">Proxima Centauri</a>, is visible without a telescope. This pair is about 100,000 times dimmer than Polaris, the North Star.



Then there’s the dimmer pair, UPM J1040−3551 Bab. They are brown dwarfs, and they produce hardly any visible light. They're only visible in the near-infrared part of the spectrum and are about 1,000 times fainter than their red dwarf stars. That makes them extremely difficult to observe.



The red dwarf pair was initially indicated by a tiny “wobble” observed in Gaia’s data. It was later verified when astronomers saw it was roughly 0.7 magnitudes brighter than one red dwarf would be if it were alone at that distance. That extra brightness was a tip-off - it meant two stars were glowing together.



The brown dwarf binary was identified in the same manner. They were brighter in the infrared than one object should be, which caused scientists to suspect, and then confirm, that two brown dwarfs in close orbit were present.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-makes-this-system-special">What makes this system special</h2>



The researchers used the SOAR Telescope in Chile to gather more data. Dr. Felipe Navarete led the work on the ground, using optical and near-infrared spectrographs to learn more about the stars and brown dwarfs.



“These observations were challenging due to the faintness of the brown dwarfs, but the capabilities of SOAR allowed us to collect the crucial spectroscopic data needed to understand the nature of these objects," said Dr. Navarete.



The red dwarfs turned out to be <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/exoplanet-found-orbiting-the-closest-star-to-our-sun-barnards-star/">M-type stars</a>, each with temperatures around 3,200 Kelvin (about 2,900°C). They’re each about 17% the mass of the Sun.



The brown dwarfs are even more extreme. They’re T-type, with temperatures of 820 Kelvin (550°C/1,020°F) and 690 Kelvin (420°C/790°F). They’re about the size of Jupiter, but with masses 10 to 30 times greater. At the low end of that scale, they’re brushing up against what scientists call “planetary mass.”



“This is the first quadruple system ever discovered with a pair of T-type brown dwarfs orbiting two stars,” said Dr. MariCruz Gálvez-Ortiz. “The discovery provides a unique cosmic laboratory for studying these mysterious objects.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-brown-dwarfs-help-measure-age">Brown dwarfs help measure age</h2>



One of the biggest puzzles with brown dwarfs is figuring out their age and mass. That’s not easy, because brown dwarfs cool down over time. That cooling changes how they appear in telescopes. 



So when scientists spot a brown dwarf with a certain <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/habitable-exoplanet-gliese-12-b-only-40-light-years-away-earth-like-temperatures/">temperature</a>, they can’t immediately tell whether it’s young and small, or old and large. This is called the “age-mass degeneracy problem.” Basically, temperature alone doesn’t tell the full story.



“Brown dwarfs with wide stellar companions whose ages can be determined independently are invaluable at breaking this degeneracy as age benchmarks,” said Professor Hugh Jones. 



“UPM J1040−3551 is particularly valuable because H-alpha emission from the brighter pair indicates the system is relatively young, between 300 million and 2 billion years old.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-orbiting-dwarfs-refine-science">Orbiting dwarfs refine science</h2>



Since the brown dwarfs revolve around one another, astronomers one day expect to follow their path and determine their precise masses. 



That would allow scientists to have an unusual opportunity to tune the models that scientists employ to forecast the long-term evolution of the brown dwarfs.



“This system offers a dual benefit for brown dwarf science,” said Professor Adam Burgasser of the University of California San Diego. 



“It can serve as an age benchmark to calibrate low-temperature atmosphere models, and as a mass benchmark to test <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-model-reveals-the-evolution-of-the-earths-surface/">evolutionary models</a> if we can resolve the brown dwarf binary and track its orbit.”



For now, UPM J1040−3551 AabBab is one of the best natural laboratories in space for testing ideas about how stars and brown dwarfs form and evolve. It’s a rare find, and for researchers hunting answers about the universe’s strangest objects, it couldn’t have come at a better time.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/542/2/656/8155088?login=false" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</a>.



Image Credit: Jiaxin Zhong/ Zenghua Zhang



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Rare star system may solve the mystery of brown dwarfs

Space just dealt astronomers a curveball - one that’s 82...

Bees are the quiet workers behind much of the world’s food. Their role in pollination underpins ecosystems and agriculture alike. Yet honeybee populations are shrinking due to climate stress, pesticides, diseases, and loss of floral diversity. This crisis now threatens global food security.



A new international study led by the <a href="https://www.ox.ac.uk" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Oxford</a> introduces an innovative food supplement for honeybees. Using engineered yeast, the researchers recreated essential sterols usually found in pollen, creating a diet that supports healthier, more resilient <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/heat-and-pollution-are-changing-the-buzz-of-bees/">colonies</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-sterols-matter">Why sterols matter</h2>



Honeybees cannot make sterols on their own. Unlike most <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/when-bees-arrive-late-flowers-may-vanish/">insects</a> that convert dietary sterols into cholesterol, bees must directly consume them. These molecules are critical for cell membranes and hormones. Without them, colonies fail to reproduce and collapse.



Normally, bees obtain sterols from pollen stored as bee bread. Nurse bees digest this pollen, transfer sterols into their glands, and then feed larvae through glandular secretions. 



Despite the diversity of sterols in pollen, only six dominate in bee tissues: 24-methylenecholesterol, campesterol, isofucosterol, β-sitosterol, cholesterol, and desmosterol.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-yeast-based-bee-diet">Yeast-based bee diet</h2>



To replace these rare compounds, scientists turned to Yarrowia lipolytica, a yeast already considered safe in aquaculture. Using CRISPR-Cas9 editing, they reprogrammed its metabolic pathways to produce the precise sterols <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/science-is-giving-beekeepers-a-better-way-to-fight-colony-collapse/">bees</a> require. 



This involved deleting certain genes and introducing others from plants, algae, and even bacteria. Over several steps, the yeast was redesigned to yield a mixture of all six sterols.



The yeast biomass was then dried into powder and added to artificial diets. This made it possible to deliver complete nutrition without harvesting natural pollen at unsustainable scales.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-feeding-trials-in-glasshouses">Feeding trials in glasshouses</h2>



Colonies were placed in controlled glasshouses and fed only these diets for three months. The results were clear: bees given the sterol-rich yeast raised up to 15 times more larvae than those on standard substitutes. 



These colonies also kept brood production going long after sterol-deficient colonies had stopped.



Interestingly, when researchers measured sterols in the larvae, they matched those found in naturally foraging colonies. This showed that bees selectively transfer only the most vital sterols to their young.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-yeast-diets-help-bees-outdoors">Yeast diets help bees outdoors</h2>



Additional semi-field trials reinforced the results. <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bees-sleep-like-humans-with-similar-brain-patterns/">Colonies</a> fed the mixed-sterol yeast diet maintained strong brood production into late summer, while control groups dwindled. 



Even when a heatwave reduced bee numbers across all groups, supplemented colonies recovered more quickly once nurse bees were added back.



Sterols from the engineered yeast accumulated in nurse bees but were selectively passed to the brood, confirming a fine-tuned biological mechanism. 



The sterol surrogate produced during yeast engineering, tetrahymanol, was consumed but never appeared in larvae, suggesting bees filter out unnecessary molecules.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-competition-for-limited-pollen">Competition for limited pollen</h2>



Honeybees pollinate more than 70% of leading crops, including almonds, apples, and cherries. Yet losses in U.S. colonies have reached nearly half per year, with forecasts predicting even higher numbers. 



For honeybees, poor nutrition amplifies the damage caused by mites, viruses, and pesticides.



“Honey bees are critically important pollinators for the production of crops such as almonds, apples, and cherries and so are present in some crop locations in very large numbers, which can put pressure on limited wildflowers," said study co-author Professor Phil Stevenson.



"Our engineered supplement could therefore benefit wild bee species by reducing competition for limited pollen supplies.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-bee-diets-and-food-security">Bee diets and food security</h2>



“We rely on honey bees to pollinate one in three bites of our food, yet bees face many stressors," said Danielle Downey of Project Apis m., who was not involved in the study. 



"Good nutrition is one way to improve their resilience to these threats, and in landscapes with dwindling natural forage for bees, a more complete diet supplement could be a game changer.”



The yeast biomass also offers proteins, fats, and vitamins. The researchers suggest it could be further engineered to add antioxidants, carotenoids, or beneficial fatty acids, creating a truly holistic feed for pollinators.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-future-of-bees-and-yeast-nutrition">Future of bees and yeast nutrition</h2>



While the results are promising, large-scale field studies are still needed. These will test how colonies perform in open environments and measure long-term pollination effects. If successful, farmers could see this supplement within two years.



Beyond honeybees, this approach could extend to other pollinators or even farmed insects, strengthening the foundation of sustainable agriculture worldwide. 



What began as a molecular tweak in yeast could reshape the survival prospects of pollinators and, in turn, our global food future.



The research was in collaboration with <a href="https://www.kew.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kew Gardens</a>, the <a href="https://www.gre.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Greenwich</a>, and the Technical University of Denmark.



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09431-y" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature</a>.



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Engineered bee diets can help protect global food security

Bees are the quiet workers behind much of the world’s...

Struggling to fall asleep at night? Science may have found the answer, and it is not a pill. It has long been known that exercise can help with sleep disorders, but the best type and routine were unclear. 



Now, researchers at <a href="https://www.hrbipe.edu.cn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Harbin Sport University</a> in China have compared different workouts to determine which works best.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-the-study-was-conducted">How the study was conducted</h2>



The team used Network meta-analysis (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0895435624002932#:~:text=Network%20Meta%2Danalysis%20(NMA),evidence)%20to%20obtain%20network%20estimates." target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NMA</a>), a statistical method that allows comparisons across multiple types of exercise.&nbsp;



They searched five major scientific databases to include as many relevant studies as possible. The researchers collected data from Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane, Embase, and Scopus, up until September 30, 2024.



They included 30 randomized controlled trials (<a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6235704/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RCT</a>s) involving 2,576 participants from more than a dozen countries. Participants ranged in age and were all experiencing <a href="https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/11429-sleep-disorders" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sleep difficulties</a>.



Importantly, two researchers independently extracted the data to minimize bias or mistakes. After analyzing the data, the researchers ranked the effectiveness of different types of exercise.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-which-exercise-improves-sleep-quality">Which exercise improves sleep quality</h2>



The study revealed that <a href="https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/yoga-effectiveness-and-safety" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">yoga</a> was most beneficial, especially when practiced at higher intensity for 30 minutes or less, twice a week. Consistency is key. The benefits were strongest when continued for eight to ten weeks.&nbsp;



<a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/walking/art-20046261" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Walking</a> ranked second, followed by resistance training and aerobic exercise.&nbsp;



Why do these workouts matter? These activities could offer a safer, more accessible way to improve sleep for people with sleep disorders.



Treatments for sleep issues, like cognitive behavioral <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/new-therapy-may-break-the-cycle-of-overthinking-and-repetitive-negative-thoughts/">therapy</a> (CBT) and sleeping pills, do not always work for everyone. These treatments may also carry <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-sea-cucumbers-could-help-slow-the-spread-of-cancer/">side effects</a>, especially affecting older adults.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-do-shorter-sessions-work-better">Why do shorter sessions work better?</h2>



While this study does not explain exactly why yoga helps with sleep, previous research provides some insights. Yoga combines <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/practicing-mindfulness-can-quiet-the-noise-of-anxiety/">mindfulness</a> and physical activity in addition to boosting heart rate and building strength.



What sets yoga apart is its focus on breath control, which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting calmness and inducing good-quality sleep. Timing and intensity both appear to influence its effect.



The key finding of this study was that shorter sessions may actually be more beneficial, contrary to what most of us believed. Excessive exercise can elevate cortisol, the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/why-stress-makes-us-take-more-risks-in-financial-decisions/">stress</a> hormone, which may make it harder to sleep.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-at-odds-with-previous-studies">At odds with previous studies</h2>



These findings challenge some earlier assumptions about yoga and sleep. Past research suggested hour-long yoga classes were best for sleep. 



Results also differ from a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/physical-activity-basics/guidelines/adults.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2023 study</a>, which suggested that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise performed three times a week was most effective. 



"If someone were to do some exercise earlier in the day, not right before bedtime, there can be some elevations in cortisol," said Justin Thomas, a sleep specialist at the <a href="https://www.uab.edu/home/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Alabama</a>. Exercising too close to bedtime may interfere with falling asleep.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-exercise-and-sleep-it-s-complicated">Exercise and sleep - it's complicated</h2>



The researchers were not able to determine how widely the results apply, since the study included trials with participants from a wide range of age groups.



"Some kinds of interventions may work well for someone who is in their 30s but be more difficult for someone who is in their 80s," said Arsenio Páez, a sleep researcher at <a href="https://www.concordia.ca/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Concordia University</a>.



For instance, older adults or those leading a sedentary lifestyle might benefit more from low-intensity workouts, while younger individuals with an active lifestyle might need a high-intensity routine.



That means the best routine can depend on age, lifestyle, and health history.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-one-size-does-not-fit-all">One size does not fit all</h2>



The scientists still require more data on the long-term effects of exercise on sleep. They stress that while exercise is good for sleep, there is no universal exercise routine that works for everyone.&nbsp;



Sleep and exercise are also influenced by sex and <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-fruits-and-vegetables-improve-heart-health/">health</a> history. "We really need to look more at the differences between how men and women respond," said Páez.



For now, experts suggest sticking with what is practical and enjoyable, as the key is to stay active. 



"If a patient comes into my clinic and, for some reason, cannot do yoga, but they can walk, then I would still encourage walking rather than doing nothing," said Thomas.



The full study was published in the journal <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41105-025-00596-7" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sleep and Biological Rhythms</a>.



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One form of exercise is shown to improve sleep the most, according to studies

Struggling to fall asleep at night? Science may have found...

A two year carcinogenicity study in rats reports increased benign and malignant tumor rates after continuous exposure to glyphosate or glyphosate-based herbicides



The exposure levels studied in this research are considered low or acceptable, including 0.5, 5, and 50 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day, with exposure beginning before birth and continuing through two years.



Glyphosate is the most widely used <a href="https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/research/topics/glyphosate" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">herbicide</a> worldwide, spread across farms, parks, and roadsides.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-understanding-herbicides-the-basics">Understanding herbicides - the basics</h2>



Glyphosate is the main ingredient in many popular herbicides, including the well-known product <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup_(herbicide)">Roundup</a>. Farmers, gardeners, and even city maintenance crews use it to kill unwanted plants, especially weeds that compete with crops. 



Glyphosate works by blocking a specific enzyme that plants need to grow, which means the plant eventually withers and dies. 



Since animals and humans don’t have this enzyme, glyphosate was originally considered relatively safe for people. That’s one reason it became so widely used across agriculture and landscaping over the last few decades.



Some weeds have developed resistance, meaning they no longer die when sprayed, which forces farmers to use more herbicide or stronger mixes. 



Researchers have also debated whether glyphosate might <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/world-soil-day-2024-protecting-our-planets-lifeline/">harm soil health</a>, reduce biodiversity, or pose long-term risks to people, though studies don’t all agree.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-studying-the-dangers-of-glyphosate">Studying the dangers of glyphosate</h2>



The study was led by the Cesare Maltoni Cancer Research Center at the Ramazzini Institute (<a href="https://www.istitutoramazzini.it/about/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CMCRC</a>) in Italy, a research center with more than fifty years of experience studying the health effects of chemicals. 



The institute coordinated the project and collaborated with universities and public health organizations in Europe and the United States.



The design started exposure in pregnancy and continued through 104 weeks in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/sprague-dawley-rat" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sprague-Dawley</a> rats. That approach captures sensitive windows of development that adult only studies can miss.



Animals received either pure glyphosate or two commercial <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36274693/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">formulations</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/herbicides-are-disrupting-plant-insect-interactions/">Roundup BioFlow</a> in the European Union and RangerPro in the United States, via drinking water at 0.5, 5, or 50 milligrams per kilogram per day. 



These doses align with the acceptable daily intake and the no observed adverse effect level used by European regulators.



The researchers examined dozens of organs using standardized pathology and peer review. Survival, body weight, and feed and water intake looked similar to controls, so tumor differences were not explained by general sickness.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-glyphosate-and-leukemia">Glyphosate and leukemia</h2>



Leukemia stood out, with a significant dose-related trend and no cases in concurrent controls.



The study reported organ specific increases spanning skin, liver, thyroid, <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-black-widow-venom-attacks-the-nervous-system/">nervous system</a>, ovaries, male mammary gland, adrenal glands, kidneys, urinary bladder, bone, and endocrine pancreas.



“Early life onset and mortality were observed for multiple tumors,” wrote Panzacchi and colleagues. 



About 40 percent of leukemia deaths in treated animals occurred before 52 weeks of age, a strikingly early onset for this strain in long term bioassays. 



Patterns differed by product, suggesting that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/herbicide-exposure-linked-to-brain-inflammation-and-cognitive-decline/">co-formulants</a> may change toxicity compared with glyphosate alone. 



That point is consistent with broader evidence showing that formulated mixtures can act differently than the nominal active ingredient.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-human-vs-animal-studies">Human vs. animal studies</h2>



In 2015 the International Research on Cancer (<a href="https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/MonographVolume112-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">IARC</a>) concluded there is “sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals” for glyphosate. 



The Working Group reviewed animal, human, and mechanistic data, citing signals that include genotoxicity and oxidative stress.



In the U.S. Agricultural Health <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/110/5/509/4590280" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Study</a>, the highest exposure group showed an elevated, though imprecise, risk of acute myeloid leukemia among pesticide applicators, even as most site specific associations were null. 



That pattern keeps attention on blood cancers while acknowledging the limits of exposure reconstruction in large cohorts.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-where-regulators-stand">Where regulators stand</h2>



Europe’s food safety authority issued a 2023 peer review supporting renewal of glyphosate while noting data gaps in areas such as risks to some aquatic organisms and full disclosure of formulation ingredients. 



Regulatory opinions can diverge because agencies weigh animal, human, and mechanistic evidence differently.



In 2022 the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (<a href="https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-withdraws-glyphosate-interim-decision" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EPA</a>) withdrew its interim decision after a federal appeals court vacated the human health portion and ordered the agency to redo parts of its analysis. 



That reset left open questions about hazard classification and risk assumptions that future updates will need to address.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-to-watch-next">What to watch next</h2>



The prenatal start to exposure in this work matters, because early development can be more vulnerable than adulthood. 



Separate research in a California birth cohort links higher childhood biomarkers of glyphosate exposure to increased odds of elevated liver enzymes and metabolic syndrome by late adolescence.



A practical question now is how low dose, long duration exposures interact with formulation ingredients across different organs. 



The answer will influence how acceptable <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/corn-found-to-have-genetic-vulnerability-to-common-tolpyralate-herbicide/">daily intake values</a> are interpreted against animal bioassay signals and how risk managers handle glyphosate versus formulated products in food and non food uses.



The study is published in <a href="https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-025-01187-2" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Environmental Health</a>.



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Most widely used herbicide in the world is now linked to leukemia and tumors

A two year carcinogenicity study in rats reports increased benign...

“Solitons” are waves that refuse to spread out or slow down, a stubborn breed that keeps its shape as it travels. In 1834, a Scottish engineer named <a href="https://www.scirp.org/reference/referencespapers?referenceid=1109914" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">John Scott Russell</a> chased one along the Union Canal and recorded it in detail.



A new <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/nrv2-9h8z" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">study </a>reports a version of that wave that pulses as it goes and yet survives in <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-create-a-two-dimensional-carbon-material-eight-times-stronger-than-graphene/">systems</a> where energy normally leaks away.&nbsp;



Lead author <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Jonas-Veenstra-2199888314" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jonas Veenstra</a> and his colleagues at the University of Amsterdam’s Institute of Physics (<a href="https://iop.uva.nl/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">IOP</a>) carried out the experiments with collaborators in London and Marseille.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-solitons-vanish-in-real-materials">Solitons vanish in real materials</h2>



After Russell’s sighting, mathematicians wrote down an <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0602661" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">equation</a> in 1895 that explains these solitary waves in shallow water. 



Their equation, the KdV equation, became a template for understanding stable wave packets across physics.



The world is rarely lossless, though. Friction and drag steal <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-an-ocean-of-fire-shaped-early-earths-core-according-to-a-new-study/">energy</a>, so even a classic soliton eventually smears out in real materials.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-makes-this-result-different">What makes this result different</h2>



The Amsterdam team built a tabletop metamaterial that breaks symmetry on purpose. 



Key ingredient is <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.086801" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">nonreciprocity</a>, where element A nudges element B differently than B nudges A, a behavior that can produce the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.23845" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">non-Hermitian skin</a> effect and strong one-way amplification in active media.



The authors introduce and stabilize a special pulsing wave called a breather that keeps moving without fading, even when the system is losing energy.&nbsp;



“Breathing solitons consist of a fast beating wave within a compact envelope of stable shape and velocity,” wrote Veenstra and colleagues. 



In their summary, the team noted that the asymmetry was crucial, and this insight shaped both the experimental design and the theoretical <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/graphene-wonder-material-changing-the-world-is-officially-declared-safe-for-humans/">framework</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-creating-stable-pulsing-waves">Creating stable pulsing waves</h2>



The lab setup is a chain of 50 <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960077921001612" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">active oscillators</a> connected with flexible bands and powered by tiny motors, so each unit can push and sense its neighbors. 



By programming an asymmetric coupling, the researchers made waves that prefer one direction and keep a tidy envelope as they travel.



In that regime the breather’s carrier oscillation sits near 5 Hz, while the envelope marches along at about 8 units per second in the experiment’s scaled coordinates. 



Those numbers come straight from the team’s measurements and appear alongside the models the authors tested against the data.



The nonreciprocal link is implemented with embedded sensors, microcontrollers, and motors that inject a controlled torque bias between neighbors. 



That active feedback breaks <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-sperm-manage-to-defy-newton-third-law-of-motion-physics-with-flagellum/">Newton’s third law</a> at the material level and sets the stage for one-way transport.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-dynamics-of-breathing-solitons">Dynamics of breathing solitons</h2>



To explain the dynamics, the team connected their mechanical chain to two workhorse equations in nonlinear physics. 



The <a href="https://www.uni-muenster.de/imperia/md/content/physik_tp/lectures/ws2016-2017/num_methods_i/sinegordon.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">sine-Gordon equation</a> and the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.10683" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">nonlinear Schrödinger equation</a> capture how a compact envelope can host a rapid internal oscillation that beats as it moves.



Nonreciprocity and damping would normally spoil that structure. Here they create a delicate balance controlled by a mathematical fixed point and a nearby bifurcation, which together govern when a breather decays, explodes, or persists for a long time.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-discrete-materials-help-solitons">Discrete materials help solitons</h2>



In a continuous medium the long-lived state appears only in a tight range of parameters, so getting it is a precision act. The experiment shows that discreteness in the chain actually helps, widening the island where breathers last.



That practical twist matters if you want devices to work outside a perfect lab. Real <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/exposing-the-hidden-climate-costs-of-everyday-materials/">materials</a> are made of parts, and that granularity can stabilize waves that theory says should be fragile.



Breathers are not just eye-candy. They can shuttle information or energy while resisting loss, which is one reason optical researchers have <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5622060/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">studied</a> breathing dissipative solitons in microresonators used for frequency combs and sensing.



A mechanical platform adds new options. Think of distributed sensors, robust signal paths in soft robots, or energy-harvesting architectures that selectively route motion where you want it.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-it-fits-with-recent-progress">How it fits with recent progress</h2>



This result builds on earlier <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38509280/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">work</a> showing that nonreciprocal driving can push solitons and antisolitons in the same direction, unlocking unidirectional transport in active lattices. That mechanism was demonstrated by members of the same community in 2024.



Nonreciprocity is also tied to fresh ideas in non-Hermitian physics that reframe how waves respond to boundaries and defects. Those ideas are now appearing across optics, acoustics, and mechanics.



Russell’s canal wave was a landmark observation, but it lived in a clean natural channel and still faded with distance. Modern experiments push these waves into driven, noisy environments where old assumptions break.



<a href="https://kdvi.uva.nl/about/korteweg-and-de-vries/korteweg-and-de-vries.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Korteweg and de Vries</a> gave physics an enduring equation, and that heritage still shows up in today’s models and simulations. 



Yet the new work gives those equations a fresh twist by adding asymmetric interactions and active feedback.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-the-claims-hold-up">Why the claims hold up</h2>



The paper pairs millimeter-scale hardware with simulations and perturbation theory, so the team can check the same behaviors in three ways. 



They report that a careful balance between energy injection, dissipation, and initial conditions pins the system near the right fixed point.



Crucially, the paper notes that discreteness stabilizes breathers over a broader range of conditions than the continuum predicts. 



That insight is already steering the next experiments toward two-dimensional surfaces of nonreciprocal oscillators.



The study is published in <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/nrv2-9h8z" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Physical Review X</a>.



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New 'breathing' solitons could revolutionize information transfer

“Solitons” are waves that refuse to spread out or slow...

Beneath the stable crust of North America, scientists have discovered something extraordinary: the deep roots of the continent are slowly dripping away in blobs of rock.&nbsp;



This unusual geologic process appears to be driven by the remnants of an ancient tectonic plate, revealing a rare opportunity to observe “cratonic thinning” as it happens in real time.&nbsp;



The phenomenon was identified by researchers at the <a href="https://www.utexas.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Texas at Austin</a>. Study lead author Junlin Hua conducted the research as a postdoctoral fellow at UT’s Jackson School of Geosciences.



“We made the observation that there could be something beneath the craton,” said Hua. “Luckily, we also got the new idea about what drives this thinning.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-and-why-is-north-america-dripping">How and why is North America dripping?</h2>



Cratons are ancient, stable rock formations that form the deep cores of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/earth-only-has-six-continents-not-seven-tectonic-plates-under-iceland-study/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">continents</a>. Some have remained relatively unchanged for billions of years.&nbsp;



However, these formations are not immune to change. In rare cases, they lose parts of their structure, particularly their deepest root layers - a process known as cratonic thinning.



This thinning has been observed before in places like the North China Craton, which lost a substantial portion of its root millions of years ago.&nbsp;



But what sets the new discovery apart is that the process is happening now, under the Midwestern United States, providing scientists with a live glimpse of how continents can subtly reshape from within.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-mantle-dynamics-and-tectonic-plates">Mantle dynamics and tectonic plates</h2>



Despite the striking nature of the discovery, researchers stress that there is no immediate threat to the surface landscape. The dripping occurs in the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/how-earths-mantle-shapes-surface-topography/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Earth’s mantle</a> at a glacial pace, and over time it is expected to taper off.&nbsp;



The process is driven by mantle dynamics, which influence how tectonic plates evolve but do so on a timescale of millions of years.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/north-america-continent_dripping-into-mantle_credit-UTexas_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/north-america-continent_dripping-into-mantle_credit-UTexas_1s.webp" alt="A figure from the study showing rock dripping from the craton. The researchers hypothesize that the dripping is caused by the remnants of the subducting Farallon slab below the craton. Click to enlarge. Credit: Hua et al., Nature Geoscience" class="wp-image-1964272"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">A figure from the study showing rock dripping from the craton. The researchers hypothesize that the dripping is caused by the remnants of the subducting Farallon slab below the craton. Click to enlarge. Credit: Hua et al., Nature Geoscience</figcaption></figure>



Eventually, the effect will fade as the driving force behind the thinning - an ancient tectonic plate - sinks deeper into the Earth.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hidden-legacy-of-the-farallon-plate">Hidden legacy of the Farallon Plate</h2>



The research team attributes this geologic activity to the lingering presence of the Farallon Plate, a former oceanic plate that began subducting beneath North America roughly 200 million years ago.&nbsp;



Although the remnants of the plate are now about 600 kilometers below the surface, the study suggests it still plays an active role in reshaping the continent above it.



Thorsten Becker is a co-author of the study and professor at the Jackson School’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Geophysics.&nbsp;



“This sort of thing is important if we want to understand how a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/scientists-discover-a-hidden-pattern-in-planet-orbits/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">planet</a> has evolved over a long time,” said Becker. “It helps us understand how do you make continents, how do you break them, and how do you recycle them [into the Earth.]”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-detailed-insights-into-earth-s-interior-nbsp">Detailed insights into Earth's interior&nbsp;</h2>



The research stems from a broader seismic modeling project led by Hua, now a professor at the <a href="https://en.ustc.edu.cn/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Science and Technology</a> of China. 



The model uses a technique called full-waveform seismic tomography, which offers detailed insights into the Earth's interior by analyzing how seismic waves travel through different materials.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image aligncenter size-full"><a href="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/north-america-continent_dripping-into-mantle_seismic-map_credit-UTexas_1m.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><img src="https://www.earth.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/north-america-continent_dripping-into-mantle_seismic-map_credit-UTexas_1s.webp" alt="Seismic waves pass through different geological features at different speeds. This map shows seismic speed in the Earth’s crust at 200 kilometers depth across the continental United States and portions of Central America and Canada. The North American craton (outlined in black dashes) has a high seismic velocity compared to its surroundings. Click to enlarge. Credit: Hua et al., Nature Geoscience" class="wp-image-1964274"/></a><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Seismic waves pass through different geological features at different speeds. This map shows seismic speed in the Earth’s crust at 200 kilometers depth across the continental United States and portions of Central America and Canada. The North American craton (outlined in black dashes) has a high seismic velocity compared to its surroundings. Click to enlarge. Credit: Hua et al., Nature Geoscience</figcaption></figure>



Developed with support from co-author Stephen Grand and his team, the model was built using seismic data from the <a href="https://www.earthscope.org/about/earthscope/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EarthScope project</a>.



“Because of the use of this full-waveform method, we have a better representation of that important zone between the deep mantle and the shallower lithosphere where we would expect to get clues on what’s happening with the lithosphere,” Becker said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-visualizing-the-dripping-of-north-america-nbsp">Visualizing the dripping of North America&nbsp;</h2>



The high-resolution model allowed scientists to visualize the dripping <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/most-complete-record-of-snowball-earth-found-in-rock-formation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rock formations</a> for the first time and to trace their connection to the Farallon Plate.&nbsp;



The experts believe the plate influences the flow of mantle material in a way that scrapes and weakens the underside of the North American craton. It may also release volatile substances that further degrade the craton’s stability.



Interestingly, although the dripping appears most concentrated in a specific area beneath the Midwest, the entire craton - which spans most of the United States and Canada - shows signs of thinning. 



“A very broad range is experiencing some thinning,” Hua said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-modeling-the-earth-drip">Modeling the Earth drip</h2>



To test the mechanics of the process, the researchers built a dynamic computer simulation. When the Farallon Plate was included in the model, the craton’s base began to drip. 



When the plate was removed, the dripping stopped - strong evidence linking the two phenomena.



Becker emphasized that while no model is perfect, the resemblance between the simulation and observed data suggests the researchers are on the right track.&nbsp;



“You look at a model and say, ‘Is it real, are we overinterpreting the data or is it telling us something new about the Earth? But it does look like in many places that these blobs come and go, that it’s (showing us) a real thing.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-does-any-of-this-matter">Why does any of this matter?</h2>



This discovery adds a new layer to scientists’ understanding of how continents evolve over geological time. 



It demonstrates that even the most ancient and seemingly immutable structures beneath our feet are still subject to deep and hidden forces.&nbsp;



As researchers continue to refine seismic imaging technologies and develop more detailed models of Earth’s interior, they may uncover even more about the dynamic processes shaping our planet from below.



The research is published in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01671-x" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Geoscience</a>.



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Scientists discover that North America is 'dripping' underneath, down into Earth's mantle

Beneath the stable crust of North America, scientists have discovered...

Cities do not sleep. Streetlights glow, billboards shimmer, and skies rarely turn fully dark. For humans, this makes late-night activity easier. For wildlife, especially birds, this shift in natural light can change the rhythm of life itself.



A new study shows that <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/tropical-bird-populations-are-rapidly-shrinking-and-now-scientists-know-why/">birds</a> are singing later into the night in areas where artificial light brightens the sky.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-light-pollution-and-bird-activity">Light pollution and bird activity</h2>



Brent Pease, assistant professor in Southern Illinois University’s <a href="https://sfh.siu.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">School of Forestry and Horticulture</a>, and Neil Gilbert, assistant professor of biology at Oklahoma State University, gathered global data on more than 180 million bird vocalizations.



The researchers compared these calls with satellite imagery to study how birds respond to artificial night light.



“We were shocked by our findings: Under the brightest night skies, a <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/birds-may-be-using-quantum-physics-for-migration/">bird</a>’s day is extended by nearly an hour,” Pease said. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-a-classroom-project-that-grew">A classroom project that grew</h2>



Pease began this project as a creative way to spark interest among undergraduates. He installed a microphone at Touch of Nature Outdoor Education Center, sending live birdsong into the Agriculture Building miles away. Soon, students could watch <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/birds-are-struggling-to-keep-pace-with-a-warming-climate/">species</a> activity on building monitors.



To advance the effort, Pease used <a href="https://birdweather.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BirdWeather</a> devices. These tools, linked with Wi-Fi, GPS, and sensors, connect to BirdNET, a system developed by the Cornell <a href="https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Lab of Ornithology</a> and Chemnitz University of Technology. The dashboard revealed in real time which birds were nearby.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-birds-act-under-light">How birds act under light</h2>



“We started seeing - in real time - which birds were at Touch of Nature, right in our Agriculture Building,” Pease said. 



“I realized that I stumbled upon something really important for wildlife research. All of a sudden, we not only know where species are but how they are behaving 24/7.”



Pease explained that BirdWeather allowed researchers to study bird behavior across vast regions and time spans, much like trail cameras transformed mammal research decades ago.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-golden-age-of-bird-conservation">Golden age of bird conservation </h2>



“We are just now entering the golden age of <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/bird-evolution-timeline-pushed-back-20-million-years-by-baminornis-zhenghensis-discovery/">avian</a> conservation, all through machine learning and participatory science,” Pease said. He has long worked with citizen-science projects, including sound monitoring during the April 8, 2024 eclipse.



With BirdNET, researchers transformed audio recordings into spectrograms that visually capture each bird’s unique call. These were compared against a database of over 6,000 species.



Please noted that the machine learning algorithm makes it possible to analyze 24/7 audio recordings, which would otherwise take lifetimes to listen to.



“Neil and I are the first, to our knowledge, to apply and analyze the BirdWeather data in this way," said Pease.



"We have many research options, but first we focused on how birds are responding to global light pollution, which is a growing concern for humans and wildlife alike.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-big-eyed-birds-react-more-to-light">Big-eyed birds react more to light</h2>



The study revealed that the average delay in rest was about one hour, but not all species reacted equally.



“The next question was: why?” Pease said. “What is driving this response by birds? We had the idea that maybe it was a species’ photoreceptor sensitivity - their eyesight. And this turned out to be a key factor." 



"Species with large eyes relative to their body size had a disproportionately stronger response to artificial light at night. They were more sensitive to light at night than species with small eyes.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-pollution-s-effect-on-birds">Pollution's effect on birds</h2>



The supplementary analysis also looked at <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/some-birds-get-road-rage-when-exposed-to-traffic-noise/">noise pollution</a>, which often accompanies artificial light. Birds near roads behaved differently than those farther away, suggesting that noise can shift vocal activity.



However, the researchers concluded that the most consistent behavioral shifts were tied to light, not sound.



Interestingly, nocturnal species showed the opposite pattern. In bright landscapes, they vocalized less and shortened their nightly activity. 



For example, in the darkest settings a nocturnal bird might call around 1.6 times per night, while in bright environments it dropped closer to 1.1 times. Moonlight also played a role, amplifying or reducing activity depending on its phase.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-citizen-science-at-its-best">Citizen science at its best</h2>



Whether these changes benefit or harm birds is not yet clear. Extended time awake might provide more opportunities to feed or attract mates, but it could also mean reduced sleep and higher stress.



“This is citizen-science at its best,” Pease said. “A technology designed for people to check out the species in their own backyards has acquired an unprecedented amount of data since 2021 - over 1.4 billion vocalizations from more than 11,000 locations across the globe."



"Neil and I are determined to continue to apply the technology for wildlife conservation.”



The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adv9472" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Science</a>.



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Light pollution makes birds around the world sing longer each day

Cities do not sleep. Streetlights glow, billboards shimmer, and skies...

A fish built for the margins just turned up in a Canadian river that does not need any new surprises. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (<a href="https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/index-eng.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DFO</a>) confirmed a pond loach, also called the oriental weatherfish, in the LaHave River near New Germany, Nova Scotia, the <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/non-native-species-are-spreading-at-an-exponential-rate/">first record</a> for the Maritimes.



This species breathes air using part of its intestine, which helps it weather poor water conditions and even brief time on wet land. 



“The Japanese weatherloach can exchange gases with air via the posterior region of the alimentary canal,” wrote <a href="https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/133/1/371/5412/Respiratory-Physiology-of-Intestinal-Air-Breathing" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Brian McMahon</a>.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-pond-loach-survival-skills">Pond loach survival skills</h2>



It can endure drought by burrowing and surviving extended dry spells in mud, which is unusual for a freshwater fish. 



In <a href="https://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/bio_facpubs/252/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Idaho</a>, individuals survived more than 81 days without water or food in experiments that tracked real, wild fish from local populations.



Cold offers little relief. Laboratory tests estimated a critical thermal minimum, the lowest temperature at which normal function is possible, between 30.2 and 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit, with fish surviving in direct contact with ice.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-why-this-fish-worries-canada">Why this fish worries Canada</h2>



Nicholas E. Mandrak, University of Toronto Scarborough (<a href="https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/home/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">UTSC</a>), studies <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/sea-lampreys-help-scientists-decode-stem-cell-origins/">aquatic invasive fishes</a> in Canada. His work has helped shape national screening and detection approaches that aim to keep high risk species out of local waters.



Once established, pond loach can change the character of still and slow waters by rooting through bottom sediments for food. 



Controlled experiments in Australia reported significant cuts to macroinvertebrates, the small animals without backbones that feed fish and amphibians, along with higher turbidity and nitrogen levels in the water column.



The species also moves parasites around the world. A team working in New York found Asian monogenean flatworms on feral weatherfish, found evidence that introduced fish can ferry nonnative parasites with risks for other fishes and possibly amphibians when host switching occurs.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-it-beats-tough-conditions">How it beats tough conditions</h2>



Air breathing is not a party trick here, it is a physiology. Intestinal breathing complements gills and skin, and the gut also plays a role in moving ammonia out of the body, a key reason weatherfish keep going in oxygen poor backwaters where many species stall.



These traits add up to flexibility. The fish can use shallow, silty margins, slip into <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/invasive-aquatic-weed-is-spreading-rapidly-in-the-northeastern-u-s/">aquatic plant</a> beds, and wait out heat, cold, or low oxygen in ways that give it options when conditions swing.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-a-single-female-does-not-tell-us">What a single female does not tell us</h2>



One fish does not make a population. A single, egg-bearing female is a warning flag, but by itself it does not prove the species is established or spreading in Nova Scotia.



Reproduction in this species is more complicated than a slogan. Most populations reproduce sexually, yet some lineages are triploid clones that use <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12130809/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">gynogenesis</a>, egg development triggered by sperm without incorporating the sperm’s DNA, which allows clonal females to produce offspring once the developmental switch is flipped.



Hybridization matters too. In Europe, crossing experiments between the native weatherfish Misgurnus fossilis and the nonnative M. anguillicaudatus found “no evidence for postzygotic barriers,” wrote <a href="https://neobiota.pensoft.net/article/67708/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Josef Wanzenböck</a>.



Fecundity (the possible number of offspring that can be produced over a lifetime) in introduced North American populations can be high by small fish standards. 



In New York, unmated females sampled from feral waters carried about 150 to 18,000 oocytes, and ovary weight reached up to 19 percent of body weight, which helps explain how local numbers can ramp up once conditions suit them.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-where-pond-loaches-live">Where pond loaches live</h2>



The species is already present in British Columbia, with confirmed records in the Lower Fraser Valley and clear provincial rules that prohibit possession, breeding, release, sale, or transport of live weatherfish.



<a href="https://www.earth.com/news/northern-pike-are-sneaking-through-the-ocean-to-invade-new-lakes/">South of the border</a>, long running records show it can settle in different kinds of habitats. A published note from Washington <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286872334_An_oriental_weatherfish_Misgurnus_anguillicaudatus_population_established_in_Washington_State" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">documented</a> an established population in the Lake Washington system at the turn of the century.



On the other side of the country, field work in the Hudson River Valley found feral populations using vegetated, silty stream reaches, with stomach contents dominated by small invertebrates.



These threads show a pattern. Pond loach thrives where current is gentle, bottoms are soft, and food is small and abundant, the very places many native minnows, sunfish, and amphibians also need.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-people-can-do-now">What people can do now</h2>



Never release aquarium fish, bait, or water into local streams or ponds, and do not move live fish between waterbodies. In British Columbia, for example, those actions are <a href="https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/full/10.1079/cabicompendium.75075" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">illegal</a> because of the risk of establishment and spread.



Costs pile up when invaders gain a foothold. A 2025 analysis linked species ranges and macroeconomic data to estimate global economic costs of biological invasions over the last six decades.



This underscores how prevention and early <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/giant-murder-hornets-eradicated-us-invasion-officially-stopped/">detection pay off</a> compared with long cleanups.



“The costs could have reached 35 billion dollars per year over the last 60 years,” noted the <a href="https://enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-023-00750-3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Doñana Biological Station</a> press office.



The biodiversity stakes are not hypothetical. A major intergovernmental assessment concluded invasive alien species have contributed to about 60 percent of recorded global extinctions, a stark reminder that moving species around has consequences that reach far beyond a single creek bend.



The study is published in <a href="https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=498" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nature Ecology &amp; Evolution</a>.



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Invasive fish breathes through its intestines and carries dangerous parasites

A fish built for the margins just turned up in...

Sixty-six million years ago, North America saw long, dark winters. Fossils now suggest tiny primates were already there, coping with ice and snow.



A new <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2423833122" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">analysis</a> turns the usual tropical origin story on its head. The research combines hundreds of fossils with climate models to track primate <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/most-endangered-primate-species-identified-in-new-report/">ancestors</a> through time.



“Our findings flip that narrative entirely,” said Jorge Avaria-Llautureo, an evolutionary biologist at the <a href="https://www.reading.ac.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">University of Reading</a>. His team traced the primate family tree back to chilly northern forests.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-primates-adapted-to-freezing-climates">Primates adapted to freezing climates</h2>



The team worked with the <a href="https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/global/climate-zones/jetstream-max-addition-k-ppen-geiger-climate-subdivisions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Köppen-Geiger</a> climate system, a scheme that sorts environments by average heat and rain. Their maps place the earliest true primates in a zone with hot summers and sub-freezing winters.



That habitat fits today’s upper Midwest more than a steamy jungle. It means our lineage started where annual temperature swings could reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit.



These ancestors likely looked like nimble squirrel-sized <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/female-dominance-in-primates-is-more-common-than-we-thought/">creatures</a>. They foraged at night, avoiding daytime chill.



Statistical models show a 70% chance that the first crown primates lived in what is now North America, with 30% pointing to Western Europe - territories then sitting near 45° N before plate motion. Their later travels reflect how moving land and changing skies steered evolution.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-fossils-reveal-primate-movement">Fossils reveal primate movement</h2>



Fossils alone cannot solve the puzzle because they capture animals only where sediments preserve bones. The new study adds computer methods that simulate how <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/visually-striking-primate-features-ease-tension-and-reduce-conflict/">species</a> move across shifting landmasses.



By feeding 902 living and extinct species into BayesTraits software, the group estimated branch-by-branch journeys. They then matched positions with climate layers produced by the Hadley climate model.



The results indicate that early primates stayed in cold or temperate zones for at least 18 million years. Tropical forests entered the picture much later.



Warmer global temperature spikes such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum did not speed their spread. Instead, local temperature swings mattered most.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-early-primates-made-long-journeys">Early primates made long journeys</h2>



When ancestral lineages ventured into new climate categories, they tended to roam farther. Major moves often involved crossing climate boundaries rather than continents.



Median treks reached roughly 349 miles, compared with 85 miles for moves within familiar conditions. The bigger jumps exposed populations to novel <a href="https://www.earth.com/news/primates-face-an-uncertain-future-due-to-climate-change/">habitats</a> and pressures.



Such leaps helped generate new species by separating kin groups long enough for them to drift apart genetically. The pattern echoes broad ecological models that link dispersal to diversification.



Independent work on North American mammals predicts roughly 9 % of species will fail to outrun current warming trends, underlining the cost of slow feet. Swift past wanderers hint at which modern lineages could thrive.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-how-primates-survived-cold">How primates survived cold </h2>



How could small primates endure months of scarce food and sub-freezing nights? One answer is hibernation, a state in which body temperature and metabolism plunge.



Today’s dwarf lemurs in Madagascar sleep underground for up to seven months each year, a strategy first documented in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15215852/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2004</a>.



Later <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep01768" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fieldwork</a> showed that other dwarf lemur species also hibernate when mountain air turns icy.



These living examples show that primate physiology can slow to bear-like torpor, supporting the idea that ancient relatives did something similar.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-fast-climate-shifts-caused-changes">Fast climate shifts caused changes</h2>



The Reading group found that the rate, not the direction, of local change predicted primate success. Rapid swings in heat or rain pushed species to travel or perish.



That insight matters today because many forests are shifting faster than ever measured. Flexible species may cope, while specialists could hit a wall.



The study also separates global averages from local reality. A place can warm overall yet still see harsher cold snaps or erratic storms that jar wildlife.



Conservation planners often model future ranges with coarse climate grids. The new work argues for finer, neighborhood-scale maps.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-old-origin-ideas-were-wrong">Old origin ideas were wrong</h2>



Textbooks have long tied primate origins to lush equatorial canopies. That view leaned on early fossil finds labeled “paratropical” without rigorous climate checks.



By applying a single classification standard, the team showed that many supposed rain-forest sites were actually cool mixed forests.



The conclusion challenges popular origin theories like “visual predation,” which assume dense, warm vegetation shaped grasping hands and forward eyes. Those traits may have first evolved among conifers instead.



The researchers also found that <a href="http://cwd.huck.psu.edu/Bio414/Rosids.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rosid</a> plants, common in temperate woods, diversified around the same time, offering fruit and sap to budding primates.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-primates-adapted-to-shifting-climates">Primates adapted to shifting climates</h2>



Early primates were tougher and more mobile than usually portrayed. They met freezing dawns, marched hundreds of miles, and only later settled in the tropics where most descendants remain.



Their story suggests resilience has always underpinned primate history, yet it came with extinctions for lineages that failed to keep pace.



Modern humans, one branch of that hardy clan, now drive the climate engine. Understanding our icy roots may remind us how quickly fortune can flip.



The study is published in <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2423833122" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>.



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Early primates evolved in cold climates, not tropical jungles

Sixty-six million years ago, North America saw long, dark winters....

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how Landsat satellite data can be used to support wildlife conservation.

Researchers at the University of Idaho have combined their own findings from extensive field studies with Landsat data to help protect the Yuma Ridgway’s rail, an endangered marsh bird species.

The team has developed a habitat suitability model that will provide land managers with relevant information on dynamic environmental conditions. 

The model will support land managers in making the best decisions to help protect  Yuma Ridgway’s rail on a year to year basis. 

Video Credit: NASA Goddard 

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Landsat data will help protect the Yuma Ridgway’s rail

Today's Video of the Day from NASA Goddard describes how...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes a new mission that has been launched to study the evolution of stars.

The UV Legacy Library of Young Stars as Essential Standards (ULLYSES) is the largest observation program ever designed for NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which will survey more than 300 stars.  

The ultraviolet (UV) light from both young stars in the Milky Way and fully mature high-mass stars in several nearby dwarf galaxies will be used to create a library of their spectral fingerprints. 

Video Credit: NASA Goddard 

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

ULLYSES will explore the evolution of stars

Today's Video of the Day from NASA Goddard describes a...

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features the Frankfurt Rhine-Main region in south central Germany.

This region is home to almost six million people and includes the cities of Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, and Offenbach.

The European Space Operations Center (ESOC), the main mission control center for the ESA, can be found in Darmstadt. Frankfurt spreads across both sides of the Main River. The Frankfurt City Forest is the largest inner-city forest in Germany.

The Rhine River flows in a northerly direction through Germany and the Netherlands before emptying into the North Sea.

Video Credit: ESA  

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The Frankfurt Rhine-Main region of Germany

Today's Video of the Day from the European Space Agency...

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The evolution of sea-level rise on the West Coast Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes how sea-level rise has evolved along the western coast of the United States.

Sea-level rise is not evenly distributed across the globe. From 1993 to 2010, the sea level in the northeastern Pacific Ocean rose 4 to 5 millimeters per year lower than average.

In 2010, sea-level rise began to rapidly increase on the West Coast. The largest increase coincided with a large El Niño event in 2015 to 2016, according to NASA. 

Since 2016, the sea level has risen on the West Coast by an average of one centimeter per year, which is much higher than the global average of 3.3 millimeters. 

Video Credit: NASA Goddard 

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The evolution of sea-level rise on the West Coast

The evolution of sea-level rise on the West Coast Today's...

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://uahs.arizona.edu/">University of Arizona Health Sciences</a> reveals that COVID-19 inhibits a pain signaling pathway in the body, which may explain how as many as 40 percent of people who are infected with the virus have no symptoms. 

The researchers made the discovery that COVID-19 can silence pain after they identified a second protein receptor, neuropilin, that is used by SARS-COV-2 to gain entry into cells.

Study co-author Dr. Rajesh Khanna is a professor in the College of Medicine at Tucson's Department of Pharmacology. He said the fact that SARS-COV-2 relieves pain may explain why nearly half of people who get COVID-19 experience few or no symptoms, even though they are able to spread the disease.

"It made a lot of sense to me that perhaps the reason for the unrelenting spread of COVID-19 is that in the early stages, you're walking around all fine as if nothing is wrong because your pain has been suppressed," said Dr. Khanna. 

"You have the virus, but you don't feel bad because you pain is gone. If we can prove that this pain relief is what is causing COVID-19 to spread further, that's of enormous value."

Video Credit: University of Arizona Health Sciences/Debra Bowles

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

How do people have COVID-19 without symptoms?

Today's Video of the Day from the University of Arizona...

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.manchester.ac.uk/">University of Manchester</a> describes how communities may suffer when local forest management is formalized.

The research is based on 643 case studies of community forest management (CFM) in 51 different countries.

While CFM policies often have positive environmental and economic impacts, they also tend to limit the rights and forest access of local populations.

"Improving forests can be a vital way to both tackle climate change and address poverty - however, our study shows that too often local communities lose out when the management of community forests is formalized by governments," said study lead author Dr. Johan Oldekop. 

"With the clock ticking on catastrophic climate change, the world needs to learn from successes in countries like Nepal, where we saw some cases with simultaneous economic, environmental, and resource rights outcomes."

Video Credit: University of Manchester

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Community forest management policies limit rights and access

Today's Video of the Day from the University of Manchester...

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Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> features a Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite view of Houston, Texas.

The city appears in shades of white and grey, while the surrounding land appears in shades of yellow. The Gulf of Mexico, as well as the bayous that dissect Houston, are dark blue.

Buffalo Bayou is a slow-moving river that cuts through the city before joining Galveston Bay, the largest estuary in Texas. The Port of Houston spreads across the northwest section of the bay

Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States, with a population of over two million people.

Video Credit: ESA 

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Earth from space: Houston, Texas

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/goddard">NASA Goddard</a> describes decades of research on sea-level rise based on data collected from satellites, airborne missions, shipboard measurements, and supercomputers.

According to NASA, glaciers and ice sheets are dumping hundreds of gigatons of meltwater into the oceans each year.

Overall, the global sea level is rising by approximately 3.3 millimeters a year. Compared to the time of NASA’s first satellite mission to measure ocean heights, which was launched in 1992, the current rate of sea-level rise has increased by 30 percent.

Video Credit: NASA Goddard 

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Sea-level rise has increased by 30 percent since 1992

Today's Video of the Day from NASA Goddard describes decades...

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Copernicus Sentinel-6 will monitor sea level rise in real time Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.esa.int/">European Space Agency</a> describes the upcoming mission of the Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, which will be launched this month from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. 

Sentinel-6 will use radar altimetry to obtain near real-time measurements of sea surface height and wind speeds, which will help scientists monitor sea level rise. Copernicus Sentinel-6 will monitor sea level rise in real time as shown in the video above and has responsibility for ground segment development and coordination at system level, including for operations preparation.

The mission is a collaboration between ESA, the European Commission, EUMETSAT, NASA and NOAA, with support from the French space agency CNES. Since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon on 10 August 1992, high-precision satellite altimeters have been essential to monitor how the ocean stores and redistributes heat, water, and carbon in the climate system. The two satellites, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich and Sentinel-6B, will extend this legacy through to at least 2030 which will provide a nearly forty-year record of sea level rise as well as changes in ocean currents. 

The satellite is named after NASA’S former director of Earth Observation.

Video Credit: ESA

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Copernicus Sentinel-6 will monitor sea level rise in real time

Copernicus Sentinel-6 will monitor sea level rise in real time...

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Today's Video of the Day from <a href="https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/">NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory </a> describes all of the incredible sights that can be seen in the November night sky. 

A brilliant star cluster known as the Pleiades becomes visible this month, and the very brightest stars can be observed with the naked eye. Using a telescope or binoculars, you will be able to view hundreds of these stars - some of which are brighter than our own sun.

The Pleiades star cluster, which is estimated to be 100 million years old, is located about 410 light years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

According to NASA, you can see the Pleiades in the east during the first couple of hours after dark on cool November evenings. 

On November 18th and 19th, look for a crescent moon near Jupiter and Saturn after sunset. These two planets have been visible in the night sky for much of 2020, and we are now just weeks away from their super close pairing in mid-December. Until then, notice how they draw in just a little closer together each week. 

Video Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Look for Jupiter, Saturn, and the Pleiades in the November sky

Today's Video of the Day from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory...

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The rise and fall of Yellowstone National Park Today's Video of the Day from the <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/">USGS</a> features Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, who describes the history of land deformation in Yellowstone National Park. 

In this region, forces of heat and pressure cause the Earth's surface to periodically rise and fall. The hydrothermal system - all the hot water that powers the geysers - has an influence on deformation as well. 

Using various techniques such as leveling, satellite imagery, and radar imagery, experts are able to measure the extent to which the land deforms. The rise and fall of Yellowstone National Park as shown above in the video shows the ups and downs of what the park has been through.

Also the  history of the park began at least 11,000 years ago when Native Americans began to hunt and fish in the region. During the construction of the post office in Gardiner, Montana, in the 1950s, an obsidian point of Clovis origin was found that dated from approximately 11,000 years ago. These Paleo-Indians, of the Clovis culture, used the significant amounts of obsidian found in the park to make cutting tools and weapons.

Video Credit: USGS

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

The rise and fall of Yellowstone National Park

The rise and fall of Yellowstone National Park Today's Video...

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Today's Video of the Day from the journal <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/13652907">Mammal Review</a> describes how land use changes influence the transmission of disease from animals to humans. 

Many of the impacts of land use changes are understudied and not well understood. The researchers found that land conversion, urban development, and deforestation change the behavior of animals and directly affect the spread of disease. 

"We highlight major gaps in our understanding of how land-use change affects the spread of diseases from mammals to humans in terms of how key hosts, like bats, are affected, and how important land-use changes, such as agriculture, impact wild mammals and their interaction with livestock," said study co-author Dr. Orly Razgour. 

"There is an urgent need for more studies that link animal ecology and responses to land-use change with pathogen ecology and disease spread."

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By <a href="http://csexton@earth.com">Chrissy Sexton</a>, <a href="https://www.earth.com/staff/">Earth.com</a> Staff Writer

Video Credit: Mammal Review

Land use changes affect disease transmission

Today's Video of the Day from the journal Mammal Review...

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