Liberal Blogosphere

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:58:36 +0000

Study suggests data centers will boost power bills up to 57% by 2030

North Carolina State University

New research suggests electricity demand from data centers and cryptocurrency mining is likely to increase power costs in some parts of the country by up to 57% by 2030, with a national average increase of 6%-29%. Electricity demand related to data centers is also likely to increase CO2 emissions by up to 28% by 2030, relative to a future with no data center growth, according to the analysis from North Carolina State University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Toronto.

“Power demand in the U.S. was relatively flat for almost 20 years,” says Jeremiah Johnson, corresponding author of a journal article on the work and an associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. “But in the past couple of years we’ve seen a significant increase in power demand, due largely to data centers and – to a lesser extent – cryptocurrency mining.

“We wanted to understand the implications of this increased demand,” Johnson says. “What new power infrastructure will need to be built? Where? How will these systems be operated? What will that mean for the cost of electricity? And what will it mean for carbon emissions?”

The researchers drew on recent research to estimate data center and cryptocurrency power demand through 2030, and then made use of computational modeling tools to forecast what technologies would be used to generate that power.

“Specifically, we used an energy system optimization model,” says Anderson de Queiroz, co-author of the paper and an associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State. “An energy system is the full supply chain that delivers energy to people. And optimization models are tools that can be used to search for the least expensive ways to plan, maintain and operate energy systems in order to meet energy demand while complying with existing laws and regulations.”

“The optimization model we used for this work was designed to focus on electrical power generation,” says Johnson. “We were able to look at energy supply and demand on an hourly level for 26 regions of the power grid, covering the lower 48 United States.”

One key finding from the optimization model is that increased demand will lead to increased carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation, by up to 28% over the next three and a half years.

“The power sector has made progress in reducing carbon emissions over the past 20 years, but the increased demand will essentially erase a lot of that progress,” says Johnson.

“We also found that electricity costs will increase by an average of 6%-29%, nationally. However, those prices could increase as much as 57%, depending on where you are in the country.”

Those electricity price increases would be most pronounced in Virginia, eastern North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, west Texas, Ohio, West Virginia and New York.

“But those future price increases depend on where new data centers are built,” Johnson says. “For example, price increases in Virginia jump due to substantial expansion of data centers. If the data centers are distributed more broadly across the country, Virginia won’t be hit as hard. Prices will still go up for everyone, but the expense will be spread more evenly across the country.

“There is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the cost of installing new natural gas turbines and the cost of natural gas itself,” Johnson says. “But regardless of fuel cost and the cost to build new natural gas plants, we still see substantial increases in electricity cost and CO2 emissions.

“The public and policymakers need to be aware of these near-term challenges – 2030 is less than four years away,” says Johnson. “Our findings highlight the need for regulators and utilities to make informed decisions about near-term power generation, and for government officials at all levels to make informed decisions related to the construction of data centers.”

The paper, “Power System Costs and Emissions from Data Center and Cryptocurrency Mining Expansion in the United States,” is published open access in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The paper was co-authored by Cameron Wade of Sutubra Research; Michael Blackhurst of the University of Pittsburgh; Joseph DeCarolis and Paulina Jaramillo of Carnegie Mellon University; and Daniel Posen of the University of Toronto.

Journal

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/ae6c3d

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Power System Costs and Emissions from Data Center and Cryptocurrency Mining Expansion in the United States

Article Publication Date

12-May-2026

Turning down the heat from data centers

Research aims to reduce impact of heat pollution on downwind neighborhoods

Arizona State University

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Sustainable Mobility Center aims to transform how the world moves

The Precourt Institute for Energy at the Doerr School of Sustainability has launched a cross-campus initiative to fundamentally rethink how people and goods move across land, sea, and air.

Stanford University

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The new Center for Sustainability Research will seek to make transportation of people and goods over land, air, and sea more sustainable, as well as to make interconnected mobility systems more efficient and less expensive.

Credit: Courtesy Center for Automotive Research at Stanford

When you drive a conventional car, only 1% of the gasoline burned gets you from point A to point B. Almost all the fuel’s energy just generates wasted heat and propels your two-ton vehicle down the road. That $5 a gallon gasoline delivered less than a nickel’s worth of value.

Surely, we can do better.

The Precourt Institute for Energy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability has launched the Sustainable Mobility Center to fundamentally rethink how people and goods move across land, sea, and air – systems that mostly operate as they did decades ago. This new center aims to make mobility systems more sustainable in the broad sense of the word: environmentally responsible, affordable, reliable, safe, and fair, with solutions that can scale worldwide.

“Transportation is the backbone of the global economy, but also one of its most difficult sectors to transform,” said Marco Pavone, faculty co-director of the Sustainable Mobility Center with Ram Rajagopal. “The center is designed to combine Stanford’s strengths – from energy systems to AI and autonomy – with industry and government collaboration to accelerate real-world solutions at scale.”

Systems-level approach

The global transportation system incorporates vehicles, infrastructure, energy networks, operations, public policies, and human behavior. Making this system broadly sustainable demands a coordinated redesign, according to the new program’s leaders.

An example of overlapping challenges: While electric vehicles do not produce local pollution, most are charged by electric grids that rely on fossil fuel power plants that pollute neighboring communities and drive climate change. Relatedly, how will growing adoption of EVs affect the stability of electricity grids? More broadly, how will public and private transportation of people, as well as the movement of goods over land, air, and sea, work together to improve efficiency, speed, cost, and other goals?

“We are not simply transitioning from one energy source to another,” said Rajagopal, associate professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering, a joint department of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and the School of Engineering. “We are rethinking how mobility systems are designed, optimized, and experienced by leveraging new transportation technologies and advances in AI, autonomy, digital infrastructure, smart grids, and data-driven decision-making.”

Bridging research and impact

The Sustainable Mobility Center’s leadership team understands how foundational research, technology development, the digital economy, and real-world deployment work together, and how more sustainable transportation can help make communities and cities cleaner and healthier for generations to come.

William Chueh, who is the faculty director of Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy, is a leader in energy science and technology and an entrepreneur. Rajagopal is an expert in power systems and the integration of renewables, smart distribution systems, and demand-side data analytics. He also directs Stanford’s smart grid initiative, Bits & Watts, which has funded extensive research on preparing electric grids for high penetration of electric vehicles. Rajagopal is co-founder and chief technology officer of a software startup for managing higher electricity demand on electricity grids.

Pavone is an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford’s School of Engineering and leads autonomous vehicle research at NVIDIA. His research centers on physical AI, with applications including self-driving cars, autonomous aerospace vehicles, and general-purpose robotic systems. Pavone directed the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, a long-standing program that shaped the evolution of autonomous vehicle technology and was the forerunner to the Sustainable Mobility Center.

“AI and autonomy are not separate from sustainability. They are central to it,” said Pavone. “They allow us to operate mobility systems with a level of efficiency, safety, and coordination that simply wasn’t possible before.”

Twenty Stanford faculty members across five schools have affiliated themselves with the center.

The Sustainable Mobility Center’s activities will be funded by corporations through two mechanisms: member fees paid to an industrial affiliates program and research sponsored by individual companies. Membership fees are pooled to fund the new center’s research, educational, and other efforts.

While affiliate members can advise center leadership on research initiatives, the faculty directors decide the topics for proposal requests and select Stanford research projects to fund through a competitive process. The center and the Precourt Institute will help members sponsor research by connecting them with Stanford faculty who share their academic interests. Stanford’s Office of Research Administration oversees sponsored research projects.

“As throughout the campus, industry engagement is essential to ensure that our research is grounded in real-world challenges and constraints,” said Ryan Chin, the center’s managing director.

“We will work with our academic and business affiliates to develop solutions that are technically rigorous and practically deployable,” added Chin, who is co-founder and former CEO of an autonomous vehicle company spun out of MIT, where he earned his doctorate.

The six founding industry supporters are International Motors, LLC, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Prologis, Rivian, Shell, and Yazaki North America.

Research focus and structure

To accelerate progress, the Sustainable Mobility Center will convene stakeholders around a set of global, persistent, and complex challenges. “These ‘Grand Challenges’ include zero-emission freight, sustainable aviation fuels, intelligent logistics systems, multi-modal transportation networks, and resilient infrastructure,” said associate director Eylül Bilgin, PhD ’23 in aeronautics and astronautics.

To enable solutions for Grand Challenges, the Sustainable Mobility Center’s work has been organized around five pillars. Each pillar enables in-depth technical development while also serving as a building block for integrated solutions that align with Grand Challenge opportunities. For example, to develop zero-emission freight at global scale, new vehicle technology, intelligent infrastructure, safety systems, and sensible policies and economics must all work together to unlock grand challenge opportunities.

The center’s five core pillars are:

Energy systems: Advancing electrification, sustainable fuels (in partnership with the Precourt Institute’s
How location sharing apps change the ways we communicate

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
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URBANA, Ill. – Mobile apps that allow people to share their location with others have become increasingly popular. But how and why do we use these apps, and what are the implications for interpersonal communication? That’s the topic of a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“I was teaching a class on relationship development to undergraduate students, and I made a comment about location sharing. They all got very animated, sharing experiences and asking questions about use cases. I realized there was very little research about this topic, so I decided to conduct a study,” said lead author Brian Ogolsky, professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at U. of I.

“I believe knowing how people use these technologies helps us to understand the scripts and the processes that underpin relationships, how they are changing, and what that means for how we relate to each other.”

Ogolsky and his colleagues conducted an online survey with individuals across the U.S. and the U.K., asking them to describe their location sharing practices.

Respondents on average shared their location with 3.86 people, with a span ranging from 1 to 83. The majority reported using the Find My app for iPhone, followed by Google Maps, Life360, Snapchat, and WhatsApp.

People most often shared their location with their romantic partner, then friends, siblings, parents, children, other family members, and roommates.

The researchers organized the reasons people were sharing their location into four main categories: safety, practicality, casual use, and relationship processes.

Safety was the main reason for sharing location with immediate family, parents, and children.

“Respondents said it helps them feel safer knowing where someone is. That’s unsurprising; however, it’s really an illusion of safety. Knowing where my partner is 50 miles from here does not mean I can help them in a pinch, or that I can get somebody to help them. It may be more about peace of mind than actual safety,” Ogolsky said.

For romantic partners and friends, practicality was the most common reason for sharing. That included convenience and planning, such as what time to make dinner, or coordinating who picks up the kids. Respondents also mentioned keeping track of people who are traveling, or interacting with others who live or work in different places.

Casual use included sharing location for fun and novelty. Some respondents said it seemed interesting or entertaining, and there was no specific intent. For example, they would share location with everyone in their friend group and then forget about it.

Finally, the researchers identified relationship processes as a separate category, indicating usage specifically intended to maintain, support, and manage a relationship. This could be about trust, honesty, and open communication. A few people also mentioned pressure or expectations from their partner or family members about their roles and responsibilities.

Ogolsky pointed out there are potential drawbacks when technology replaces human interaction.

“Our findings highlight we’re heading towards a world where technological changes will dictate how and when we communicate. Location sharing is moving from primarily safety-related causes into the relationship realm, where it alters communication,” he said.

“You can check where someone is and decide you don’t want to bother them, so you don’t call or text. It takes away the ability of the person to say whether they would like to talk right now, and removes interpersonal negotiation.”

People come to depend on technology; for example, if you plan to meet someone at a concert and your phone dies, you may not be able to find each other. Location sharing with friend groups can also create a sense of FOMO, the fear of missing out, if you notice other people getting together without you.

Giving others access to your location also raises privacy concerns. However, this appears to be less important to younger generations who have grown up in a world where they have been surveilled by tech companies since they were born. Their idea of what should be private information is fundamentally different than older generations, Ogolsky noted.

There are also implications regarding whether location sharing information can be used as evidence in criminal court cases, and it can be misused in abusive relationships.

Ultimately, most people adopt a new technology because they think it's going to make their lives easier.

“There is something to be said for streamlining the minutia of relationships. A lot of people do not like planning; they do not like waiting. With location sharing, they can get information about others without intruding, they can be where they need to be at the right times. If they can squeeze in one more thing, that can be a real benefit for some people,” Ogolsky concluded.

The study, “Near, Far, Wherever You Are: With Whom and Why Do People Use Location Sharing in Relationships,” is published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships [DOI: 10.1177/02654075261446344]. This research was supported by Hatch funding from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Journal

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

DOI

10.1177/02654075261446344

Article Title

Near, Far, Wherever You Are: With Whom and Why Do People Use Location Sharing in Relationships

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:14:37 +0000

Should you accept internet cookies? BU researchers say the open web could suffer without them

New study finds ad revenue that supports digital publishers and content creators tumbles when cookies are removed

Boston University

It’s a choice you may face multiple times a day—and, at this point, your reaction is probably reflexive. Are you going to accept those internet cookies, reject them, or spend a little time customizing your settings?

Increasingly, internet users are pushing back against cookies—the digital crumbs used by websites and advertisers to spot returning customers—by choosing privacy-enhancing browsers or clicking that reject button. But ditching the cookies may have big implications for the free web. If digital companies, content creators, and advertisers aren’t making money from our surfing, the quality and usefulness of the products they offer might suffer too.

In a new study, Boston University researchers highlight the potential impact the loss of cookies has on advertisers and how alternative systems designed to balance privacy and revenue fail to recoup the costs.

They analyzed 200 million ad impressions—or views—worldwide and found that removing cookies cut website publishers’ revenue by more than a third. They also discovered that privacy-enhanced alternatives, notably a major Google project called Privacy Sandbox, only clawed back a small portion of that lost revenue. The findings were published in PNAS, the National Academy of Sciences’ flagship journal.

“Internet cookies—especially third-party cookies—have been central to how online advertising works,” says Garrett Johnson, a BU Questrom School of Business associate professor of marketing. Third-party cookies are those placed by an organization, like an advertiser, not connected to the site you’re on. “In our study, removing third-party cookies reduced publisher ad revenue by about 35 percent—and about 66 percent in the European Union—showing that cookies still play a major economic role in supporting the open web.” The European Union has tougher online privacy rules than much of the rest of the world.

According to Zhengrong Gu, a Questrom PhD candidate, because cookies help advertisers spot users around the web, they can better target and measure their ads. That makes advertisers’ spending more efficient, putting more ad money in the pockets of content creators and publishers. “If more users decline cookies, it would likely reduce the effectiveness of digital advertising and the revenue that supports much of the open web,” says Gu (Questrom’26).

The downside of cookies: no one really likes being followed. “Website cookies are online surveillance tools,” wrote Wayne State University researcher Elizabeth Stoycheff in a Conversation article, “and the commercial and government entities that use them would prefer people not read those notifications too closely.”

There have been a couple of different responses to the decline in cookie use. One is the implementation of paywalls and subscriptions to keep the cash flowing; another is requiring customers to use log-ins that work across multiple sites. Tech companies are also experimenting with privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) that try to balance advertising needs with user privacy concerns. One of the best known PETs is Privacy Sandbox, Google’s now-defunct six-year experiment in cookie alternatives, which included innovations such as a browser tool that shared a customer’s interests rather than their detailed online history.

“In our study, Privacy Sandbox recovered only about 4 percent of the revenue lost when cookies were removed,” says Shunto J. Kobayashi, a Questrom assistant professor of marketing. That weak impact was in part due to the limited adoption of the new tools and because they changed the user experience, he says, introducing “technical frictions, especially slower ad loading times.”

In their paper, the researchers write that their findings, alongside those from other studies, “informed Google’s decision to abandon its plan to replace cookies with Privacy Sandbox. The episode underscores the difficulty of aligning privacy, performance, and competition goals in digital markets.”

To examine privacy technologies in a real-world setting, the BU team used data from ad management firm Raptive, and leveraged an experiment conducted by Google and overseen by the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority. During the study, Chrome users were randomly assigned to one of three groups: cookies-enabled, cookies-disabled, or cookies replaced by Privacy Sandbox. The study included around 60 million desktop and mobile Chrome users.

“The experiment created a rare opportunity for independent, large-scale evaluation open to external participants,” says Johnson, an expert on digital marketing who has studied privacy regulations, online ad effectiveness, and the economics of digital advertising.

He adds that many European regulators are considering even tighter online privacy rules, which could have a negative impact: “Our results provide unusually strong evidence—from a global, industry-wide field experiment—that restricting cookies carries significant economic downsides that regulators should consider.”

As for users faced with that daily accept or reject decision, Johnson recognizes that everyone will make the call that works for them—but he leans toward clicking “accept.”

“From my perspective, accepting cookies creates substantial benefits for the advertising ecosystem and the publishers I care about,” he says, “with what I perceive to be little personal risk.”

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2603752123

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Can privacy technologies replace cookies? Ad revenue in a field experiment

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:11:20 +0000

Alternative social media algorithms can help users form more accurate and less polarized beliefs

A new study from the University of Copenhagen suggests that simple changes to how posts are sorted in our feed can increase consensus and factual understanding among users

University of Copenhagen

image:

Schematic of the experimental design

In Study 1, we recruit 500 residents of the United States and record their demographics and political leaning. Participants then indicate their prior beliefs on six topics.
For each topic, participants are then presented with 12 argumentative posts that they must either upvote, downvote, or pass (at least two upvotes and two downvotes per topic). The output of Study 1 is a content inventory — 72 posts across six topics that have been engaged with by liberals and conservatives — from which we can algorithmically sample and rank posts to generate feeds.

In Study 2, we recruit a new sample of 1,000 United States residents and record their demographics and political leaning. Participants then proceed through a belief updating task where, for each topic, they state their prior belief on a topic, then view a feed of three posts pertaining to said topic (selected and ranked by one of the five algorithms tested), and then revise their belief on said topic. Once the belief updating task has been completed for each of the six topics, participants indicate their subjective perceptions of the posts they saw along three dimensions: how {civil, insightful, emotional} the posts were.

Credit: Credit: Jason William Burton, University of Copenhagen

Most of us rarely think about why we see the posts, videos, or articles that appear in our social media feeds. But the way content is sorted and presented not only decides what we see; it also greatly influences what we believe, know, and think.

In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Dresden University of Technology, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development demonstrate that even minimal changes to the algorithms that sort content for users can shift both the degree of polarization in groups and the accuracy of their assessments of reality.

“The platforms will say that their algorithms are just designed to help their users find the content they want to see. But our study shows how the way the algorithms work can have potentially harmful effects on how users form beliefs about the world,” says Jason William Burton, Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychology and the Center for Social Data Science, and lead author of the study. He adds:

“Our results are, on the one hand, concerning because the social media platforms have become such dominant fora for civic discussion in our society, but our study could, on the other hand, be interpreted in a positive light as we show that it is possible to design algorithms that help users find more mutual understanding on these platforms.”

Engagement feels good but may mislead
Most major social media platforms rank content based on engagement, such as likes, reactions, or shares. The new study suggests that while this approach gives users content they find appealing, it may also have unintended consequences.

“Algorithms optimized for engagement can feel informative and satisfying, but that doesn’t mean they help people understand the world more accurately,” says Jason Burton.

He and his colleagues found that a personalized, engagement‑based ranking algorithm similar to those used by platforms like Facebook and X led participants to form more polarized and less accurate beliefs than any other algorithm tested.

Ironically, these same feeds were also rated by users as more “insightful” and received more positive feedback.

Testing alternatives to today’s algorithms
To explore whether social media could be designed differently, the researchers compared engagement‑based ranking with two alternative approaches – the so-called bridging‑based ranking, which prioritizes posts that receive approval from people across political divides; and intelligence‑based ranking, which prioritizes content likely to improve the overall accuracy of collective judgments.

“The bridging algorithm increased consensus between liberal and conservative participants in some cases while the intelligence algorithm improved the accuracy of their factual judgments compared with both random and engagement-based ranking,” explains Jason Burton and adds:

“Our results thus suggest that it is indeed possible to design feeds that don’t divide or mislead people.”

Good for business or democracy?
According to the researchers, the study raises an important question: What values should social media platforms support? Today, platforms primarily optimize for engagement because this is what is best for business.

“Our experiment shows that we should explore more types of algorithms because these can have positive effects on deliberative outcomes on social media. It challenges the idea that engagement-driven social media is the only viable model,” concludes Jason Burton.

The platforms themselves may hesitate to use alternative algorithms if they pose a threat to their business model so Jason Burton and his colleagues suggest that political regulation may be necessary to change the current situation.

The study “Simple changes to content curation algorithms affect the beliefs people form in a collaborative filtering experiment” is published in the Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, where it received an honorable mention for best paper.

About the study
In order to measure how algorithms affect polarization and the accuracy of group beliefs, the researchers conducted a controlled two-stage online experiment with residents of the United States, half liberals and half conservatives.

Stage 1
Five hundred participants evaluated 72 short, argumentative posts across six political and societal topics (e.g. social media regulation, religion, and concrete societal forecasts). Each participant upvoted, downvoted, or ignored each post, allowing the researchers to map which types of content liberals and conservatives tended to support or reject.

Stage 2
A new group of 1,000 participants was asked to state their beliefs on the same six topics, then they were shown short three-post “feeds,” and then they we asked to re-state their beliefs. The posts that appeared in a participant’s feed depended on which condition they were assigned to, with each condition involving a different approach to algorithmic content curation:

random ranking,
engagement-based ranking (content that received the most engagement of any kind),
personalized engagement-based ranking (content approved by your political in-group),
bridging-based ranking (content approved by both liberals and conservatives)
and intelligence-based ranking (content expected to improve collective belief accuracy).

The researchers then measured whether participants’ beliefs converged or polarized (consensus); whether group-level judgments became more or less accurate; and how participants perceived the content (e.g. as civil, emotional, or insightful).

DOI

10.1145/3772318.3790602

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:54:43 +0000

Study maps how ‘Big AI’ influences AI laws and oversight

University of Edinburgh
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Artificial intelligence (AI) companies influence policy and regulation using similar techniques to Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and Big Oil, according to a new study.
The influence methods that Big AI - companies that have developed and deployed large-scale AI technologies - have been mapped based on news articles around large global AI-focused events.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Trinity College Dublin, TU Delft and Carnegie Mellon University, analysed news articles for evidence of methods used to control the narrative and influence policy measures related to AI.
They identified 27 established patterns of ‘corporate capture’ - a process by which regulation and public bodies come to act in the interest of corporations rather than people.
The researchers analysed 100 news stories published around four global AI events between 2023 and 2025 - the EU AI Act trilogues and the global AI summits in the UK, South Korea and France - and found 249 cases fitting capture patterns.
Of the mechanisms deployed, one of the most prevalent was ‘narrative capture’, which the team describe as attempts to influence the position or decisions of public officials and regulations.
The dominant narratives were around how “regulation stifles innovation” and “red tape”, whereby regulation is first portrayed as unnecessary, excessive or obsolete, setting the stage for later calls explicitly advocating for ‘deregulation’.
One of the other prevalent capture mechanisms used is what the team refers to as ‘elusion of law’, which relates to violations and contentious interpretations of antitrust, privacy, copyright and labour laws.
The research suggests that Big AI has undermined and resisted regulation, oversight and enforcement in a variety of ways, such as lobbying and retaliation against whistleblowers, researchers and lawmakers.
It was also found that in some cases the AI industry has benefited from a 'revolving door' model where former policymakers go on to advise or take employment with major AI companies.
There are also many examples of Big AI making significant donations to political parties and public officials owning equity in regulated companies, experts say.
The team highlight lessons to be learned from adjacent movements in similar industries such as Big Tobacco, Pharma and Oil on some of the tactics used to prevent capture.
These include calls for separation between public and private interests and binding rules for government-industry interactions to manage conflicts of interest.
The findings have been peer reviewed and will be presented at the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in June 2026.
Dr Zeerak Talat, Chancellor’s Fellow at University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, said: “It’s remarkable how the findings relate to common experiences of companies having greater influence over democratic processes than people,” they further continue “While we cannot draw a causal relationship between attempts at corporate capture and the disenfranchisement of citizens, the former certainly seems to hint at the latter.”
Dr Abeba Birhane, Director of Trinity College Dublin’s AI Accountability Lab, said “In addition to ‘narrative capture’ and the violations and contentious interpretations of antitrust, privacy, copyright and labour laws that were most recurrent, we also found that Big AI frequently uses the notion that ‘regulation stifles innovation’ and that ‘red tape can stymy national interest’ to rationalise their control of the overall narrative.”

DOI

10.48550/arXiv.2605.06806

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Big AI's Regulatory Capture: Mapping Industry Interference and Government Complicity

Article Publication Date

augmented: life and death as a cyborg
A provocative rethinking of the intersection of death, technology, and disability, for a better life

The MIT Press
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Cover art to augmented.
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Credit: The MIT Press, 2026.

For immediate release
Cambridge, MA [May 2026] --- A provocative rethinking of the intersection of death, technology, and disability, for a better life.
This spring, The MIT Press published augmented: life and death as a cyborg by Candi K. Cann. augmented is a provocative rethinking of the intersection of death, technology, and disability, for a better life.
You can access the open-access edition of the book here: https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/6101/augmentedlife-and-death-as-a-cyborg
We are all cyborgs, relying on technology—whether it’s Alexa, a pacemaker, or a titanium knee—for our quotidian existence. In our deep connection to a technological world, from robots to augmented and virtual realities, metaverses, and gaming, Candi Cann sees an opportunity, and good reason, to question our ideas about accessibility and inclusion. In augmented, she asks us to reconsider traditional notions of biology and death.vHaving relied on hearing aids from the age of four, Cann uses her experience to challenge readers to reconsider their assumptions about technologies and their role in life—and death. She also focuses on what it means that most of us are living longer with the intervention of medical technologies, and how a better understanding of our relationship to technology will grant us greater control as we age. Drawing on her life experience in Asia, the author explains how cultural and religious views of machines and artificial intelligence vary globally—in particular, how a Western fear of machines contrasts with an animistic worldview that can see machines as conduits of care for others, embedding spiritual possibilities.
“Technological innovation creates systemic and long-lasting shifts across society, and while we may be skeptical” of AI and other cutting-edge innovations, “we can no longer afford to look the other way” when it comes to their cultural impacts, Baylor University religious studies professor Cann (Dying to Eat) argues in this thought-provoking study. Cann posits that everything from hearing aids and titanium knees to smartwatches qualifies as “augmentations” that make humans into part-machine “cyborgs.”
Drawing on her own travels, she theorizes that the West fears innovative technology due to cultural ideas about human exceptionalism, while East Asian countries embrace technological advancement because they respect robots as “soul-possible or soul-different.” She surveys a range of current and possible future technologies for augmenting human life, along the way spotlighting how disability “has often been a driving force behind.... technological innovations...Being part machine might, in fact, make us more human, not less,” Cann asserts.
The book was featured in The MIT Press Reader here: Read an excerpt: What America Could Learn From Asia’s Robot Revolution
Former Fulbright Scholar, Candi K. Cann is a professor at Baylor University with a research focus on death, dying, and grief, and the intersections of marginality, diversity, and death technologies.
Endorsements:
“A brilliant, compassionate, and provocative reframing of what it means to be human in a tech-entwined world—augmented urgently calls us to protect what matters most: care, connection, and meaning.”
—Shoshana Ungerleider, Host and Producer, TED Health; Founder, End Well

“Insightful, powerful, essential. Through a dialog between personal experience, spirituality, and science, Candi Cann brings a new understanding of how technological augmentations will impact life and death. A needed text for anyone interested in the future of mankind.”
—Matthieu J. Guitton, Editor-in-Chief of Computers in Human Behavior and Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans

“Candi Cann’s book brings together three very important and often neglected intersecting topics: death, disability, and technology. Exactly the death studies scholar we need to help us understand what it means to grieve today.”
—John Troyer, author of Technologies of the Human Corpse

“Candi Cann urges reflection on how we are, in effect, cyborgs and calls for building a more inclusive, compassionate community.”
—Gil-Soo Han, author of Funeral Rites in Contemporary Korea

Tue, 19 May 2026 14:09:55 +0000

Koala milk study may hold key to better care for orphaned joeys

Edith Cowan University

New research into koala milk could prove crucial to future conservation of the iconic, yet endangered Australian species.

The paper, led by Edith Cowan University (ECU) PhD candidate Manujaya W. Jayamanna Mohottige, is part of a larger study into koalas and their survival led by the Australian Wildlife Genomics Group at The University of Sydney and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Innovations in Peptide and Protein Science. Mr Mohottige’s PhD work reveals how koala milk transforms throughout the first year to meet a growing joey’s needs.

“Koala milk is more than just food. It contains peptides and proteins that help the joey grow stronger, supporting energy, development and early protection,” Mr Mohottige explained. “Young koalas are born tiny and fragile. They rely heavily on their mothers to grow, stay safe and survive.

“A healthy pouch environment, together with nutrition and immune protection from its mother’s milk, is essential for a joey’s growth and survival.”

Unlike human milk, marsupial milk is known to change its composition over time to meet the joey’s evolving growth and immune needs. This study followed koala milk across early, mid and late lactation stages, uncovering how it adapts to meet the needs of the growing young.

“We were able to identify and quantify the proteins at each key lactation stage,” Mr Mohottige said. “Early milk plays a key role in protecting the joey, mid-stage milk may help protect the brain during its fastest growth, and later milk has a composition reflecting the joey’s increasing independence.”

A deeper understanding of koala milk could help scientists develop improved milk substitutes for orphaned joeys, strengthening rehabilitation efforts and supporting koala conservation.

Professor Michelle Colgrave from ECU’s School of Science said koalas faced many threats, including bushfires, road accidents, disease and habitat loss.

“The ultimate goal of our study is to improve milk formulas for orphaned koala joeys by adding key peptides and proteins found in natural koala milk, helping them survive and grow stronger,” Professor Colgrave explained. “Many young koalas that enter rehabilitation centres need to be hand-reared, and survival rates can be improved.

“Koalas have an extremely short gestation period of just over a month and complete most of their development in the pouch. That is why the proteins and peptides in their milk play such crucial roles in providing both nutrition and immune protection to the developing joey.

“Matching milk replacers to the natural shifts we see in koala milk could greatly help hand-reared joeys grow and thrive,” she said.

The next step for the research team is to study how the milk proteins are influenced by where they live, what they eat and their genetic differences.

Lactation-stage specific protein shifts in koala milk mirror the joey's growth needs was published in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules.

Journal

International Journal of Biological Macromolecules

DOI

10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2026.151640

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Lactation-stage specific protein shifts in koala milk mirror the joey's growth needs

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:44:43 +0000

Restructuring hospitals to help the elderly

Reforms may address resource imbalances and raise admission capacity

Kyoto University

image:

How restructuring the public hospitals affected admissions.

Credit: KyotoU / Kenji Kishimoto

Kyoto, Japan -- Despite their crucial function, public hospitals often face limited resources and financial distress, and an aging population can further exacerbate any imbalances in medical resource distribution. Furthermore, the proportion of aging individuals is not uniform across the country; in Japan, this has led to regional disparities in healthcare for the elderly.

Previous studies suggest that restructuring public hospitals, though challenging, can alleviate the mismatch in healthcare resources. At least compared to private hospitals, it is more feasible to align public hospitals with regional needs. However, such studies often adopt qualitative approaches while lacking quantitative evidence to measure the effects of reorganization. This inspired a team of researchers at Kyoto University to examine the impact of public hospital restructuring on elderly hospital admissions in Japan.

"Many countries have reformed public hospitals to reduce resource imbalances, but there is limited information on the impact this has on communities and the regional healthcare system," says first author Kenji Kishimoto.

The team examined a particular restructuring case in a secondary medical service area in Japan, choosing an area with an aging and declining population. Before the reform, more than half of the elderly residents requiring hospitalization were admitted to hospitals in the surrounding areas due to the low capacity for acute care. The restructuring involved centralization of acute care, a decrease in total hospital beds with an increase in chronic care beds, and an increase in the number of doctors.

Using administrative claims data with statistical models, the team evaluated the effects of reforming on monthly hospital admissions. Their data included the hospital admissions of area residents aged 65 years or older within the period from 36 months prior to 48 months after the restructuring, a total of almost 59,000 hospital admissions. The researchers also took the number of hospital admissions in nearby areas into account, enabling them to understand wider trends more comprehensively.

The results revealed that after restructuring, the number of monthly admissions within the area increased noticeably, reaching the same level of admissions at hospitals outside the area. These findings suggest that the reforms helped improve the local capacity for elderly hospital admissions and also enabled more efficient bed utilization and management, as the total number of beds actually decreased.

This study highlights the importance of examining hospital admissions within the community when assessing the impact of public hospital restructuring. Future inquiry could evaluate changes in patient-oriented outcomes -- such as the quality of care -- that follow hospital restructuring, while also considering accessibility and socioeconomic variables.

###

The paper "Impact of public hospital restructuring on the admission of elderly residents in Japan: a regional population-based study" appeared on 2 April 2026 in BMC Health Services Research, with doi: 10.1186/s12913-026-14388-3

About Kyoto University

Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at undergraduate and graduate levels complements several research centers, facilities, and offices around Japan and the world. For more information, please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en

Journal

BMC Health Services Research

DOI

10.1186/s12913-026-14388-3

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Impact of public hospital restructuring on the admission of elderly residents in Japan: a regional population-based study

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:40:47 +0000

KAIST develops real-time diagnostic smart dressing patch to end the fear of diabetic foot amputation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

image:

<(From Left) Professor Inkyu Park, Dr. Seokjoo Cho, (Upper Right, From Left) Professor Ji-Hwan Ha, Researcher Junho Jeong , Professor Wei Gao>

Credit: KAIST

“Diabetic ulcers,” which occur in patients with diabetes, are dangerous complications that can lead to amputation if the treatment window is missed. A joint research team has developed a “smart dressing patch” that can monitor wound conditions in real time.

KAIST (President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced on the 14th of May that a research team led by Distinguished Professor Inkyu Park of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, through joint research with Professor Ji-Hwan Ha of Hanbat National University (President Yongjun Oh), researcher Junho Jeong of the Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (President Seog-Hyeon Ryu), and Professor Wei Gao of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech; President Thomas F. Rosenbaum) in the United States, has developed a “wireless, battery-free optoelectronic multi-modal sensor patch” for diabetic ulcer management.

The patch developed by the research team combines an optoelectronic sensor, which can simultaneously measure multiple types of biological information, with a functional dressing. It can analyze glucose concentration, acidity (pH, an indicator of hydrogen ion concentration), and temperature changes at the wound site in real time, and patients can check their condition themselves using a smartphone.

The research team fabricated a functional nanofiber dressing using electrospinning, a method that uses an electric field to create fibers much thinner than a human hair. This dressing changes color in response to increased glucose and changes in acidity that appear in diabetic foot wounds. In other words, if the wound condition worsens, the dressing color changes, allowing danger signals to be easily checked with the naked eye. Through this, abnormal signs that could lead to tissue necrosis can be detected and tracked over long periods in a non-invasive manner, meaning without cutting the skin or drawing blood.

The research team combined this with an optoelectronic system to improve diagnostic accuracy. A light-emitting diode (LED, a semiconductor device that converts electricity into light) embedded in the patch and a photodiode, a semiconductor sensor that detects light, measure the color change of the dressing as light reflectance and then convert it into an electrical signal.

This provides more accurate and stable data than ordinary camera-based imaging because it is less affected by changes in surrounding lighting.

In particular, the patch operates without a separate battery by applying a flexible circuit based on near field communication (NFC), a wireless communication technology that exchanges data over short distances. When a smartphone is placed near the sensor, the patch receives power wirelessly and operates, transmitting the measured data in real time. In other words, patients and medical staff can immediately check and respond to wound conditions using only a smartphone app, without separate complex equipment.

The technology developed in this study has high clinical value because it provides both intuitive visual signals and quantitative electronic data while imposing no physical burden on patients. It is also expected to contribute to improving the quality of life of patients with diabetes by enabling continuous wound management without repeated blood sampling.

Distinguished Professor Inkyu Park stated, “Research that began to reduce the pain of diabetic patients who have to pr

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:35:02 +0000

In productive ecosystems, larger animals capture more energy per species - but human pressure is reshaping the balance

Pensoft Publishers

image:

Workflow diagram to predict the individual density per km2 of mammal and bird species across a one-degree cell grid globally. A. Global density of data points of empirical estimates of species abundance used for model training; B. Example of 80% training and 20% testing blocks used per fold in our modelling framework; C. Global maps showing the sum of predicted abundance per km2 of all species across one-degree cells; D. Global estimations of species body mass-abundance relationships (MAR-SPP), individual mass distributions (IMD) and richness mass distributions (RMD).

Credit: Camacho & Araújo, 2026

How does an ecosystem distribute its energy across body sizes? A new study suggests the answer depends on where you are — and how much humans have altered the landscape. Analysing communities of birds and mammals worldwide, researchers show that larger-bodied species can, on average, capture more energy per species than smaller ones, particularly in highly productive environments. The work also reveals that human impacts restructure these patterns by disproportionately removing large-bodied species from local communities.

The research, led by Luis F. Camacho and Miguel B. Araújo is published in Frontiers of Biogeography, the journal of the International Biogeography Society.

Why body size matters for how ecosystems share energy

Ecologists have long observed that larger species tend to have smaller populations: a bigger body requires more energy to sustain, so fewer individuals can be supported. A slope of −0.75 in the log–log relationship between body mass and abundance has been proposed as a null expectation - the point at which every species, regardless of size, commands an equal share of ecosystem energy. Yet testing this idea globally has been difficult because abundance data are patchy across regions and taxa.

This study tackles that limitation head-on. By combining large global datasets of abundance and distributions of species, the authors model local populations of birds and mammals across the planet and ask: is ecosystem energy concentrated in a few large organisms, or dispersed among many small ones - and how does that change from place to place?

What the team did

Using extensive abundance datasets and species trait information, the authors modelled population densities (individuals per km²) for 12,057 terrestrial bird and mammal species on a global grid at one-degree resolution. This enabled them to reconstruct community structure across environments and to examine three complementary signatures of how body size relates to energy and diversity within communities: the body mass–abundance relationship across species (how abundance declines with body size), the individual mass distribution (how individuals are distributed across body sizes regardless of species identity), and the richness mass distribution (how species richness is distributed across body sizes). They then related these patterns to two major global drivers: ecosystem productivity (net primary productivity) and human pressure (human footprint index).

Key findings

1. Productive ecosystems tilt energy capture towards larger species.

As productivity increases, the study finds that small-bodied species become more diverse without a matching rise in total abundance. Individuals are effectively “spread thinner” across more small-bodied species, reducing the average energy share per small-bodied species. Meanwhile, large-bodied species — fewer in number but less diluted by richness — end up capturing more energy on average. The body mass–abundance slope ranged from approximately −0.69 in the least productive environments to −0.35 in the most productive, consistently shallower than the −0.75 null expectation.

2. Human pressure reshapes community organisation, with lasting consequences.

Human activity produces a shift in these relationships that resembles - but is mechanistically distinct from - the productivity effect. Human impact operates primarily by reducing both the abundance and, more strongly, the species richness of large organisms. This likely reflects the well-documented disproportionate extirpation of large-bodied species by human activities, leaving a persistent imprint on how energy and diversity are distributed across body sizes.

3. Energy distribution and ecological opportunity vary independently.

Across the globe, patterns of energy flow across body sizes and the opportunities for diversification (how many species exist at each body size) can decouple. Interestingly, the distribution of species richness across body sizes was more stable across environments than the distribution of energy - yet it had a stronger influence on the body mass–abundance relationship. This helps explain why simple, one-size-fits-all expectations about body size and abundance often fail at large scales.

Why it matters

The authors argue that body mass–abundance–richness relationships can serve as a functional metric of ecological change - capturing not just how many species are present, but how ecosystems allocate individuals and energy across body sizes. This matters for biodiversity assessments because losing large-bodied diversity can reorganise ecosystems in ways that species counts alone cannot reveal. Specifically, these patterns may help improve biodiversity offset strategies and address the risk of underestimating the ecological importance of large-bodied species.

Small-bodied animals still dominate numerically, but in productive ecosystems they are divided among many more species. That dilution changes the per-species share of individuals and, by extension, energy.
— Luis F. Camacho, first author

Human pressure does not just remove species; it reshapes the functional organisation of communities. Looking at body size, abundance, and richness together reveals structural changes that standard indicators miss.
— Miguel B. Araújo, senior author

Original source:

Camacho LF, Araújo MB (2026) Body mass–abundance relationships reveal uneven global energy distribution across body size classes in vertebrates. Frontiers of Biogeography 19: e164408. https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.19.164408

Healthy eating improves memory, but sugary diets may cause lasting damage

Switching to a nutritious diet may not fully reverse the cognitive deficits and memory impairment caused by high sugar intake, new research suggests.

University of Technology Sydney

As concern grows about the long‑term health effects of modern diets, new research led by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has examined how changes in what we eat affect memory and brain function.

Published in Nutritional Neuroscience, the study focuses on whether memory function can recover after diets high in fat and sugar are replaced with healthier nutrition.

To address this question, researchers analysed evidence from controlled experiments in rodents to examine what happens to cognitive function when animals fed high‑fat and high‑sugar diets are returned to healthier nutrition.

“Our results show that improving diet quality does benefit memory,” said Dr Simone Rehn, lead author on the study.

“But those improvements were incomplete. Even after weeks on a healthy diet, memory did not return to the level seen in animals that had never eaten an unhealthy diet.”

To look beyond the results of individual studies, the researchers conducted a systematic review and meta‑analysis of 27 preclinical studies to identify consistent patterns across experiments. The analysis focused on memory, but also looked at anxiety- and depression-like behaviour, general activity, and motivation for food.

Across the studies, animals switched to a healthy diet performed better on memory tasks than those that continued eating unhealthy food. However, memory recovery depended on diet composition, with recovery seen in experiments that used high‑fat diets but not those using diets high in sugar or combined high‑fat and high‑sugar diets.

No consistent improvements were seen for anxiety, activity levels or food motivation, suggesting the effects were specific to memory rather than general behaviour.

“We saw clearer memory improvements after high‑fat diets were replaced with healthy food,” Dr Rehn said.

“But diets high in added sugar, including diets high in both fat and sugar, showed little evidence of recovery. This suggests sugar may be a key factor in limiting memory recovery.”

The memory tasks analysed reflect function of the hippocampus, a brain region essential for learning and memory, and one that is also involved in regulating appetite and food intake.

Dr Mike Kendig, senior author of the paper, said animal models were critical for understanding how diet affects the brain.

“In humans, changes in diet usually occur alongside changes in exercise, mood and daily routines, which makes it very difficult to separate the effects of diet alone on brain function.”

“There is a common belief that the effects of unhealthy eating are easily reversible,” Dr Kendig said.

“These results suggest that, at least for memory, the picture may be more complicated, especially when diets are high in added sugar.”

“Improving diet quality is still worthwhile,” he said. “But protecting brain health may also depend on avoiding prolonged exposure to unhealthy diets, rather than assuming the effects can always be fully undone later.”

Journal

Nutritional Neuroscience

DOI

10.1080/1028415X.2026.2664635

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Cognitive and behavioural effects of high-fat, high-sugar diet reversal: a systematic review and meta-analysis of animal studies

Article Publication Date

17-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 14:12:50 +0000

New method to carry out long term climate simulations at fraction of cost

University of Bristol

Researchers at the University of Bristol have developed a new method which could help scientists perform large-scale climate simulations at a fraction of the cost and time needed compared to traditional climate models.

The team, led by Dr Charles Williams, Senior Lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences, wanted to investigate factors influencing the way the Earth’s climate has repeatedly swung between cold glacial ‘ice ages’ and warmer interglacial periods over the last 2.6 million years – known as the Quaternary period.

Scientists have long known that these cycles are linked to subtle changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun, combined with feedback processes within the climate system, such as changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) and the growth and retreat of massive ice sheets.

However, recreating these climate cycles using traditional global climate models is extremely demanding. Running such models over millions of years requires vast computing resources and can take decades of real time.

In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers overcame this challenge by using a powerful climate model to train a much faster statistical emulator that can reproduce the behaviour of the full model. Once trained, the emulator can simulate climate changes across the entire Quaternary period in just minutes and run on a standard laptop.

“Even a relatively fast climate model would take around 60 years of real time to simulate three million years of climate,” explained Dr Williams. “Our emulator can perform the same simulation in about 10 minutes.”

The team first tested the emulator by comparing its results with geological proxy records covering the past 800,000 years. These records, derived from sources such as ice cores and ocean sediments, provide evidence of past temperatures and ice volumes. The emulator successfully reproduced the timing and scale of major ice-age cycles seen in the geological data.

With confidence in the model’s performance, the researchers then ran a series of experiments to examine what factors drive long-term climate change.

Their findings support existing scientific understanding: while variations in Earth’s orbit help set the timing of ice ages, internal feedbacks within the climate system play the dominant role in determining how large these climate swings become. In particular, interactions involving atmospheric CO₂ and the expansion and contraction of ice sheets were found to be the primary drivers of global temperature changes over million-year timescales.

“What makes this work exciting is the methodology,” Dr Williams said. “Statistical emulators have been used in palaeoclimate studies before, but to our knowledge they’ve never been applied to simulate the entire Quaternary period.”

The new approach opens the door to studying climate processes on timescales that were previously impractical to simulate. Because the emulator runs so quickly, scientists can also perform many more experiments, such as switching individual climate drivers on and off, to isolate their influence on global climate.

This could help researchers better understand the complex interactions that shape Earth’s long-term climate system, while dramatically reducing the cost and computing power typically required for such studies.

“This technique could transform how scientists investigate climate change over hundreds of thousands to millions of years, making it possible to explore long-term climate dynamics in far greater detail than before,” Dr Williams concluded.

Paper:

 ‘The relative role of direct orbital forcing versus CO2 and ice feedbacks on Quaternary climate’, by C.J.R. Williams et al in Nature Communications

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-70750-3

Article Title

The relative role of direct orbital forcing versus CO2 and ice feedbacks on Quaternary climate

Article Publication Date

12-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 14:06:04 +0000

Engaging young minds: Augmented reality helps children with STEM

Flinders University

image:

One of the children respond to the AR content during the trial

Credit: G Geng (Flinders University)

Easy-to-use adaptive immersive technologies incorporating augmented reality (AR) can motivate learning, social engagement and cognitive development in early childhood, according to new research.

The Flinders University study found that innovative artificial intelligence-driven AR smart glasses – combined with group work, iPad exercises and other classroom activities – resulted in high levels of engagement and cohesive classroom behaviour when used to teach a science topic in an Australian junior primary school.

The study put cutting-edge AR ‘Immersive Visual Learning Environment’ (AR-IVLE) technology on trial with 84 Year 1 and 2 students and five teachers in a Victorian primary school, enabling researchers to assess how effectively young children engaged in their learning experience.

Education experts at Flinders University, the Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Zhejiang Normal University in China were excited by the results of this multi-modal learning.

“Unlike traditional touchscreen devices or even bulky 3D glasses, these AR glasses deliver real-time, adaptive feedback aligned with individual learning preferences,” says Flinders University Professor Gretchen Geng, lead author in a new article published in the Journal of Science Education and Technology.

“With wider application of the AR-IVLE, future research will be conducted to investigate and identity challenges and opportunities to assist children’s science learning in this highly engaging and seamless learning environment,” she says.

The AR glasses were synchronised with iPads and Apple TVs, enabling shared viewing of digital content to foster collaboration between pupils and teachers. The rich sensory input and kinaesthetic experiences during play-based learning revealed enhanced engagement, increased interaction with virtual objects, and improved academic outcomes.

The virtual world brought to life lessons about ants and their nest-building communities, which researchers say can prove complex and difficult for young children to learn in traditional classroom settings.

During the trial, the teachers asked the students to sit in front of the classroom as a whole group first.

Under the teachers’ supervision, each student took turns using the AR smart glasses for approximately 5 to 7 minutes, while the remaining group members observed the experience on the iPad. This approach meant the students who were not wearing the glasses remained actively engaged by following and observing the AR-IVLE in real time through the iPad display.

Students who wore AR smart glasses could walk around the room and observe the ants and ant nest from different angles. They used various gestures and were able to zoom in and out to interact with the virtual learning objects. Meanwhile, the group members were seen communicating with each other verbally, giving directions such as locating the queen ant, worker ants, male ants and the chambers.

Some of the observations from whole-class feedback and followup assessment, included:

Students using AR smart glasses in immersive virtual learning environments showed dramatically higher engagement than those using traditional iPad or tablets. Stronger focus, higher energy levels, more creativity and more active participation were observed during learning activities.

Learning outcomes were also enhanced, with students demonstrating deeper understanding, richer ideas and stronger problem-solving skills through their work and reflections.

When AR smart classes were paired with iPads or classroom TV for group activities, social engagement increased significantly, encouraging greater collaboration through shared exploration, discussion and teamwork.

Researchers say future multisite studies across diverse early childhood settings and socio-economic contexts could be conducted to validate and extend these findings.

Longer-term studies with reduced researcher involvement are needed to better distinguish novelty effects from sustained engagement, they say.

Also see, ‘AI-powered augmented reality glasses enhance interactive immersive learning for young children’ (2025) by Gretchen Geng, Amanda Telford (ACU), Yue Zhu (Zhejiang Normal University, China) and Kathy Green (ACU) has been published in Interactive Learning Environments (Taylor & Unwin). Received 05 Apr 2025, Accepted 05 Nov 2025, Published online: 10 Dec 2025 https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2025.2590602

The latest article, Engaging Young Minds: How Smart Augmented Reality Glasses Transform Learning Experiences in AR smart glasses Immersive Virtual Learning Environments (AR smart glasses IVLE) 2026 by Gretchen Geng, Kathy Green, Amanda Telford (both ACU) and Yue Zhu (College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China), have been published in the Journal of Science Education and Technology (Springer Nature Link) DOI: 10.1007/s10956-026-10299-4.

Acknowledgements: This research has obtained full ethical clearance (Ethics application: 2023-3299H) from the Ethics Committee in Australian Catholic University. All participants, including children and their parents, were asked for their informed consent.

The AR Pioneer technology company (ROKID) loaned six pairs of AR smart glasses and developed the smart AR teaching resources for the research project.

Profound changes in Frontiers of Medicine and promotion of MedScience

Higher Education Press

image:

MedScience will continue to grow in influence, expand its scholarly reach, and better serve its community of authors, readers, and reviewers.

Credit: HIGHER EDUCATION PRESS

Recent decades have witnessed an unprecedented explosion of scientific innovation, driven by the deep convergence of clinical medicine, life sciences, information technology, materials science, and quantum computing. This technological wave is fundamentally reshaping industrial paradigms and societal structures while acting as a powerful catalyst for transformative advances in healthcare. Landmark achievements such as the completion of the Human Genome Project, the continuous refinement of gene-editing tools like CRISPR-Cas9, and the sophisticated interpretation of multi-omics data—including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics, single-cell omics, and spatial multi-omics—have provided unparalleled insights into the molecular and cellular foundations of human life. Simultaneously, the proliferation of wearable devices, artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data analytics, cloud computing, and the Internet of Medical Things has resolved longstanding bottlenecks in processing massive medical datasets, enhancing clinical decision-making efficiency, and enabling telemedicine and remote patient monitoring systems that transcend geographical limitations.

These advances are catalyzing a comprehensive upgrade and digitalization of public health systems worldwide. Innovative drug development is accelerating dramatically, while medical diagnosis is evolving from a purely human, experience-based discipline toward one increasingly augmented by AI and other cutting-edge technologies. Detection capabilities have reached new heights of timeliness, accuracy, and personalization. Personalized precision medicine is now benefiting millions of patients, particularly those battling cancer, while regenerative medicine and tissue engineering are pioneering novel approaches to repairing damaged human tissues and organs.

Amidst this rapidly evolving landscape of medical frontiers, the global scientific community urgently requires a comprehensive medical journal that serves as both a platform for academic communication and a bridge for translating scientific breakthroughs into clinical practice and fostering international medical cooperation. With profound pride and a deep sense of responsibility, the inaugural issue of MedScience is introduced, marking a new identity for the Chinese Academy of Engineering medical journal and ushering in a fresh chapter dedicated to serving the global medical community.

The publication was originally established in January 2007 under the title Frontiers of Medicine in China. As medical science advanced rapidly across the globe, the editorial team recognized the growing necessity for a more influential platform dedicated to academic exchange of cutting-edge medical research. In 2011, the journal was renamed Frontiers of Medicine, broadening its scope to encompass the latest developments in clinical medicine, basic medical sciences, translational medicine, epidemiology, public health, health policy, and traditional Chinese medicine. Through the unwavering efforts and generous support of the editorial board, contributing authors, peer reviewers, and the broader medical community, the journal steadily elevated its academic standing and international visibility, achieving several significant milestones including indexing in Scopus in 2009, PubMed/Medline in 2010, and the Science Citation Index Expanded in 2016.

The new name MedScience reflects an evolved and refined editorial philosophy. "Med" represents medicine, underscoring the fundamental mission of serving human health, while "Science" symbolizes an unwavering commitment to originality, rigor, and innovation in scientific inquiry. Under this new identity, MedScience aspires to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, serving as a dynamic platform that integrates cutting-edge insights across the entire spectrum of medical sciences. Special emphasis will be placed on the convergence of clinical medicine, life sciences, and advanced technologies, with particular focus on emerging fields such as cell and gene therapy, AI-driven drug discovery and diagnostics, organoids and regenerative medicine, precision medicine, and environmental health—domains positioned to drive transformative breakthroughs in healthcare.

There is a firm conviction that MedScience, as an important platform for international academic exchange, will continue to expand its influence, broaden its scholarly reach, and better serve its community of authors, readers, and reviewers. Through these efforts, the journal aims to make meaningful contributions to the advancement of human health and to open a new and compelling chapter for medical science on the global stage..

DOI

10.1007/s11684-026-1252-9

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:15:51 +0000

Hope can inspire climate creativity for action according to new study

University of Nottingham

A new study has shown that messages of hope can be effective in promoting creative problem-solving around sustainability.

Experts from the University of Nottingham’s School of Psychology developed a new measure of climate creativity that indicates that positive emotions have a different effect to negative emotions in promoting problem solving in undertaking climate action. The study has been published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

Professor Alexa Spence led the study and said: “We wanted to explore the theory that positive emotions may have a broader impact on behaviour, and be more likely to produce creative behaviour. We all too often see negative emotions, such as fear, guilt, and anger used to try to influence sustainable behaviour, and whilst they may create an initial short-term reaction, we propose that positive emotions may have different, wider reaching and longer lasting effects.”

The researchers undertook two studies, with 160 participants and 334 participants respectively, to examine the idea of climate creativity, and whether the positive emotion of hope can inspire climate creativity as a means by which to promote climate action and a sustainable future.

A climate creativity task was developed as a measure, asking people to generate ways in which they could make their life more sustainable and participants were asked to complete a number of further tasks examining different facets of creativity including word association tasks and environmental problem solving.

The second study built on this with emotions relating to climate change experimentally manipulated using video communications to randomly allocate people to experience hope or fear in relation to climate change.

The hope video had an optimistic stance in commenting on climate change: potential mitigation approaches were highlighted, and language was positive and cheerful with uplifting background music. The fear video had a pessimistic stance: doubts were expressed about the efficacy of solutions and language was alarming and negative with downbeat background music and a dark filter on the imagery used.

After watching the videos the participants completed general measures of creativity and the new climate creativity task.

Professor Spence adds: “The results of the study indicates that inspiring hope in climate change is related to increased levels of creativity, and specifically climate creativity. This is the first study of its kind to identify increases in climate creativity as a result of hope communications indicating that hope may be a resource to draw on in promoting problem solving and action on climate change. Theoretically, positive emotions are more likely to inspire social behaviour and longer lasting behaviour change and therefore also have the potential to inspire positive feedback loops where further environmental actions are seen as a consequence.

“Our research implies that for campaigns encouraging behaviours that are particularly difficult, where people may encounter barriers they need to overcome, positive communications that inspire creativity may be beneficial in promoting action.”

Journal

Journal of Environmental Psychology

DOI

10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103075

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Climate Creativity for Action: Conceptual Development and the Catalytic Effect of Hope.

Article Publication Date

15-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:14:58 +0000

Smarter water, less waste: How physics-guided networks boost canal forecasting

Chinese Society for Environmental Sciences

image:

Physics-guided mixture density network architecture and predictive performance. The PgMDN integrates hydraulic variables (ΔHu, ΔHd, Qu, Qd, Hd) into LSTM layers and enforces two physical constraints into the loss function: local mass balance and a coupling between mean variation and uncertainty. The model outputs a conditional probability distribution p(qt|xt) of lateral offtake discharge. Evaluated against a standard mixture density network, the PgMDN achieves lower prediction errors (MAE, RMSE) and substantially improved reliability and skill scores. SHAP analysis identifies key hydraulic drivers of predictive uncertainty, supporting the model's interpretability for real-world canal operations.

Credit: Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

Reliable water supply in large canal systems is often compromised by unpredictable lateral offtake discharges. These deviations create uncertainty that can derail water-level forecasts and lead to poor operational decisions. A new study shows that integrating physical hydraulic laws into a probabilistic deep-learning framework significantly improves the prediction of these hard-to-forecast flows. The proposed physics-guided mixture density network not only improves point-prediction accuracy but also quantifies the uncertainty of its own forecasts. This advance offers a more reliable tool for managing large-scale water diversion infrastructure under real-world, data-limited conditions.

Inter-basin water transfers are essential for balancing resources across regions, but their hydrodynamic behavior is shaped by both natural processes and human decisions, such as gate operations. Lateral offtake discharges—flows diverted from the main canal through side offtakes—frequently deviate from planned targets due to real-time hydraulic states and unplanned gate operations. These deviations often produce multi-peaked, highly uncertain flow distributions. Traditional physics-based methods for quantifying this uncertainty are computationally expensive, while purely data-driven models struggle to capture such complex, multimodal patterns, especially when training data are scarce. Based on these challenges, there is a pressing need to develop an approach that can reliably characterize and interpret evolving uncertainty in canal hydrodynamic forecasting.

A multi-institutional research team from Wuhan University in China, the Construction and Administration Bureau of the Middle-Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, and the KWR Water Research Institute in the Netherlands reports its findings in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology . Published (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2026.100703) on May 7, 2026, the study introduces a physics-guided mixture density network (PgMDN) that combines physical constraints with deep probabilistic learning to improve real-time hydrodynamic forecasting in canal systems.

Unlike standard mixture density networks (MDNs) that rely solely on data fitting, the PgMDN incorporates two physical constraints directly into its loss function. First, it promotes local mass-balance consistency by aligning predicted mean discharges with inflow-minus-outflow values derived from a simplified hydraulic model. Second, it imposes a consistency rule: when predicted mean flows change rapidly—indicating operational shifts or abrupt gate movements—the model's uncertainty is expected to increase accordingly. This prevents overconfident predictions during unstable conditions. Tested on real-world data from two reaches of China's South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the PgMDN reduced mean absolute error (MAE) by more than 25% and root mean square error (RMSE) by over 25% compared to standard MDNs. Reliability improved from 0.45 to 0.82 at the 90% confidence level. Importantly, the model maintained stable performance when training data were intentionally reduced, demonstrating strong generalization under data-scarce conditions. Using SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) analysis, the team identified water level fluctuations and boundary inflows as the dominant drivers of predictive uncertainty, adding interpretability to the model's predictions.

"We wanted a model that doesn't just give a single number but actually tells operators how much to trust that number," the authors said. "By embedding two simple physical rules into the learning process—promoting local mass-balance consistency and linking sudden flow changes to wider uncertainty—we got much more reliable forecasts, even when data were limited. It's like teaching the AI some basic hydraulics so it doesn't make physically impossible guesses. For water managers, this means they can plan more confidently, knowing when the model is sure and when it's not."

This approach enables more adaptive water allocation in real time. Operators can use the probabilistic forecasts to adjust safety margins, optimize gate operations, and respond more effectively to unexpected events such as unplanned withdrawals. The framework is scalable and can be integrated into existing hydrodynamic models to estimate plausible water-level ranges under different scenarios. By bridging physical understanding with data-driven learning, the PgMDN offers a practical pathway toward resilient management of large-scale water systems, especially in regions facing increasing hydrological variability. It also opens the door for similar hybrid models in other environmental infrastructure applications, from flood control to water distribution networks.

###

References

DOI

10.1016/j.ese.2026.100703

Original Source URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ese.2026.100703

Funding information

This work is funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [Grant No. 2024YFC3211800] and the China Scholarship Council (CSC) [Grant No. 202406270118].

About Environmental Science and Ecotechnology

Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (ISSN 2666-4984) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes significant views and research across the full spectrum of ecology and environmental sciences, such as climate change, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, environment & health, green catalysis/processing for pollution control, and AI-driven environmental engineering. The latest impact factor of ESE is 14.3, according to the Journal Citation ReportsTM 2024.

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:43:22 +0000

Hope can inspire climate creativity for action according to new study

University of Nottingham

A new study has shown that messages of hope can be effective in promoting creative problem-solving around sustainability.

After watching the videos the participants completed general measures of creativity and the new climate creativity task.

Journal

Journal of Environmental Psychology

DOI

10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.103075

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Climate Creativity for Action: Conceptual Development and the Catalytic Effect of Hope.

Article Publication Date

15-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:04:16 +0000

Corn diseases cost farmers $13.8 billion from 2020 to 2023

American Phytopathological Society

Corn diseases cost farmers an estimated $13.8 billion USD from 2020 to 2023, according to a new multiyear analysis led by plant disease specialists from across the United States and Ontario, Canada. The study, published in Plant Health Progress, found that diseases reduced corn yields by an estimated 2.5 billion bushels during the 4-year period, highlighting the significant economic and production risks facing growers each season.

The research represents collaborative efforts of more than 40 plant pathologists representing 29 U.S. states and Ontario, Canada, evaluated disease impacts on corn grown across 375.1 million acres during the 2020–2023 growing seasons. The researchers estimated annual yield losses caused by 37 pathogens or pathogen groups, along with losses associated with grain contaminated by mycotoxins. Among all diseases evaluated, tar spot, Fusarium stalk rot, and plant-parasitic nematodes caused the greatest estimated losses. Overall annual losses varied widely by region and year, ranging from negligible levels in Texas in 2023 to a 15.8% yield loss in Michigan in 2021. Across all surveyed locations and years, diseases reduced corn yield by an average of 3.0%—or an estimated average economic loss of $37.76 per acre annually. These figures did not include the added costs growers often face for disease management tools such as seed treatments and foliar fungicide applications.

The study provides one of the most comprehensive recent assessments of corn disease losses in North America. More than 40 corn disease experts contributed data and estimates to the project, allowing researchers to compare disease impacts across a wide geographic area and multiple growing seasons.

“Tracking estimated disease impact over the years documents how corn threats change over time and can help direct limited resources to address difficult crop protection issues,” Alyssa Betts (Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, University of Delaware) said.

These findings can help guide disease management recommendations, research priorities, and breeding efforts aimed at improving disease resistance in corn hybrids. The data may also assist Extension educators, commodity organizations, government agencies, and the crop protection industry in identifying the diseases that pose the greatest risks to production. The results highlight the importance of continued monitoring and coordinated disease management efforts as disease pressures shift over time and new threats emerge in corn production systems.

The article is the latest in a larger series of disease loss summaries coordinated through the Crop Protection Network. Data from the most recent growing seasons and for additional crops such as soybean, wheat, and cotton can be viewed at the Crop Protection Network’s Field Crop Disease and Insect Loss Calculator.

The present article is the latest multiyear summary of corn disease data. Data for 2012–2015 and 2016–2019 can be found in two previous Plant Health Progress publications.

Read "Corn Yield Loss Estimates Due to Diseases in the United States and Ontario, Canada, from 2020 to 2023" to learn more.

About Plant Health Progress

Plant Health Progress (PHP), published by The American Phytopathological Society, is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary journal of applied plant health and crop protection. Established in 2000, PHP publishes new scientific information to enhance the health, management, and production of agricultural and horticultural crops of economic importance.

Journal

Plant Health Progress

DOI

10.1094/PHP-07-25-0193-RS

Article Title

Corn Yield Loss Estimates Due to Diseases in the United States and Ontario, Canada, from 2020 to 2023

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:02:20 +0000

Expedition to Hess Rise in the Northwest Pacific begins

SONNE expedition SO320/1 investigates one of the world’s largest oceanic plateaus

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)

Located in the middle of the North Pacific, between Japan and Canada, lies one of the world’s largest oceanic plateaus, the so-called Hess Rise. The plateau is roughly T-shaped and extends over a length of about 1,000 kilometers. Due to its distance from the nearest mainland, the research area at Hess Rise is difficult to access and has therefore been the destination of only a few expeditions to date. The last one took place in 1980. For the past two years, Hess Rise and its surroundings have once again become the focus of German and Japanese researchers.

Expedition SO320/1, led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, is now testing various models on the western and northern parts of the plateau that explain how Hess Rise might have formed. The SO320/1 expedition will be followed by the SO320/2 expedition, which will also address this question.

“The Hess Rise is so far from the mainland that we have scheduled eight days at sea just for the transit to the study area,” says expedition leader Dr. Anke Dannowski, a geophysicist at GEOMAR.

Focus on the Formation of the Hess Rise

Oceanic plateaus are found worldwide, both on land and in the oceans. They form as a result of extreme magmatic events in which lava repeatedly erupts in the form of massive lava flows that accumulate on top of one another. Individual lava flows extend over several hundred kilometers and are tens to several hundred meters thick. The Middle Cretaceous period (115–90 million years ago) in particular was marked by exceptionally intense volcanism, during which at least twelve of the world’s larger oceanic plateaus were formed. How exactly these structures came into being has not yet been fully clarified. “The investigation of Hess Rise will provide insights into the entire geotectonic evolution of the Pacific,” says Anke Dannowski.

Three models that could explain its formation are to be tested during the expedition: According to the first scenario, the plateau formed along the path of a migrating “Triple Junction,” that is, where three tectonic plates meet. The second model assumes that the Hess Rise formed directly at the former Pacific-Farallon spreading center—the zone where new oceanic crust was formed. The third scenario describes the Hess Rise as a so-called intraplate plateau that formed independently of plate boundaries, solely due to a mantle plume. Plumes are rising currents of hot material from the deep Earth’s mantle. The researchers also aim to investigate whether the same hotspot could have formed the neighboring Shatsky Rise some 30 million years earlier and later became active again at the Hess Rise in a second pulse

Multiple research instruments in use

For the investigations, up to 40 ocean bottom seismometers (OBS) will be deployed on the seafloor at depths of 2,000 to 5,000 meters. These are deployed from the ship and sink to the seafloor in free fall. There, they operate autonomously and continuously record seafloor movements as well as pressure waves in the water. The measurements are supplemented by ship-based gravimetry, a magnetometer towed by the ship, and seafloor mapping using the ship’s own multibeam echo sounder. The data obtained in this way provides insights into the composition and deep structure of the Hess Rise. Based on the work of the expedition that has now begun, the subsequent SO320/2 cruise will specifically collect rock samples from the seafloor. Later, the geophysical results will be combined with the geological data, particularly regarding the age of the rocks.

Before the research vessel SONNE left the port of Yokohama, a reception hosted by the German Embassy provided Japanese and German scientists and technicians with the opportunity for an in-depth professional exchange on board. The following day, the German guests visited the Japanese marine research institute JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) in Yokosuka and its research vessel KAIMEI. In addition, students from the German School Tokyo/Yokohama came on board to get a sense of the work and life on a research vessel.

Expedition at a glance:

Name: SONNE Expedition SO320/1 “Hess Evolution”

Expedition Leader: Dr. Anke Dannowski (GEOMAR)

Duration: May 15, 2026–June 16, 2026

Start: Yokohama (Japan)

End: Honolulu (USA)

Expedition area: Northwest Pacific

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:00:52 +0000

Brazil’s protected areas are chronically underfunded — and the Amazon is paying the price

A new study published in the journal Environmental Conservation finds almost three-quarters of Brazil’s federal nature reserves lack adequate funding, with nearly all Amazon parks facing major financial shortfalls.

University of Miami

Human development is driving numerous global species to the brink of extinction, threatening essential resources like water and soil, and contributing to climate change. Conservationists have shown that putting critically threatened areas under protection is vital if nations are to slow or reverse these trends, and global frameworks such as the Convention on Biological Diversity have identified the creation and maintenance of protected areas as the cornerstone of such efforts.

Yet, a new study in Environmental Conservation focusing on protected areas in Brazil—one of the most biologically megadiverse countries on the planet—shows that shortfalls in funding are systematically undermining conservation goals.

Approach and Key Findings

Researchers, based at the Federal University of Amapá in Macapá, Brazil, Conservation International Brazil, and the University of Miami, closely examined the funding for 300 protected areas covering a total of 289,527 square miles (749,872 square kilometers). These were in three different ecological regions of the country: the Amazon, an adjacent belt of drylands and savannas, and the Atlantic coastal forest. They found that 72 percent of Brazil’s federal protected areas were underfunded, with a combined shortfall of about $958 million for 2023.

“In a country with high income inequality like Brazil, conservation investments can make a big difference in places with limited traditional economic output, but huge natural capital,” said José Maria Cardoso da Silva, professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Sustainable Development at the University of Miami, and one of the study’s authors. “If protected areas that are distant from urban centers are fully funded and resources are used locally, a conservation-based economy yoked to genuine social progress can be sparked.”

This analysis was sourced from financial data from 2014 to 2023, which indicated the cost of managing each protected area, including staff salaries and benefits, as well as operating costs. When they compared actual funding with costs, they noted that a majority of Brazil’s protected areas are funded far below the levels needed to adequately maintain them.

The analysis also revealed that:

Despite a 30 percent increase in funding over the decade, spending did not keep pace with the expansion of land under protection.
Amazon reserves faced the greatest funding gap, receiving only about 20 percent of what they needed to operate.
By contrast, reserves in the highly urbanized and economically robust Atlantic Forest region received about 72 percent of what they needed.

Funding shrank significantly in 2020–2021 due to COVID-19 budget cuts and deliberate rollbacks of environmental policy, and only partly recovered in 2022–2023.
Parks near cities and towns tended to receive more funding — likely because people in urban areas can more effectively lobby government for conservation investment.

Why It Matters

Brazil’s system of protected areas is among the largest on Earth. These reserves are central to global biodiversity conservation and to Brazil’s commitments under the international Convention on Biological Diversity. The study reveals a pattern in the underfunding: Parks that are larger, more remote, and farther from major population centers are consistently the least well-funded. This places the Amazon—arguably the world’s most ecologically important region—at an enormous disadvantage. A reserve without adequate staffing cannot be properly patrolled, monitored, or maintained, leaving it vulnerable to illegal deforestation, mining, and poaching.

What the Researchers Recommend

The study puts forward several concrete recommendations for Brazilian policymakers:

1. Prioritize the Amazon. No national effort to close the conservation funding gap will succeed without dramatically increasing resources for Amazonian reserves. Existing programs like the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program (ARPA) and Fundo Amazônia are valuable but insufficient on their own.

2. Build stable, multi-year funding commitments. The study shows that short-term policy changes can cause lasting damage. Conservation funding should not be hostage to annual budget cycles or political shifts. Protected areas need reliable, long-term financial planning.

3. Create a national protected area financing platform. Brazil should develop an open, publicly accessible database tracking investment in all protected areas — federal, state, and private. This would enable better decision-making, accountability, and reporting to international bodies.

4. Invest in remote and newly established parks. Newer and more isolated reserves lack the political networks, institutional support, and media attention that older, better-connected parks enjoy. Targeted support for these areas is essential to close the equity gap.

Helenilza Cunha, professor at the Federal University of Amapá and one of the article’s authors, concluded: “Protected areas are a linchpin not only of Brazil’s efforts to survive long-term climate change, but also of our future economic growth, meaning that they should be treated as strategic assets that deserve stable funding over time.”

About the Study

“Chronic underfunding of protected areas in a megadiverse country: spatial, temporal and socioeconomic patterns from Brazil” was authored by Helenilza Ferreira Albuquerque Cunha, Luís Cláudio Fernandes Barbosa, Alan Cavalcanti da Cunha, and José Maria Cardoso da Silva. It is published in Environmental Conservation (Cambridge University Press, 2026). DOI: 10.1017/S037689292610040X

The researchers used a decade of financial data from Brazil’s federal transparency portal, alongside advanced statistical methods, to identify not only direct funding drivers but also the ways in which wealth and population patterns in surrounding regions influence conservation spending across the country.

Journal

Environmental Conservation

DOI

Teaching with food boosts preschoolers’ science knowledge and vocabulary

North Carolina State University

Using food in the classroom can help preschoolers learn more about science and increase their vocabulary skills, according to new research from North Carolina State University and East Carolina University.

It also might get preschoolers to taste, or at least touch, the green vegetables on their dinner plates.

Food-based learning is defined as the use of food as a tool to improve children’s dietary behaviors and academic learning related to knowledge (e.g., science, mathematics and literacy) and skills (e.g., gross motor, fine and physical).

Researchers explored whether putting food at the center of learning could spark young children’s interest in science while also learning about nutritious foods grown in North Carolina. They also looked at whether this approach could help teachers explain science concepts more effectively.

“We want to encourage kids to get excited about science and be curious about the world around them. We saw food as a way to get kids excited about learning, because you can also use food as a way to teach so many different concepts, like science, mathematics and language.” said Virginia Stage, an associate professor of agricultural and human sciences at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the study.

“Our work also teaches teachers how you can build those positive experiences with food while you’re also meeting the other learning standards that have to be addressed to get preschoolers ready for kindergarten,” Stage added. “In the meantime, we are also teaching kids about nutritious foods by giving them opportunities to explore food as they learn more about where it comes from, how it looks, smells, feels, tastes, and sometimes, even how it grows, before ever having to eat the food. This method can be particularly helpful for foods that young children are often hesitant to try, like fruits and vegetables.”

After conceiving and implementing an innovative food-based-learning program – called “More PEAS Please!” – for Head Start children in three North Carolina counties, the team examined the program using both quantitative and qualitative methods. It compared more than 125 students who received the intervention with almost 150 who did not.

One of the classroom units for the intervention was learning about seeds, the building blocks of fruits and vegetables. Children looked at and played with different seeds, examined how a seed germinates, tested how seeds grow in different environments – with and without sun and water, for example – and then made a “seed salsa” recipe made with tomatoes and corn.

The results were positive, showing that children receiving the food-based learning intervention increased their understanding of scientific concepts four times more than the group without the intervention. Their vocabulary increased, too, by almost 20% at the end of the school year, while the group without the intervention increased their vocabulary by 6%.

Moreover, the qualitative portion of the study showed that teachers learned a lot about communicating science and nutrition through food.

“We feel like teacher perspectives are critical, because we could be missing something really important about what teachers need to be successful. If we don’t have that context to understand what’s happening in the classroom, we won’t really know how to make the program more effective in the future. We’re investing in the teachers so that they can practice those skills and invest in their kids,” Stage said.

Intervention teachers attend an all-day workshop early in the school year and then receive supplemental resources throughout the year. YouTube whiteboard videos provide additional training. One example: how to talk about science with a four-year-old.

Study co-author Jocelyn Dixon, assistant director and research project coordinator for the Feeding & Eating Education Lab in NC State’s Department of Agricultural and Human Sciences, said that non-pressuring exposures to healthy foods outside of mealtime are an important aspect of the “More PEAS Please!” project.

“We try to reframe what success looks like in this field of working with healthy foods in the preschool space,” she said. “Because we often trap ourselves into thinking that success means that a child ends up eating some broccoli or spinach. But if the last time you did an activity, the child only touched the spinach with a fork, and today the child is open to touching it and tearing it with their fingers – that’s a huge win.

“That’s really the crux of what ‘More PEAS Please!’ is all about. I’m at lunch, and there’s an expectation that I need to eat this spinach, but rather, how can I explore spinach like a scientist as something that we grow in our garden or as an example of a living thing?”

Qiang Wu, Tammy D. Lee and Archana V. Hegde from East Carolina University co-authored the paper, as did Savannah Baldwin and Ashleigh Schmitt from Telamon Corporation Head Start. The paper is open access and is published in the Journal of Nutrition Education & Behavior.

This work was supported by a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

Journal

Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

DOI

10.1016/j.jneb.2026.04.004

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

More PEAS Please! Improves Preschool Children’s Science Knowledge and Language Development Through Food-Based Learning

Article Publication Date

16-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 11:57:37 +0000

Global North drains resources and labour from Latin America through unequal exchange in international trade

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

More than 900 million tonnes of materials, 4 million km2 of land, and 53 billion hours of labour. This is the scale of resources that the Global North net appropriated from Latin America through international trade in 2020 alone, according to a new study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) which analyses ecologically unequal exchange and economic dependency.

This is the first study to jointly quantify the unequal exchanges of embodied labour and natural resources between Latin America and the Global North, as well as to situate these flows within the overall functioning of the global economy. From this perspective, the research shows that the Global North continues to appropriate enormous quantities of natural resources and labour from Latin America through international trade, reinforcing an increasingly unequal global economic structure.

The study finds that, over the entire period analysed, Latin America experienced a substantial drain of resources to the richest economies. During the 1995-2020 period, the Global North net appropriated 935 million tonnes of materials from the region, including biomass, minerals, metals, and fossil fuels. This was accompanied by 4 million km2 of land and 53 billion hours of human labour, valued at €816 billion in terms of Northern wages. This enables high levels of consumption in the Global North. Over this period, 13.5% of all metals destined for final consumption in the Global North were appropriated from Latin America.

This unequal exchange occurs because of major power imbalances in the global economy. Richer countries intervene to artificially compress the prices for resources and labour in the Global South, gaining access to cheap inputs for production and increasing their own profits. These dynamics enable wealth accumulation in the Global North while depriving the periphery of resources and the ability to use domestic productive capacity towards sovereign development.

The research further highlights that Latin America experiences levels of appropriation far higher than the rest of the Global South in per capita terms. In 2020, Northern appropriation of land from Latin America was 1909% higher than from the rest of the Global South; for metals the difference reached 2164%, and for biomass it was 660% higher. While these figures have declined since 1995 in China and other peripheral regions, they have continued to increase in Latin America.

According to the authors, these results show that Latin America’s position in the world economy is increasingly “peripheral” in character. The region remains specialised in the export of raw materials and natural resources that are subsequently consumed in the Global North in the form of manufactured goods and higher value-added services.

The study concludes that, without a fundamental restructuring of international trade relations and a rebalancing of power between the Global North and South, Latin America’s economic dependence and the core–periphery structure of the global economy are likely to persist.

Journal

Ecological Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2026.109055

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Open veins: Drain from Latin America through ecologically unequal exchange.

Article Publication Date

8-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:21:38 +0000

You are what you eat: how diet drives evolution

University of Basel

image:

Neolamprologus brevis, a cichlid from Lake Tanganyika, feeds on small crustaceans and insect larvae, among other things. New research shows that cichlid intestines have evolved in response to their diet.

Credit: Adrian Indermaur, University of Basel

Different beak and jaw shapes are illustrative examples of how animal species have adapted to different food sources. In a new study published in the journal Nature, researchers now show how diet itself shapes the composition of intestinal tissue, using the highly diverse cichlid fishes as an example.

Lake Tanganyika in Africa is home to one of the most impressive examples of rapid evolution. Around 250 species of cichlid fishes have evolved here, each specializing in different ecological niches within the lake’s limited environment. Some feed on algae or plankton, while others are predators that strip scales from other fish or prey on smaller fish.

The food sources of cichlids are usually evident from their mouths: their jaws are shaped to suit their respective diets perfectly — for example, to scrape algae off rocks or tear scales from other fish. The relationship between diet and intestinal length has also been documented for many of these species.

A team led by Dr. Antoine Fages, Prof. Dr. Patrick Tschopp, and Prof. Dr. Walter Salzburger from the University of Basel has now identified another level of adaptation to different food sources. “Until now, little was known about how the digestive tract adapts to different diets at the level of cells and cellular processes,” says Antoine Fages, first author of the study, which describes precisely these adaptations in Nature, using cichlids as an example.

From external traits to intestinal cells

For the first time, the researchers linked the cellular composition of the gut to the anatomical characteristics and ecological niches of the various cichlid species. Using modern single-cell sequencing methods, the team examined gut cells and the genetic programs active within them in 24 cichlid species.

The results show that it is by no means only the animals’ visible traits that have adapted: in the carnivorous cichlids, the intestinal epithelium – that is, the inner lining of the gut – contained more cells specialized in the absorption of fats and nutrients. These cells play an important role in processing energy-rich food.

Room for evolutionary adaptations

“This suggests that the ecological niche here – indirectly – influences cell type specification, and thus the tissue composition in the gut,” explains Patrick Tschopp. In addition, many genes active in these cells appear to have little influence on other processes in the organism. “This offers plenty of room for evolutionary adaptations.”

Walter Salzburger summarizes: “We show at the level of individual cells how adaptations to different diets contribute to evolutionary diversification.”

The project was funded by a Sinergia grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation. In keeping with the spirit of this interdisciplinary funding initiative, the study combines evolutionary biology and ecology with cell and tissue research, ranging from external characteristics and dietary habits to individual cells and molecules in the digestive tract.

Cross-section of the foregut of Neolamprologus brevis. Two genes that play a particularly important role in the gut of predatory species are highlighted. Turquoise indicates activity of a gene involved in protein processing; magenta indicates activity of a gene involved in energy metabolism.

Credit

Patrick Tschopp, University of Basel

Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-026-10494-8

Article Title

Adaptive cellular evolution in the intestine of hyperdiverse cichlid fishes

Article Publication Date

13-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:12:54 +0000

Complex decisions: The faster the better

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

When it comes to complex strategic decisions, a shorter thinking time is associated with a higher quality of decisions.

In chess, faster decisions are on average of higher quality. This is the conclusion of a study that has just been published in the scientific journal PNAS. The team of researchers, which in addition to Professor Uwe Sunde from LMU includes scientists from Erasmus University Rotterdam and UniDistance Suisse, analyzed data from professional games of chess. Their aim was to investigate how the time taken to make a complex strategic decision is related to the quality of this decision. Sunde and his colleagues believe the outcome of their research indicates that the decision time reflects the subjectively perceived difficulty of the problem, which can vary depending on the situation.

Correlation between speed and quality

As a behavioral economist, Uwe Sunde is interested in exploring how people make decisions. “Previously, most studies looking at decision time and quality have analyzed relatively simple decisions, frequently involving students in standardized lab settings,” says Sunde. “In our research, when we’re examining actual decisions outside the laboratory, we often have to rely on observations that are not strictly comparable.”

Working with his team of coauthors, the economist found an alternative way of examining complex strategic decisions: They analyzed individual moves made by players in professional chess tournaments. They measured the time the players took to make their decision and compared the result with the benchmarks set by chess engines to get an objective assessment of quality. The researchers compared decisions that a player made in different configurations on the chessboard against the same opponent.

The importance of intuition

The results show that faster decisions are associated with higher decision-making quality – even taking account of the computational complexity of the decision, the distinctiveness of the alternative decisions and the pressure of time. “The correlation between the speed at which complex strategic decisions are made and the quality of these decisions is a priori ambiguous,” says Sunde. Taking more time to make a decision may result in a better-considered decision, but may also indicate that the question requiring an answer is perceived to be more difficult, which may be associated with a lower quality of decision.

“With this study, we’ve been able to show that, if you keep the objectively measurable difficulty of the decision constant, somebody who thinks for longer will make worse decisions,” says the researcher. A person who reflects on an issue for longer may possibly perceive the level of complexity to be subjectively higher. Conversely, a shorter decision-making time could indicate that the player has a strong intuition, so an innate sense of what the best move is. “This is what distinguishes humans from machines: Humans can often recognize what’s good or what isn’t good from the situation. But if a person doesn’t manage to grasp the situation quickly, they find it difficult to continue computing the problem rationally,” says Uwe Sunde.

The LMU researcher thinks it is possible that the result could also be applied to situations outside the game of chess in which complex decisions have to be made.

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Article Title

Speed and quality of complex strategic decisions

Article Publication Date

13-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:11:36 +0000

Lost in translation: CityUHK research unveils hidden “home court advantages” in the market

Communications and Institutional Research Office, City University of Hong Kong

image:

Professor Forester Wong Yu-ting, Assistant Professor in the Department of Accountancy at City University of Hong Kong

Credit: City University of Hong Kong

In an era of instant translation and global connectivity, a commonly shared assumption is that foreign investors have access to the same data as local ones. However, new research reveals a startling reality: the “home court advantage” is not merely a byproduct of culture or geography; it is actively engineered by companies to favour local stakeholders.

A research team led by Professor Forester Wong Yu-ting, Assistant Professor in the Department of Accountancy at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK), pioneered a novel approach to detecting this phenomenon, termed “differential communication”. The study, titled “Differential Communication and Local Information Advantage: Revelations from Translation Differences”, was recently published in The Accounting Review, a top-tier journal in the field of accounting.

The study was inspired by an everyday shopping experience. Professor Wong noticed translational differences in the Chinese and English versions of a return policy after making a purchase at a multinational retail store. Catching this detail, he hypothesised that companies might do the same in their high-stakes corporate disclosures, which led to the initiation of the study.

Historically, this strategic bias has operated in the shadows—often concealed within private emails and off-the-record calls—making it extremely difficult to detect or quantify. To pierce this veil, the team developed a new conceptual framework: comparing the English and Chinese versions of the same annual report. This approach uncovered strategic discrepancies that mirror those private conversations.

Standard analysis tools typically rely on translating both the English and Chinese versions into a third “pivot” language (such as French) to create a baseline for comparison. However, this double-translation process introduces significant noise and errors and often fails to distinguish between minor stylistic variations and meaningful discrepancies that affect investors’ understanding of a firm’s performance.

To address this limitation, the team engineered a breakthrough machine learning methodology using a joint-language model and also another artificial intelligence (AI) methodology. Unlike previous methods, these tools compare the documents directly, bypassing the “pivot” step entirely. Crucially, the model separates signals from noise by filtering out stylistic variations and identifying only discrepancies that are material to a firm’s performance, ensuring that the detected “gaps” are economically significant.

Since these tools do not rely on intermediate translation, it is generalisable and can be applied to broader contexts, such as detecting hidden discrepancies in legal contracts, government treaties or any other high-stakes bilingual settings.

The tools identify subtle “translation gaps”—instances where the English version of a report conveys significantly different information from the Chinese version. The study found that when such gaps are detected, there is a measurable increase in information asymmetry between local and foreign investors, quantifying the extent to which the playing field is tilted.

The findings show that these information gaps are systemic rather than accidental. Foreign investors face a structural disadvantage, as information asymmetry increases when both local and foreign investors are present. Even professional foreign analysts receive lower-quality disclosures and produce significantly less accurate forecasts. Firms strategically withhold complex, relationship-based information while emphasising accounting details in English to align with foreign investors’ governance priorities.

To confirm that these gaps reflected intentional strategies rather than translation errors, the team conducted a bold field experiment by posing as investors to contact firms directly. The results were striking: firms with high translation gaps were significantly less likely to respond to inquiries from foreign investors, confirming a deliberate strategy to keep foreign stakeholders uninformed.

This research serves as a wake-up call for global regulators, supported by both technical innovation and a proven track record of policy impact. The project’s cutting-edge AI methodology—recognised and supported by the competitive Google Cloud Research Credits Program—demonstrates that firms actively engineer disadvantages for international investors. This industry validation from a major technology firm underscores the technical feasibility of the team’s new machine learning tool. However, the findings reveal a critical limitation: technology alone cannot level the playing field.

Without regulatory mandates ensuring the identical provision of information, foreign capital will remain structurally disadvantaged. This conclusion carries particular weight given Professor Wong’s experience in shaping market supervision. His research has been cited by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in multiple rulings—including the 2023 Final Rule on Modernization of Beneficial Ownership Reporting and the 2024 Final Rule: Short Position and Short Activity Reporting—and by Deutsche Bundesbank as a foundation for addressing climate-related data gaps. Building on this established influence, the current study offers vital evidence for regulators seeking to close the translation gaps and uphold the integrity of global markets.

Journal

The Accounting Review

DOI

10.2308/TAR-2023-0274

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Lost in translation: CityUHK research unveils hidden “home court advantages” in the market

Newly discovered species in ancient Arctic reveal how animals might have survived extremes

University of Colorado at Boulder

image:

The shape of the tooth suggests that Camurodon borealis was likely a herbivore.

Credit: Shelley et al.

Today’s Arctic may feel remote and desolate, but more than 70 million years ago, it was a surprisingly lively place for some of Earth’s ancient mammals.

In a new study published May 18 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), University of Colorado Boulder researchers and collaborators describe three previously unknown species of rodent-like mammals that once scurried alongside dinosaurs in what is now northern Alaska. They found that some of these creatures’ ancestors had traveled all the way from modern-day Mongolia, in East Asia, challenging a long-held assumption that the polar regions played only a minor role in evolution.

“While the polar regions don’t host the same level of biodiversity as the tropics, they were still very active places for life to flourish, extending far back into deep time,” says Sarah Shelley, the paper’s first author at the University of Lincoln in the U.K. She conducted the study as a postdoctoral researcher at CU Boulder with senior author Jaelyn Eberle, a professor in the Department of Geological Sciences and curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

Shelley, Eberle and colleagues named the three species Camurodon borealis, which roughly translates to “Northern curved-tooth;” Qayaqgruk peregrinus, or “the little wandering hero;” and Kaniqsiqcosmodon polaris, meaning “polar frost ornamented tooth.”

The team identified the animals using fossil teeth discovered in the Prince Creek Formation, located near the top of the world in the Arctic Circle. The fossil site dates back 73 million years. Even then, the region experienced months of darkness in winter, freezing temperatures and likely seasonal food shortages. But these little creatures thrived.

“These three new mammal species add to a growing body of evidence that this ancient arctic region was home to unique, polar-adapted species,” said Patrick Druckenmiller, a coauthor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

All three animals belong to an extinct mammal group called multituberculates. Roughly in the size range between mice and rats, multituberculates were the longest-lived group of mammals known in Earth’s history. They persisted for more than 100 million years, from the Jurassic Period to the end of the Eocene Epoch about 35 million years ago. They even survived the asteroid impact that killed all non-avian dinosaurs. By comparison, modern humans (Homo sapiens) have existed for only about 300,000 years.

Scientists have long wondered what allowed multituberculates to outlive many other mammals, and these teeth offered a clue.

The researchers found striking differences in tooth shape among the three species, suggesting that they likely ate different foods. C. borealis had the teeth of herbivores, while Q. peregrinus was an omnivore that probably fed on insects along with some plants. K. polaris, also appeared to have been an omnivore, but might have eaten mostly plants.

In a region with limited food, the ability to evolve and carve out their own diets might have helped different multituberculate species coexist. Such adaptability might also have helped them survive the asteroid impact, Shelley said.

“There's a lot of diversity in the multituberculate group. They lived for an incredibly long time, and I think they can reveal a lot about the resilience of mammals, not just to the mass extinction, but also to climatic stresses that many organisms are facing today,” she said.

This discovery also helps paint a more complete picture of the ancient Arctic.

The team found that Q. peregrinus, named after a legendary hero, Qayaq, in the Alaskan Inuit culture, is closely related to a species found in what is now Mongolia, suggesting Q. peregrinus’ ancestors traveled from Asia to North America. Shelley estimated that this dispersal happened about 92 million years ago, making it one of the earliest known examples of mammals crossing between the continents.

“This means there was a land corridor between Asia and North America for these little mammals to come through,” Eberle said. “And this land bridge was already pretty active as far back as 90 million years ago.”

The discovery adds to the growing evidence that species have been migrating and reshaping ecosystems across continents for hundreds of millions of years.

“It really challenges how we think about native species,” Shelley said. “Deep time reminds us that a place is not just a point on a map, but a long, layered history of landscapes and inhabitants.”

The Colville River image shows field camp on a gravel bar in the middle of the river, while the small orange boat is pulled up along the far bank at an active fossil locality.

Credit

Shelley et al.

Journal

Proceedings of the

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:30:49 +0000

Revealing hidden diversity of algae in farmland

Research team analyse soil algae abundance and diversity in wheat fields in Germany

University of Göttingen

image:

Wheat field in early spring and autumn. The lower temperatures and earlier bare soil were conditions fa-voured yellow-green algae making them the most diverse and abundant algae in this farmland at that time, followed by diatoms (single-celled algae). The insert on the right (a) shows a close up of the soil with dense cover of filaments. The close up on the left (b) shows algae which have tube-like filaments as well as single-celled algae.

Credit: University of Göttingen

Intensive agriculture poses a significant threat to global biodiversity. However, one aspect of biodiversity in farmland is little studied: algae. Most people have seen algae growing in streams, lakes or the sea. However, algae have also adapted to survive in dryer, harsher conditions on land. In fact, soil algae are thought to be responsible for about 6% of the vegetation production on Earth. This led a research team at the universities of Göttingen and Kassel to investigate the algae in the surface soils of farmland. Their pilot study revealed more than 100 different algae, likely to be made up of hundreds of individual species. Unlike most other microbes, these algae showed seasonal variation in their communities. These are the first steps towards understanding the factors that determine the diversity of these important microorganisms. The results were published in the Journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

The team examined soils from farmed wheat fields, managed by nearby Kassel University. Samples were collected from the topsoil of the fields in spring, summer and autumn representing different conditions of wheat fields throughout the year. Molecular methods – such as DNA Metabarcoding – enabled the analysis of many samples at once and the identification of the large diversity of soil algae with higher precision than previous studies.

The researchers discovered unexpectedly strong seasonal variation. A group of algae known as yellow-green algae (Xanthophyceae) was the most abundant when it was colder, at the time points in spring and autumn; whereas blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria) and green algae were prevalent shortly before crop harvest in summer. Cyanobacteria are often already used as a natural fertilizer in rice paddy fields in Asia. The researchers showed that many of these organisms could also be abundant in the fields of Central Europe. Additionally, researchers identified a large diversity of green algae, as well as diatoms – a common type of single-celled algae mostly known from marine or freshwater habitats.

“These organisms are critical to the soil microbiome. Soil health and fertility may depend on them,” says Professor Thomas Friedl at the University of Göttingen. Although the microbiome of arable land has received increased attention from researchers in recent years, most studies focus on Bacteria and Fungi, not on soil algae. “Soil algae produce an array of substances and have many valuable effects, such as on texture and fertility. They can stimulate other organisms, improve nutrient cycling, and positively influence local water availability and quality. Their cell walls can act as reservoirs, absorbing essential nutrients, enhancing the soil’s capacity to retain these substances,” adds Friedl.

Professor Miriam Athmann at the University of Kassel explains, “Until now, neither researchers nor farmers were aware of how crop management affects the algae in their fields and many questions remain.” For instance, the research found a huge diversity of algae in both organically and conventionally managed fields, with clear differences in species composition, however. How management affects soil algae is one of the issues that will be studied in follow-up research with over 300 samples from long-term field experiments, allowing a sound scientific evaluation. Athmann adds: “Future studies will bring insights into how farmers can protect algal diversity and potentially even profit from their benefits for crop growth.”

Original publication: Barthel S, et al “Soil algae in arable land: changes in the genotypic community composition across time points and farming systems - a pilot study”. Frontiers in Microbiology, 2026 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2026.1813833

Wheat field in summer before the harvest - the green algae and Cyanobacteria have flourished in the warmer temperatures and benefited from the shade of fully grown wheat plants before harvest. The close-up on the left shows the soil surface with dark spots formed by green blue algae (Cyanobacteria). Under the micro-scope, the close-up on the right (d) shows Cyanobacteria filaments mixed with cells of green algae.

Credit

University of Göttingen

Journal

Frontiers in Microbiology

DOI

10.3389/fmicb.2026.1813833

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Soil algae in arable land: changes in the genotypic community composition across time points and farming systems - a pilot study

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:28:36 +0000

Neanderthals gathered shellfish using the same strategies as modern humans

Seasonal shellfish exploitation by Neanderthals 115,000 years ago

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

image:

Asier García-Escárzaga sampling specimens of the topshell Phorcus lineatus.

Credit: ICTA-UAB

Neanderthal populations in southern Europe collected shellfish throughout the year, with a marked preference for the colder months, according to a new international study led by researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), the IsoTOPIK Lab at the University of Burgos (UBU), and the Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria at the University of Cantabria (UC).

The research, recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows that 115,000 years ago Neanderthal groups from Los Aviones Cave (Cartagena, Region of Murcia, Spain) were already consuming molluscs following a clearly seasonal pattern, particularly during the colder months of the year, from November to April.

For decades, the ability of Neanderthal populations to adapt to coastal environments and exploit marine resources in an organised manner has been the subject of intense debate in archaeology and human evolution. Traditionally, the regular consumption of shellfish and seasonal planning were considered traits exclusive to our species, Homo sapiens. However, this recent finding challenges that paradigm.

The study analysed marine mollusc remains (including small gastropods and limpets) recovered from Los Aviones Cave at an unprecedented resolution. The results show that these populations not only collected shellfish sporadically but also possessed a deep understanding of marine ecological cycles, anticipating by thousands of years behaviours later documented in modern humans from the region.

But how is it possible to determine the season in which a mollusc was consumed thousands of years ago? The key lies in the oxygen isotopic signal preserved in the carbonate of their shells, as the incorporation of heavier or lighter oxygen isotopes depends primarily on seawater temperature. “By reconstructing variation during shell growth, these values act as a prehistoric thermometer. This makes it possible to infer temperature changes as well as the exact time of year when a mollusc was collected, revealing new details about seasonal consumption patterns,” explains Asier García-Escárzaga, lead author of the study.

The results represent a milestone, as they are the first obtained for such early stages of human evolution. “They consumed marine resources throughout the year, but with a very clear preference for winter and autumn months. This pattern, very similar to that developed by more recent populations of modern humans in Europe and other regions, cannot be coincidental,” García-Escárzaga explains.

Winter collection coincides with periods when certain mollusc species have higher meat yield and improved sensory qualities (flavour and texture) due to their reproductive cycles. In addition, Neanderthal populations may have avoided collecting shellfish in summer to minimise health risks, such as the proliferation of toxic algae (red tides) or the rapid decomposition of shellfish due to heat, demonstrating a conscious and safe management of marine resources.

These findings suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans may have been more similar than previously thought. The study highlights that this behaviour reflects a diversified diet incorporating high-quality marine proteins (rich in Omega-3 and zinc), which are essential for brain development and reproductive health. “What we see at Los Aviones is a fully modern subsistence strategy,” the authors state. This discovery reinforces the idea that Neanderthals possessed cognitive, social and economic capacities comparable to our own, establishing the Iberian Peninsula as a key region for understanding the complexity of our closest ancestors.

Cueva de los Aviones, Cartagena, Region of Murcia, Spain.

Cueva de los Aviones, Cartagena, Region of Murcia, Spain, and specimens of limpets Patella ferruginea and gastropod Phorcus lineatus.

Asier García-Escárzaga in the laboratory.

Even after adopting cattle, early herders kept hunting and gathering

University of British Columbia

Eastern Africa’s earliest livestock herders continued fishing, hunting and gathering for centuries after livestock were first brought to the region. The strategy may have helped them adapt to a harsh, changing climate.

The first pastoralists in eastern Africa didn’t suddenly switch to a diet centered only on cows, sheep and goats. Instead, they kept eating a wide mix of foods—fish, wild animals and plants—alongside livestock for at least 1,000 years.

That’s the key finding from new University of British Columbia-led research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It challenges a long‑held idea that once people begin producing their own food, they quickly narrow down what they eat.

“These early herders didn’t put all their eggs in one basket,” said geochemist Dr. Kendra Chritz, lead author and assistant professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences. “They were keeping livestock, but they were also still fishing and hunting and gathering. Their diets were incredibly varied.”

Instead, early herders around Lake Turkana, in what is now northern Kenya, hedged their bets. Even with domesticated animals at hand, they still fished the lake, hunted wild game and gathered plant-based foods.

This matters because food choices shape health, culture and survival. For most of human history, people lived in environments that changed fast. Understanding how our ancestors coped can shed light on how we can adapt to climate stress today. It also reminds us that human diets were never one-size-fits-all. Variety was the norm, not the exception.

To figure this out, the team analyzed chemical clues locked in ancient human teeth. These clues come from stable isotopes—natural markers in teeth that reflect what a person ate while the tooth was forming. In simple terms, teeth keep a long-term record of diet, like a fossilized food diary.

The researchers studied remains from more than 100 people who lived between about 9,500 and 200 years ago in Kenya and Tanzania. They compared fishers and foragers, early herders and later herders who lived after livestock had become central to daily life.

The biggest surprise came from the earliest herders, who lived around 5,000 years ago. Their tooth records showed huge variation from person to person. Some ate foods linked to grass-eating animals, such as cattle. Others relied much more on fish or wild animals. Many did both.

“This level of diversity looks a lot like what we see among hunter-gatherers,” said Dr. Chritz.

“The isotopic record is fascinating because it can reveal individual to individual variation, even among fisher foragers who lived at a single site,” said study co-author Dr. Elisabeth Hildebrand, an associate professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University, who has co-directed excavations at several sites on the west side of Lake Turkana. “This kind of information goes beyond what one can discern from the animal bones left at a site after human consumption.”

Previous populations of fisher-foragers who lived in the region during a moist climate interval known as the African Humid Period also showed striking dietary variation.

“It’s clear that fisher-foragers followed dietary strategies that were situationally specific, or even personalized,” said Dr. Hildebrand. “And the first pastoralists maintained this very individualized approach, even as they began constructing communal cemeteries that involved large social networks connecting hundreds of people.”

The team also looked at residues left behind in ancient ceramic cooking pots. These fatty traces—basically food stains locked into clay—reveal what was cooked long ago. Some pots from early herders contained fats from animals, but only rarely showed signs of dairy foods like milk. That suggests livestock were important, but not the mainstay of meals.

“Ceramic residue data are an incredible archive—we can see not only what people were cooking, but also the general types of plants, for example, that animals were eating,” explained co-author Dr. Katherine Grillo, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida. “Now that we have isotopic data from ancient human teeth as well, we have a remarkably holistic body of evidence for both ancient environmental changes and the complicated cultural decisions people were making, perhaps in response, about food.”

The arrival of herding around Lake Turkana coincided with major environmental upheaval. The region was drying fast, causing lake levels to drop. Grasslands were slow to spread. Relying only on animals in that unstable setting may have been risky.

“Livestock are valuable, but they’re also vulnerable,” said Dr. Chritz. “If rainfall is unpredictable and pasture is scarce, having multiple food options can make the difference between getting by and going hungry.”

Only later—more than a thousand years after herding began—did diets narrow. Herders in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania eventually relied much more heavily on livestock products. Their tooth records show less variation, suggesting more specialized diets linked to more stable environments.

“This research is a testament to what becomes possible when Kenyan institutions are genuine partners in global science—not just sites of data collection, but active contributors to knowledge production,” said Dr. Emmanuel Ndiema, co-author on the study and head of Earth Sciences at the National Museums of Kenya. “The findings illuminate the ingenuity and resilience of the people who shaped this landscape thousands of years ago, and we are proud that Kenya’s heritage is at the centre of this story.”

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2532741123

Article Title

Isotopic evidence for dietary variability among eastern Africa’s first pastoralists

Article Publication Date

18-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:49:27 +0000

New study links erosion to natural hydrogen potential in mountain ranges

University of Lausanne

image:

Mountain range Panorama view of the Swiss Alps - Canton of Grisons in Eastern Switzerland, a potential natural H2 exploration area.

Credit: Frank Zwaan, Unil

Hydrogen gas formed by natural processes in the subsurface of mountain ranges could represent a promising source of clean energy. A new international study led by Unil and GFZ shows that erosion plays a key and complex role in the formation and accumulation of this natural resource. This research confirms that the Pyrenees and the Alps could constitute key targets for natural hydrogen exploration.

What if mountain ranges such as the Alps or the Pyrenees concealed a source of clean energy beneath our feet? In 2025, a widely publicized study published in Science Advances and coordinated by the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences showed that certain mountain belts could provide favourable conditions for the formation and storage of natural hydrogen (H₂).

Now, a new international study published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth builds directly on this work, highlighting the decisive role of rock erosion in both the formation and potential reduction of these hydrogen accumulations. “Unexpectedly, erosion turns out to be a key and ambivalent factor in natural hydrogen production,” says Frank Zwaan, lead author of the study, formerly at GFZ and now a researcher at the Faculty of Geosciences and Environment of the University of Lausanne (Unil), with visitor status at the University of Fribourg. “This research supports the view that the Pyrenees and the Alps are key targets for natural H2 exploration.”

Hydrogen and the energy transition

The motivation behind this research stems from a major challenge: energy. Hydrogen could play a central role in the energy transition, thanks to its strong potential to power vehicles and decarbonize industrial processes. Yet today, its production still largely relies on polluting fossil fuels, while hydrogen production powered by green energy remains costly. In this context, the potential presence of exploitable natural hydrogen in the subsurface of mountain ranges such as the Alps or the Pyrenees appears as a promising avenue.
In these regions, tectonic plates first moved apart millions of years ago, forming rift basins, before converging and colliding to give rise to mountain ranges. As a result of these processes, rocks from the deep mantle were gradually brought closer to the surface, reaching conditions where temperatures allow them to efficiently react with water and release hydrogen (H₂), a chemical process known as serpentinization. The gas produced may then accumulate in porous rock layers that act as reservoirs, which could then be exploited for targeted applications.

“We already know that the Earth produces large amounts of hydrogen, and local-scale exploitation is already ongoing in Mali. The key question now is whether large-scale hydrogen accumulations can be found, because, as with petroleum systems, very specific conditions must be met, with all key elements in place at the right time,” explains Frank Zwaan.

In their new study, the scientists used advanced numerical plate tectonic models to highlight the influence of a key factor that acts as a delicate regulator: erosion. Their models show that erosion can promote the uplift of mantle rocks toward the surface, which improves the conditions for serpentinization and therefore increases the potential for natural hydrogen generation. By contrast, erosion that is too rapid or too intense can reduce this potential, either by destroying reservoir rocks or by altering the temperature conditions required for hydrogen formation.

The simulations also point to another critical factor: the geological history of the regions studied. The duration of tectonic extension phases, long before mountain building, also influences the potential for hydrogen generation.

By comparing different mountain belts, the researchers show that not all ranges have the same potential. In the scenarios examined (the Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Betic Cordillera in Spain), the Pyrenees appear to be very favourable while also the Alps represent interesting potential. “These new results give us a better idea of where to investigate,” says Frank Zwaan. “However, further research is essential to more precisely determine where natural hydrogen resources might be explored,” he concludes.

Source: F. Zwaan, A. C. Glerum, S. Brune, D. A. Vasey, J. B. Naliboff, G. Manatschal and E. C. Gaucher, The Impact of Erosion Efficiency on Rift‐Inversion Orogen Evolution: Implications for Serpentinization‐Derived Natural H2 Resources, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 2026, DOI : https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JB033255

Mountain range Panorama view of the Western Pyrenees - Mauléon Basin in SW France, a prime natural H2 exploration area.

Credit

Credit : Peter Pilz, GFZ

Sketch of mountain building with exhumed mantle.

Credit

credit: USGS, edited by Frank Zwaan, Unil

White hydrogen discovered in billion-year-old Canadian Shield rock points to potential new energy source

University of Toronto

image:

Continuous long-term measurement underground at a mine in northern Ontario provided evidence of sustained accumulation and discharge of natural hydrogen generated within Earth’s crust.

Credit: Courtesy of Barbara Sherwood Lollar

TORONTO, ON – Within the Canadian Shield, hydrogen gas is steadily building up naturally among some of the oldest rocks on Earth. Now, for the first time, geochemists at the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa have measured its presence, mapped its concentration and tracked its long-term accumulation, shedding new light on this source of natural, or white, hydrogen.

The findings make it possible to assess the economic viability of this emerging energy source and point to a new approach to hydrogen exploration — one that could accelerate greenhouse gas reductions and expand hydrogen’s role in the clean energy
transition.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports measurements of hydrogen directly observed discharging from the vast billion-year-old rocks of the Canadian Shield. Using data from an operating mine near Timmins, Ontario, the researchers show that boreholes at the site release an average of 0.008 tonnes of hydrogen per year – approximately 8 kilograms, which is the weight of an average-sized car battery – and can continue to do so for 10 years or more.

Extrapolating to the site’s nearly 15,000 boreholes results in a total discharge of more than 140 tonnes of hydrogen per year. Such discharges could provide 4.7 million kilowatts of energy per year from a single location – enough to support the annual energy needs of over 400 households.

“The data from this study suggests there are critical untapped opportunities to access a domestic source of cost-effective energy produced from the rocks beneath our feet,” says University Professor Barbara Sherwood Lollar in the Department of Earth Sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science at University of Toronto, the lead author of the study. “What’s more, this provides a ‘made in Canada’ resource that might be able to support local and regional industry hubs and reduce their dependence on importing hydrocarbon-based fuels”.

The existing global hydrogen economy is a $135-billion industry. Major uses are in methanol and steel production, though the single largest use of hydrogen is fertilizer production, making it a fundamental component in agriculture and critically tied to global food security. Currently, hydrogen used in these ways is produced by energy-intensive industrial processes that typically convert hydrocarbons found in fossil fuels such as petroleum, natural gas and coal, while releasing carbon monoxide and CO2 in the process. Even hydrogen generated from renewable energy sources – often described as green hydrogen – is energy intensive, costly to produce and requires long distance transport and storage.

To date, white hydrogen as a source for energy and manufacturing has largely flown under the radar, investigated almost exclusively by microbiologists seeking to understand the subsurface biosphere and to inform astrobiology and space exploration. The potential contribution of natural hydrogen in Earth’s crust to the current global economy has until now been largely speculative, based on models and theoretically available amounts, rather than on measured data. The U of T-led study is the first to document large volumes of hydrogen, and most importantly, discharges that are sustained for years.

“Natural hydrogen is produced over time through underground chemical reactions between rocks and the groundwaters in those rocks,” says Sherwood Lollar. “Canada is blessed that vast amounts of its territories, especially on the Canadian Shield, contain the right rocks and minerals to create this natural hydrogen.”

The researchers say Canada has the potential to provide an alternative to industrially produced hydrogen, using natural hydrogen to provide cheaper and cleaner sources of the resource and without the need for hydrocarbons. Such innovative hydrogen resource development can then be extended worldwide to other nations where hydrogen-producing rocks also commonly exist. They further note that natural hydrogen is found in the greatest volumes in the same geologic settings that have historically been the focus of Canada’s mining industry – locations that include Northern Ontario and Quebec, as well as Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

“The common link is the rock,” says study co-author Oliver Warr, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at University of Ottawa. “Natural hydrogen is produced in the same rocks where Canada’s nickel, copper and diamond deposits are found, and that are currently under exploration for critical minerals such as lithium, helium, chromium and cobalt. The co-location of mining resources and hydrogen production and use mitigates the need for long transportation routes to market, for hydrogen storage and major hydrogen infrastructure development.”

The authors suggest this untapped resource could reduce costs and carbon footprints for mines within Canada and provide a source of local clean energy for northern communities. Such a resource development model could not only offset carbon emissions for mining industries, but also potentially contribute to a meaningful reduction in the high costs of transporting fuel to communities in northern locations.

“There is a global race to increase hydrogen availability in order to decarbonize and reduce the costs of the existing hydrogen economy,” says Sherwood Lollar. “We now have a better understanding of the economic viability of this resource that can be mapped to hydrogen deposits around the world that are both already known and yet to be discovered.”

– 30 –

Long-term measurement provided evidence of sustained accumulation and discharge of natural hydrogen generated within Earth’s crust.

Natural hydrogen visible as gas bubbles separating from groundwater discharging from rocks of the Canadian Shield.

Credit

New economics study finds ICE activity upended the US childcare workforce

Labor research shows immigration enforcement reshaped the size and structure of the childcare workforce—with implications for families, workers, and the economy

University of Vermont
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image:
Erkmen Aslim is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Vermont.
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Credit: Photo courtesy of Erkmen Aslim.

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations come to town it can create a landscape of fear, chilling commerce and school attendance, and now, new research shows it affects childcare workers.
A team from the University of Vermont, Yale University, Arizona State University, and American University examined how changes in ICE tactics between 2023 and 2025 has influenced the childcare workforce—a vital sector of the economy that employs nearly one million workers across the country and generates $7.2 billion in quarterly wages and is comprised of roughly 20% immigrant labor. The study will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy on May 22.
“When ICE enforcement intensified, the formal childcare sector lost capacity: centers reduced enrollment, closed classrooms, and in some cases shut down entirely,” says lead author Erkmen Aslim, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Vermont. “That has real consequences for American families, particularly working mothers, who rely on stable, affordable childcare to hold down jobs.”
The study finds that increased ICE activity led to significant declines in employment among immigrant women, particularly those working in more regulated and publicly visible settings, such as childcare centers. This population is more likely than their native-born peers to hold advanced certifications, and the researchers found limited evidence that immigrant workers are being broadly replaced by native-born workers.
The team also found that significant labor shifts among childcare workers towards private household childcare—sites that are less regulated and typically have fewer protections for workers and more volatile wages. According to the researchers, this may negatively affect both childcare workers and the families who rely on them.
“Reallocation into less-regulated household care likely reduces the average quality and stability of care, given that center-based settings are subject to licensing, staff-to-child ratios, training requirements, and curricular standards that home-based arrangements typically are not,” Aslim explains. “This is an industry that already operates with high turnover and chronic staff shortages, so it has very little slack to absorb a shock of this kind.”
Overall, the results show that immigration enforcement reshapes not only the size but also the structure of the childcare workforce, with important potential implications for families, childcare workers, and labor markets.
To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed monthly Current Population Survey reports, comparing them with ICE arrest records from the Deportation Data Project. The data showed upticks in enforcement activity coincided with employment drops in childcare centers and increases in employment in private households. These effects strengthened markedly after early 2025, a period characterized by a sharp rise in ICE arrests and heightened public attention to immigration enforcement. Areas previously considered off-limits become targets, including schools and daycare centers.
The authors of the study, including Janet Currie, the David Swensen Professor of Economics at Yale, write it may also drive up the cost of care as centers lose staff and potentially children from mixed status homes whose families pull them from care. Moreover, the families least able to afford to make private arrangements could bear the brunt as center-based classrooms shrink. And the study likely represents a conservative undercount of the impacts of ICE enforcement on the childcare sector since it relies on some of the people most at risk of being detained by ICE officials to fill out a survey.
Aslim stresses that changes in the childcare sector have a ripple effect across the labor market, particularly for lower- and middle-income parents who are less able to absorb the impact of rising costs and day-to-day uncertainty. In short, problems in the childcare sector are problems for everyone.
“The workforce that cares for young children in this country is deeply intertwined with the foreign-born labor force, and disruptions to that workforce show up as fewer childcare slots, higher prices, and harder choices for parents,” Aslim says. “The takeaway is that immigration policy is, in a very practical sense, also childcare policy and family policy.”

Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI
10.1073/pnas.2602686123
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Subject of Research
People
Article Title
How rising ICE activity influences the childcare workforce
Article Publication Date
22-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:43:31 +0000

How childhood maltreatment increases risk of later domestic abuse

University College London

Experiencing abuse or neglect as a child can increase the risk of being victimised by a romantic partner in adulthood, by impacting personality and mental health development, finds a new study led by University College London (UCL) researchers.

Previous studies have found people who are abused or neglected in childhood are three to six times more likely to experience intimate partner violence as adults. The authors of the new The Lancet Regional Health–Europe paper were seeking to understand why that relationship exists, in order to develop better ways to disrupt this process and reduce the risk of intimate partner violence.

The researchers identified specific psychological impacts of childhood maltreatment that can increase a person’s vulnerability to intimate partner violence.

Lead author Dr Patrizia Pezzoli (UCL Division of Psychology & Language Sciences) said: “What this study tells us is that childhood maltreatment can leave psychological marks that can increase the risk of harm in romantic relationships. But those marks are not immutable and can be addressed in targeted interventions.”

Previous studies looking into characteristics of people who have experienced both childhood abuse and intimate partner violence have not yet clarified whether such traits ‘transmit’ the effect of childhood maltreatment, or whether they simply reflect the fact that some people are, by virtue of genetic or environmental risk factors, more broadly vulnerable to different forms of victimisation.

To help answer this question, the authors of the new paper used data from over 11,000 participants of the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS), a large, population-based cohort of twins born in the 1990s in England and Wales. The dataset included measures of 18 personality and mental health characteristics taken when participants were 22 years old, including factors such as self-control, aggression, anxiety, and subjective wellbeing. Participants also answered questions about their histories of maltreatment in childhood and abuse during their adult relationships. Using the twin study design enabled the researchers to separate what is shared between family members, including genes and shared family environments, from what is unique to each individual.

Even after accounting for inherited vulnerability to victimisation, the researchers found that childhood maltreatment still independently shapes psychological development in ways that increase the risk of intimate partner violence victimisation in young adulthood.

The researchers identified three main psychological characteristics among people who have experienced childhood abuse that contribute to their later vulnerability to domestic abuse: low subjective wellbeing, conduct problems and aggression.

Low subjective wellbeing, characterised by dissatisfaction with one’s relationships, community and financial security, is a well-recognised outcome of childhood adversity. The findings suggest it may reflect a reduced capacity to build and maintain the kind of supportive social environment that protects against further harm. Conduct problems and aggression – encompassing anger, hostility, and verbal and physical aggression – have long been associated with early adversity.

Dr Pezzoli said: “These psychological vulnerabilities are not character flaws; they can emerge as adaptations to challenging environments. This distinction is important, as the findings should not be misinterpreted as placing blame on individuals for their experiences.”

The study found that both childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence victimisation have a heritable component – that is, part of the risk for each is influenced by genetic factors. The researchers say it’s important to clarify that genes do not cause someone to be victimised – instead, genetic factors can shape ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that can make certain experiences more likely – and understanding the ways someone may become more vulnerable does not take away any blame from perpetrators of violence and abuse.

The researchers say that domestic abuse prevention programmes tend to be universal, such as school-based relationship education programmes, but their latest findings suggest that more tailored programmes targeted at people who have experienced childhood abuse or neglect could be particularly helpful.

Dr Pezzoli said: “The traits identified in this study are not inevitable or permanent consequences of childhood maltreatment. While evidence-based programmes specifically targeting this group are lacking, these findings provide a clearer roadmap for what such interventions could address, and adolescence may be a particularly important window, given how formative early relationship experiences can be.”

Journal

The Lancet Regional Health - Europe

DOI

10.1016/j.lanepe.2026.101653

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Personality and mental health as mediators linking childhood maltreatment to intimate partner violence victimization: a Mendelian randomization–direction of causation twin study

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:41:35 +0000

Neutralizing smelly dog breath with plant extracts

An oral spray derived from molasses, a by-product of sugar cane refining, reduces bad smells, odor-producing compounds and harmful bacteria from 10 dogs’ mouths.

American Chemical Society

image:

A researcher swabs a dog’s mouth to test how polyphenol extracts from molasses impacted bad-smelling compounds and harmful bacteria in the dog’s saliva.

Credit: Hongye Li

Pet owners love their dogs but may not always love the smell of their breath. Because this bad odor can signal oral disease, veterinary clinics will prescribe daily tooth brushing, antibiotics or chemical rinses as treatment. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry propose an alternative: polyphenols from molasses. They developed a spray that reduced stinky breath and harmful oral bacteria in dogs.

“The spray itself has a mild plant-like and molasses-like smell, but it is not strong or unpleasant.” – Hongye Li

“Our goal was to investigate if a sustainable agricultural by-product could safely improve the daily oral health of our pets,” says Hongye Li, the lead author of the study.

Previously, Li and colleagues examined sugarcane molasses and determined that it contained polyphenols that prevented the growth of harmful oral bacteria in lab cultures. They saw an opportunity to investigate whether similar extracts could treat the bacteria that cause halitosis, or bad breath, in dogs. So, Li, Yin Fei and Wei Zhao recruited 10 healthy pet dogs with smelly breath (after getting consent from their owners) and tested how a molasses-derived mouth spray impacted the animals’ breath, oral microbiome and saliva composition.

The researchers sprayed polyphenols extracted from molasses into each dog’s mouth, took saliva samples and monitored the smell of the dogs’ breath. After an hour, the odor perceived by trained human evaluators was negligible, and the amounts of some bad-smelling compounds — including esters, amines and aldehydes — in the dogs’ saliva were undetectable with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

“The spray itself has a mild plant-like and molasses-like smell, but it is not strong or unpleasant,” explains Li. “Importantly, the deodorizing effect was not simply due to odor masking, because the GC-MS results showed reductions in several odor-associated compounds in saliva.”

To test longer-term effects, the dogs received mouth spray daily for 30 days. After this time, the dogs’ saliva contained smaller amounts of aroma compounds, including aldehydes and short-chain fatty acid esters that contribute to fatty odors and are produced by pathogenic bacteria. Their oral microbiomes also contained significantly smaller proportions of bacteria associated with bad breath, including Porphyromonas and Fusobacterium.

After conducting additional lab experiments and computer simulations, the team better understands how the polyphenols and odor molecules interact. Li describes the spray treatment like a sponge, a switch, and a gardener. “First, the polyphenols act like a 'molecular sponge,' directly binding to and neutralizing existing bad odor molecules,” Li says. “Second, they act as a 'switch' to turn off specific bacterial enzymes that produce foul smells. Finally, they work as a 'gardener' to weed out the populations of bad odor-causing bacteria over time.”

The researchers emphasize the importance of this multifaceted treatment as a simple, safe and sustainable way to keep family pets healthy, which they hope will ultimately bring pets and their families closer together.

The authors acknowledge funding from the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the National High-Level Talents Special Support Program, Jiangnan University, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

###

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Registered journalists can subscribe to the ACS journalist news portal on EurekAlert! to access embargoed and public science press releases. For media inquiries, contact newsroom@acs.org.

Note: ACS does not conduct research but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies.

Journal

Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

DOI

10.1021/acs.jafc.6c00022

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:39:46 +0000

Nutrition support during pregnancy improves birth outcomes, global study finds

George Mason-led research finds that food-based prenatal supplements improve birth weights across Africa and South Asia.

George Mason University

In parts of the world where daily nutrition is unstable, pregnancy and newborn health are more precarious. A new study led by epidemiologist Dongqing Wang of the George Mason University College of Public Health adds to the evidence that improving maternal nutrition during pregnancy may be a key intervention to improve birth outcomes.

Looking across eight clinical trials across Africa and South Asia, the study finds that balanced energy and protein (BEP) supplements—food-based products like beverages or nutrient-dense pastes designed to increase calorie and protein intake—are associated with healthier birth weights and fewer high-risk newborns in low- and middle-income countries. The findings were published in PLOS Medicine.

“In settings where pregnant women can’t access sufficient calories and protein, it is important to act early,” said Wang, an assistant professor of epidemiology in the Department of Global and Community Health. “Improving maternal nutrition can reduce the risk of vulnerable birth outcomes.”

Why this matters

Maternal malnutrition puts infants at higher risk of death, illness, and developmental delays.

Interventions have often focused on micronutrient supplements, but this study shows that food-based approaches to increase calorie and protein intake may better support fetal growth. BEP supplements can also be delivered through existing maternal health programs, making them a practical solution to scale. Wang is also currently conducting further research in Ethiopia that examines the cost-effectiveness of different approaches to BEP supplementation.

Study details

Wang and his colleagues combined individual-level data from randomized controlled trials conducted in Nepal, The Gambia, Pakistan, and several other low- and middle-income settings. The team compared outcomes for pregnant individuals who received BEP supplements with those who did not.

Key findings include:

BEP supplements were associated with higher birth weights and a lower risk of babies being born with low birth weight or small for their gestational age.
The effects were particularly notable forbabiessmall for their gestational age, a group with elevated risk of neonatal mortality.
Benefits appeared stronger among women who began supplementation earlier in pregnancy, particularly before20 weeks.

Wang worked with a global network of researchers from institutions including Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Aga Khan University and partners across Europe, South Asia and Africa.

Journal

PLOS Medicine

Article Title

The effect of prenatal balanced energy and protein supplementation on small vulnerable newborn types in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:34:39 +0000

How hibernation influences a visual brain area in squirrels

Neurons in the visual brain undergo quick, dynamic structural changes from hibernation that may eventually inform treatment strategies for conditions in which neuron function is lost or hindered, such as poststroke.

Society for Neuroscience

image:

“Torpor” refers to the 10–15 d stages of hibernation in which squirrels are in deep sleep. “Inter-torpor Arousal,” when squirrels are not in deep sleep, occurs for 12–24 h in between Torpor stages.

Credit: Allison Fultz et al., 2026

Understanding how hibernation affects neurons sheds light on how neurons adapt to changing states and can inform treatment strategies for conditions in which neurons are damaged or impaired. In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Hendrikje Nienborg, from the National Eye Institute, used squirrels to assess how hibernation alters neuron structure in a brain area that responds to visual information from the eyes. Why focus on this visual brain area? According to Nienborg, research shows strong neuron structure changes from hibernation in a part of the brain that processes touch, and these findings led to assumptions that neuron changes were happening in the visual brain as well.

The researchers assessed how two types of neurons in the visual brain area were affected during different stages of hibernation: deep sleep and an arousal stage that periodically occurs. One of the neuron populations had altered structure during deep hibernation compared to nonhibernating squirrels, while the other neuron population was unchanged. These effects reversed within 1.5 h after the animals aroused from deep hibernation. The researchers further assessed changes six months after hibernation and discovered there were no neuron structure differences between hibernating and nonhibernating squirrels.

Nienborg looks forward to taking this work further by exploring how neuron function changes during and after hibernation: “We know these structural changes have implications for neural communication, learning, and recovery after conditions like stroke. To see that there is a mechanism in the brains of these hibernating animals that [is so quick to change] is exciting because if we can figure out how to leverage this mechanism, we can potentially help human adult brains be more [adaptable] too, especially during recovery after stroke. We know a lot about how brain areas support visual processing, so exploring functional changes in the visual brains of squirrels is a very likely next step.”

###

Please contact media@sfn.org for full-text PDF.

About JNeurosci

JNeurosci was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today, the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact, while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.

About The Society for Neuroscience

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 35,000 members in more than 95 countries.

Journal

JNeurosci

DOI

10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0077-26.2026

Article Title

Pronounced Neuroplasticity in the Primary Visual Cortex of the Thirteen-Lined Ground Squirrel During Hibernation

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:48:41 +0000

New evidence reveals a millennium-old dingo was ritually buried, and cared for, along the Darling (Baaka) River in Australia

Dingo burial site reveals deep connections between the animals and local First Nations people in Australia

University of Sydney

image:

The skeleton of the dingo (garli) in the soil.

Credit: Photo by Dr Amy Way, Australian Museum

Dingo burial site near Broken Hill, Australia, reveals deep Barkindji connection as custodians work with archaeologists.

A millennium-old dingo deliberately buried by Barkindji ancestors along the Baaka, or Darling River, is offering rare insight into the depth of relationships between First Nations people and dingoes in western New South Wales, Australia.

The dingo appears to have been buried with great care in a purpose‑built midden, which continued to be tended and “fed” with river mussel shells for centuries, suggesting an ongoing relationship between the buried dingo and local people. This is believed to be the first time this “feeding” practice has been observed archaeologically anywhere in the world.

Project lead Dr Amy Way said: “While Barkindji people have always known about this cultural practice, this discovery is really powerful because it provides new details on the depth of that relationship between Barkindji people and dingoes.”

Dr Way, who holds a joint position as archaeologist at the Australian Museum and lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Sydney, has been working closely with Barkindji custodians over the past five years, dating and recording Barkindji cultural heritage in Kinchega National Park, New South Wales.

The dingo, known as garli in Barkindji language, was discovered in a road cutting, its skeleton emerging due to erosion at a site in Kinchega National Park. The site is near the Menindee Lakes along the Darling River, about 100 kilometres south‑east of Broken Hill. The male dingo was deliberately buried between 963-916 years ago within a riverside midden, as determined by radiocarbon dating.

“If garli were buried with the same care and respect we see for human ancestors, including mothers and elders, it tells us these animals were profoundly valued and loved,” Dr Way said.

Lead author and dingo specialist Dr Loukas Koungoulos from University of Western Australia said: “We know dingoes were tamed and lived alongside people as part of the community. This analysis details the depth of this relationship.”

First direct dating

Working alongside Barkindji custodians, archaeologists from the University of Sydney, the Australian Museum, the Australian National University and the University of Western Australia have revealed new evidence of millennium‑old ritual dingo burial practices along the Baaka.

The research includes the first direct dating of a dingo from the Baaka (Darling) River system, extending known burial traditions far beyond southeastern Australia.

Funded by the Australian Museum Foundation, the research is published in Australian Archaeology today.

Analysis of the garli’s remains shows that he was male and lived to an advanced age for a dingo (4-7 years). His teeth were heavily worn, suggesting a long life and extensive use, and he had healed traumatic injuries, including broken ribs and a broken lower leg, indicating prolonged care. The researchers believe the garli may have been out hunting and sustained severe injuries, consistent with being kicked by a kangaroo. He survived due to the care of the Barkindji people.

At the time of his death, the garli was buried in a midden that appears to have been newly initiated either shortly before or alongside the burial. The site continued to be added to for centuries after his death.

Barkindji Elders propose that these ongoing additions formed part of a “feeding” ritual that honoured garli as an ancestor and was maintained across multiple generations.

Evidence of long life and care

“What stands out about Garli is that he was old and well cared for,” Dr Koungoulos said.

“The healed injuries, worn teeth and careful burial tell us this animal lived a long life alongside people, and that his death was marked intentionally and with respect.”

Analysis of the garli provides new evidence that ancestral dingo burial practices extended further north and west along the Baaka system than previously documented.

“This confirms these traditions were much more widespread than we once thought,” Dr Koungoulos said. “Dingoes like this garli weren’t simply tolerated around camps. They were tamed, lived with people and were embedded in daily life.”

The burial was first identified by Barkindji Elder Uncle Badger Bates and National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) archaeologist Dan Witter several years ago as erosion exposed Garli’s remains. Excavation and analysis were carried out at the request of the Menindee Aboriginal Elders Council, which has guided the care of the garli throughout the research.

From the outset, Barkindji Elders emphasised the importance of ceremonial care. Earlier stages of the work included smoking ceremonies and earlier this year garli was returned to Country.

“This research reinforces what Barkindji people have always known,” Dr Way said. “These relationships with animals, ancestors and Country were deep, deliberate and ongoing.”

Media: note to please try and acknowledge:

Uncle Badger Bates who first identified the garli in 2000 with NPWS ranger Dan Witters.
The Menindee Aboriginal Elders Council for its cultural guidance and for its partnership in the field and beyond.
Dave Doyle (Barkindji custodian) and Barb Quayle (Barkindji Elder) who has partnered on this project since and co-excavated the garli.
National Parks and Wildlife Service (West Darling Area) for their support of the project.

Download photos, illustration of skeleton and video here. Paper on request.

Research: Author, N. et al ‘Garli: A millennium-old dingo burial on the Baaka (Darling River), Kinchega National Park, Menindee Lakes, Western New South Wales’ (Australian Archaeology 2026) DOI: 10.1080/03122417.2026.2650909

Declaration: This research was funded by the Australian Museum Foundation. The authors declare no competing interests. Open access funding provided by the University of Western Australia.

Layout of the bones unearthed.

Ice core discovery finds volcanic eruptions could cause greater global disruption than previously thought

University of St. Andrews

image:

Ice cores were sampled during international drilling campaigns in Greenland

Credit: Michael Sigl

New research from the University of St Andrews has precisely dated an eruption from Newberry Volcano and discovered that its ash spread more than 5000 km across the globe, far further than previously thought for an eruption of its size.

Published today (21st May) in Quaternary Science Reviews, researchers identified ash particles from the Newberry Pumice eruption of Newberry Volcano (Oregon, USA) in a Greenland ice core by geochemical fingerprinting – matching the chemical elements in the far-flung ash particles to volcanic deposits of the Newberry Pumice ash from its most recent “Big Obsidian” eruptive period.

Previous dates had narrowed the timing of the eruption to an approximate 140-year window around the turn of the 7th Century AD. Finding the ash in the ice allowed researchers to pinpoint the timing of the Newberry Pumice eruption to within two years of 686AD, due to the very precise age models that have been developed for Greenland ice cores.

Lead author Dr Helen Innes from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of St Andrews, said: “When we find tiny (0.02 mm) ash fragments in the ice core, it can be really challenging to trace them to their precise volcanic source. So it was a really exciting moment when we compared the geochemical fingerprint to Newberry and it was an exact match. Discoveries like this can unlock so much critical information about past eruptions, their precise timings and importantly, their hazards on a very large scale. Finding such an abundance of ash particles from Newberry thousands of kilometres from the eruption site is key for improving our understanding of how far Cascades volcanoes can send very fine ash particles and what risks they pose in the future to the North Atlantic region.”

The Newberry eruption is categorised as a VEI 4 event (Volcanic Explosivity Index), which is around 10 times smaller than the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980 which ranks as VEI 5 (very large), and about 10 times bigger than the VEI 3-4 (moderate-large) Eyjafjallajökull Icelandic eruption in 2010 which caused mass disruption in European airspace with far travelled ash

Globally, eruptions the size of this one from Newberry typically happen a few times a decade.

However, researchers found that what was exceptional about this eruption was that its ash was transported across the United States and the Atlantic, over 5000 km from its source

This shows that even relatively minor eruptions can potentially pose hazards across the North Atlantic. Improving understanding of the risks these relatively frequent eruptions can pose far from the volcano is essential for disaster response management.

Co-author Dr William Hutchison from the University of St Andrews, said; “Iceland usually grabs the headlines as our restless volcanic neighbour, but this study is an important reminder that there are huge numbers of volcanoes across North America, Russia and Japan that can spread vast quantities of ash across the Northern hemisphere

The North Atlantic is one of the busiest flight routes on Earth, and the discovery of such large quantities of ash in Greenland is a striking example of the global reach of even relatively minor eruptions. It shows that size isn’t everything when it comes to volcanic eruptions; a small but very ash rich eruption in a busy place could cause huge amounts of upheaval. Its really difficult to forecast when and where the next globally disruptive eruption is going to take place but vital that governments and international agencies are ready to respond in a co-ordinated way when they do.”

The Newberry volcano sits in the Cascade Volcanic Range in the US, the same range as Mount St Helens. It’s still an active volcano and is classed as “very high threat potential” by the U.S Geological Survey National Volcano Early Warning System. The 686 AD eruption researchers identified in the ice cores is the most recent eruption from it.

Scientists who have previously studied this Newberry Pumice eruption see that the ash close to the volcano itself is deposited in a very narrow, elongated way, which they’ve used to suggest there were strong winds at the time of eruption. Researchers suggest that this likely helped transport so much very fine ash across North America and to Greenland.

Professor Andrea Burke from the University of St Andrews who led the ice core analysis, said: "This discovery was really surprising for us. We never would have expected to find so much ash that far away from a moderate sized eruption. This result really highlights the value of investigating past eruptions to understand risks."

ENDS

Cores were collected from the Greenland ice sheet

Credit

Michael Sigl

Ice cores preserve detailed records of the ash and aerosol fallout from past volcanic eruptions

Credit

Joe McConnel

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:00:52 +0000

Southeast University and Korea University researchers develop smarter copper catalysts for turning CO₂ into fuels

Researchers outline advanced copper catalyst design strategies to convert CO₂ into valuable fuels while improving stability, selectivity, and scalability

Cactus Communications

image:

Renewable energy-driven electrocatalytic CO₂ reduction system converting carbon dioxide into valuable fuels, enabling a circular carbon economy and environmental sustainability.

Credit: Professor Xiangzhou Yuan from Southeast University, China and Professor Yong Sik Ok from Korea University, Korea Image source link: https://doi.org/10.1002/sstr.202600003

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to intensify climate change, driving urgent efforts to transform CO₂ from a waste product into a valuable resource. Among emerging solutions, electrochemical CO₂ reduction has gained attention for its ability to convert emissions into fuels and chemicals using renewable energy. However, achieving high efficiency remains difficult due to poor catalyst stability and limited selectivity toward desirable multi-carbon (C₂+) products such as ethylene and ethanol. These challenges have restricted the large-scale deployment of carbon recycling technologies.

To address these challenges, a research team led by Professor Xiangzhou Yuan, Youth Chair Professor at the School of Energy and Environment, Southeast University, Nanjing, China and Professor Yong Sik Ok, at the Korea Biochar Research Center and the Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering at Korea University, Seoul, collaborated with. Their work focuses on advanced copper-based electrocatalysts capable of converting CO₂ into high-value products with improved efficiency. Their study was published on April 25, 2026, in the journal Small Structures.

The researchers identified copper as uniquely suited for CO₂ conversion because of its ability to promote carbon–carbon (C–C) coupling, a critical step in forming multi-carbon products. By engineering catalyst structures at atomic and electronic levels, they achieved a precise balance between adsorption and transformation of key intermediates such as carbon monoxide. Their strategy integrates three key approaches: tandem effects that distribute reaction roles across active sites, synergistic interactions that optimize charge transfer, and geometric control of atomic spacing to enhance reaction pathways.

A key emphasis of the study is the importance of stabilizing multiple oxidation states of copper—particularly Cu⁰ and Cu⁺. This mixed-valence system enables efficient formation and transformation of reaction intermediates, significantly lowering energy barriers for C₂+ product formation.

“Maintaining a dynamic balance between different copper states is crucial for achieving both stability and selectivity,” explains Prof. Yuan. “This balance allows us to control how molecules interact on the catalyst surface and ultimately determine the final products.”

Beyond catalyst design, the team also investigated how reaction environments influence performance. Factors such as local pH, electrolyte composition, and CO₂ concentration were found to strongly affect reaction pathways and efficiency. To accelerate discovery, the researchers incorporated machine learning models capable of predicting catalyst performance and guiding experimental design.

“By combining data-driven tools with experimental insights, we can significantly reduce trial-and-error and design more efficient systems faster,” Prof. Ok adds.

The implications of this work extend beyond the laboratory. In the short term, improved catalyst systems could enhance industrial processes for producing fuels and chemicals from captured CO₂, reducing dependence on fossil resources. Over the longer term, these technologies may enable integrated systems where renewable energy powers carbon recycling, supporting a circular carbon economy and contributing to carbon neutrality.

Looking ahead, the researchers emphasize the importance of integrating catalyst innovation with reactor design and system-level optimization. By combining advanced materials, real-time characterization, and artificial intelligence, future developments could overcome current scalability barriers. Ultimately, this work provides a comprehensive roadmap for transforming CO₂ into valuable resources, offering a promising pathway toward sustainable energy and environmental resilience.

***

Reference
DOI: 10.1002/sstr.202600003

About Professor Xiangzhou Yuan from Southeast University, China
Professor Xiangzhou Yuan is a Youth Chair Professor at the School of Energy and Environment in Southeast University, China. He received the National Natural Science Fund for Outstanding Young Scholars in 2022 and has been listed among the World’s Top 2% Scientists since 2023. His research focuses on AI-driven design and performance enhancement of carbon materials for sustainable energy and environmental applications. Prof. Yuan has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, including several highly cited and cover-featured papers. He also serves in editorial and leadership roles in multiple scientific journals and professional organizations related to energy and environmental engineering.

About Professor Yong Sik Ok from Korea University, Korea
Professor Yong Sik is affiliated with the Korea Biochar Research Center and the Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering at Korea University. He is President of the International ESG Association and the International Society of Trace Element Biogeochemistry. In 2022, he became the Highly Cited Researcher recognized in Environment and Ecology, Engineering, and Biology and Biochemistry simultaneously. His research focuses on ESG principles, biochar, and climate technologies supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Prof. Ok has h-index of 177 and more than 118,000 citations. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of CleanMat and teaches business and environment courses at Korea University.

Journal

Small Structures

DOI

10.1002/sstr.202600003

Scientists uncover centuries of climate chaos — and human resilience

Wetland sediments reveal a turbulent environmental past in the ancient Mediterranean

University of California - San Diego

image:

"We built a new tool for reading ancient climate from wetland sediments, combining fossils, pollen, charcoal and chemistry to track how rainfall patterns shifted over thousands of years," says Gilad Shtienberg, a research scholar with the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability at UC San Diego's Qualcomm Institute and Department of Anthropology.

Credit: Courtesy of Gilad Shtienberg, UC San Diego Qualcomm Institute

The climate of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean was far more turbulent than previously thought — and a new study suggests that people adapted anyway.

An international team of scientists, spearheaded by UC San Diego's Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability (CCAS) and the University of Haifa's Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies (RIMS), has developed a new way to track ancient climate and used it to decode 4,000 years of key environmental history in the ancient Mediterranean. The paper was published in Quaternary Science Reviews on May 13.

Focusing on a former wetland on Israel's Carmel Coast, a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Carmel mountain range, the researchers examined a period known as the end of the African Humid Period, a time when the region was transforming from lush and wet to increasingly dry. Rather than a slow, steady drying, the climate lurched between wet and dry extremes, sometimes within a single human lifetime, sometimes over centuries. Yet people appear to have adapted rather than abandoned the region.

"We built a new tool for reading ancient climate from wetland sediments, combining fossils, pollen, charcoal and chemistry to track how rainfall patterns shifted over thousands of years," said the paper's first author, Gilad Shtienberg, a research scholar with the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability (CCAS) at UC San Diego's Qualcomm Institute (QI) and Department of Anthropology. "When we applied the method to these sediments, we found that the transition out of the African Humid Period wasn't smooth. Instead, the climate fluctuated sharply over periods ranging from decades to centuries."

"People are problem solvers," said the paper's senior author Tom Levy, co-director of CCAS and distinguished professor in the UC San Diego Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs. "They cope with environmental stress by developing new technologies and strategies. During this period, we see the emergence of floodwater farming — an early form of irrigation, as well as new ways of managing herd animals like sheep and goats. Settlements expanded into drier areas, but people adapted."

A natural environmental archive

Wetlands preserve layers of sediment, plant material and microscopic organisms that accumulate over thousands of years, creating a natural environmental archive. To unlock that archive, the team drilled down up to 16 meters, about the height of a four- to five-story building, pulling up cylinders of ancient mud in which each layer is a frozen snapshot of a different era. Inside those layers, the researchers found tiny shells, pollen grains, charred plant fragments and chemical traces, each one a clue. Freshwater snails and mussels pointed to rainy, lush periods; salt-tolerant species signaled drought and a shrinking wetland. Charcoal revealed erosion and runoff patterns, while pollen and seeds showed what kinds of plants were growing nearby.

The team wove these clues together into a single climate timeline, a kind of ancient weather record stretching back 8,000 years, reconstructing how conditions along the Mediterranean coast shifted from decade to decade. The record revealed an especially wet period around 7,800 to 7,600 years ago, followed by a long-term shift toward drier conditions. It also captured repeated drought episodes around 4,200 years ago; a period linked elsewhere in the Near East to widespread social disruption.

Adaptation, not collapse

Once the climate record was in, the researchers compared it with archaeological excavation and survey evidence from ancient settlements across the region to see whether drought directly triggered migration or population decline.

The answer turned out to be no, or at least, not simply. Climate stress formed an environmental backdrop for changing settlement patterns, but ancient communities appear to have responded creatively and variably rather than simply retreating. The findings push back against the idea that climate was destiny, that a drought automatically meant collapse. People, it turns out, were far more resourceful than that.

Bringing ancient environments to life with AI

Beyond its historical conclusions, the study offers one of the highest-resolution climate records yet produced for the southern Levant from approximately 6050 BCE to 2050 BCE. This time span captures the entire trajectory from late Neolithic village societies to the collapse of the Early Bronze urban system in the southern Levant.

And because wetlands around the world preserve layered environmental histories in similar ways, the researchers say the method can be adapted to ask the same questions elsewhere, wherever ancient sediments and human settlements have been left behind.

In addition, harnessing a range of tools being developed by CCAS Co-Director and QI Associate Research Scientist Neil Smith, student researchers are using AI-driven virtual reality to reconstruct ancient environments from archaeological and geoscientific data from this and other CCAS eastern Mediterranean studies. The work will enable immersive, evidence-based exploration of past landscapes and events.

In addition to Shtienberg and Levy, the paper, "Early to Mid-Holocene Climate Oscillations and Cultural Shifts in the Eastern Mediterranean," was authored by Richard D. Norris, Kendall Mahony and Kristian Plat of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego; Tammy M. Rittenour of Department of Geosciences, Utah State University; Steffen Mischke of Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland; Dafna Langgut of Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Ancient Environments, Institute of Archaeology, and The Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University, Israel; Assaf Yasur-Landau and Dorit Sivan of Department of Maritime Civilizations, School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, and RIMS University of Haifa, Israel; and Miroslav Bárta of Czech Institute of Egyptology, Prague, Czech Republic. This study was funded primarily by the Irwin Jacobs Family Foundation in an award to T.E.L. (PI) for a collaboration between UC San Diego and the University of Haifa (A. Yasur-Landau, co-PI) focused on marine and cyber-archaeology in the eastern Mediterranean.

An international team spearheaded by UC San Diego's Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability and the University of Haifa's Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies uses heavy equipment to drill down to depths of up to 16 meters, about the height of a four- to five-story building, to pull up cylinders of ancient mud in which each layer is a snapshot of a different era.

The team at UC San Diego is using AI-driven virtual reality to reconstruct ancient environments from archaeological and geoscientific data.

Credit

Courtesy of UC San Diego's Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability

Journal

Quaternary Science Reviews

DOI

Climate change and emerging diseases pose challenges for physicians

Canadian Medical Association Journal

Climate change is affecting the local ecology in Canada, contributing to emerging tick- and mosquito-borne diseases and infections in humans, argue authors of a commentary published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.260668.

“Climate change can drive disease emergence by increasing survival and geographic distributions of pathogens, vectors, and animal reservoir hosts, as well as by affecting human behaviour,” writes Dr. Eleni Galanis, Infectious Diseases and Vaccine Programs Branch at the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), with a coauthor. “The risk from climate-sensitive diseases already common in Canada is increasing.”

Tropical diseases, such as dengue, chikungunya, or other mosquito-borne infections, could be transmitted locally as the Asian tiger mosquito, a host for these diseases, has been detected in the southernmost part of Ontario.

Clinicians should be aware of these disease threats and advise patients to take precautions when travelling and during summer months at home.

Two related articles in this issue of CMAJ provide clinical examples of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, a newer disease, and tick-borne spirochetosis, a rare and difficult-to-diagnose disease.

https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.251935
https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.252050

“People in Canada are observing the substantial effects of climate change on human health. Physicians can prepare by familiarizing themselves with potential climate-sensitive diseases in their regions and maintaining a high index of suspicion in the appropriate clinical context,” the authors conclude.

Journal

Canadian Medical Association Journal

DOI

10.1503/cmaj.252050

Method of Research

Commentary/editorial

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Climate change and emerging diseases: challenges for physicians in Canada

Article Publication Date

19-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:43:10 +0000

Interactive hydrology makes a splash with students

Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

image:

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo break down complex hydrological processes for students with a game-based rainfall model

Credit: Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

Tokyo, Japan – As climate change increases the risk of flooding worldwide, understanding how floods form has never been more important. However, the science behind flooding is notoriously difficult to grasp, involving interactions among atmospheric, terrestrial, and human systems. Creating educational tools that simplify these processes without losing their essential scientific meaning has remained a major challenge.

In an article published in Water Resources Research, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo have been able to produce a model that is scientifically grounded and easy to understand.

Researchers introduced “SplashTune,” a gamified rainfall–runoff model that allows users to simulate how water moves through a landscape and observe how environmental conditions affect river flow and flood behavior in real time.

Explaining flood generation can be difficult as it is a multifaceted process that depends on many interacting components, including rainfall patterns and the movement of water both on and below the ground. Traditional explanations, while accessible to those with specialized scientific knowledge, are unsuitable for other populations.

“Hydrological models are inherently very abstract and complicated,” explains Dai Yamazaki, lead author of the article. “As people who know this firsthand, we wanted to lower the barrier to understanding these important topics.”

The result was SplashTune, an interactive model that visualizes hydrological processes such as infiltration and surface runoff using animated water particles. Players are tasked with matching simulated river flow patterns to target outcomes by tuning environmental conditions, receiving score-based feedback that encourages discovery through trial and error.

“We coined this approach ‘playable hydrology’ because we want students to have fun while they learn,” says Taishi Yazawa, a coauthor of the study. “We believe that there is a lot of scientific value in learner-centric approaches that encourage independent exploration.”

To evaluate SplashTune’s effectiveness, the team conducted a classroom study with 136 Japanese high school students. The results showed that students’ self-reported understanding of rainfall–runoff processes improved significantly after playing the game, particularly for concepts involving multiple interacting hydrological processes such as how soil moisture and land use affect flood timing and intensity.

“Our findings suggest that interactive, game-based learning can help students grasp abstract concepts that are challenging to visualize,” remarks Yamazaki. “By experimenting with different inputs and seeing immediate results, learners can discover how different factors work together to shape flood behavior.”

The researchers believe that their approach could help improve public understanding of flood risks and water systems not just in the classroom but also more broadly. By making hydrology both accessible and engaging, tools like SplashTune could better educate general audiences and communicate increasing climate-related challenges.

###

The article, “Playable Hydrology: Learning about flood generation processes through the gamified rainfall–runoff model SplashTune,” was published in Water Resources Research at DOI:10.1029/2025WR041550.

About Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo

The Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo-IIS) is one of the largest university-attached research institutes in Japan. UTokyo-IIS is comprised of over 120 research laboratories—each headed by a faculty member—and has over 1,200 members (approximately 400 staff and 800 students) actively engaged in education and research. Its activities cover almost all areas of engineering. Since its foundation in 1949, UTokyo-IIS has worked to bridge the huge gaps that exist between academic disciplines and real-world applications.

Journal

Water Resources Research

DOI

10.1029/2025WR041550

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:42:47 +0000

Sea level rise is swallowing Mid-Atlantic farmland faster than expected, study finds

Virginia Institute of Marine Science

image:

Aerial view of a tidal marsh winding between two farm fields on Maryland's Eastern Shore, with a white salt patch visible on the right-hand field and a line of trees marking a levee between the marsh and farmland.

Credit: Grace Molino

Ghost forests, the cemetery-like groupings of dead trees killed by saltwater intrusion, have become haunting symbols of sea level rise overtaking land along the Mid-Atlantic coast. But a new study in Nature Sustainability led by William & Mary’s Batten School & VIMS points to even more dramatic land losses in the region’s coastal farmlands, where the rate of marsh encroachment is happening nearly twice as fast.

Using satellite data spanning decades as well as recent field measurements, the study’s authors found that between 1984 and 2022 approximately 25,000 acres of farmland was lost to sea level rise in the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay watersheds, despite preventative measures taken by local farmers.

“There's this assumption that we'll never let sea level rise consume farmland, that people will protect valuable land. And it's just wrong,” said Matt Kirwan, co-author and professor of marine science at the Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences & VIMS. “We found lots of examples where small levees were built at the edges of fields to prevent saltwater intrusion, but they only slowed down the loss. They couldn’t stop it.”

Measuring marsh encroachment

As sea levels continue to rise due to human-driven climate change, saltwater creeps farther inland through groundwater, tidal creeks and storm surges. This process, known as saltwater intrusion, gradually kills freshwater plants and replaces them with salt-tolerant marsh grasses. Scientists track this transformation by measuring how the boundary between dry land and marsh shifts over time, a metric known as retreat.

Rather than measuring only how far inland the marsh boundary moved, which can depend on how flat or steep the land is, the authors tracked the elevation of the boundary as well. This approach accounts for differences in terrain and allows for a more direct comparison of marsh encroachment between farmland and forest.

The mid-Atlantic coast experiences sea level rise at roughly double the global average, making it both a hotspot for these changes and an ideal location to study them.

The study shows that marsh encroachment can be up to 7 times more frequent on agricultural land compared to forestland in the mid-Atlantic and that, regionally, agricultural land appears to have accelerated the impacts of saltwater intrusion.

“We hypothesized, and most people would intuitively expect, that marshes would migrate slower into farmland, that forests are more vulnerable than farmland. But we found the opposite,” Kirwan said. “On farmland, it’s much more subtle. It’s a row of crops at the edge of the field that’s brown instead of green, but it still adds up to thousands of acres of lost agricultural production.”

Why coastal farmlands are vulnerable

The study references an assumption that coastal farmland’s economic value incentivizes flood mitigation strategies to protect against sea level rise. In point of fact, mid-Atlantic farmers have built levees or earthen berms around their land to reduce inundation, along with other mechanisms like ditches.

However, because Virginia and Maryland made tidal wetlands protected ecosystems in the 1970s, few structural interventions have been built since then, raising doubts about whether coastal farmlands are as protected as presumed.

“Some of the berms are still being used and maintained, but a lot of them have been abandoned and are now surrounded by marsh,” said the study’s lead author and Batten School Ph.D. graduate Grace Molino ’25.

To conduct field surveys for the study, Molino visited six farm sites on the Eastern Shore along with co-author and former Batten School & VIMS student intern Grace Levins. They found that levees and other structural interventions did mitigate saltwater intrusion, bringing the vertical retreat rate in line with that of forests in the same area.

While these individual efforts did reduce marsh encroachment locally, the study found that regionally farmland was still more vulnerable to saltwater intrusion than forests. New construction is limited because of complicated permitting requirements, and the ones that are maintained cannot fully prevent land conversion to marsh. Additionally, crops are biologically less resilient than trees.

“It’s not that farmland is flat and therefore it retreats faster,” Kirwan said. “Trees have lifespans of hundreds of years. It can take decades to kill a tree. Agricultural crops have lifespans of less than a year.”

The overlooked impact of farmland on coastal resilience

Discussions around the impact of human development on coastal habitats have traditionally been focused on urban flood prevention methods like hardened shorelines and seawalls, which have been shown to prevent wetlands from migrating inland as seas rise. And yet, less than 15% of coastal watersheds in the United States are heavily developed. The vast majority of the nation's coastline is rural, and the human footprint on those landscapes has been largely overlooked.

“It's really underappreciated how large human impacts can be even in rural areas where you don't have the big beach houses, you don't have the big seawalls,” Kirwan said. “Everything's more subtle, but they're still having a big impact."

Rural communities are often not included in conversations about future flood infrastructure or coastal adaptation. The study argues that a paradigm shift is needed to understand the responses of these areas and the people who live in them.

Investigating these rural responses to marsh encroachment can be difficult. Researchers typically work on public land, where there is little barrier to entry. To access privately-owned farmland, Molino had to make old-fashioned cold calls and knock on doors. The effort was well worth it, she said.

“The landowners there have this unbelievable wealth of knowledge,” Molino said. “Most of them have lived on the land for several generations and know a lot about the neighboring properties and how things have changed.”

At one site in Maryland, a landowner who uses the property as a weekend hunting retreat during waterfowl season gave Molino a tour of two massive impoundment structures he had built on fields that were too salty to farm. One had been partially funded through a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that pays landowners to create wildlife habitat.

Molino said she was struck by how this landowner had independently adapted to saltwater intrusion by completely changing his land use, and that a federal program existed to support that decision.

“Individual landowner decisions have such a strong influence on the changes that we're seeing on the coast,” Molino said. “It's so important to actually get out into the field and talk with them and understand what's driving these decisions.”

Marshes are also under threat from sea level rise. If they can’t build soil fast enough to keep pace with rising tides, they must move to higher ground. So what may be bad for farmers in terms of land loss can at the same time be good for marshes, because agricultural land represents a new and faster pathway for them to migrate inland, potentially bolstering coastal resilience overall. But that comes directly at the expense of farmers’ livelihoods.

Molino believes that science can help figure out a solution for all. She cited the mission of the Batten School & VIMS to provide solutions-based science and how these farmers are exactly the kind of people she hopes science can serve.

In carrying out this study, science already has benefited these landowners. During one field visit, a landowner asked Molino to let him know if she found any breaches in his levees so he could plug them. When she got back to the lab, she called him and gave him the breaches’ exact GPS coordinates.

Journal

Nature Sustainability

Sweeping up dust to detect emerging viruses

As a reliable recordkeeper, dust can be used for disease surveillance

Ohio State University

COLUMB

US, Ohio – Gathering dust from buildings may hold promise as a more efficient way to track viral outbreaks in indoor settings, according to a new study.

After collecting nearly 30 vacuumed dust samples from places like schools, university residence halls and office buildings, researchers simultaneously identified the presence of 54 distinct viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, influenza, norovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and others.

Indoor dust tends to accumulate biological material shed by occupants and also integrates signatures from the air, surfaces and human activity over time, which means using these particles to monitor viral pathogen trends could aid early detection efforts against future outbreaks.

“It’s really important that we understand broadly how to track disease in our community,” said Karen Dannemiller, senior author of the study and an associate professor of civil, environmental and geodetic engineering and environmental health sciences at The Ohio State University. “Similar to wastewater monitoring, which tracks disease clusters on a large-scale level, we’ve created an intermediate tool that has those same benefits for a smaller population.”

Compared to traditional sampling methods, dust-based techniques are advantageous because the particles are easily collected during routine cleaning, it requires no specialized plumbing access, and dust can remain stable at room temperature for extended periods. These simple but critical aspects can lead to quick, high-resolution insights into what is happening within a specific space and help researchers take appropriate measures to address it, said Dannemiller.

“This is groundbreaking work,” she said. “While people have sequenced viruses out of dust before, it’s been on a pretty limited basis and was not proposed as a surveillance tool.”

The study was recently published in the journal Building and Environment.

To take a targeted look at these pathogens, researchers utilized both PCR analysis and a novel sequencing technique that detects the RNA molecules that viruses leave behind after they decay. By comparing the findings in their sample to a library panel of 200 potential pathogens, the team measured and categorized many viruses at once, a capability that, on the ground, would increase both the efficiency and utility of future viral investigations.

“Research like this is useful for monitoring a range of buildings where there’s a variety of things that you're concerned about,” said Dannemiller. “By using that information to help pinpoint those issues, it’s possible to improve our decisions about where to direct limited mitigation resources.”

Significantly, building dust could also be used to capture data from both symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, a noninvasive aspect that would allow researchers and decision-makers to infer viral patterns without the need for direct clinical testing.

While researchers in this study did not measure the viability of the sampled viruses, it’s unlikely that leftover viral particles in dust would still be infectious – depending on the bug. Given the minimal risk, establishing a robust and easily scalable dust-based monitoring tool would provide the public with a much broader understanding of community transmission.

For instance, three of the viruses the team found were shown to be more prevalent in child-associated settings, like daycares, rather than in buildings primarily occupied by adults, and a total of 85% of all collected samples contained at least one rhinovirus. Such results signify that dust can even capture public health trends by occupant demographic, like age.

Overall, findings suggest that dust-based surveillance may be a powerful complement to wastewater surveillance, particularly for early warning of threats in enclosed environments. Future work may include exploring the use of this sampling in military and healthcare settings and determining if the team’s new viral sampling technique could help automate detection pipelines.

“This is an initial step to understanding how we can use technology to better monitor at the building level for different infectious diseases,” said Dannemiller. “Ultimately, that leads to a more informed use of precautions and better targeting for the use of resources.”

Other Ohio State co-authors include Austin Shamblin, Calissa Carlisle, Nicholas Nastasi, Seth Faith, Michael Sovic and Vanessa Varaljay, as well as Genny Cook, Anthony Fries, Richard Agans from the United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine. This study was supported by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Contact: Karen Dannemiller, Dannemiller.70@osu.edu

Written by: Tatyana Woodall, Woodall.52@osu.edu

Journal

Building and Environment

DOI

10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114530

Article Title

Simultaneous detection of multiple viral pathogens in vacuumed dust from different building types

Article Publication Date

15-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:36:13 +0000

Nondestructive testing paves way for genetic analysis of historical parchments

North Carolina State University

image:

Photo of Tim Stinson using the new, nondestructive sampling technique to conduct genetic analyses of parchment manuscripts.

Credit: Nash Dunn, NC State University

Researchers have demonstrated a nondestructive way to collect cellular material from historical parchment manuscripts, allowing them to conduct genetic analyses that offer new insights into everything from trade routes to agricultural practices dating back 1,300 years – without harming the valuable manuscripts.

Parchment is made from animal skins and has been in use for thousands of years across Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa to create a wide variety of documents, from legal documents to maps.

“Because they are made from animal skins, it is often possible to extract genetic information from parchments,” says Tim Stinson, corresponding author of a paper on this research and an associate professor of English at North Carolina State University. “That genetic information, in turn, offers us a window into the past, answering questions about things such as when and where a manuscript was made.”

“Because parchments have been in use for so long, and often record detailed historical information, the genetic information they contain can also shed light on the evolution of domesticated farm species, how breeds developed over time, livestock diseases and so on,” says Matthew Breen, co-author of the paper and the Oscar J. Fletcher Distinguished Professor of Comparative Oncology Genetics in NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

“This paper is particularly important because one of the biggest challenges for this emerging field of genetic analysis has been gaining access to historic parchments, due to concerns that collecting samples would damage these culturally significant artifacts,” says Stinson. “Our work shows that we can collect samples without harming the parchments, which is a big step forward.”

For this study, the researchers used the nondestructive technique to collect cellular samples from 91 manuscripts held by the Rubenstein Library at Duke University. The manuscripts originated in areas from England to Ethiopia and were written between the late eighth and early 20th centuries.

The nondestructive sampling involves rubbing the parchment with a cytology brush, identical to the kind used for Pap smears.

“Cytology brushes can be used when dry and do an excellent job of harvesting cellular material without damaging the integrity of the artifact being sampled,” says Breen.

The researchers then extract the cellular material from the brushes and make use of forensic-level, next-generation sequencing technologies to pull out and amplify genetic sequences.

“We’re essentially using state-of-the art technologies and genetic analytical techniques to get new, empirical information regarding historical cultural and agricultural practices,” says Stinson.

“We’ve shown that we’re able to extract a tremendous amount of new information from these parchments without harming them,” says Breen. “This will hopefully engender trust with those organizations that are responsible for preserving these historic documents.”

“We’re excited about the potential of this field and are seeking funding that will allow us to explore that potential,” says Stinson. “We’ve demonstrated that this is a vast, untapped source of historical information, and we want to continue this pioneering work.”

“We have a remarkable opportunity here,” says Breen. “It is essentially a whole new field, bringing together a truly interdisciplinary range of expertise spanning fields from genetics to medieval history.”

The paper, “Adventures in the Animal Archive: New Techniques for the Genetic Analysis of Parchment Manuscripts,” is published open access in the journal Manuscript Studies. The paper was co-authored by Melissa Scheible, a research associate at NC State; Rachael Thomas, a senior research scholar at NC State; Benjamin Callahan, an associate professor of population health and pathobiology at NC State; Nicholas Wagner, a postdoctoral research associate at Duke University; and Kelly Meiklejohn, an associate professor in forensic science at Western Sydney University.

Researchers have demonstrated a nondestructive way to collect cellular material from historical parchment manuscripts, allowing them to conduct genetic analyses that offer new insights into everything from trade routes to agricultural practices dating back 1,300 years – without harming the valuable manuscripts.

Credit

Nash Dunn, NC State University

DOI

10.1353/mns.2026.a990234

Establishing a regulatory framework for phage therapy in China

SciOpen

image:

Current situation and proposed future regulatory frameworks for phage therapy in China. Phage therapy was initially conducted as IITs in China. In May 2026, State Council Decree No. 818 introduced the anticipated clinical translation of phage therapy as a new biomedical technology. In the future, phage therapy in China may be developed through two pathways: as a pharmaceutical product or as a new biomedical technology. Clearer and more science-based regulatory frameworks need to be established through collaborative efforts among regulatory authorities, academia, and industry.

Credit: hLife

With antimicrobial resistance (AMR) projected to cause more than 39 million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses between 2025 and 2050, phage therapy is emerging as a critical solution. In China, phage therapy has already been used across more than 30 hospitals to treat over 500 patients with drug-resistant infections. However, the country currently lacks a dedicated regulatory framework to guide its full clinical translation.

Global phage therapy regulatory frameworks diverge. The European Union (EU, led by Belgium) uses a flexible magistral preparation model, enabling low‑cost, personalized phage therapy without formal drug approval. Meanwhile, the US regulates phages as biologics and provides access via emergency Investigational New Drug (IND) pathways. The UK allows the import of unlicensed products for compassionate use, while Australia is piloting a three‑year GMP exemption for small‑batch, personalized products. Georgia has a long history of phage use but lacks GMP‑compliant production, limiting international acceptance.

In China, phage therapy commenced under investigator‑initiated trial regulations in 2018. Recent policy signals are encouraging: a 2025 NMPA draft guidance indicates that gene‑edited phages may be classified as advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs), and State Council Decree No. 818 (effective May 2026) introduces a filing mechanism for phage therapy as a new biomedical technology. Nevertheless, national quality standards and clear approval pathways remain absent.

The research team advocates a three-pillared approach: "standards first, pathway pilots, and industry cultivation." Key recommendations include: (1) National quality guidelines: Develop a technical guideline for phage preparation quality control, building on an existing Shanghai group standard, TSHPPA 028-2024, and ISO/TS 20853:2026. (2) Phase‑appropriate GMP pilot: Offer a 2–3 year GMP exemption or simplified certification for personalized, low‑risk phage preparations that address urgent clinical needs, allowing qualified hospitals to produce them under ethical review while building GMP capacity. (3) Clear product classification: Specify that standard phage products follow the biologics pathway, while gene‑edited phage products may qualify for ATMP classification with expedited policies. (4) Regional centers and reimbursement: Authorize experienced hospitals to establish regional phage therapy centers, supported by integrated pricing, health insurance, and commercial insurance mechanisms.

Dr. Shuai Le emphasizes that comprehensive international frameworks for phage therapy remain underdeveloped. China now has a pivotal opportunity to transition from a regulatory follower to a global frontrunner. By building a high‑quality, context‑appropriate development pathway, China can advance its “Healthy China” initiative while contributing meaningfully to the global fight against AMR.

This research was completed by a joint team from Army Medical University, The Forsyth Institute, CreatiPhage Biotechnology Co., Ltd., and Fudan University. This work was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFA0911200 to S.L.).

About Author:

Shuai Le, Associate Professor at Army Medical University. His laboratory specializes in deciphering the evolutionary battle between phages and their hosts while advancing synthetic phage design and clinical optimization, bridging the gap between basic research and therapeutic applications. A key milestone in his career includes co-leading China’s first personalized trial and first RCT clinical trial on bacteriophage therapy, establishing a foundation for evidence-based phage medicine in the country. Dr. Le has authored over 50 SCI-indexed publications in top-tier journals, including Nature Microbiology, PNAS, The EMBO Journal, and hLife.

Journal

hLife

DOI

10.1016/j.hlife.2026.05.001

Article Title

Establishing a Regulatory Framework for Phage Therapy in China

Article Publication Date

12-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:32:57 +0000

More than just acid: Researchers discover new active compounds in ant venom

Beyond formic acid: Peptides in carpenter ant venoms aid in disease protection

Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg

image:

A nest of the carpenter ant

Credit: Lukas Koch

The venom of forest ants and horse ants contains numerous substances that protect the insects from pathogens. Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and Freie Universität Berlin have succeeded for the first time in identifying and characterising these novel antimicrobial substances in the insects’ venom. These substances are peptides, small protein molecules. The study, published in the journal ‘Science Advances’, provides new insights into nest protection and the management of microbes in insect communities. At the same time, the newly discovered substances could provide fresh impetus for medical drug discovery.

Since formic acid was first isolated from Formica ants back in the seventeenth century, the venom of these ants was considered to be rather simple in its composition. It was believed that formic acid served as the principal toxin, and although findings from earlier studies suggest the presence of peptidic compounds in the venoms, these observations were largely overlooked. “In our project, we investigated a decades-old publication that received little attention in its time. The paper mentioned that these venoms also contain peptidic compounds,” says project lead and professor for pharmaceutical biology at Freie Universität Berlin’s Institute of Pharmacy, Timo Niedermeyer. “We investigated the venoms of eight geographically distant species of carpenter ants and uncovered thirty-five peptides, or formicitoxins, belonging to two gene families. The specific make-up of the formicitoxins varied from species to species, but their presence was widespread. This means that carpenter ant venom is considerably more complex than previously assumed.”

The peptides that the researchers discovered likely contribute toward the hygiene of the ants’ nest. The ants spread their venom onto the brood and the area surrounding the nest, leading the researchers to propose that the formicitoxins reinforce an external immune defense that lingers after the immediate antimicrobial effects of formic acid have lost their potency. “Some of the peptides demonstrate remarkable antifungal properties. This is particularly interesting when we consider the threat that environmental microbes and pathogens pose to social communities such as ants, as well as the increased threat of microbial resistance for human well-being,” emphasizes Dr. Simon Tragust, project lead at the Institute of Biology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. “The Formicinae subfamily comprises over 3,700 species, meaning that there is enormous potential for the discovery of more bioactive substances.”

The results confirm that carpenter ant venom performs a range of diverse functions. The ants use their venom not only for defense, but also to disinfect their surroundings, to acidify their gut for microbial selection, and to communicate with other ants.

For their study, the researchers combined methods from the fields of biology, chemistry, and pharmacy. Using a proteotranscriptomic approach, they combined protein and RNA data taken from the venom and associated tissues to identify the individual peptides, as well as their genetic sequences. They also made use of chemical analyses, performed bioactivity assays, and synthesized their own formicitoxins. The scientists gained further insight into the structure and evolutionary history of the individual venom components through biophysical experiments, genome analyses, and computer-assisted modeling.

Thanks to its interdisciplinary approach and the examination of venom from multiple ant colonies, this study represents one of the most comprehensive comparative analyses of ant venom carried out to date.

The work was funded by the German Research Foundation, the State of Saxony-Anhalt and the Ethological Society.

Study: Koch L. et al. Beyond formic acid: Peptides in carpenter ant venoms aid in disease protection. Science Advances (2026). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aed407

Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aed4078

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Beyond formic acid: Peptides in carpenter ant venoms aid in disease protection

Article Publication Date

23-May-2026

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:31:11 +0000

Flawed but correctable research hindered progress in infection-triggered chronic conditions, including Lyme disease and Long COVID

Rutgers University

Thousands of Americans develop chronic persistent symptoms—such as fatigue, cognitive difficulties ("brain fog"), and other debilitating issues—each year following acute infections from Lyme disease, COVID-19, and other pathogens. Efforts to identify causes and produce treatments have failed. However, 16 leading researchers think they know part of the problem: study design.

In an article in Brain, researchers from Rutgers University, the National Institutes of Health, Rockefeller University, New York Medical College, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and other institutions contend that studies of infection-associated chronic illnesses suffer recurring problems such as the failure to prove participants have the relevant pathogen.

Key Challenges in Lyme Disease Research

Up to 20% of the roughly 476,000 Americans diagnosed with Lyme disease each year develop chronic, persistent cognitive impairment, fatigue and pain known as post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome. Researchers have spent decades looking for causes and cures, but many of their studies included anybody with only Lyme antibodies or bull’s-eye rashes rather than documenting Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Unfortunately, Lone Star tick bites, drug reactions and other conditions can produce identical rashes, and antibody tests detect only past exposure, not active infection. The result is that studies may include people with entirely different diseases.

“How can studies produce concrete conclusions about Lyme when you don’t know if patients really had Lyme disease or if they had a mimicking condition?” asked the paper’s corresponding author, Steven Schutzer, a physician-scientist and professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

The authors also identified additional methodological shortcomings in prior research regarding control groups and sample handling.

Parallels with Long COVID and Broader Implications

Studies of Long COVID, which affects an estimated 9 million Americans, face similar challenges, particularly the tendency to group patients with possible different underlying mechanisms into a single population. Research into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome is even more difficult because no causative pathogen has been identified.

Yet progress is possible, even without knowledge of the underlying infection. The authors point to multiple sclerosis (MS) as evidence that rigorous study design has yielded helpful FDA-approved treatments.

Looking Ahead

“The framework we advocate is a major step forward since it provides rigorous and well-thought-out guidelines for every aspect of conducting clinical trials in this patient population,” said coauthor Avindra Nath, physician-scientist and clinical director of the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

“Patients with post-infectious conditions have been waiting far too long for answers,” said Jacqueline Becker, a neuropsychologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and a coauthor on the paper. “If we want clinical trials that actually lead to treatments, we have to get the fundamentals right: we must confirm diagnoses, choose the right comparison groups, and treat patient populations as distinct rather than lumping everyone together. Patients deserve that rigor.”

Journal

Brain

DOI

10.1093/brain/awag016

Method of Research

Systematic review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Designing studies for post-treatment Lyme disease and other infection-associated chronic illnesses

Article Publication Date

18-May-2026

COI Statement

P.M.A. is also employed by Biopeptides, Corp., which has received NIH grant funding and has patents for diagnostic technologies for Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases, not relevant to the contents of this paper. Other authors report no competing interests.

Tue, 19 May 2026 12:59:27 +0000

SPACE/COSMOS

A galactic collision ignited stellar fireworks in the Milky Way

A study rewrites the history of the Milky Way and reveals how galaxy collisions can destroy stellar discs

University of Barcelona
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image:
A frame from the Auriga simulations, which study galaxies similar to the Milky Way.
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Credit: Matthew Orkney and Chervin Laporte

A new study led by researchers at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) reveals how the discs of galaxies like the Milky Way are affected by ancient galactic collisions.
Published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the study analyses, using simulations, how galaxy collisions can completely or partially destroy stellar discs. Together with observational data on star clusters, the authors use this study to improve predictions about the timing of the last significant galactic collision in the Milky Way.
When did the Milky Way’s disc spin up?
The disc of the Milky Way is a vast, rotating, pancake-shaped system of stars, with spiral arms winding out from its centre. This disc contains the majority of the galaxy’s stars, including the Sun, and rotates at over 220 kilometres per second.
For a long time, astronomers have tried to determine when this rotating disc formed. A key clue lies in the motions and ages of the stars: at some point in the galaxy’s early history, the stars began moving in a coherent, rotating pattern, marking what scientists call the galaxy’s spin-up time.
However, the Milky Way did not form in isolation. For decades, scientists have suspected that a violent collision with a smaller galaxy played an important role in shaping the Milky Way as we observe it today. This suspicion was confirmed in 2018, when data from the Gaia mission revealed a large population of stars whose unusual motions could only be explained by a massive merger that occurred about ten billion years ago. This event is now known as the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus (GSE) merger.
In this study, simulations of Milky Way–like galaxies (the Auriga simulations) are used to investigate how rotating discs form under different scenarios. These simulations show how galaxies such as the Milky Way react to ancient collisions.
Galactic fires and ancient collisions
The study shows that rotating stellar discs often formed much earlier than previously thought, but can be partially or completely destroyed by major galactic collisions. As a result, the moment when the Milky Way’s disc appears to spin up cannot mark when the first time the disc formed, but rather the moment when the galaxy recovered from a destructive merger.
Applying insights from these simulations, the authors infer that the Gaia–Sausage–Enceladus merger probably occurred about 11 billion years ago, earlier than many previous estimates had indicated. Crucially, this timing coincides with a sharp increase in the formation of star clusters in the Milky Way. These bursts of star formation are a natural consequence of galactic collisions, which compress gas and trigger intense star formation.
“Models of the Gaia–Sausage–Enceladus merger predict that a galactic firework should have followed the impact, raising star formation and fostering the formation of globular clusters. This is the first time this link has been made,” says co-author Chervin F. P. Laporte, a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
“This research highlights the important relationship between galactic structure and ancient collisions, which must be understood in unison in order to understand the history of our galaxy,” adds Matthew D. A. Orkney, the study’s lead author and a researcher at ICCUB and IEEC.
Scientists cannot travel back in time to observe the Milky Way in its youth, but they can observe the formation of similar galaxies in the distant Universe using new data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a powerful radio telescope.
The full paper is available here, and Auriga simulation data are publicly accessible for future research.

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