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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 22, 2026 at 7:24am

The team found that greater skin conductance synchrony was associated with reduced reciprocity, but only when partners could see each other. Exploratory analyses also suggested that this relationship depended on participants' level of arousal (i.e., bodily activation).

Crucially, this effect showed up in participants' bodily responses. Their bodies seemed to register the shared state of the interaction, and this bodily resonance helped explain why they later behaved less reciprocally. In short: it is not simply whether we synchronize that matters, but what we synchronize on.
The results of this study challenge the assumption that physiological synchrony consistently supports cooperation and reciprocity. Instead, they suggest that the relationship between synchrony and cooperation depends on the circumstances of an interaction and participants' bodily activation.

If synchrony is not simply a force for connection, but a way of bodily tuning into another person, then it may also be one of the tools we use to understand them.
When we fall into rhythm with someone, we may pick up subtle information about their intentions, emotions and likely actions, sometimes before they say or do anything explicit. In other words, synchrony could be part of what makes humans good social predictors. It may allow us to anticipate whether someone is about to cooperate, withdraw, become aggressive or offer support.

Fabiola Diana et al., Physiological synchrony predicts reduced reciprocity only in face-to-face interactions, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2026). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2025.3224.

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 22, 2026 at 7:21am

Synchronized bodily responses do not always reflect cooperation, study finds

Sometimes, while people are interacting with each other, their movements and physiological responses can fall into step. Some past studies have linked synchronized bodily responses to cooperation and being attuned to the emotions of others.
A common way of detecting physiological synchrony entails measuring people's skin conductance, or in other words, how easily small electrical currents pass through the skin. This measure reflects the activity of sweat glands, which can become more active when people are more aroused, physically active or stressed.

Researchers recently set out to further explore the link between skin conductance synchronization during face-to-face interactions and cooperation. The results of their experiments, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, suggest that matching bodily responses are not always associated with greater reciprocity (i.e., giving something back in response to receiving something) and cooperation.
Some past research focusing on physiological synchrony suggested that greater synchrony is associated with people feeling more "connected" or attuned to each other. This could in turn promote trust, reciprocity and cooperation.

Since trust is the very backbone of human society, and many daily life situations require us to put our trust in complete strangers (e.g., asking someone to look at your purse while you are going to the bathroom), the primary objective of this study was to research whether this synchrony could also be one of the reasons why people who do not know each other trust one another.
When they analyzed the physiological responses, game outcomes and video recordings they collected, the researchers found that the skin conductance responses of paired participants were more synchronized when they could see each other. Notably, differences in facial expressivity, or how expressive participants' faces were, did not appear to account for the greater synchrony during face-to-face interactions.
These findings suggest a complicated story. Synchrony may work less like a 'connection button' and more like an emotional amplifier: it can make us feel what the other person feels. And that is not always a good thing.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 21, 2026 at 10:34am

Soil minerals might throw off radiocarbon dating of groundwater, leading to underestimation of its true age
New research reveals that soil carbonates contain active radiocarbon rather than being "dead," meaning decades of groundwater age estimates have systematically underestimated how old underground water really is.
A new study suggests that groundwater dating methods used worldwide to manage scarce water resources may be flawed. Researchers from the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) Ahmedabad, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar found that standard techniques for calculating the age of underground water supplies miss key details, leading scientists to systematically underestimate the age of young-to-intermediate groundwater systems. By analysing soil and water samples across semi-arid regions in western India, the research team found that soil minerals long assumed to be completely devoid of radioactive carbon actually carry a significant, active radiocarbon signature. This oversight means that calculations tracking how long water has been trapped underground have been inaccurate.
The error arises from how radiocarbon dating is traditionally applied to groundwater. When rain and irrigation water seep through soil, they absorb carbon dioxide produced by plant roots and microbes, which carries a modern radiocarbon signature. As this water moves downward, it dissolves minerals in the soil, like carbonates. For decades, standard correction models assumed these dissolved carbonates were completely dead, meaning they contained zero radiocarbon because of their ancient origins. Under this old assumption, carbonate dissolution simply diluted the modern carbon dioxide, lowering the initial radiocarbon count and requiring a specific age adjustment.

However, the new measurements call this baseline assumption into question. The researchers found that soil carbonates significantly influence recharge-zone water and affect the dissolved inorganic carbon pool in unsaturated-zone soil water, contributing an average of about 13% to DIC. Unlike conventional groundwater dating models that assume soil carbonates contain no radiocarbon, the pedogenic carbonates in the study area have active radiocarbon ages ranging from 3,500 to 14,000 BP. Conventional groundwater models introduce biases because soil carbonates contain active radiocarbon rather than dead carbon; assuming a zero-carbon endmember systematically overestimates groundwater age, particularly for younger systems under 10,000 years.

While previous studies acknowledged that carbonates dissolve into groundwater, many assumed a zero-radiocarbon endmember. By measuring radiocarbon in unsaturated-zone soil water and soil carbonates, this study bridges a major gap in hydrogeology. It shows that groundwater chemical evolution is a direct mix of modern soil gas and finite-age pedogenic carbonate.

The researchers, however, note that they faced technical hurdles during sample processing, as strong acid treatments occasionally released trace carbon from organic matter alongside the targeted inorganic carbon. Furthermore, insufficient carbon recovery in some samples left certain datasets incomplete, highlighting the extreme analytical challenges of isolating micro-quantities of carbon in complex, dryland soils.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/article/abs/rad...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 21, 2026 at 10:14am

AI model hunts down fake news

Researchers have developed an automated system for detecting fake news that achieved accuracy rates above 98% in tests on two datasets; in other words, it missed just one or two fake news items in every 100. They provide details of their approach in the International Journal of Information and Computer Security.
The new system uses a transformer encoder, an artificial intelligence (AI) model that identifies relationships between words and their context. This is combined with a deer-hunting optimization algorithm (DHOA), a computational technique for finding effective model settings, based on modeling the way in which human hunters track and pursue prey. The researchers removed web addresses, punctuation and common, or "stop," words before applying their analysis to the text. The DHOA component automatically fine-tunes the model's settings rather than requiring manual selection and calibration.

Automated detection could accelerate manual fact-checking, which is often expensive and time-consuming, allowing social media platforms to screen out misleading claims quickly to avoid their rapid spread.

The next step will be to test the system on real-world social media content to see whether it can distinguish deceptive material from the legitimate reporting it closely resembles. As it stands, the approach is limited to text, rather than checking for the manipulation of images, deepfake videos or inconsistencies between text and visual evidence.

Yamini Devi Jonnala et al., Automatic fake news detection using an optimised transformer with deer hunting optimisation algorithm, International Journal of Information and Computer Security (2026). DOI: 10.1504/ijics.2026.156919

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 21, 2026 at 8:54am

Forgotten particle could answer mystery of why we exist, say physicists

Scientists have unveiled a new theory on the birth of the cosmos, suggesting the early universe was shaped by an ancient particle that has been overlooked for decades.
Their research tackles one of the greatest conundrums in modern physics—how matter triumphed over antimatter in the aftermath of the Big Bang.

According to current theories, both should have annihilated each other after a colossal explosion, leaving nothing but an empty universe of pure energy. But physicists say they found a clue in a neutrino, one of the lightest particles in the universe.
The team discovered that an often-ignored relative of these particles, known as a 'decoupled' heavy neutrino, could have helped matter dominate over its counterpart.
This decoupled heavy neutrino has long been dismissed as an irrelevant background detail in particle physics.

However, it decays incredibly slowly. As the cosmos cooled after the Big Bang, the particle lived long enough that it temporarily took over the energy density of the universe and triggered a matter-dominated period.
Most theories on why matter won over antimatter ignored the decoupled heavy particle because experts deemed it too weak to have any impact on others.
However, the researchers of this study found that the forgotten particle could affect the particle–antiparticle asymmetry essential for our existence.

The fact that we are here at all proves that an asymmetry between matter and antimatter occurred.
The decoupled neutrino shifted the temperature in the early universe at which fundamental particles—like electrons and other leptons—interacted with their antiparticles with the help of the Standard Model Higgs boson.

"This temperature acts like a switch that shapes how the matter-antimatter imbalance was built up."
This offers us a new explanation for how matter won.

Rishav Roshan et al., Delayed Charged Lepton Yukawa Equilibration in Minimal Seesaw, Physical Review Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1103/nfkx-q6z7

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2026 at 1:39pm

The team used a powerful microscope to discover that microscopic channels in coral tissues align shortly after contact, creating a pathway for transport between corals. Beneficial algae and the nutrients they produce then flow through these channels. The team observed that beneficial algae moved from healthy to bleached fragments within three days of contact.

The team also tested how different contact durations influenced recovery rates. They separated coral pairs at varying time intervals and found that after one week of contact, and in some cases after just five days, bleached fragments received enough beneficial algae to complete recovery on their own.

After separation, recovery took just seven weeks, matching the recovery time of coral pairs left in continuous contact. This led the team to realize that algae replicating within the bleached fragment, rather than traveling from the healthy fragment, primarily drove continued recovery.

Once beneficial algae enter bleached corals, they don't just spread out. They flood in and start dividing at the fastest rates seen in corals.
During the second week of contact with healthy corals, algae within bleached fragments doubled every four days, roughly 10 times faster than the rate observed in wild corals.

Daniel S. Collins et al., Rapid coral bleaching recovery via symbiont transfer from healthy corals, Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeh1580

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2026 at 1:37pm

Scientists discover a way to reverse coral bleaching at record speed

For the first time, scientists have observed bleached corals on the brink of death fully recover through brief contact with healthy clones. Ghostly white corals returned to full health in a laboratory setting within seven weeks, the fastest documented recovery to date, according to a study published in Science Advances.
Bleached coral fragments recovered within seven weeks in laboratory tests after 5–7 days of contact with healthy, genetically identical fragments; those without contact died. Contact enabled transfer of beneficial algae, which then multiplied rapidly. Requiring healthy clones limits reef-scale application.
The findings could inspire the development of new methods to rapidly restore corals, which, by some estimates, could disappear within a few decades as climate change drives more frequent and intense marine heat waves.

When waters warm, corals expel colorful, beneficial algae that live in their tissues and provide the energy that corals need to grow. The loss of their algae partners leaves corals pale, starving and vulnerable to the invasion of harmful algae. If corals survive these bleaching events, it can take months to years for them to fully recover.

"While bleached corals may be dying, they are not dead yet".
So scientists asked, 'why can't we make them recover again?'

Sometime back these scientists observed something curious about coral biology in their research lab. Two coral fragments—one bleached, one healthy—sampled from the same colony had tipped over in a tank and were now touching. Where they made contact, colour returned to the bleached fragment, signalling the return of beneficial algae.
So they set up an experiment.
They assembled 10 pairs of coral fragments—one bleached, one healthy—from the same animal. They arranged five pairs close enough to touch and left gaps of just a few millimeters between the remaining pairs. The bleached fragments in touching pairs fully recovered within seven weeks, while those without contact died.

Genetically identical corals recognize one another when they come into contact.
Their tissues fuse if they are from the same clone. We see something similar in humans. Organ transplants are often successful if the donor is your identical twin.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2026 at 12:23pm

When LLMs are trained on frivolous online content, they can get brain rot like humans do

As humans and AI models roam the internet, they encounter lots of junk: clickbait headlines, misinformation, hashtags. Research indicates that this junk-filled environment could be a cause for concern.
"Brain rot" has emerged as a term to describe cognitive changes—like diminished attention spans—in humans who engage with an abundance of frivolous, attention-grabbing content.

Training four LLMs on low-quality, attention-grabbing Twitter posts impaired reasoning and memory, increased skipped reasoning steps, and weakened ethical safeguards. Subsequent training on higher-quality data did not fully restore performance, underscoring the importance of training data quality.
The main message from this research is that the language models can pick up some bad cognitive habits from the low-quality information from social media, similar to how people can be influenced by trivial, clickbait content.
Junk data is popular, short and written to grab attention rather than inspire deep thought. Posts that are considered junk data may include words like "WOW" or "TODAY ONLY" written in all caps, or they may focus on superficial lifestyle content, unsupported claims or conspiracy theories.

In addition to diminished attention spans, prior research has linked brain rot in humans to changes in memory processes and personality. Similarly, the researchers in this study found the main cognitive change in LLMs trained on junk data was thought-skipping, meaning the model will skip steps, or not "think" at all, before providing an answer.

The researchers also found that once brain rot takes hold, it is difficult to root out. "Even after we use some higher-quality data to train the model or deploy some techniques to improve the model's response, it is very hard to recover the model's performance.
Their findings highlight the importance of data quality when training LLMs.

Shuo Xing et al., LLMs Can Get "Brain Rot": A Pilot Study on Twitter/X, arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2510.13928

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2026 at 12:08pm

Who really made China's Terracotta Army? Fingerprints reveal new clues

The Terracotta Army near Xi'an, China, is a breathtaking sight: thousands of life-size terracotta figures created in the third century B.C. to guard the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuang. They were discovered in 1974, and people have assumed they were built exclusively by men. But new research on this underground army and its chariots, horses and weapons suggests women and children lent a helping hand.
To find out who really did the work, researchers led by Xiaoxi Li at the Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi'an searched for clues on the figures themselves.

The team studied 79 fingerprints from 36 figures in a single excavation pit. These prints were pressed into the clay in different parts of the statues, including the arms, body armor and heads. The scientists photographed them and measured the distance between the fingerprint ridges, which tends to increase as children grow older.

Previous studies struggled to tell the difference between adult women and teenage boys based on the fingerprints they left behind. So in this research, the scientists turned to a clever statistical model.

Called a Bayesian mixture model, the technique analyzes the entire group of prints at once rather than trying to classify every single mark individually. And it compares ancient prints with modern fingerprint data for different ages and sexes.

The results, published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, suggested a far more diverse workforce than expected. "The model results indicate that the artisan community was not exclusively composed of adult males," the study authors wrote in their paper.

In fact, the model estimated that adult men accounted for only about 45% of the fingerprints. Adult women made up nearly 33%, while juveniles under 15 were estimated to have left 22%.

While these results suggest the involvement of women and children, they may not tell the whole story for the entire site. The sample size is small and only from a single spot within this vast burial complex. Additionally, multiple prints could belong to a single individual, which could skew the overall demographic results.

"Unit T23 represents only a localized area of Pit 1, so the results may reflect the labour structure of a specific phase or production group rather than the entire project."

But even with all these caveats, the findings challenge long-held assumptions about the labour force at this historic site.

Xiaoxi Li et al., Who produced Emperor Qin Shihuang's Terracotta Army, China? A Bayesian mixture model approach to fingerprint age and sex determination, Journal of Cultural Heritage (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.culher.2026.09.014

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2026 at 12:02pm

Second-ever case of rare fungus resistant to four antifungal drug classes detected in Kenya

Candidozyma auris is a yeast that can cause invasive infections and has been flagged in World Health Organization lists as a top-priority threat, as it spreads easily in hospitals. This notorious fungus survives for long periods on surfaces and often resists major classes of antifungal medications used to treat fungal infections.

A recent study uncovered an extremely rare fungal strain that can withstand all four major classes of antifungal drugs—azoles, echinocandins, polyenes and flucytosine.

Researchers isolated the pan-drug-resistant strain from a 28-year-old patient who developed a surgical wound infection while hospitalized in Nairobi, Kenya. This is the first time a pan-drug-resistant strain of the fungus has been identified in Africa and only the second documented case worldwide. The first case was reported in New York.

Genetic testing traced the fungus to a lineage already circulating in Kenya and identified a specific combination of drug-resistance mutations that could explain why the antifungal medicines failed.

Erick Odoyo et al., Emergence of pan-drug resistant Candidozyma auris in Kenya, the second globally documented case, Scientific Reports (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-70653-9

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