Heart disease risk may start in the womb

A child's future heart health may be partially shaped before they are born, reports a new study that found pregnancy complications are linked to poorer cardiovascular health in offspring more than 20 years later.
Maternal pregnancy complications, particularly high blood pressure, are associated with poorer cardiovascular health in offspring at age 22, including higher BMI, blood pressure, blood sugar, and increased arterial wall thickness. Gestational diabetes and preterm birth also showed links to adverse cardiovascular markers. These findings suggest that cardiovascular risk may be influenced by prenatal exposures.
The study found that young adults whose mothers had high blood pressure during pregnancy—either pregnancy-associated hypertension, pre-eclampsia or eclampsia—had more signs of early arterial injury, higher blood pressure, higher body mass index and higher blood sugar than peers.

The authors said the study adds to growing evidence that cardiovascular risk may be transmitted across generations through a combination of biological, environmental and behavioural factors.

That means we must make sure people maintain good health from childhood into young adulthood, so that if or when someone becomes a parent, they pass on the best opportunity for good health to their children.
At around age 22, participants whose mothers had high blood pressure during pregnancy had:

Higher body mass index (+2.8 BMI points)
Higher diastolic blood pressure (+2.3 mm Hg)
Higher blood sugar levels (+0.2% HbA1c)
Thicker artery walls (~0.02 mm)
While the difference in artery wall thickness may seem small, the study authors said it corresponds to roughly three to five years of additional vascular aging. That means arteries look older and less healthy than expected, which raises the risk of future heart disease.

Other pregnancy complications also showed some long-term effects:

Exposure to gestational diabetes was linked to worse blood pressure and some evidence of artery thickening
Being born preterm was associated with higher blood sugar levels

The good news is that most heart disease is preventable

Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes and Cardiovascular Health Among Offspring in Early Adulthood, JAMA Network Open (2026). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.6783

Research shows individual protein needs vary widely, challenging the idea of a single daily target

Individual protein requirements vary significantly based on factors such as age, sex, activity level, and health status, making a single daily protein guideline insufficient for all populations. Newer measurement methods indicate protein breakdown may be higher than previously estimated, supporting a shift toward individualized, context-specific protein recommendations.
Protein has become the star of the modern diet. From shakes, bars and powders to viral fitness advice, the message seems clear: more protein equals better health. But new research suggests it's not that simple.
For decades, nutrition guidance has centered on a single benchmark: about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. That recommendation was designed to meet the needs of nearly all healthy people, and it remains the standard used in dietary guidelines today.
But the problem is that this guideline was never meant to apply to everyone. Two people with the same body weight may have different requirements depending on factors like sex, activity level, age and overall health.
We need to think more on an individual basis. You cannot take one value. Protein requirements were never meant for special populations—they were only meant for healthy, young people. When you get older, your requirements change, and more importantly, if you have a chronic disease, your requirements are also different. So, you cannot use this one number in all cases.

If you've been trying to hit a specific protein goal every day, here's some reassurance: you're likely already getting enough!
The limits of a one-size-fits-all protein guideline:
Part of the issue lies in how protein needs have traditionally been measured.
Researchers have traditionally relied on methods that track amino acids in the bloodstream to estimate how much protein the body breaks down and needs to replace. But those measurements don't fully capture what's happening inside the body's cells, where protein turnover takes place.

As a result, they can underestimate how much protein the body is actually using.
Using a new approach, the researchers found that protein breakdown in the body may be significantly higher than previously estimated, helping explain why a single universal guideline may not reflect individual needs.

The future of nutrition lies in tailoring recommendations to the individual.

This is what the researchers call precision nutrition and individualized protein needs.

This approach considers factors like a person's habitual diet, health status and physiology, recognizing that two people of the same size may have very different nutritional needs.

Instead of chasing a universal number, the focus should shift toward understanding individual needs and context.

Nicolaas E.P. Deutz et al, A novel pulse tracer method to estimate the relationship between amino acid meal composition and its intracellular disposal, Clinical Nutrition (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.clnu.2025.10.002

When words look like their meaning, we process them faster, new research reveals
Words whose visual letter shapes resemble their meanings—demonstrating visual iconicity—are processed more quickly and accurately, even after controlling for word frequency, length, and concreteness. Words for round or spiky objects rated higher in iconicity when containing correspondingly shaped letters, and such words are typically learned earlier. This suggests that visual features of written words can facilitate language processing.

Common NSAIDs in first trimester show no birth defect link, data suggest
First trimester exposure to common NSAIDs, including ibuprofen, diclofenac, and naproxen, was not associated with an increased risk of major congenital malformations or defects in specific organ systems. No significant dose-response relationship was observed, indicating NSAID use in early pregnancy does not elevate birth defect risk.
Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as ibuprofen and naproxen, taken during the first trimester of pregnancy are not associated with an increased risk of major birth defects, according to a new study published in PLOS Medicine.
Pain and fever are common in early pregnancy and the options to manage them have been limited. Studies have raised safety concerns regarding acetaminophen while data on the safety of NSAIDs—which include widely used medications such as ibuprofen, diclofenac, and naproxen—has remained inconclusive.

The new study used data from the Southern Israeli Pregnancy Registry (SiPREG) to analyze 264,858 singleton pregnancies between 1998 and 2018, of which 20,202 (7.6%) were exposed to NSAIDs during the first trimester—most commonly ibuprofen (5.1%), diclofenac (1.6%), and naproxen (1.2%).

Major congenital malformations were identified from linked clinical, hospitalization, and termination records. The researchers adjusted risks for maternal and pregnancy characteristics including maternal age, ethnicity, diabetes, obesity, folic acid use, and the reason for NSAID use.

NSAID exposure was not associated with major congenital malformations overall (8.2% vs. 7.0% in unexposed pregnancies; matched adjusted relative risk = 0.99), nor with malformations in specific organ systems including the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, central nervous system, gastrointestinal, and genitourinary systems.

No association was observed for any individual drug, and dose-response analyses found no significant link between cumulative NSAID exposure and birth defect risk.
The results provide reassuring evidence that NSAID use in early pregnancy is not associated with major birth defects.

Hasidim AA, et al. First-trimester nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs exposure and risk of major congenital malformations: A retrospective register-based cohort study, PLOS Medicine (2026). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1005063

Prenatal exposure to chemical mixtures may influence fetal growth through the placenta

Prenatal exposure to mixtures of environmental chemicals, particularly low molecular weight phthalates, is associated with lower birthweight and altered fetoplacental blood flow, potentially mediated by imbalances in angiogenic biomarkers. Organophosphate mixtures correlated with higher foetal weight, possibly reflecting dietary factors. These findings indicate that chemical mixtures may influence foetal growth via placental mechanisms.

Bethany Knox et al, Prenatal Exposure to Mixtures of Nonpersistent Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals and Angiogenic Biomarkers, Placental Function, and Fetal Growth, Environmental Science & Technology (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c13234

Autoimmune gene provides viral protection

A variant of the gene PTPN22 linked to autoimmune diseases also appears to have a protective effect against viral infections. Researchers found that in mice, the presence of this variant kick-starts the activity of natural killer cells against a type of coronavirus. Removing natural killer cells from mice without the mutation had no effect on their ability to fight off the infection, which suggests these cells are not usually involved in the antiviral response. The findings could explain why this variant is relatively common in people, despite its link to diseases such as diabetes and lupus.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2519903123

Are microbes the future of pollution clean-up?
Synthetic biologists are engineering bacteria to feast on oil, plastic and toxic chemicals

Microbes eat pollution — if we let them
A growing community of synthetic biologists are using biotechnology-led solutions — mostly microorganisms containing DNA tailored for a specific function — to tackle pollution ranging from microplastics and industrial waste to soils laced with heavy metals or explosive residues. But the field is held back by concerns around releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment, and the fact that current incentives make polluting profitable while cleaning up costs money.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01420-z?utm_source=Live+...

India’s DNA map uncovers millions of missing genetic variants A vast study reveals deep diversity, hidden disease risks and exposes the limits of Eurocentric medicine.

India’s DNA map reveals amazing diversity
India’s biggest gene-sequencing effort has shed new light on the diversity of the population, identifying nearly 130 million genetic variants, almost a third of which have not been reported previously. The GenomeIndia project analysed the whole genomes of almost 10,000 people, uncovering 44 million variants that weren’t already in global scientific databases. The study also revealed genetic risk factors in some populations, such as variants in genes that affect how the body processes certain drugs, variants linked to anaesthesia-related complications and extremely high levels of genetic homozygosity — when individuals inherit identical forms of a gene at a particular chromosome location from both parents. This can be a risk factor for recessive genetic diseases.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.20.26348801v1

https://www.nature.com/articles/d44151-026-00082-0?utm_source=Live+...

Physicists created hybrid light-matter particles that interact strongly enough to compute

Hybrid light-matter quasiparticles called exciton-polaritons, formed by coupling photons with electrons in atomically thin semiconductors, enable strong light interactions sufficient for all-optical signal switching. This approach achieves switching at extremely low energy levels (~4 quadrillionths of a joule), potentially enhancing photonic chip efficiency and supporting direct optical processing and quantum computing functions.

Zhi Wang et al, Strongly Nonlinear Nanocavity Exciton Polaritons in Gate-Tunable Monolayer Semiconductors, Physical Review Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1103/gc15-qsvf

How the brain recombines past knowledge for flexible planning

When facing new situations or problems, humans typically rely on knowledge they acquired in the past. Specifically, neuroscience studies suggest that the brain reorganizes past experiences and previously acquired knowledge, creating mental frameworks that can help humans to solve the problems they are facing. The recombination of past knowledge into new mental structures also allows humans to flexibly plan future actions in changing environments. Past studies suggest that two key brain regions contribute to this process, the hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC).

The hippocampus is a brain structure that plays a key role in the formation of memories and spatial navigation. The mPFC, on the other hand, is known to support decision-making, planning, reasoning and the integration of information.

Researchers  recently set out to investigate how the hippocampus and mPFC work together to combine past knowledge into new configurations. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that this process is supported by brief bursts of high-frequency neural activity in the hippocampus, called hippocampal ripples, and the replay (i.e., re-activation) of past experiences in the brain.

The human brain excels at solving novel problems by flexibly recombining a limited set of familiar elements, often through the internal planning of sequences that assemble these elements into new configurations.

The researchers  analyzed brain activity recordings collected by the electrodes in the participants' brains during the experiment. This allowed them to understand how brain activity changed while the participants were combining past knowledge to complete the task at hand.

The brain activity patterns observed by the researchers suggest that the hippocampus and mPFC closely coordinate to recombine familiar pieces of information into new mental structures. Short bursts of brain activity (i.e., ripples) in the hippocampus appear to help the brain to reorganize stored memories.

During these ripple events, the brain appears to rapidly replay sequences of information, reorganizing familiar building blocks into new combinations that are useful for solving the problem/task at hand. Concurrently, the mPFC appears to update its activity patterns to represent the newly identified solution to a problem.

Hippocampal ripples shift mPFC representations toward the inferred relational configuration, facilitated by replay that reorganizes building blocks into candidate sequences," wrote the authors. "Replay is strongest during ripple periods, closely coordinates with mPFC activity and is predictive of efficient inferential behavior. Together, hippocampal ripples and replay emerge as a key mechanism for dynamically updating cortical representations online to support planning and inference."

This recent study offers new insight into how the human brain flexibly combines past knowledge to creatively tackle new tasks or problems.

Li He et al, Human hippocampal ripples coordinate planning sequences and compositional representations in neocortex, Nature Neuroscience (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02291-3

Implantable bacteria can now be safely contained, clearing a major hurdle for fighting infection and cancer

Researchers have long known that bacteria could potentially be used to deliver therapeutic drugs inside the human body. However, safely and successfully carrying out such a feat in humans has been a challenge. But now, researchers  have made another step forward toward the goal of using microbes as medicine. Their recent study, published in Science, details a novel method for containing engineered bacteria to keep them from infecting their host while still successfully delivering potentially life-saving medications.

Researchers have had success in engineering implantable bacteria that can sense infections and then release medications to kill other bacteria or cancer cells. These engineered bacteria must still be contained, however, to prevent dissemination and toxicity.
To do this, attempts have been made using hydrogels to encapsulate the engineered bacteria, but these often failed to prevent escape over time due to increasing pressure from expanding bacterial colonies or under physical stress from the body. Genetic containment strategies have also been attempted, but often fail due to evolutionary changes in the bacteria over time.

Yet, the idea of bacteria as living therapeutics is still attractive to scientists because of their ability to colonize a wide range of physiological environments, such as mucosa, infected sites, skin, inflamed tissues and tumors, and the ability to deliver therapeutics in response to specific biological signals, as opposed to waiting until symptoms become noticeable in a compromised person. Still, a long-term, biocompatible solution that keeps bacteria confined while allowing them to function as drug factories is crucial for these implantable living materials (ILM) to provide reliable, safe therapies.

Part 1

Keeping bacteria contained with a stiffer, tougher scaffold
The researchers involved in the new study identified two main aspects of existing hydrogel scaffolds that needed improvement. They wrote, "We hypothesized that fulfilling two key criteria for a material enables robust and durable containment of therapeutic bacteria: (i) resistance to the internal forces generated by proliferating bacteria and (ii) mechanical toughness sufficient to withstand deformation from surrounding tissues."

And so, the team engineered an implantable polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel with optimized stiffness and toughness to keep expanding colonies from breaking through and to resist breakage under body movement. They then embedded engineered E. coli bacteria in protective microgels within it.

The team then tested out the new scaffold in various situations. They allowed the encapsulated bacteria to sit in a nutrient broth in the lab for six months, checking in on it frequently to see if any bacteria leaked out. But the scaffold held the bacteria for the entire six-month period.

They also evaluated fatigue resistance using cyclic crack growth testing, which tests how fast a flaw grows in a material under repeated loading. The PVA material showed a high fatigue threshold that indicated a 10-fold improvement over previous agarose-based materials. The new scaffold material also outperformed agarose in mechanical robustness testing and showed that the bacteria remained inside and functional under stress.
The new ILM material was then tested out as a local drug depot in a mouse model. The mice were implanted with a pin containing the ILM and then infected with a bacteria called Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is common in implant surgeries and known for having an inherent resistance to many common classes of antibiotics. The bacteria in the scaffold were engineered to detect P. aeruginosa and release a drug to treat the infection.

The mice implanted with the new ILM material and engineered bacteria showed significantly reduced infection, compared to controls. Engineered bacteria inside the ILM were able to successfully detect infection signals and release the antimicrobial proteins to treat the infections in mice.

The team also performed testing on cancer cells in the lab, which showed successful drug delivery using the new materials. They write, "To evaluate platform versatility beyond antimicrobial therapy, we tested ILMs in a cancer-relevant context. Conditioned media from ILMs encapsulating Escherichia coli ClearColi (Ecc) engineered to express an inducible pore-forming toxin significantly reduced viability of CT26 cancer cells compared with GFP controls."

These results represent a big step in safer microbe-based drug delivery, although long-term safety and immune responses in humans still need to be studied. Further studies will also be helpful for determining potential effects or efficacy of chronic use and broader disease applications.

Tetsuhiro Harimoto et al, Implantable living materials autonomously deliver therapeutics using contained engineered bacteria, Science (2026). DOI: 10.1126/science.aec2071

Part 2

**

Soil also suffers from heat waves: Organic waste boosts its tolerance to 50°C

Adaptability has its limits.

When the temperature exceeds 40 degrees, just as human health suffers, the microorganisms that inhabit the soil—and from there provide a multitude of ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration and plant nutrition—concentrate more on survival than continuing their work.
A study conducted by researchers has determined the temperature limit that soil in various regions can reach before it begins to degrade. The study also provides insights into what we can do to help the soil.

Soil microbial activity and phosphorus availability decline sharply above 40°C, with near-total functional shutdown at 50°C, threatening soil health under recurrent heat waves. Incorporating organic amendments, particularly olive pomace, significantly enhances soil resistance and phosphorus retention at high temperatures, supporting soil resilience and ecosystem services amid climate change.

Above 40 degrees, microorganisms' ability to capture carbon diminishes, and it practically "shuts down" at 50 degrees.
The higher the temperature they endure, the lower the soil's phosphorus reserve becomes, which is virtually non-existent when exposed to temperatures above 40 degrees.
To address this issue, the research team has explored ways to mitigate the damage caused by high temperatures, which they aim to counteract through the use of organic additives that enhance soil resistance.

Sana Boubehziz et al, Soil Preservation in Warming Climate: Organic Amendments Enhance Microbial Carbon Use Efficiency in Mediterranean Soils, European Journal of Soil Science (2026). DOI: 10.1111/ejss.70323

The newborn vitamin K shot: What every parent needs to know

The vitamin K shot is one of the oldest, safest, and most effective preventive interventions in newborn medicine.
The American Academy of Pediatrics—which first endorsed the intervention in 1961—recommends the shot be administered within six hours of birth. But amid a flood of misinformation online, more parents are refusing the shot for their newborns, sometimes with devastating consequences—highlighting the need for better communication about its benefits and the risks of forgoing it.
A single intramuscular vitamin K injection at birth effectively prevents vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB), a potentially fatal condition in newborns who have naturally low vitamin K levels. Without the injection, the risk of VKDB increases up to 81-fold, with consequences including irreversible brain damage or death. Oral alternatives are unreliable, and breast milk does not provide sufficient vitamin K. The injection is safe, with no proven link to cancer or serious side effects.
No parent wants their child to bleed to death. No parent wants their child to have hemorrhaging in their brain.
Vitamin K is essential for blood clotting, but newborns are born with very low levels of the nutrient, making them vulnerable to vitamin K deficiency bleeding, or VKDB—a condition that can cause internal bleeding in the brain, intestines, and other vital organs.

The single vitamin K injection—typically 0.5 mg to 1.0 mg given just after birth— prevents VKDB during the critical first months of life while the baby is building up their own vitamin K stores and before they start eating solid foods around 4–6 months old.

Without the vitamin K shot, the risk of bleeding is up to 81 times higher, with incidents occurring in 1 in 14,000 to 25,000 babies.

While most adults naturally maintain healthy vitamin K levels produced by bacteria in the gut and a balanced diet, the nutrient "does not cross the placenta easily."
Breast milk does not provide sufficient amounts after the birth.
The consequences of VKDB can be swift and devastating—and there's no reliable way to measure a baby's risk.
And the only sign that something is wrong is sudden, catastrophic bleeding, when the bleeding is already severe and difficult to reverse.
Brain bleeds are among the most serious outcomes. Depending on where blood accumulates and how quickly it is detected, consequences range from neurological impairment to death. "If [the hemorrhage] is pushing against the brainstem, which regulates a baby's breathing and heart rate, and it's not detected quickly enough, that has devastating consequences.
After bleeding begins, treatment options are limited. Vitamin K can be administered as a last resort to help stop active bleeding, but damage already done to the brain may be permanent.
Part 1

The rising number of parents refusing the intervention has added a new layer of complexity to diagnosing sick infants in the ED, where the most common cause of bleeding is trauma, such as a fall.

When evaluating infants who did not receive vitamin K injections, "clinicians may need to consider serious bleeding complications when evaluating otherwise nonspecific symptoms such as lethargy, vomiting, seizures, or pauses in breathing."
Parents refuse the shot for a wide range of reasons. One 2019 qualitative study found the refusal was often driven by a broad aversion to anything perceived as foreign or interventional at birth.

Increasingly, refusals are driven by misinformation circulating on social media that often conflates the shot with vaccines simply because it is an injection administered at birth. "But it's not a vaccine—it's a vitamin supplement."
Oral vitamin K—sometimes offered if parents turn down the injection—is not a reliable alternative because absorption through a newborn's gut is inconsistent, and repeat dosing would be required throughout the newborn period, says Howard.

Other reasons parents object to the birth dose:

Fear of side effects: Parents have encountered unfounded claims online about dangerous complications. In reality, decades of use support the shot's safety profile.
The cancer myth: A small study from the 1980s suggested a possible link between the shot and childhood cancer, but subsequent larger, more rigorous studies have not confirmed that association. "We have strong evidence to support that it does not increase an individual's cancer risk," Howard says.
"Breast milk is enough": Some parents mistakenly believe breastfeeding provides sufficient vitamin K—but it does not, says Thorne-Lyman. Unlike vitamin D, which can be meaningfully enriched in breast milk if the mother is sufficiently supplemented, "even if the woman is eating a good diet that's rich in vitamin K sources, there is still a possibility that their child is going to be deficient," he explains. Formula-fed infants may have a somewhat lower risk because formula contains added vitamin K, but the injection is still recommended for all newborns.
Delayed cord clamping: Some families believe that leaving the umbilical cord attached longer will transfer enough vitamin K from the placenta. "Placental transfer of vitamin K is very low, including through the cord blood, so delayed cord clamping does not provide sufficient vitamin K to prevent VKDB," Howard says.
A broader dynamic is also at play: Because VKDB became so rare after the shot was introduced, many parents have no frame of reference for how serious it can be. Because the underlying disease has become invisible, it produces a level of complacency.
Parents, unfortunately, are turning to social media rather than being able to sit down with their pediatrician.
We know now from decades of evidence and use that it is safe, effective, and necessary to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding, which can have deadly, or if not deadly, lifelong consequences for an infant.

https://hub.jhu.edu/2026/05/15/what-parents-need-to-know-newborn-vi....

Fear memories fade faster when brain immune cells engage key neurons

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety disorders are often characterized by fearful responses in specific situations that the mind learns to view as threatening. These fearful responses typically emerge following traumatic events or challenging life experiences, which prompt the brain to form unhelpful associations between specific stimuli and distressing events.

The fearful responses associated with PTSD or anxiety disorders can gradually diminish via a process known as fear extinction. This process entails the repeated exposure to a situation or stimulus perceived as threatening, but without any danger arising.

Understanding the neurobiological processes that support fear extinction could be very valuable, as it could help to devise new therapeutic strategies for treating symptoms of PTSD and anxiety disorders. 

Researchers have been trying to fill the gap in the literature by looking at how microglia in the mouse brain influence fear extinction. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that microglia take part in the weakening of fearful memories over time via interactions with neurons.

Part 1

As part of their study, researchers studied mice that had previously formed associations between neutral stimuli (e.g., a sound) and adverse experiences (i.e., a small electric shock). They looked at cells in the mice's brains as they were undergoing fear extinction, or in other words, while they were repeatedly exposed to the stimuli they had learned to associate with danger, but in the absence of any adverse stimuli.

To do this, they first used activity-dependent tagging techniques to label neurons in the brain of mice that store specific fear memories. These fearful memory-encoding neurons are known as engrams.

They then examined what happened during extinction learning and found that microglia preferentially interacted with these neurons. Next, they disrupted these interactions using genetic and pharmacological approaches. Across experiments, interfering with microglia-engram interactions slowed extinction learning, indicating that microglia actively help regulate the weakening of fear memories.
The team's observations suggest that microglia contribute to the extinction of fear memories in mice and in the weakening of associated fearful responses. Specifically, the researchers found that interactions between microglia and neurons temporarily reduced the activity of fear engram neurons.

When they prevented these interactions from taking place, the fear extinction process appeared to slow down considerably. This suggests that microglia play a significant role in the weakening of fear responses and are in fact active regulators of fear extinction.

The most important finding is that extinction is not solely a neuronal process.
The results of this recent study could soon help to refine existing models of fear extinction. In addition, they could pave the way for new research that specifically explores the role of microglia in the recovery from PTSD and anxiety disorders.

Yunlong Liu et al, Microglia-dependent regulation of fear memory extinction, Nature Neuroscience (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-026-02286-0.

Rivalry with neighboring groups may be a key driver of male size in primates

In many primate species, males are much larger than their female counterparts, which is generally attributed to male competition for mates (sexual selection). But bigger bodies may not just be about alpha males defeating rivals. They could also come about because of competition between neighbouring social groups, according to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters.

The authors thought that the standard scientific view that a primate male's size was mostly determined by rivalry within the same group was not the full story. They wanted to see if the threat from outsiders was an even more powerful evolutionary engine. One of the reasons for this was that primate groups are not isolated. They tend to live close to other groups, meaning they must share or fight for resources.

The team searched through scientific literature and collected data on 146 different primate species. They compared male and female size against several measures of between-group competition. These included the daily encounter rate, the proportion of encounters that were antagonistic, and the home range overlap (the percentage of a group's total range that is shared with a neighbouring group).

It turns out that the mating system, which describes how males and females pair up for breeding, was not a strong predictor of size differences. Instead, it was pressure for space. The authors discovered that the more a group's territory overlaps with its neighbours, the larger the males are compared to the females. Frequent encounters with neighbouring groups also appear to promote the evolution of larger male bodies.

Their hypothesis is that the evolutionary advantage and driver of size is that it acts as a silent deterrent. Being larger helps a male defend resources and guard mates by simply being intimidating. This reduces the need for risky physical fights. Over time, evolution favors these larger males because they can successfully protect their group and territory by their physical presence alone.

"Home range overlap may select for larger males to deter rivals, defend resources or monopolize females across shared territories, potentially without frequent physical contests," wrote the research team in their paper.

Cyril C. Grueter et al, Effects of between-group competition on sexual size dimorphism in primates, Biology Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2025.0680

Natural malaria immunity:  The secret to why some people never get sick

People living in regions where malaria outbreaks are common experience repeated exposure to the disease, which gradually teaches the body how to fight back. Over time, they develop naturally acquired immunity that helps the body control the density of malaria parasites (Plasmodium falciparum) in the blood and prevent the development of clinical symptoms.

A recent study set out to pinpoint the specific parts of the malaria parasite that the immune system targets to protect the body from disease. The researchers deliberately infected 142 Kenyan adults known to be immune to malaria, then monitored their symptoms and parasite levels. They successfully identified six merozoite antigens—proteins on the surface of the malaria parasite—that were linked to natural immunity against the disease. The findings were published in Nature Communications.

 Six key proteins linked to protection: MSP1, MSP11, RAMA, MSP7, PHISTB, and PTEX150.

The team found that immunity was strongest when the body produced antibodies against more than one protein, as combinations of antibodies worked more effectively. They also observed that individuals with high levels of antibodies against four of the six proteins were the ones who showed complete protection from developing malaria symptoms during the study.

For vaccine researchers, these findings can open up promising new directions in the fight against malaria. More effective vaccines could ultimately save millions of lives, particularly among children in Africa, where the disease continues to wreak havoc every year.

Rodney Ogwang et al, Controlled human malaria infection in adults identify combinations of merozoite antigens associated with clinical immunity, Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72716-x

Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT
Prolonged, intensive interactions with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT have been associated with the emergence of AI-induced delusions or psychosis, characterized by loss of reality, social isolation, and significant personal and psychological harm. These effects appear to be exacerbated by chatbot behaviors such as excessive flattery and emotional engagement, raising concerns about mental health risks and the need for regulatory oversight.
An unknown number of people have lost their grip on reality while communicating with chatbots, an experience tentatively being called AI-induced delusion or psychosis.
This is not a clinical diagnosis. Researchers and mental health specialists are racing to catch up to this new, little-understood phenomenon, which so far appears to particularly affect users of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

In the meantime, an online community set up by a 26-year-old Canadian has become the world's most prominent support group for these delusions, which they prefer to call "spiraling."
Questions are also being asked about whether AI companies are doing enough to protect vulnerable people.
People are literally getting brainwashed by a robot!

RESEARCH REPORTS

Loss of the X chromosome is associated with reduced chance of natural pregnancy

Chromosomes carry genetic information for biological sex, which generally assigns women two X chromosomes and men XY chromosomes. This is a basic principle of human genetics most are taught in grade school biology, but it is little known that with aging, men can lose the Y chromosome, and women can lose one of their X chromosomes.

These phenomena are known as loss of the Y chromosome (LOY) and loss of the X chromosome (LOX). LOY is associated with several diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes mellitus, and heart disease, while LOX may be linked to acute myeloid leukemia and pneumonia.
Loss of the X chromosome (LOX) in white blood cells is more prevalent in women with infertility, and a LOX cell proportion above approximately 0.9% is associated with reduced likelihood of natural pregnancy. LOX levels were not correlated with anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), suggesting that combining LOX and AMH assessments may improve prediction of natural pregnancy potential.
The results revealed that women with infertility had a significantly higher proportion of LOX cells. Furthermore, when the proportion of LOX cells in white blood cells exceeded approximately 0.9%, the likelihood of achieving natural pregnancy decreased.
In the future, measuring LOX in individuals experiencing infertility may help determine whether natural pregnancy is possible or whether fertility treatments, such as in vitro fertilization, should be initiated at an earlier stage.

Taiki Kikuchi et al, Haematopoietic loss of the X chromosome is associated with a lower likelihood of natural conception, Reproductive BioMedicine Online (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.rbmo.2026.105638

Osteoporosis could increase mortality risk in postmenopausal women, study suggests
Osteoporosis in postmenopausal women is associated with a 47% increased risk of mortality, particularly when femoral bone mineral density falls within the osteoporotic range (0.46–0.71 g/cm2). Lower bone mineral density serves as a prognostic biomarker for systemic health, indicating elevated mortality risk beyond fracture incidence.
Osteoporosis, which is highly prevalent in postmenopausal women, has long been associated with an increased risk of fractures. A new study suggests it may also increase a woman's overall risk of death—by as much as 47%—especially within specific ranges of bone mineral density (0.46-0.71 g/cm2 for total femur bone mineral density). Results of the study are published online in Menopause.
As the total population ages, the incidence of osteoporosis also increases. In 2022, the global prevalence of osteoporosis was 19.7%, with women exhibiting a significantly higher prevalence than men (23.1%).

One study projected that by 2030 the number of people affected by osteoporosis worldwide will reach 263 million, with 154 million of them being women. Previous research has documented that postmenopausal women experience a significantly higher mortality rate within one year after hip or vertebral fractures.

The decline of estrogen levels during the menopause transition has been linked to a number of physiologic changes across multiple systems, including bone metabolism, cardiovascular function, muscle mass, and fat distribution.

Regarding bone health, declining estrogen levels accelerate bone resorption and inhibit bone formation, leading to a rapid decrease in bone mineral density (especially in the femoral region), which in turn increases the risk of osteoporosis and fractures.
In this new study involving nearly 3,000 postmenopausal women, bone mineral density at four femoral sites was assessed using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry.

The analysis revealed that mortality risk was significantly elevated when femoral bone mineral density reached the osteoporotic threshold or in the presence of osteoporotic fractures.

After full adjustment, osteoporosis was associated with a 47% increased risk of mortality. A stronger inverse association between increased bone mineral density and mortality risk was observed within specific ranges, suggesting that bone mineral density should serve as a prognostic biomarker of systemic health.

Osteoporosis often remains a silent threat after menopause, despite its profound effect on women's lives—from loss of height, poor balance, and reduced mobility to disfigurement, pain, and even premature death.
Early screening and preventive measures, including a calcium-rich diet (preferably from food sources), regular weight-bearing exercise, and hormone therapy when appropriate, can significantly improve bone health and reduce risks not only of fractures but also cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and dementia.

Zheng Zhang et al, Femoral bone mineral density and mortality risk in postmenopausal women: a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey cohort study, Menopause (2026). DOI: 10.1097/gme.0000000000002787

Why Planes Fly Across The Atlantic At Night

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AI-generated fake citations are flooding scientific literature across publications, scientists warn

The citations at the end of a research paper should represent a solid foundation of existing knowledge about a particular field, a pool of peer-reviewed sources built over years of research and study. However, with the increasing use of AI and large language models in writing research papers, there's a growing chance that the citation someone clicks on may not even exist, and that the study, the source, or even the researchers themselves could be entirely fake.

In a recent study posted to the arXiv preprint server, researchers audited millions of papers and found that an estimated 146,900 hallucinated citations were present in research papers hosted on four major scientific repositories—arXiv, bioRxiv, SSRN, and PubMed Central. These numbers were for 2025 alone.

The hallucinated citations were not limited to a handful of bad apples but appeared across many papers, each containing a small number of fake references, pointing to a broader pattern of researchers using AI yet failing to fact-check the output.

Scientific research advances by building on prior discoveries, where each new finding depends on what has already been established. In this space, the rapid growth of AI use and the accompanying hallucinations show no sign of slowing down, which raises serious concerns.

Generative AI tools built on large language models are quite good at producing information that sounds plausible and realistic, yet is completely fabricated or incorrect. These models are trained on massive datasets to learn patterns, which they then use to predict the next word and generate new content.

As a result, they can sometimes produce output based on pattern prediction rather than any reliance on actual facts.

Hallucinated content isn't limited to scientific literature, as it makes its appearances in government reports, legal filings, and even news articles from renowned media publications.

Scientists have previously studied AI hallucinations, but most studies were either conducted under laboratory conditions or confined to small samples or narrow domains. The actual scale and impact of such mistakes, particularly within scientific literature, was still unclear.

The audit revealed a sharp surge in fake, non-existent citations appearing in serious scientific papers, especially from mid-2024 onward.

The study found that early-career scientists and small teams were most likely to include these fake citations, and in some cases, these same researchers saw their productivity increase by roughly three times since the advent of AI.

Part 1

Another interesting pattern appeared where hallucinated references tended to disproportionately credit already prominent and male scholars, suggesting that errors generated by LLMs may reinforce existing inequalities in scientific recognition.

The data exposed existing gaps in guardrails, such as preprint moderation, journal editors, and peer review, which could catch only a small fraction of these errors. For example, while arXiv moderation caught some issues, an estimated 78.8% of non-existent citations still passed through and appeared on the platform.
The researchers warn that hallucinations are steadily infiltrating knowledge production at scale, threatening both its reliability and equity. Without intervention, its impact could bleed from the future of scientific discovery to policy and public understanding.

Zhenyue Zhao et al, LLM hallucinations in the wild: Large-scale evidence from non-existent citations, arXiv (2026). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2605.07723

AI system developed to help prevent airport collisions

An AI system, World2Rules, uses neural and symbolic methods to learn explicit, interpretable safety rules from airport movement data, distinguishing normal from unsafe behaviours. It identifies and explains specific rule violations in real time, enabling earlier and clearer warnings of potential collisions. The approach is adaptable to other safety-critical domains by learning relevant rules and behaviours.

https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2026/may/cmu-researchers-...

You can persuade AI models to accept falsehoods as truth, study shows

Large language models can be persuaded to accept and reinforce falsehoods when subjected to conversational pressure, even after initially identifying statements as false. This vulnerability, not captured by traditional evaluation methods, raises concerns about AI reliability in interactive settings, especially in critical domains such as health or law. The degree of resistance to falsehoods varies among models, and the mechanisms underlying this behaviour remain unclear.

original article.

By age 4, one side of the brain is already calling the shots on language

The brain's capacity to use and understand language expands rapidly in the first years of life, as babies start to make sense of the words they hear and eventually begin to piece together sentences of their own. The language-processing parts of the brain that make this possible continue to evolve in older children, as they expand their vocabularies and learn to use language more flexibly.

By age four, the brain's language network is already strongly lateralized to the left hemisphere, similar to adults, and this lateralization does not gradually emerge with age. The integration and responsiveness of the language network increase through adolescence, but right hemisphere involvement in language processing in developmental disorders is not due to delayed lateralization. Early brain plasticity allows the right hemisphere to compensate for left hemisphere damage despite early lateralization.

Brain researchers have captured snapshots of the developing language-processing network in brain scans of hundreds of children and adolescents. Their data, reported in Nature Communications, show that the network continues to mature, becoming better integrated and increasingly responsive until around age 16. But they also found that a key feature of the adult language network is established early on: its localization in the left side of the brain.

Ola Ozernov-Palchik et al, Precision fMRI reveals that the language network exhibits adult-like left-hemispheric lateralization by 4 years of age, Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72916-5

How chemotherapy can backfire: An immune shift tied to tumor resistance and poorer outcomes

Chemotherapy with gemcitabine can induce pyroptosis in cancer cells, leading to the release of IL-1α, which disrupts bone marrow function and skews immune cell production toward pro-tumorigenic neutrophils. This immune shift can promote tumor resistance and poorer outcomes, but blocking IL-1α or its signaling pathway restores normal immune responses and enhances chemotherapy efficacy.

Stephen QR Wong et al, Chemotherapy-induced activation of caspase-1 and IL-1α release by cancer cells remotely skews myelopoiesis to drive pro tumorigenic systemic neutrophil-dominant inflammation, Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-71471-3

Severe childhood malaria linked to cognitive impairment later in life

Survivors of severe childhood malaria, including cerebral malaria and severe malarial anemia, exhibit persistent cognitive and academic impairments into adolescence, with cognition scores 3 to 7 IQ points lower than peers. Acute kidney injury and elevated uric acid during illness are associated with worse outcomes, indicating a need for improved prevention and therapeutic strategies.

Paul Bangirana et al, Long-Term Cognitive Ability and Academic Achievement After Childhood Severe Malaria, JAMA (2026). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2026.0704

WHO declares global health emergency over Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda
A Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak in Congo and Uganda has resulted in over 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths, prompting a WHO public health emergency declaration. The Bundibugyo variant lacks approved therapeutics or vaccines, complicating containment, especially amid conflict and migration. Delayed detection and limited diagnostic capacity have hindered response, raising concerns about wider regional spread.

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WHO keeps evaluation of hantavirus as 'low risk'

The global public health risk from the hantavirus outbreak linked to the cruise ship remains low, according to current assessments. Additional cases may occur among those exposed before containment, but onward transmission risk is expected to decrease after disembarkation and control measures.

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PCOS been given a new name?
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has been renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS) to better reflect its complex, multisystem nature involving hormonal, metabolic, and ovarian dysfunction. The new name aims to improve recognition of associated risks such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health issues, and to promote more comprehensive, multidisciplinary care. Diagnostic criteria remain unchanged.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(26)00717-8/fulltext

If AI can translate instantly, why learn another language?
AI translation provides rapid, accessible communication but cannot replicate the cognitive, cultural, and emotional benefits of learning a language. Multilingual experience is linked to enhanced visuospatial working memory, especially in older adults, and may contribute to cognitive resilience and delayed onset of neurodegenerative diseases. Language learning fosters deeper cultural understanding and personal expression, which AI tools cannot fully substitute.

original article.

Consistency check casts doubt on evolving dark energy

Cosmologists have long struggled to determine whether the universe's accelerating expansion is being driven by a simple cosmological constant, or whether dark energy's influence is evolving over time. In a new analysis published in Physical Review D, physicists have identified a subtle impact on the inference of the nature of dark energy, due to a tiny mismatch between a fundamental cosmological distance relation and two key datasets used to measure the properties of dark energy.

The result casts fresh doubt on the robustness of the recent claims that dark energy could be evolving over time—perhaps bringing us a step closer to solving one of cosmology's most enduring challenges.

Through their analysis, the duo found that both the supernova and DESI datasets are broadly consistent with the cosmic distance duality relation—but with a small mismatch. Crucially, this minor discrepancy correlates with a shift in the dark energy equation of state parameters away from the values expected for a simple cosmological constant. The results show that even a marginally significant mismatch can have meaningful consequences for the link between the dark energy equation of state and possible systematic errors in measuring the shape of the universe's expansion history.

Samsuzzaman Afroz et al, Hint toward an inconsistency between BAO and supernovae datasets: The evidence of redshift evolving dark energy from DESI DR2 is absent, Physical Review D (2026). DOI: 10.1103/k59d-l795. On arXiv: DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2504.16868

Swarms of tiny light-controlled robots could revolutionize wound care

Having a swarm of microbots moving across your body may sound like the stuff of a horror movie, but it could actually be the future of targeted drug delivery and advanced wound healing. Scientists have developed a way to use blue and red light as a remote control to assemble and disperse swarms of biohybrid microrobots that could one day transform how we treat injuries.
The microrobots come in two parts. The first is a living green microalga called Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (CR), which uses two tail-like structures (flagella) to swim through aquatic environments and respond to light.

The second part consists of nanoparticles made of a biodegradable plastic called PLGA. These act like tiny backpacks that can be loaded with medicine and are given a positive charge so they can attach to the algae, which has a negative charge.

In nature, CR algae are highly sensitive to light and use their flagella to swim toward or away from it to survive. Their behaviour changes depending on the colour of the light they encounter.
Taking advantage of this, the researchers developed a system where they used light to guide millions of cells to split apart, merge together, and change shape on command, creating a variety of patterns like a gear and a star.

Such reversible swarming behavior is realized by combining the wavelength-dependent assembly ability of CR and its inherent phototactic properties with light exposures through a series of different mask openings that define the desired swarm geometry.
To demonstrate how this innovation could work in a medical setting, scientists tested it on a simulated wound on an artificial skin model.
They used an AI program to automatically scan the shape of the injury and project the exact patterns of light needed to guide the microrobots. These tiny medical helpers successfully carried and released drug-loaded particles to the target area.

Víctor de la Asunción-Nadal et al, Light-switchable swarming of biohybrid microrobots, Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aed0994

A de-extinction company has hatched live chicks from an artificial eggshell

A biotech company that aims to resurrect lost creatures said this week it has hatched live chicks in an artificial environment—a development that was met with mixed reviews from scientists and critics of its de-extinction mission.

Twenty-six baby chickens—ranging from a few days to several months old—were born from a 3D printed lattice structure that mimics an eggshell, according to Colossal Biosciences.

Colossal previously announced it had genetically engineered living animals to resemble extinct species, including mice with long hair like the woolly mammoth and wolf pups that take after dire wolves.

Independent scientists say the technology, while impressive, lacks some components to be truly considered an artificial egg. And they said the idea of reviving extinct beasts is likely impossible.

To hatch the chicks, Colossal scientists poured fertilized eggs into the artificial system and placed them in an incubator. They also added calcium, which is normally absorbed from the eggshell, and imaged the embryos' development and growth in real-time.

Scientists say Colossal has designed an artificial eggshell with a membrane that allows the right amount of oxygen to get in, just like a real egg. But other components of an egg—like temporary organs that form to nourish and stabilize the growing chick and remove waste—weren't included.

That's not an artificial egg because they have poured in all the other parts that make it an egg. It's an artificial eggshell.

Source: News Agencies

**

Scientists solved 200-year-old puzzle of how tobacco plants make nicotine

Scientists have uncovered how tobacco plants naturally make nicotine, solving a mystery that has puzzled researchers for nearly two centuries. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, could lead to safer production of medicines and vaccines using tobacco plants, without the unwanted nicotine.

The biosynthetic pathway for nicotine in tobacco plants has been elucidated, identifying the missing genes and enzymes, including NaGR and NicGS, responsible for assembling nicotine from two metabolic precursors. Nicotine biosynthesis involves an initial attachment to a glucose molecule, which is removed in the final step, explaining previous difficulties in tracing the process. This knowledge enables the potential removal or modification of nicotine in tobacco used for pharmaceutical production.
Scientists have now discovered the missing genes and enzyme that tobacco plants need to make nicotine, and recreated the process in the lab and inside living plants, proving how it works.

Benjamin T. W. Schwabe et al, Nicotine biosynthesis is completed by cryptic activating glucosylation, Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-72705-0

Urban life makes animals bolder, more aggressive across 133 species, analysis finds

A global analysis has found that urban animals are bolder and more aggressive, exploratory and active than their rural counterparts.

Urban animals across 133 species exhibit increased boldness, aggression, exploration, and activity compared to rural counterparts, with effects most pronounced in birds. These behavioural shifts may elevate risks of human-wildlife conflict and zoonotic disease transmission. Data are limited for non-avian taxa, highlighting the need for broader research and consideration of animal behaviour in urban planning.

Global meta-analysis reveals urban-associated behavioral differences among wild populations, Journal of Animal Ecology (2026). DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.70269

Human cells can exchange genomic DNA that alters cell behavior
Large fragments of genomic DNA can transfer directly between human cells via nanotubes, become incorporated into recipient cell genomes, and remain biologically active, altering cell behaviour. The DNA can persist and change how the recipient cell functions. This process occurs between different cell types and challenges the view that human cell genomes evolve independently, with potential implications for understanding genome evolution and disease mechanisms such as cancer.
A study conducted by researchers shows DNA damage and errors in cell division can cause pieces of genomic DNA to escape from the nucleus and move into nearby cells through nanotubes—thin, tubelike structures that briefly form when some cells come into contact.

Once inside a recipient cell, transferred DNA can enter the nucleus and become incorporated into the cell's genome. Researchers found that transferred DNA persisted through multiple rounds of cell division, remained biologically active, and conferred new traits to recipient cells.
Using advanced live-cell microscopy, the team observed DNA moving from one cell to another. In one experiment, pieces of the Y chromosome transferred from male cells into female cells. The transferred DNA carried male-specific genes that became active in the female cells, indicating the transferred DNA remained functional after entering the recipient cell.
Researchers also observed DNA transfer between different types of human cells.

Elizabeth G. Maurais et al, Genome instability triggers intercellular DNA transfer between human cells, Cell (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.04.041

A mop, a broom and a calmer mind. Why some find mental health benefits in everyday tasks

It can be tempting to dismiss housework as drudgery, so dreaded or anxiety-inducing that it's best delegated to others if at all possible.
But experts from Zen monks to psychologists say there are mental health benefits to be found in such manual chores as sweeping, mopping and clearing away clutter. These tasks can encourage mindfulness or permit the mind to wander, all while producing a concrete sense of achievement in accomplishing the basic tasks of daily life.

As one famous Zen saying goes:

"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water."
Zen apprentices, or "unsui" monks, spend much of their time cleaning and tidying.

The monks sweep dust to remove worldly desires. They scrub dirt to free themselves of attachments!
A clinical psychologist based in Greenwich, Connecticut, agrees and confirms that the process of cleaning can be calming and almost meditative.
There is a link between mental health and the act of cleaning!
Repetitive, physical activities like cleaning can be regulating for the nervous system because they're predictable, structured and give a clear sense of completion. That gives people a feeling of control and grounding.
Plus, you can immediately see the result of what you've done, which can be satisfying in a way that many cognitive or emotional tasks aren't.

In a clean space, even if the person who cleaned it is not there, you can feel their consideration and awareness. This awareness creates a sense of peace and safety, similar to why sacred spaces feel different from the busy streets.

Source: News agencies

A key science publishing platform is cracking down on AI slop

AI-generated text is on the rise everywhere. A study released last week suggests half of new articles published online are now "primarily AI-generated."
Science is not immune to this trend. Last month, the journal Organization Science published a study of how the rise of AI has affected submissions and peer reviews since the release of ChatGPT in 2022. Reporting a dramatic rise in submitted papers and a drop in quality, the authors conclude that "the current state of AI tools, amplified by existing publish-or-perish incentives, appears to be pushing the system toward an equilibrium of more rather than better research."
A common problem in AI-generated research writing is hallucinated citations: references to other research that does not exist.

The traditional safeguard against poor quality in scholarly publishing is peer review: another expert in the subject at hand reads the research paper and interrogates the work behind it before it can be published.

However, the peer review system was already struggling before AI. Pressured researchers often have little time or incentive to do the unpaid work of peer review.

And on arXiv, which publishes preprints—articles which have most often not been peer-reviewed—even this system is not available. Last year, flooded with AI-generated submissions, the site stopped accepting certain types of article.

A study published in January (itself a preprint) estimated around 1 in 8 papers in biomedical science now contain AI-generated text.

Most researchers would agree that AI-generated text is not a problem in itself. The problem is the lower-quality work that AI can make easy to produce.
Part 1

The pre-print website arXiv has announced that researchers who put their names to papers which included errors clearly generated by artificial intelligence (AI) will face a year-long ban and ongoing restrictions.

arXiv has implemented a year-long ban for authors submitting papers with clear, unchecked AI-generated errors, responding to a surge in low-quality, AI-generated research. While AI-generated text itself is not inherently problematic, its ease of use has led to increased submission volume and decreased quality, including issues like hallucinated citations. Critics argue that blanket penalties may be disproportionate, especially in large collaborations, and suggest that AI tools could instead be leveraged to enhance quality control and peer review processes.
The move is a response to a growing influx of AI-generated papers faced by scholarly journals as well as sites such as arXiv, which serve as unofficial platforms for research publication ahead of peer review.

However, not everyone agrees that arXiv's response to the problem is appropriate—and the solution to the flood of AI slop research may involve more AI, not less.

The arXiv announcement doesn't come out against AI use, but rather says, "If a submission contains incontrovertible evidence that the authors did not check the results of LLM generation, this means we can't trust anything in the paper."

This may be true as far as it goes. But the penalty—a year-long ban for all authors listed on a paper—may be out of keeping with current research practices.

In the past, research was often carried out by people working alone or in groups of two or three. In these circumstances, it seems reasonable to expect each author to take responsibility for the whole.

But research is now more collaborative than ever before. Many papers have four or five authors, and in a growing number of extreme cases papers may be credited to groups of hundreds of scientists working together, each working on their own specialty and trusting their colleagues to be doing the same.

In a case where one author of dozens or hundreds included an AI-hallucinated reference in their part of the paper, banning the lot seems harsh.

And there are no equivalent sanctions for publishing other problematic material. There's no ban for pushing fringe or discredited theories, or using poor quality evidence and illogical arguments, for example.
The rise of AI produces problems for publishers and quality assurance. And the idea of some kind of sanctions for reckless use of AI, such as included hallucinated references, is a good one.

original article.

Part 2

Extreme Heat May Be Raising the Risk of Gestational Diabetes

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), a condition in which hormones produced by the placenta make the body less responsive to insulin, which leads to an inability to control blood sugar levels during pregnancy. When GDM goes unmanaged, it can increase the risk of complications such as preterm birth, preeclampsia, and stillbirth
Studies from around the world suggest prolonged heat exposure during pregnancy can disrupt blood sugar regulation, increasing the risk of gestational diabetes.
A growing body of research shows that climate change-driven extreme heat may be increasing the risk of GDM. Studies from around the world are also pointing to critical windows of vulnerability, suggesting that rising temperatures may be shaping maternal health in overlooked ways. Emerging evidence suggests GDM may be shaped not just by biology, but by the environment too.
Recent studies suggest that prolonged heat exposure during pregnancy can carry an increased risk of developing GDM.
Some studies suggest that the timing of heat exposure during pregnancy also matters. In eastern China, an analysis of over 3,000 pregnancies revealed that when temperatures climbed above 25°C, the risk of GDM increased most sharply between the 13th and 18th weeks of pregnancy, with a clear peak around week 16.6 Wider gaps between daytime and night time temperatures further raised the risk.

Researchers have observed similar patterns in larger populations. In southern California, they analyzed almost 396,000 health records over more than a decade. Extreme heat between the 11th and 16th weeks of pregnancy was associated with a higher GDM risk, while extreme low temperatures between the 20th and 24th weeks also increased the risk. The team found that these effects varied by location, with local factors such as greenness, tree cover, built surfaces, and land temperature either amplifying or reducing the risk.

As the evidence builds around the link between heat and GDM, scientists are also identifying the biological mechanisms behind this association.
High temperatures may make the body less responsive to insulin, which can lead to insulin resistance.”8 This makes it difficult for the body to move sugar out of the bloodstream and into cells, causing blood sugar levels to rise. In hot conditions, the body also sends more blood toward the skin to release heat. This can affect how the body regulates glucose, though the exact mechanisms are still being studied.

Some effects may be indirect. During extreme heat, people tend to stay indoors, which can reduce their vitamin D levels. Vitamin D supports the body’s response to insulin, helping cells take up glucose from the bloodstream and regulate blood sugar levels. Heat exposure can also stress the body, triggering low-grade inflammation, which can interfere with how the body responds to insulin.
Epidemiological studies have also linked higher temperatures to increased rates of prediabetes, diabetes, and insulin resistance.
Part 1

1. Plows JF, et al. The pathophysiology of gestational diabetes mellitus. Int J Mol Sci. 2018;19(11):3342.
2. Sweeting A, et al. Epidemiology and management of gestational diabetes.Lancet. 2024;404(10448):336-348.
3. Mohan V, et al. Prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus in India: The ICMR-INDI.... Indian J Med Res. 2025.
4. Chakraborty A, Yadav S. Prevalence and determinants of gestational diabetes mellitus among .... BMC Women’s Health. 2024;24(1):147.
5. Granés L, et al. Cumulative daily exposure to high temperature increases gestational.... Nat Health. 2026.
6. Zhang J, et al. The effect of ambient temperature in pregnancy on the risk of gesta.... Int J Biometeorol. 2026;70(64).
7. Part 2

• Teyton A, et al. Examining the relationship between extreme temperature, microclimat.... Environ Epidemiol. 2023;7(3):e252.
• Ratter-Rieck JM, et al. Diabetes and climate change: current evidence and implications for .... Diabetologia. 2023;66:1003-1015.
• Argano C, et al. The role of vitamin D and its molecular bases in insulin resistance.... Int J Mol Sci. 2023;24(20):15485.
• Hanssen MJW, et al. Short-term cold acclimation improves insulin sensitivity in patient... Nat Med. 2015;21:863-865.
• Booth GL, et al. Influence of environmental temperature on risk of gestational diabetes. CMAJ. 2017;189(19):E682-E689.
• Mbepera SM, et al. Heat stress induces oxidative stress and predisposes rats to gestat.... J Biol Life Sci. 2023;14(2):90-102.
• Horcas-Martín M, et al. Polyhydramnios at term in gestational diabetes: Should we be concer... Children. 2025;12(7):920.
• Part 3

The direction of a magnet could shape the building blocks of life

In a new discovery, researchers have found that something in the direction of a magnetic field can influence how molecules of life behave at the most fundamental level and how early chemical processes linked to life may have unfolded.

The study, published in Chem  shows that tiny differences between atoms (different isotopes) can lead to measurable changes in molecular behaviour when combined with an invisible quantum property known as electron spin. Separation of the different isotopes can be achieved by magnetic surfaces.

At the center of the story is L-methionine, an amino acid, a basic building block of life. Like other biological molecules, methionine has a specific "handedness," meaning it exists in a form that is not identical to its mirror image. This property, called chirality, is a mystery: why did nature choose one "hand" over the other? Now, the team's findings suggest that magnetism and the spin of electrons may have played a role.

The answer lies in a subtle quantum property: electron and nuclear spin. Particles behave a bit like tiny spinning tops, and their "spin direction" can influence how they interact with materials, especially when those materials are magnetic.
Chiral molecules like methionine are known to interact with electron spin in a special way, a phenomenon called chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS). This means that the molecule's shape can "filter" electrons based on their spin.

What this new research shows is that this same effect can extend to isotopes atoms that differ only slightly in mass and nuclear spin. In other words, spin and magnetism can influence not just how molecules react, but which versions of those molecules are favoured.

Part 1

Understanding how spin, magnetism, and molecular structure interact could open new doors in:

Isotope separation technologies
Advanced materials design
Analytical chemistry
And even quantum biology, an emerging field exploring how quantum effects influence living systems
In the end, the study reveals something both simple and profound: even at the smallest scales, direction matters.

A magnet pointing north or south can change how molecules move, interact, and separate. And those tiny differences may hold clues to the very origins of life.

Ofek Vardi et al, Spin-dependent isotopic fractionation of L-methionine, Chem (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2026.102993

Part 2

When Mendel's rules don't apply: Mouse study reveals hidden epigenetic inheritance

The well-studied rules of genetic inheritance—known as Mendel's Laws—cover how genetic materials known as alleles sort themselves, are dominant or recessive, and in what ways they get passed down to new generations. Alleles are variations in genes that lead to a specific trait or disease state. In mammals, one allele is inherited from each parent, and either of those alleles can be dominant or recessive.
The rules state, for example, that alleles in offspring are inherited from each parent, and the traits of dominant alleles prevail over recessive ones, which are silenced.
Analysis of three generations of mice revealed that approximately 7% of DNA methylation patterns are inherited in ways that violate Mendel's laws, including novel forms of epigenetic inheritance such as paramutation and emergent methylation not present in either parent. These findings indicate that non-Mendelian epigenetic inheritance is more frequent and diverse than previously recognized, potentially enabling rapid trait variation in response to environmental factors.

Scientists have long known that the DNA code in genes is not the only way to pass genetic traits from parents to offspring. "Epigenetic" marks—chemical modifications to DNA that don't change the DNA code itself—can also be passed down.
Now, a new study using mice reveals that some of those marks—about 7% of them—can be inherited in ways that break the century-long understanding of the rules of inheritance explored and recorded by Gregor Mendel's work with pea plants. The study also reveals new, unexpected examples of inheritance patterns that defy Mendel's law—such as a naturally occurring paramutation, seen previously in plants and flies, and not in mammals.
Non-Mendelian patterns of inheriting epigenetics could be a faster way to acquire diverse or new traits than alterations in the genomic sequence itself, especially in response to environmental pressures.
Several previous studies have already shown that some patterns of epigenetic inheritance, such as genomic imprinting, can break the guiding principles established by the Austrian-born friar. The new study also found examples of genomic imprinting, but also other types of non-Mendelian patterns of epigenetic inheritance that surprised the scientists.

In examples of genomic imprinting, an allele in either parent can be labeled as coming from sperm or an egg and silenced by methylation. Such imprinted alleles are passed down to offspring and are silenced not because they are recessive but based on which parent contributes the imprinted allele. The new research found imprinting examples in five additional genes.

In addition to the new examples of genetic imprinting, results of the current study suggest that epigenetic patterns of inheritance that defy Mendel's rules may be more frequent than described in other studies. In addition, the research team found epigenetic patterns passed down to offspring that were not present in either parent.
Part 1

In their experiments, the researchers found 522 instances—about 7% of epigenetic inheritance patterns—in which methylation was inherited on non-sex chromosomes in a variety of ways that broke Mendel's laws.

Some 54 of those instances represented rare or "emergent" types of epigenetic inheritance not present in either parent. For example, a cross between two mice with no methylation on the same allele, which should have resulted in a mouse that inherited no methylation on the allele, could instead result in a mouse with methylation on both alleles. "The methylation seemingly appeared out of nowhere" .
The scientists also found another rare type of inheritance called paramutation in a gene called Capn11, which encodes a calcium-dependent gene that regulates normal sperm development. Alterations in the human version of the gene cause infertility and problems with sperm.

Paramutation occurs when methylation in one allele leads to methylation in another allele. The paramutation was located in an area of the gene associated with a repetitive element of a type known to be influenced by environmental exposure. It's almost like the methylation is transferred to another allele. Epigenetic influences on the genome have been tied to environmental pressures such as environmental stress, trauma and diet.

This work may convince scientists to integrate both genomics and epigenomics more often for a complete understanding of how traits that produce disease and healthy states are inherited.

Adam Davidovich et al, Non-Mendelian inheritance of DNA methylation patterns in mice, Nature Genetics (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-026-02604-z

Part 2