Colobus congoensis – credit, released by Daniel Rosengren, Frankfurt Zoological Society
When news reaches the public that a new species has been identified, the chances really are 9 times out of 10 that it’s some deep sea slug or a spider.
From the Congo comes the story of the exception—a new species of colobus monkey has been identified, becoming just the 5th such occasion in 75 years of research on the Colorful Continent.
A pair of Colobus congoensis – credit, released by Daniel Rosengren, Frankfurt Zoological Society
The creature with black fur and an innocent face, also bears a striking set of orange lips.
Named Colobus congoensis and known locally as “Likweli” in its home of Lomami National Park, the monkey had lain hidden from our sight within this remote region of the Congo Basin despite decades of scientific exploration in Central Africa.
The mystery of this new species began with an unexpected sighting in 2008, when researchers captured a partially obscured photograph of the monkey. A decade later, researchers encountered the animal again and obtained a much clearer image. That discovery sparked further investigation into the elusive primate.
Now, new genetic, anatomical, and acoustic analyses have confirmed that the monkey represents a distinct evolutionary lineage that diverged from its closest known relative, the black colobus monkey, 4 to 5 million years ago
“This discovery is both exciting and deeply personal, highlighting the extraordinary biodiversity of my homeland and how much remains undocumented,” said Junior Amboko, a Congolese scientist and co-corresponding author of the findings in a statement.
Smaller than related colobus monkeys—about 15 pounds—it is distinguished by sleek, light-reflecting fur and dramatic facial features created by long black facial hairs and large folded ears. White perianal markings further distinguish this species.
In a separate response to the BBC, Amboko said that the animal had a small range compared to other colobus monkeys, suggesting it could be already Endangered. In the statement, it’s detailed that between 2018 and 2022, researchers recorded 114 sightings across an estimated range of around 900 square miles.
“As part of our search, we interviewed people in 52 villages close to where the animals live. And only people in 8 villages [had ever seen] them.”While the scientists’ official recommendation in their paper describing the monkey is that it should be listed as Endangered, the locals also told them that the monkey was a target of local indigenous hunters. New Species of Monkey Found in DR Congo Shows How Much There’s Left to Discover
This photo provided by the family shows, from left, Kaila, Suze, Ryu and Andrew Lopez at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles in August 2025 – family photo
A Los Angeles woman recently celebrated the first Christmas with her baby boy, Ryu, born to truly remarkable circumstances.
Ryu developed outside his mother’s womb, and remained hidden for months behind an ovarian cyst that grew to be the size of a basketball. It was so unbelievable, the surgical/OBGYN team that delivered Ryu documented it for a case study in a medical journal.
The manner in which Ryu came into being represents a circumstance that’s “far, far less than 1 in a million,” said Dr. John Ozimek, medical director of labor and delivery at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, where Ryu was born. “I mean, this is really insane.”
Now 41, Suze Lopez has always had an irregular cycle, so missed periods—even consecutive ones—are a normal occurrence. It was almost 20 years ago that she was diagnoses with a pair of ovarian cysts, one of which was removed immediately, and one of which was not.
So in early 2025 when Lopez noted her abdomen swelling, her first thought was the cyst. She never felt kicking, and never had morning sickness—and indeed her instinct was at least partly correct.
The pressure and pain in her abdomen grew as days passed, and she was certain that, even if it risked her ability to conceive again, it was time to remove the other cyst which unbeknownst to her had grown to weigh a mind-boggling 22 pounds.
She needed a CT scan to prepare for surgery, which required a pregnancy test for the radiation, and to her utter surprise the test came back positive. Lopez was delighted, but the pain and discomfort grew and soon she had to be hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai where her medical team found a near fully-developed fetus in an amniotic sack lodged against her pelvis.
The term for where the fetus develops is “implants” and the term for a fetus that implants outside of the womb is an “ectopic pregnancy.” Almost all of these go on to rupture and hemorrhage. As such, fetal mortality can be as high as 90% in such cases and birth defects are seen in about 1 in 5 surviving babies, SF Gate reports.
However, because fetal Ryu implanted against the pelvic wall and not against the liver, it was far more manageable, and the reason why Lopez didn’t have more pain earlier.
Lopez and her boy beat the odds, despite a mammoth surgical procedure that both delivered Ryu at 8 pounds and removed the ovarian cyst—together weighing as much as an adult bobcat. During the procedure, Lopez lost half her blood, and had to be continually given transfusions.
“The whole time, I might have seemed calm on the outside, but I was doing nothing but praying on the inside,” Andrew Lopez, Suze’s husband, told SF Gate. “It was just something that scared me half to death, knowing that at any point I could lose my wife or my child.”Instead, they both survived without any maleffects. Ryu “completes” their family, said his mother, and recently celebrated his first Christmas alongside his older sister Kaila. Mom and Baby Beat 1-in-a-Million Odds to Survive the ‘Rarest of Pregnancies
Most spiders don’t swim by choice. But they sure can survive in water when they need to. From floating like a boat, to paddling like a rower, to carrying their own scuba bubbles, spiders have developed brilliant ways to deal with water.
Let’s dive into the science in some more detail, and look at how spiders handle getting their paws wet, with examples from our local bush.
Spiders can run across water
Water has surface tension – this acts like a kind of invisible skin that can hold up small, light objects.
Many spiders are tiny and have water-repellent hairs on their legs, so they can stand or run on water without sinking.
For example, fishing spiders wait at the water’s edge and scuttle across the surface to grab insects, tadpoles or even small fish.
If prey escapes underwater, this spider can even hide beneath the water’s surface briefly, then come back up.
Spiders can hold their breath underwater for days
Spiders don’t have gills, so they can’t get oxygen from water like fish do. But they have evolved clever strategies for staying alive if they stay in the water for a long time.
For example, the Australian Sydney funnel-web spider often falls into backyard swimming pools. People might see one and think it drowned, but it can actually survive underwater for hours by holding its breath much longer than a human could.
That’s because it breathes much more slowly than we do. Like many spiders, it has both tracheae (tiny air tubes) and book lungs (they look like a book with many pages) for breathing. Some spiders can close these and become watertight, to hold their breath for a long time.
Some trapdoor spiders have been recorded only taking a breath every six minutes.
Do not burst their bubble
Some spiders take the air with them like a scuba diver.
On the Great Barrier Reef coast, a little intertidal spider called Desis bobmarleyi actually lives part of its life under seawater. At high tide, it hides in a silk-lined air pocket in coral or shells. It uses the long hairs on its legs and body to trap a bubble around itself so it can breathe underwater between the tides. When the tide goes out, this spider comes out to hunt on the wet reef.
And in other parts of the world, there’s the famous diving bell spider, the only spider that spends its whole life entirely underwater.
It weaves an underwater silk web that it fills with air – like an underwater house. This spider can stay underwater for more than a day at a time by letting its air-bubble vessel actively pull oxygen from the water.
Some spiders sit tight and make their homes flood-proof. Remember those trapdoor spiders we mentioned? Trapdoor spiders live snug in burrows underground with a silken lid on top (like a little trapdoor).
In areas that get sudden heavy rains, a trapdoor spider might build its burrow with a raised entrance – a bit like a chimney – so water flows around or over it rather than straight in.
Some Australian trapdoor spiders in the outback clay pans have been found to build thick muddy silk doors that fit perfectly like a bath plug into the surrounding soil. The water just goes straight over the top.
Even if water does get in, some trapdoor spiders can seal their bodies and essentially hold their breath. They don’t swim in their flooded burrows, but they can wait out a flood without drowning.
What to do with a soggy spider
If you ever find a spider struggling in water – say in a swimming pool or even in a bucket – you can help as long as you’re careful.
First, always ask an adult before trying to assist a spider. Nobody has died in Australia in 60 years from spider venom. But some (such as the Sydney funnel-web) can still be fatal, so you must be sure not to touch or provoke it.
A good way to save a spider in a pool is to use a net or a scoop with a long handle. Gently lift the spider out and put it on the ground away from the water. The spider might look dead at first, but don’t be surprised if it “comes back to life” as it dries out – just like trapdoor spiders do.
And remember: never poke a spider with your bare hands, even if it seems lifeless. Spiders such as funnel-webs can still bite underwater or right after being rescued, and they will defend themselves if they feel threatened. So, play it safe and use tools or ask an adult or a spider expert to help.
If anyone is bitten, get an adult to seek medical attention immediately.
Next time you’re exploring nature (or even looking into the toilet), keep an eye out for our eight-legged friends and how they interact with water. You might spot a little spider boat captain or an air-bubble diver right in your backyard.
A 2-stage trial testing a new and acclaimed HIV-prevention drug has shown almost unthinkable results of no new infections among a sample size of 3,200 participants.
Called PURPOSE 1, the aim of the first trial was testing a subcutaneous injection of the drug Lenacapavir given twice a year to people in a high-HIV-incidence country, which in this case was Uganda or South Africa.
The results were nothing short of extraordinary—100% efficacy, not a single young woman contracted HIV.
This was followed up by PURPOSE 2, which expanded the geographical area significantly to more countries on more continents, and expanded the pool of individuals from beyond just young women to men—and to those of all ages. 5,000 participants took part.
The result was the same: 99.9% reduction in infection rates.
Both were considered phase 3 clinical trials, and were conducted in a randomized, double-blinded protocol, but were not tested against a placebo. Instead, the Lenacapavir injections were compared to the current standard of HIV prevention—a pill called Truvada or Descovy taken daily.
These both were also found to prevent HIV transmission by 99.9% during development, but must be taken every day to achieve this level of protection. As anyone who’s tried to stick to a once-a-day pill regime long-term will agree, it’s not an easy thing to maintain month after month.
By contrast, the twice-yearly injections are much easier to adhere to, and they also come with the added benefit of removing the social stigma of being seen taking a daily pill and therefore at risk of HIV transmission. This can be particularly alleviating in high-HIV-prevalent countries where male homosexuality is illegal, such as Uganda.
Indeed the superiority of a twice-yearly injection was so clear that both PURPOSE trials were halted early over ethical reasons. A 52-week follow-up screened for HIV developments.
Lenacapavir was named by Science Magazine as the Breakthrough of the Year in 2024, and was approved by the FDA for use in humans under the brand name Yeztugo.
It works to break down the HIVs capsid shell by binding to an “highly conserved” protein on the exterior. That means that no matter how many times or into what form the virus mutates, the exterior shell protein remains—presenting the perfect target for the drug.
In layman’s terms, the drug then works through the protein to disrupt the capsid shell, which the virus ‘takes down’ and ‘builds up’ several times during its lifecycle with perfect geometric precision. The disruption prevents the virus from completing its life cycle.
Initial R&D, regulation compliance, and proof of efficacy and safety requirements mean that producing Lenacapavir has cost its developer, Gilead Sciences, an undisclosed total cost that would be reasonable to estimate at well over a billion dollars based on normal pharma development costs.Gilead has nevertheless committed to providing the drug at cost in certain low-income regions and has licensed generic manufacturers to produce it for approximately $40 per year in 120 low and middle-income countries starting in 2027 Staggering Results Show HIV-Transmission Reduced 100% with Twice-Yearly Lenacapavir Injection
The fastest serve so far at this year’s Wimbledon tennis championships was struck by the Argentinian Thiago Agustín Tirante on the opening day.
His serve of almost 148mph (238km/h) was still some way under the Wimbledon record of 153mph, set by Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in 2025. And despite Tirante giving his opponent less than a fifth of a second to play each serve, he lost the match in straight sets.
Which means his rocket serves were successfully returned on lots of points. Our emerging understanding of how the human brain works can help explain how this feat is achieved.
Whether you’re a player or a spectator, the ability to see a tennis ball travelling that quickly across the court is a marvel of human physiology. At nearly 150mph, the ball is travelling faster than anyone can watch it move.
By the time your brain has processed the sight of the ball leaving the racket, it is already well on its way to the other end of the court. Yet professional tennis players return these high-powered serves with astonishing accuracy.
The reason is that they do not rely on reaction alone. Returning a tennis serve depends on one of the brain’s most remarkable abilities: predicting the future.
Predicting the future
Tennis players – and spectators – face the same basic problem: the visual information arrives in their brain slightly late.
Before a player becomes aware of a tennis ball hurtling across the court, light reflected from its surface has to be detected by their eyes’ retinas, converted into electrical signals, then transmitted along the optic nerves to the brain. There, the visual cortex begins analysing its colour, shape, speed and direction.
Even under ideal conditions, this takes around a tenth of a second. During that time, a ball travelling at nearly 148mph will have covered several metres.
For a spectator, this delay is rarely noticeable. The brain’s predictions are so accurate that the ball appears to move smoothly across the court, despite what you are seeing being a fraction of a second out of date.
But the player standing at the other end of the court needs to do a lot more than just watch the ball. They must move their body to that specific point on the court, position their racket and time their swing with great precision if they want to be in with a chance of winning the point.
In fact, much of this process begins before the ball has even left the opponent’s racket. It is an extraordinarily complex system.
How the brain works it all out
As the server prepares to strike the tennis ball, the receiver is already gathering information. The height and position of the ball toss, the rotation of the server’s trunk, the movement of their shoulder and forearm, the angle of the racket face and the speed of the swing all provide clues about what is about to happen.
Elite players have, of course, spent many thousands of hours learning to recognise these subtle biomechanical cues. Their brains combine the latest cues with all that previous experience to estimate the likely speed, direction and spin of the serve – before the ball has even crossed the net.
Central to this is the cerebellum, a densely folded structure tucked beneath the back of the brain. Although best known for coordinating movement and balance, advances in brain imaging and computational neuroscience have revealed it is also one of the brain’s great prediction engines.
Rather than simply responding to sensory information as it arrives, the cerebellum continuously generates internal models of how the body and external world behave. As fresh visual information reaches the brain, these models are updated almost instantaneously, allowing movements to be adjusted before conscious awareness has caught up.
But the cerebellum does not work alone. A specialised region of the visual cortex, known as area MT or V5, is exquisitely sensitive to movement, and calculates the speed and direction of the ball as it crosses the player’s visual field.
This information travels along the dorsal visual stream – often called the brain’s “where pathway” – to the posterior parietal cortex, where the ball’s position is integrated with information about the player’s own body.
From there, premotor regions begin preparing possible movements. The supplementary motor area helps organise their sequence, and the primary motor cortex sends commands to the muscles of the trunk, shoulder, arm and wrist.
At the same time, the frontal eye fields and the superior colliculus (a small structure in the midbrain that rapidly redirects the eyes towards objects of interest) generate rapid eye movements towards where the ball is expected to be next – rather than where it was a fraction of a second ago.
This is why the fastest returns in tennis are not simply feats of lightning-fast reflexes. They are the product of a brain that is constantly making, testing and refining predictions. The players who appear to have more time have become exceptionally good at anticipating what will happen next.
Tennis and beyond
Neuroscientists are still trying to understand why some tennis players acquire these remarkable predictive skills faster than others. Is it simply a matter of hours spent on court, or are some brains naturally better equipped to build the internal models that underpin elite performance?
For now, the answer appears to be a combination of both.
Understanding how the brain predicts movement has implications far beyond tennis. Similar neural mechanisms help us catch a falling glass before it hits the floor, judge when it is safe to cross a busy road, or drive through traffic.
These predictive systems are becoming an important focus of neuroscience research. Insights into how the cerebellum and wider motor networks anticipate movement are helping researchers improve rehabilitation after neurological injury, understand disorders of movement and coordination, and design robots capable of interacting more naturally with an unpredictable world.
Meanwhile, insights from neuroscience might also help hone a future Wimbledon tennis champion.
A Bavarian wildlife rescue organization is using thermal imaging drones to locate and rescue vulnerable fawns hidden in tall meadow grass ahead of the annual mowing season.
Every spring, thousands of fawns are killed by mowing machinery across Germany. Baby deer instinctively freeze when threatened, a natural defense mechanism that protects them from predators but leaves them vulnerable to farm equipment.
Traditionally, this work was done on foot—with volunteers walking through the meadows in lines—an extremely labor-intensive task for this volunteer rescue group founded in 2020.
Now, with the thermal imaging of DJI drones, the rescue group, Rehkitz-Rettung Mangfalltal, can locate these hidden animals more quickly and efficiently before mowing begins, especially with the drone’s AI technology features that help pilots reliably spot fawns, baby hares, and ground-nesting birds.
Since integrating drone technology into their workflow, the group’s annual count of rescued fawns has ballooned from 10-15 in previous years to between 300 and 350 fawns today.
In a case study, operators used the Matrice 4 Series’ precision positioning controls to spot heat signatures in vegetation, verify them visually, and direct ground teams to the exact location. (See the video below…)
Whenever the thermal camera detects a heat source, its location is pinned with centimeter-level accuracy using the drone’s GPS and shared instantly with the ground team.
The German case study also provides a video step-by-step guide on the rescue process, including drone operations from an altitude of 80–100 meters and how to handle fawns once they are found.Thanks to the Rehkitz-Rettung Mangfalltal volunteers and drone pilots, farmers are able to happily proceed with mowing—confident that fields have been safely cleared of hidden animals. WATCH the Reuters news video below… Drones are Saving Hundreds of Fawns From Mower Deaths in Germany (WATCH)
Scientists in South Korea have proven that a new technology will cut the time it takes to charge electric cars to just nine seconds, allowing EV owners to ‘fill up’ faster than their gasoline counterparts.
And even those plugging-in at home will have the time slashed from 10 hours to three minutes.
The new device uses the laws of quantum physics to power all of a battery’s cells at once—instead of one at a time—so recharging takes no longer than filling up at the pump.
Electric cars were rarely seen on the roads 10 years ago, but millions are now being sold every year and it has become one of the fastest growing industries, but even the fastest superchargers need around 20 to 40 minutes to power their car.
Scientists at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea have come up with a solution. Co-author Dr. Dario Rosa said the consequences could be far-reaching.
“Quantum charging could go well beyond electric cars and consumer electronics. For example, it may find key uses in future fusion power plants, which require large amounts of energy to be charged and discharged in an instant.”
The concept of a “quantum battery” was first proposed in a seminal paper published by Alicki and Fannes in 2012. It was theorized that quantum resources, such as entanglement, can be used to vastly speed up battery charging.
The researchers used quantum mechanics to model their super fast charging station with calculations of the charging speed showing that a typical electric vehicle with a battery containing around 200 cells would recharge 200 times faster.
Current collective charging is not possible in classical batteries, where the cells are charged in parallel, independently of one another.
“This is particularly exciting as modern large-capacity batteries can contain numerous cells.”
The group went further to provide an explicit way of designing such batteries.
This means charging times could be cut from 10 hours to three minutes at home and from around 30 minutes to just a few seconds at stations.
Co-author Dr Dominik Šafránek said, “Of course, quantum technologies are still in their infancy and there is a long way to go before these methods can be implemented in practice.”
“Research findings such as these, however, create a promising direction and can incentivize the funding agencies and businesses to further invest in these technologies.
“If employed, it is believed that quantum batteries would completely revolutionize the way we use energy and take us a step closer to our sustainable future.”
A rendering of the KRONOS plant at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Image: NANO Nuclear)
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced it has received an application from the University of Illinois to construct the first research KRONOS micro modular reactor on the university's campus.
The Construction Permit Application (CPA) was submitted on 31 March by The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, NANO Nuclear Energy Inc's partner for the KRONOS MMR deployment at the University of Illinois (U of I).
"With this submission, NANO Nuclear becomes the first commercially-ready microreactor developer and the third commercially-ready Generation IV advanced reactor developer to submit a CPA, placing NANO Nuclear among a small group of advanced nuclear companies progressing toward commercial deployment," the company said.
It added: "The preparation of a CPA represents the culmination of years of engineering development, thousands of pages of technical documentation, coordinated input across reactor design, safety analysis, environmental review, and regulatory compliance disciplines, and establishment of a viable supply chain. In NANO Nuclear's partnership with the U of I, the CPA submission builds on an extensive body of work developed through continuous engagement with the NRC, including completion of the readiness assessment, a voluntary but highly rigorous process aimed at ensuring a complete and high-quality application. Importantly, this iterative process reflects a high level of alignment with regulatory expectations and provides strong confidence in the application's readiness for acceptance for docketing and formal NRC review."
"The NRC is reviewing the application to determine whether it is complete," the regulator said. "If accepted, the agency will begin a detailed technical evaluation of the reactor's safety and security and publish a notice of opportunity to request an adjudicatory hearing on the application before the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board."
It noted that if the construction permit is granted, the university would need to submit a separate operating licence application and receive NRC approval before the reactor could begin operation.
NANO Nuclear acquired the Micro Modular Reactor Energy System technology through its USD85 million acquisition of Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation's nuclear technology, which was completed in January last year. At that time, NANO Nuclear renamed the technology as the KRONOS MMR. The MMR is a 45 MW thermal, 15 MW electrical high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, using TRISO fuel in prismatic graphite blocks and has a sealed transportable core.
NANO Nuclear signed a strategic collaboration agreement with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in April 2025 to construct the first research KRONOS micro modular reactor on the university's campus. The agreement formally established the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a partner in the licensing, siting, public engagement, and research operation of the KRONOS MMR, while also identifying the university campus as the permanent site for the reactor as a research and demonstration installation.
The university plans to re-power partially its coal-fired Abbott power station with the KRONOS MMR, providing a zero-carbon demonstration of district heat and power to campus buildings as part of its green campus initiative. The project team aims to demonstrate how microreactor systems integrate with existing fossil fuel infrastructure to accelerate the decarbonisation of existing power-generation facilities."Through every step of the process thus far, we at The Grainger College of Engineering have worked diligently alongside our partners at NANO Nuclear Energy to ensure our goals in constructing the first KRONOS MMR on the university's campus can become a reality," said Caleb Brooks, Professor and Donald Biggar Willett Faculty Scholar of Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering. "By submitting the Construction Permit Application to the NRC, we are taking the next step in signifying that the work will be done correctly and precisely. And we continue to look forward to the possibilities of what can become the most advanced nuclear research platform on any US campus." Application lodged to build microreactor at US university
A sophisticated AI-powered examination of coral reef resistance extrapolated into the future found that there’re about 64,000 square miles of coral reefs on Earth that could still be resisting climate change by 2050.
The common theory states that CO2 emissions create a greenhouse effect which warms the seas which causes coral reefs to bleach or even die, yet there are environments—as GNN has frequently reported—where corals seem to be more resilient.
The authors of this new study found that when they used 45,000 observations of coral reefs going back as far as 1960 as the data set for an AI model to examine, it predicted according to 46 different criteria that 25 years from now there’d still be swaths of coal reefs totaling the size of Wisconsin located primarily in 8 countries, and that these would be capable of surviving and thriving in the warming seas.
The findings were presented at Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, Kenya, and are available on the preprint server EcoEvoRxiv.
Most of the coral distribution was plotted out in the Philippines, Indonesia, Cuba, the Bahamas, and Australia. Belize, Nicaragua, and the Turks and Caicos Islands also showed coral resilience in 2050 according to the estimates.
The criteria for where in the world the AI would map as good coral habitat comes from a concept of ‘coral refuges’ which are observations that coral species can either endure warming seas, recover from damage faster, or avoid damage altogether in certain places.
Where these are in the world comes from the 45,000 observations mentioned earlier.
Why coral seem to enjoy these conditions in these particular places isn’t exactly clear—particularly as regards Nicaragua’s neighbor Honduras, where the country’s largest coral reef is also the victim of substantial ecosystem disturbance by human activity, yet seems to be flourish year round.
Sara Hashemi, a daily correspondent at Smithsonian Magazine, wrote that the authors of the new study want their work “to offer a road map for where countries should invest conservation funding, especially for small nations with limited resources.”
Hashemi started her report by noting that “it’s hard to feel optimistic for coral reefs” these days. It’s hard—if one doesn’t read GNN.
There’s great news on coral all around the world. In terms of protections, 77,000 square miles of tropical seas will be off limits to fishing thanks to bold conservation action by Papua New Guinea this year.
Located in the legendary Coral Triangle, where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet, the newly-designated Western Manus Marine Protected Area will form part of the newly established Melanesian Ocean Corridor of Reserves, a network of national and jointly managed protected areas spanning Fiji, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea.
The science of coral breeding and restoration is advancing in leaps and bounds. This January, GNN reported that scientists on the island nation of Mauritius are naturally breeding heat-resistant corals that faced a bleaching event last summer with 98% survival rates.
Marine biologists weren’t even able to breed coral in a lab 20 years ago, but recently, scientists on the Maldives bred 10,000 corals in just weeks using a portable station shipped in a container to the archipelago.
Some of the strongest parental instincts happen without conscious thought. The urge to check on a sleeping baby. To stay close. To pick them up when they cry.
Becoming a mother also brings about an extraordinary shift in priorities. As the late British psychotherapist and author Naomi Stadlen wrote, “motherhood can be relentless. The dependency, the need, the constant pull of being someone’s entire world…”
For all mammals, raising young demands enormous time, energy and resources, requiring mothers to place their offspring’s needs ahead of almost everything else.
So just how precisely does the brain make that shift? Our newly published research sought to answer that question.
Using studies in mice, we identified part of the brain circuitry that drives a mother’s urge to interact with her newborn. We found an essential pathway linking a hormone-sensing region of the brain to its reward network.
Activated by the pregnancy hormone placental lactogen and the milk-production hormone prolactin, this pathway helps make caring for a newborn rewarding rather than simply necessary. Remarkably, we were even able to switch that drive on and off experimentally.
Observing a mother’s brain
We focused on a brain region called the medial preoptic area, known for decades to be a key controller of parenting behaviours. Many of its neurons carry receptors for placental lactogen and prolactin.
In earlier studies, we showed that mice without these receptors in this region were unable to care for their offspring after birth. What remained unclear was exactly how these neurons helped drive parenting behaviour.
Using specialised neuroscience techniques to observe these neurons in living mice, we found they became highly active when females came into close contact with pups. The response was much stronger in mothers than in females that had never given birth, with the biggest surge occurring at the very first meeting.
We then traced where these neurons send their signals. A subset of these neurons connect directly to the brain’s reward system, triggering the release of dopamine – the neurochemical that helps make experiences feel rewarding. Recent advances in neuroscience allowed us to watch dopamine being released in real time as mice interacted with their pups.
When we artificially activated this pathway, female mice that had never given birth behaved much more like new mothers. Faced with a barrier separating them from newborn pups, they climbed over it more quickly and repeatedly returned to the pups.
Interestingly, when we blocked the pathway, the opposite happened. Mice no longer showed the normal dopamine surge when meeting the pups and were slower to engage with them. Removing prolactin receptors from the pathway also reduced mother–pup interactions, while leaving other aspects of maternal care largely unchanged.
These new insights help explain why caring for a newborn becomes such a powerful priority after birth. Prolactin acts through this pathway to tune the brain’s reward system, making time with offspring rewarding rather than simply another task.
A peripartum puzzle
Although our work was conducted in mice, the same reward pathways are found in human mothers, with prolactin serving as the key milk-production hormone in all mammals.
The human brain undergoes huge and long-lasting changes during pregnancy, yet very little neuroscience research has focused on females – and even less has looked at how pregnancy causes changes in the brain.
The Ministry of Health estimates that 12–18% of New Zealand women experience depression, anxiety or other mental health conditions during pregnancy or after birth.
The World Health Organisation reports that globally, about 10% of pregnant women and 13% of women who have just given birth experience a mental disorder, primarily depression. In developing countries, this rate is even higher.
Yet there are few treatments that target the biological changes driving these disorders.
Our research aims to understand how the brain adapts during pregnancy and early motherhood to support healthy mood, with the goal of developing better ways to prevent and treat poor peripartum mental health.
We also hope this work will help reduce the stigma faced by parents who struggle to bond with their baby. Rather than personal failing, difficulties with bonding may reflect brain pathways that have not adapted as expected.
Given the profound changes the brain undergoes during pregnancy, it is perhaps unsurprising that this process does not always unfold smoothly. Parents and families deserve better understanding, support and treatment during this critical period.
A new study by scientists at Yale University suggests that older individuals can and do ‘improve,’ in all the senses of that word, over time.
Analyzing the results of a large study of older Americans that ran for a decade, a key data point was that the individual’s mindset toward aging plays a major part in their success.
If they believed aging was a process of decline, they declined. If they believed aging was a process of refinement, they improved.
Lead author Dr. Becca R. Levy, PhD, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) found that nearly half of adults aged 65 and older showed measurable improvement in cognitive function, physical function, or both, over time.
The improvements were not limited to a small group of exceptional individuals and, notably, were linked to a powerful but often overlooked factor: how people think about aging itself.
“Many people equate aging with an inevitable and continuous loss of physical and cognitive abilities,” said Dr. Levy, an international expert on psychosocial determinants of aging health. “What we found is that improvement in later life is not rare, it’s common, and it should be included in our understanding of the aging process.”
The findings are published in the journal Geriatrics.
For the study, the researchers followed more than 11,000 participants in the Health and Retirement Study, a federally supported longitudinal survey of older Americans. The research team tracked changes in cognition using a global performance assessment, and physical function using walking speed—often described by geriatricians as a “vital sign” because of its strong links to disability, hospitalization, and mortality.
Over a follow-up period of up to 12 years, 45% of participants improved in at least one of the two domains, according to the study. About 32% improved cognitively, 28% improved physically, and many experienced gains that exceeded thresholds considered clinically meaningful.
When participants whose cognitive scores remained stable over that period (rather than declining) were included, more than half defied the stereotype of inevitable deterioration in cognition.
“What’s striking is that these gains disappear when you only look at averages,” said Dr. Levy, author of the book
“If you average everyone together, you see decline,” Dr. Levy continued. “But when you look at individual trajectories, you uncover a very different story. A meaningful percentage of the older participants that we studied got better.”
As for why, Levy and her co-authors hypothesized that an important factor could be participants had assimilated more positive or more negative views about aging by the start of the study. In support of this hypothesis, they found that those with more positive age beliefs were significantly more likely to show improvements in both cognition and walking speed, even after accounting for factors such as age, sex, education, chronic disease, depression, and length of follow-up.
The findings build on Dr. Levy’s stereotype embodiment theory, which posits that age stereotypes absorbed through a range of domains including social media and advertisements eventually become self-relevant and biologically consequential.
Credit: Getty Images for Unsplash+
Dr. Levy’s prior studies have found negative age beliefs predict poorer memory, slower walking speed, higher cardiovascular risk, and biomarkers associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The current study shows that those who have assimilated more positive age beliefs often show improvement, Dr. Levy said.
“Our findings suggest there is often a reserve capacity for improvement in later life,” she said. “And because age beliefs are modifiable, this opens the door to interventions at both the individual and societal level.”
The improvements were not limited to people who started out with impairments. Even among participants who had normal cognitive or physical function at baseline, a substantial proportion improved over time. That challenges the assumption that later-life gains reflect only people getting better after being sick or rebounding from earlier setbacks, the authors said.
In a valuable milestone for the conservation of the Sumatran tiger subspecies, 3 cubs born to a UK zoo have grown old enough to venture out from the maternity den into the enclosure.
It’s thought there are less than 400 Sumatran tigers remaining in the wilds of Indonesia, and they are considered Critically-Endangered by the IUCN.
Tipah and her litter of cubs – credit Tony Kershaw via SWNS
Howletts Wild Animal Park, in Canterbury, Kent, said the cubs’ births represent an important step forward for the conservation of this cat beyond its natural habitat.
The 3 cubs, 2 girls and 1 boy, were born to first-time mom Tipah and dad Nakal and are just 2 months old.
They were born on April 9th and spent their first few weeks with mom Tipah in their den—but in recent weeks have begun to venture outside to the delight of a photographer there to capture their sensory overload.
“Tipah has taken every step of this journey with calmness, patience and a natural ability to be a fantastic mom,” said Head of Carnivores at Howletts Richard Langston said.
“She spends most of her time up on a platform keeping a watchful eye on them while enjoying a little respite from all the jumping, biting and playing that comes with raising energetic tiger cubs.”
GNN has reported on this cat being born in zoos before—at the Wroclaw and San Diego zoos. It’s considered an important priority animal for captive breeding programs, which have saved many species from extinction in the past.
The park added the cubs were becoming increasingly bold and playful, exploring more of their surroundings and beginning to show their individual personalities.
One cub has already developed an independent streak, often choosing to spend time away from its siblings.
For many people, the thought of a tasty burger or a cold pint of beer conjures up a vivid mental image and drives behaviour.
This link between thinking and doing serves a clear function – it motivates us to get the necessities for life.
But for some, this process can malfunction. Preoccupation with these rewarding stimuli can lead to disorders of substance overuse, including overeating to the point of obesity and alcohol abuse.
Understanding this link between craving and consuming is central to understanding addiction. This has eluded neuroscience for decades, but the introduction of a new class of drugs for weight loss may have given us just the lever we need to understand it.
These new drugs – including Ozempic and Wegovy – mimic the GLP-1 hormone to stimulate insulin release, slow digestion, and increase feelings of fullness. They are known as GLP-1 agonists and were originally used to treat type 2 diabetes because they help control blood sugar.
But there is another less well publicised effect. Human studies show that GLP-1 agonists reduce alcohol consumption. Preclinical animal studies suggest these drugs also reduce the use of cocaine, amphetamines, opiates and nicotine.
These drugs are changing how we think about the brain’s reward system. They may also open new treatment options for obesity, alcohol dependence and the consumption of other addictive substances.
How the brain regulates reward stimuli
We have a reasonable understanding of the brain’s “reward circuitry” associated with regions that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine.
These brain parts – the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and nucleus accumbens (NAc) – have been the subject of research on reward for decades. They are the obvious candidate regions to look for a mechanism for GLP-1 action in the brain. But they lack significant density of receptors for GLP-1 and are unlikely to be the direct mechanism.
We must, therefore, consider other brain regions to understand the anti-consumption effect of GLP-1 drugs.
One jump “upstream” from the dopamine-producing brain parts is a region called the lateral septum. This brain structure has been historically implicated in emotional regulation.
Back in 1953, pioneering US behavioural researchers Joseph Brady and Walle Nauta coined the term “septal rage” when animals with damage in the lateral septum showed increased aggression, while direct stimulation of this brain region reduced aggression.
Much more recent work has placed the lateral septum at the centre of a neural connectivity network. This has reframed how we think about its function.
The lateral septum inherits much of its primary input from a brain region called the hippocampus.
This region is well known as the place that lets us form long-term “episodic memories”. A famous case of hippocampal damage, Henry Molaison (patient HM), was unable to form new memories after his surgery for epilepsy. He effectively lived without a past, in permanent present tense.
The hippocampus also contains the remarkable “place cells” – neurons that fire corresponding to a person’s thoughts about their position in space and, as recent research has shown, time.
This “where and when am I” information gets forwarded to the lateral septum. Key research has recently shown the lateral septum also contains place cells, but these cells strongly respond to rewards. They effectively add “what is good in this place” to the “where and when am I” information from the hippocampus.
Critically, the lateral septum shares this information with the dopamine-producing regions we would normally associate with reward.
Neuroscientists now think of the lateral septum as the brain region that lets us “think about” rewards – our conscious perception of them – and communicates with the machinery in the brain’s reward system that produces dopamine to make us feel good about them.
There is one last reason to suspect the lateral septum as the mechanism behind the anti-consumption effect of GLP-1 agonists. It is absolutely loaded with GLP-1 receptors.
Emerging research points to this as the mechanism. GLP-1 activation directly in the lateral septum has recently been shown to reduce food consumption in mice. Earlier this year, another study showed the same for alcohol consumption.
My own lab has shown this year that GLP-1 drugs reduce a type of activity in the lateral septum that may prevent it communicating so effectively with other brain regions.
These findings are reshaping our understanding of how the brain processes rewards and have put the spotlight firmly on the lateral septum as the home of cravings.
Ever wondered what it might feel like to spot giant spider crabs while you’re snorkelling? Or check plants for the circular holes that indicate native bees are collecting nest materials?
Citizen science relies on people like you – more than a million of them in Australia, actually – to collect and analyse valuable data about the world around us.
Here, we introduce five citizen science projects you can take part in. For most of them, all you need to get started is an app on your phone.
Science lives far beyond the lab, and it’s not just done by scientists.
In this series, we spotlight the world of citizen science – its benefits, discoveries and how you can participate.
Spider Crab Watch
Elodie Camprasse, Honorary Fellow – School of Life and Environmental Sciences – Deakin University
Every winter in Port Phillip Bay in Naarm/Melbourne, tens of thousands of great spider crabs gather in shallow water to moult – shedding their shells and growing new ones that grow to about 16 centimetres. But scientists know surprisingly little about them. The gatherings can be unpredictable and short-lived, making them difficult for scientists to monitor alone.
Spider Crab Watch helps researchers fill these knowledge gaps. By bringing together observations from the public – including divers, snorkellers and fishers – scientists can better understand when and where gatherings occur, how long they last, and what environmental conditions might trigger them.
Citizen scientists have already logged hundreds of observations, helping researchers identify new gathering sites and better understand when aggregations occur. Participants can log when and where they see spider crabs – whether a single crab or a large group, in Port Phillip Bay or elsewhere. Photos are helpful but not essential. Empty shells washed up on beaches can also be logged.
Gatherings of great spider crabs can be fleeting and in different locations. Elodie Camprasse, CC BY-ND
NOBURN
Sam Van Holsbeeck, Research Fellow – Forest Research Institute – University of the Sunshine Coast
NOBURN (the National Bushfire Resilience Network) is a citizen science project aimed at improving our understanding of the role of vegetation in bushfire risk. Using an app, people around Australia can log their observations – including site photographs – to support research into fuel dynamics, fuel load and bushfire risk.
Guided by the app, participants assess vegetation at a site, noting factors such as shrub density and overall fuel hazard. Observations typically take 10–15 minutes and can be conducted by community members, landholders, students or land managers. To date, we have collected 154 verified site observations and more than 160 registered users.
Observations supplied by citizen scientists help researchers understand the structure, density and dryness of forest fuels. Combined with AI, this data allows for better prediction of the likelihood and severity of fires. While this data is not as detailed as a full expert assessment, they provide useful indicative information, particularly in areas where formal fuel monitoring is limited.
FrogID
Jodi Rowley, Curator – Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology – Australian Museum – UNSW Sydney
Australia’s frogs are in trouble. At least four species have been lost and dozens more are on the edge of extinction. Yet we lack the information needed to make informed decisions about how to conserve them. Frogs are very sensitive to environmental change. This makes them great indicators of environmental change (they’re often referred to as the “canary in the coal mine”). By monitoring them, we also gain insight into environmental health.
FrogID taps the keen eyes and ears of people across Australia to gather the data needed to help save Australia’s frogs.
Using our free app, people can record frogs wherever they hear them. The best time is after rain and in the first few hours after dark. Once submitted, Australian Museum frog experts listen to the recordings and identify species.
There are more than 100,000 registered users of FrogID who have together gathered almost 1.5 million records of frogs from across Australia. It’s safe to say this dataset has revolutionised our understanding of frogs in Australia – including finding 13 frog species new to science.
1 Million Turtles
James Van Dyke, Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences – La Trobe University
Freshwater turtle numbers have fallen 60–90% across most of the rivers and wetlands of Australia, amid engineered flows and increasingly dry conditions. As turtles disappear, they leave a large gap. Turtles are the “vacuum cleaners” of the waterways, eating decaying organisms and vegetation and improving water quality.
The 1 Million Turtles project aims to increase survival rates of freshwater turtles and turtle nests, and increase Australia’s turtle population by at least one million animals.
People of all ages can download and record any turtles or turtle nests they see in Australia. They can also volunteer for other activities, such as nest protection, via our website.
To date, our citizen scientists have logged nearly 34,000 turtle records across the country. They have also saved more than 2,600 turtles from dangerous road crossings, and protected more than 1,940 turtle nests from invasive foxes and pigs.
Assuming each nest held an average of 15 eggs, and half of the turtles saved on roads were adult females of reproductive age, our program has given 400,000 turtles the chance of a future in just the past five years.
Data from this community conservation program has led to the conservation status of turtle species being upgraded to threatened or endangered. It has also prompted the development of state conservation programs for turtles in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
A broadshell turtle. Turtles are the ‘vacuum cleaners’ of the waterways, eating decaying organisms and vegetation and improving water quality. James Van Dyke, CC BY-ND
Australian ‘leafcutter’ bees
Kit Prendergast, Research Fellow – School of Science – University of Southern Queensland
Native bee numbers are declining and we have limited information about them. There are more than 2,000 species of native bee, including the Megachile bee. Some species of Megachile bee use plant leaves or even petals to build their nests, giving them the common name of leafcutter bees.
We don’t yet know which plants these bee species rely on. This citizen science project allows the public to use an app to identify which plants the bees are relying on. By noting preferred plants, we’ll have a better idea of how to create habitats for these gorgeous native bees and pollinators.
Most native bees cannot be identified by citizens, due to the specialised skills required, and most diagnostic features being microscopic. But when it comes to plants, these are much better known among the public and can be identified easily by photos.
Members of the public can download the free iNaturalist app and when they see a plant that has distinctive discs cut out, or see a Megachile bee in action, they can take a photo of the leaf “damage”. Once completed, gardeners, land managers and farmers will be able to access an evidence-based list of which nesting plants should accompany food plants.
A megachile native bee cutting a leaf. Lynda Wilson, CC BY-ND
New Delhi, (IANS): An SIIC IIT Kanpur-incubated startup, ScaNxt Scientific Technologies, entered into an agreement with two institutions under the Ministry of Science and Technology for the technology transfer of India’s first indigenously developed 100 per cent electric compact tractor, a statement has said.
The electric compact tractor, developed with over 90 per cent indigenous components, has been specifically designed for India’s small and marginal farmers.
Conventional diesel-based mechanisation models have historically remained economically inaccessible for small land holders, creating a structural productivity gap across rural India.
India’s agricultural economy remains heavily dependent on smallholder farmers, with over 86 per cent of farming households operating on less than 2 hectares of land.
The tractor integrates a fully electric drivetrain, Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) functionality capable of powering irrigation pumps and farm equipment, compact operational architecture suited for smaller farms, and simplified controls designed to improve accessibility for women farmers.
“Our Smart Compact EV Tractor will dramatically cut cultivation costs, generate green jobs in rural India, and usher in a new era of precision and prosperous farming,” the ScaNxt team said in the statement.
The development also signalled the emergence of a new category within India’s farm mechanisation landscape.
With electric agricultural equipment still at an early stage nationally, the initiative opens opportunities for manufacturing, distribution, servicing, and ecosystem development around sustainable rural mobility solutions.
SIIC IIT Kanpur signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CSIR-CMERI and the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) during the Vigyan Tech 2026 exhibition in New Delhi.
Under the agreement, ScaNxt Scientific Technologies will commercialise the technology under its own brand identity, with a focus on creating an affordable, energy-efficient, and scalable mechanisation solution for India’s rural economy."The agreement reflects the growing maturity of India’s translational innovation ecosystem — where publicly funded research, startup entrepreneurship, and institutional incubation are converging to solve large-scale national challenges through indigenous technologies," the statement noted. IIT Kanpur-incubated startup inks pact for India’s first 100 pc electric compact tractor | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com
AI could have detected disease up to 6 years before 2014 breast cancer diagnosis screenings
Early warning signs of breast cancer could have been spotted years in advance using AI, suggests a new study that analyzed 88,963 mammograms performed during a 10-year period on over 31,000 patients.
The researchers showed that the latest artificial intelligence technology can provide an “early alert” for the disease up to six years before a diagnosis.
Swedish researchers tested three commercially available AI-based computer-assisted detection (AI-CAD) radiology systems on the mammogram data.
The findings, published in the journal Radiology, showed that cancer prediction scores issued by AI-CAD were elevated, on average, for people who were eventually diagnosed with breast cancer, while scores were low for those who remained cancer-free.
“Approximately 20% of breast cancer cases demonstrate mammographic signs that are already visible to AI around six years before diagnosis,” said senior co-author Professor Fredrik Strand, of Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm.
“Our study confirms the potential of AI to, in some cases, find signs of cancer in the mammograms much earlier than when radiologists detected it.”
AI-based systems have shown promise for predicting 5-year risk of breast cancer and identifying women at risk of “interval” cancers between regular screening mammograms, but Prof. Strand’s team looked at their potential to flag mammographic signs that were present up to 10 years (in advance), after collecting mammograms from volunteers aged 40 to 74 across Sweden.
After these volunteer screening exams, two radiologists analyzed each mammogram, which was scheduled every two years—taken between 2008 and 2019.
Across that period, 12,072 of the participants (38.5%) were diagnosed with cancer by radiologist readers.
The AI-CAD systems successfully identified many of those cancers at earlier screening points.
It achieved 90% “specificity” (able to distinguish between a true positive and a true negative result) in nearly 20% of participants six years before their recorded diagnosis, up to 25% of individuals four years before diagnosis and up to nearly 40% two years before diagnosis.
“This study aims to add to the growing literature regarding the application of AI in breast cancer screening and how it can help play a role in earlier detection of breast cancer,” said Strand.
Colobus congoensis – credit, released by Daniel Rosengren, Frankfurt Zoological Society
Credit: Erika Fletcher
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Elodie Camprasse, 
Gatherings of great spider crabs can be fleeting and in different locations. Elodie Camprasse, 
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