The fifth time that the SF book I was reading used "click" instead of "klick," I stopped reading. Willing suspension of disbelief does not include willing acceptance of flagrant ignorance.
Even if it's just another American bungling the metric system. In English units it would be like:
"Ensign, what's the distance to that object?"
"It's ten thousand moles, sir."
A survey by the (American) Public Religion Research Institute found that empathy is valued most highly (83%) by the religiously non-affiliated, next most highly by adherents to non-Christian religions, and least (42%) by white evangelical Protestants.
Graphic from Axios: https://www.axios.com/2026/10/20/religious-divide-empathy-democrats-republicans
Neurons and immune cells are not the only types of cells that have a form of memory. Muscle and liver cells also store information about previous conditions.
Related paper: https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpcell.00451.2025
An observational study of nearly 90,000 people found those in the top quintile of N-glycolylneuroaminic acid (Neu5Gc) intake (a sugar found in red meat) had a 63% higher risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D) than those in the lowest quintile. It may be a marker not a cause: standardizing to red meat intake eliminated the association, and dairy Neu5Gc was not associated with T2D.
Presentation not online.
A review of 22 studies of trans fats in dairy food, including short-term controlled trials and long-term cohort studies, concludes that trans fats in dairy foods do not have the same effect as manufactured trans fats. Dairy trans fats were not associated with adverse blood lipid changes or cardiometabolic outcomes, or type 2 diabetes risk.
Original paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0271531726000357
A paper that found that AI-generated art has a positive impact on cultural identity and the sustainability of cultural heritage has been retracted because (take a guess...) it was written by AI.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844026010303
A study that measured the cardio and muscular fitness of over 1,000 children aged 7-15 in 1985 found that, 30 years later, those with better cardiorespiratory fitness had lower risk of depression as adults. The relationship appeared stronger for women than men.
Summary: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-10-childhood-linked-adult-depression.html
Original paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032726012255
Daily food and gut microbiome (GM) data for 158 blood cancer patients found that antibiotic impacts on the GM were worsened by added (but not natural) sugar. For those with above-median sugar intake, the duration of broad-spectrun antibiotic use was correlated with higher mortality risk. Infectious *Enterococcus faecium* abundance increased in the disrupted GM.
Summary: https://nyulangone.org/news/sugar-amplifies-damage-done-gut-health-antibiotics
Original: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-11077-3
Indri lemurs shape their mouths to boost resonant frequencies as the pitch of their song rises--just like opera singers.
https://nautil.us/singing-lemurs-borrow-a-trick-from-opera-singers-1285176
The sex-neutral physical fitness standards that Hegseth mandated earlier this year were pretty clearly intended to drive women out of combat roles, if not out of the military altogether. The numbers for the Marine Corps are in, and they show that over 91% of women passed the standard. Almost 97% of the men passed.
https://thewarhorse.org/hegseth-marine-women-combat-fitness-test/
Approximately 600 people were asked to rate the fairness of compromises--or allocations--between different people or gropus in 18 constructed scenarios. Three allocation approaches were contrasted: utilitarian, fairness-weighted utiiltarian (egalitarian), and contractual (the Nash Product). When the results disagreed, people overwhelmingly preferred the contractual solution.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027726002635
By triggering inflammation in pregnant female mice, researchers found that embryonic day 12.5 is a critical time for the inflammation to damage the placental interface between mother and fetus. This damage results in autism symptoms in 30% of fetuses--but only male fetuses. This occurs before sexual differentiation occurs in the brain.
Summary: https://neurosciencenews.com/placenta-mia-autism-31225/
Original paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeg0779
#Science #Autism #ASD #Pregnancy #WomensHealth #Inflammation #ChildDevelopment
Job applicants who are interviewed by AI, when the evaluation process is opaque, tend to misleadingly embellish their credentials. Scoring by AI did not detect these embellishments, but scoring by human reviewers did--unless the humans were 'assisted' by AI, in which case they anchored on the AI's assessment.
Original paper (not open access): https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/isre.2023.0579
Researchers tracked the location of every oocyte in 100 mouse ovaries and found that only 14% are activated at any time. This indicates that the ovary is an actively regulated system, not just a pool of oocytes; the nature of that mechanism is unknown. They also found a bimodal distribution of oocyte sizes and 3- to 4-fold difference between mice in oocyte numbers.
Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-026-01178-z
A new paper argues that the aging brain's decline in encoding of new memories is an adaptive response that favors the preservation of accumulated knowledge and social insight. The result, coupled with greater emotional regulation, presents as wisdom and may provide evolutionary value through intergenerational teaching.
Summary: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/2026-sept-aging-brain.html
Original paper (not open access): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/17456916261469175
Years ago my wife covered up the clock on the oven, which is never set, with a label that said "It is later than you think." She just replaced it with something more ominous.
A longitudinal study of almost 5,700 U.S. adults, followed for almost 7 years, found that those who had both abdominal obesity (measured as thickness) and weak grip strength had a 97% higher risk of death relative to those with neither condition. This was more predictive than BMI or either of the measurements alone.
Original paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167494326002451
After investigators failed to plug a drill hole in the South China Sea, methane was continuously released in a plume extending 1,200 m upward. The site was rapidly colonized by methanogenic bacteria, followed by tube worms and crustaceans, resulting in substantial reduction in the methane release in two years and a hundred-fold decrease in methane concentration in surface sediment.
Original paper: https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/13/12/nwag266/8678209?login=false
Scientists have discovered that frozen riverbeds in the Arctic erode more quickly than temperate riverbeds when they thaw.
Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03468-1
This is no surpise to those of us who live on unpaved roads--freezing disaggreagates the road surface so that it moves downslope when thawing unlocks the gravel from the ice.
Out-hallucinating the AI interviewer:
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-job-interview-llm-prompt-hacking-haywire
Everybody should do this.