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Today:
Only Cats Are Linked to Worse Mental Health in Young Kids, Study Finds
NEWS | 09 September 2026
Cats seem to be associated with worse mental health measures for children, while other pets, including rabbits, reptiles, or amphibians, seem to have the opposite effect. The rest of the pet companionship scenarios did not show significant associations with the children's mental health. The researchers' adjusted results plot the association between pet ownership and children's mental health. (González et al., World Journal of Pediatrics, 2025)The researchers offer multiple hypotheses to explain the lack of observed mental health benefits. "Collectively, our data highlights the complex relationship between early pet ownership and child mental health," the researchers conclude.

Top Stories:
A Neuroscientist Just Challenged One of The Brain's Biggest Assumptions
NEWS | 09 September 2026
"Explaining that the brain works by way of a central controller suggests that you haven't figured out how the brain works, because you've just put a person inside your brain," says James. "That person inside your brain would need another person inside its brain, which would need a person inside its brain and so on, in an infinite regress. The idea of decision making may be an illusion, the study argues. So while we might have the sense of making decisions, and decisions are actually being made, the neuroscience behind them needs a rethink. "The leap, I think, is to say that the brain works by having decision-making or control processes," says James.

World:
Scientists Are Making Concrete With Human Poop – And It Gets 42% Stronger
NEWS | 09 September 2026
To make the biochar, fecal sludge is dried, then heated in a low-oxygen environment at temperatures between 350 and 450 degrees Celsius (662 to 842 Fahrenheit) to produce biochar. The biochar concrete specimens being prepared and tested for compressive strength. The researchers measured the shrinkage, compressive strength, flexural strength, water absorption, and porosity of their different mixes, and this is where it got really interesting. Overall, the strongest concrete was generally produced when 5 percent of the cement was replaced with poop biochar. For one, poop biochar is highly porous, riddled with tiny cavities that can soak up water and gradually release it as the concrete cures.

Current Events:
Scientists Uncover a Surprising Gut Connection in Fatal Asthma
NEWS | 09 September 2026
A fatal asthma attack appears to be a disaster contained entirely within the chest. This doesn't mean food, digestive problems, or gut bacteria cause fatal asthma. In fatal asthma, immune populations in the lungs showed more associations with responses in gut-associated lymph nodes than they did in people without asthma. Its gut connection concerns immune cells inside lymph nodes near the intestines – not evidence that a particular meal or microbe triggers fatal attacks. Related: Asthma Attacks May Cause Damage Scientists Never Noticed BeforeThe final crisis of fatal asthma takes place in the lungs.

News Flash:
WHO Issues New Guidelines on How to Reduce Dementia Cases by 45%
NEWS | 09 September 2026
And even amid all the uncertainty, a substantial proportion of dementia cases may be preventable, or, at the very least, delayable. The 2024 review identified 14 potentially modifiable risk factors that, taken together, are associated with an estimated 45 percent of dementia cases at a population level. The 14 potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia identified by the 2024 Lancet Commission, and their estimated contribution to dementia cases at a population level. Mechanisms of action by which addressing each risk factor can potentially reduce dementia risk. (WHO)On a related note, identifying a modifiable dementia risk isn't the same as knowing how to modify it in a way that actually prevents dementia.

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SPONSORED | 09 September 2026
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Latest:
Scientists Warn 'Drylands' Could Spread to Over 40% of Earth by 2100
NEWS | 09 September 2026
But in a surprise twist, the most prominent contributor to climate change – rising carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) levels – may actually be slowing the expansion of Earth's drylands, researchers say. Drylands are regions that face great water scarcity, where precipitation is low relative to the potential loss of water through evaporation and plant transpiration. Spatial distribution of global drylands and associated climate zones from 1994–2023 (a); percentage of each climate zone (b). In the study, the researchers used updated climate modeling to map current global dryland distribution and project how they might spread in the future. The researchers project that drylands of varying intensity will increase to cover up to 40.28 percent of Earth's land during 2071–2100.

Breaking:
Scientists Find How Long You Can Sit Before Cancer Risk Climbs – And We're in Trouble
NEWS | 09 September 2026
Numerous studies have shown just how damaging long hours of sedentary behavior can be. Most striking of all, researchers found that for every extra hour of prolonged sitting in the day, people in the study faced a significantly higher risk of cancer and cancer mortality. While those relative risk estimates may seem modest, it's the cumulative time that matters here, with each hour adding to cancer risk. Each hour of interrupted sedentary behavior was linked to an 18 percent lower risk of dying from cancer and a 6 percent reduction in overall cancer incidence. "To our knowledge, this is the first study that showed the differential associations of interrupted and prolonged sedentary behavior with cancer outcomes," the researchers write.

Trending:
Scientists Uncover Shared Genetic Roots of OCD, Tourette Syndrome, And Autism
NEWS | 09 September 2026
Accordingly, the researchers found that these brain regions showed increased expression of risk-associated genes present at prenatal and postnatal stages. Risk genes are also highly expressed postnatally, in the cerebellum, a coordinator of movements, affecting essential functions like timing and balance. What's more, this confirms "substantial genetic overlap between OCD and CTD," the researchers note, as 30 of the 36 identified genes were associated with both OCD and CTD cases. Finally, the researchers found that some of the risk genes were associated with other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism spectrum disorder, developmental delays, and schizophrenia, strengthening previous links between developmental pathologies. These possibilities are now greater than ever, as the researchers have increased the number of known large-effect risk genes by a factor of ten.

This Just In:
Quantum Computers Just Passed a Test That Classical Computers Fundamentally Can't
NEWS | 09 September 2026
There's a mathematically proven limit to how well any classical computer can perform. A glimpse of the complex optical systems behind Quantinuum's trapped-ion quantum computers. As the size of the problem increased, the quantum computer's performance remained beyond the classical limit, with the gap between quantum and classical performance growing exponentially. Related: Quantum Teleportation Was Achieved Over The Internet For The First TimeA more rigorous future test would put them on separate quantum computers connected by a genuine quantum communication channel. "Our test," the researchers write, "demonstrates the power of quantum superposition in a manner that is oblivious to entanglement and non-locality."

Today:
Blocking a Single Immune Signal Made Old Mice Act Young Again
NEWS | 09 September 2026
Those troublesome cells are neutrophils, first-responder white blood cells that kill pathogens as part of the body's immune system. The researchers found that age-related declines in clearance of tissue-resident macrophages (TRMs) contributed to organ aging in mice. In tests on young and old mice, the researchers reduced signaling through a cell receptor called EP2, using both drugs and genetic editing. When EP2 was disabled or blocked, the changes in older mice were notable. There was another discovery along the way as well: The researchers were able to identify 71 proteins that changed in older mice.

Top Stories:
Scientists Identify a Nose-to-Brain Circuit That Links Anxiety And Breathing
NEWS | 09 September 2026
In a new mouse study published in PNAS, researchers identify a novel "nose-to-brain circuit" that may explain one way that nasal breathing can influence anxiety. Slow nasal breathing seems to tame anxiety more effectively than slow mouth breathing, hinting at something unique about the nose in emotional modulation. Nasal breathing rhythm also has been shown to synchronize brain oscillations in both humans and rodents. The effect is also bidirectional, which suggests faster breathing could amplify anxiety just as slower breathing seems to relieve it. The researchers also put some mice on a two-week regimen of controlled slow nasal airflow, which restored neural activity and reduced anxiety-like behaviors.

World:
A Shared Biology Underlies 5 Major Fatigue-Causing Illnesses, Scientists Suggest
NEWS | 09 September 2026
Those with chronic fatigue syndrome, sometimes known as myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), suffer from symptoms like extreme and persistent exhaustion and cognitive issues, including 'brain fog'. Yet long-lasting, chronic fatigue is a hallmark of numerous other commonly debilitating illnesses, including long COVID, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and multiple sclerosis (MS). Analyses revealed little direct gene overlap in CFS/ME, long COVID, PTSD, RA, and MS (left), but suggest that these conditions converge around several common biological 'hubs'. "These findings suggest a state of chronic immune activation followed by functional exhaustion, which may contribute to persistent symptoms," the researchers write in their paper. Related: In a First, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Linked to The Brain's Clearing System"In that scenario, chronic exhaustion is not simply a symptom.

Current Events:
A Mold Living in Your Gut May Help Protect Against Radiation Damage
NEWS | 09 September 2026
That's because this symbiotic fungus that lives inside the human gut appears capable of protecting us from radiation, according to a new study in PNAS. It might sound a bit hard to believe, but this isn't the first time we've seen fungi doing weird things with radiation. M. racemosus has a different kind of parlor trick for radiation, but it's no less impressive. When germ-free mice (raised to be free of microorganisms) were administered the fungus, they too showed reduced markers of radiation damage compared to control animals, suggesting M. racemosus helps to protect against the harms of radiation independent of host microbiota. "These results demonstrate that M. racemosus directly alleviates radiation-induced intestinal injury in mice," the researchers explain.