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Today:
One Diet Helped Aging Mice Lose Fat While Preserving Muscle
NEWS | 25 July 2026
As we age, keeping excess body fat in check while preserving muscle becomes increasingly difficult. A new study in aging mice found that an experimental low-protein diet, supplemented with methionine – an essential amino acid obtained through food – helped the animals lose fat without sacrificing lean body mass. Although inspired by Mediterranean-style eating patterns, the experimental diet was not a conventional Mediterranean diet. The team studied 20-month-old mice – roughly comparable to humans in their early 60s – assigned to a standard diet, a Western-style diet high in fat and sugar, a low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet, or the experimental diet. – biomedical scientist Maura FantiMice on the experimental diet lost body fat while preserving lean mass, showed less frailty, and maintained better blood sugar control.

Top Stories:
A Force From The Milky Way May Have Shaped The Continents on Earth
NEWS | 25 July 2026
At the dawn of the Solar System, young Earth was little more than a squishy ball of half-molten rock. "Geology has perhaps drawn the boundary around the Earth system too tightly," Kirkland told ScienceAlert. The Solar System is surrounded by the Oort Cloud, a vast spherical shell of icy bodies extending thousands of times farther from the Sun than Pluto. Lett., 2026)As the Solar System moves through the galaxy's spiral arms, gravitational interactions could dislodge Oort Cloud objects and send them hurtling towards the inner Solar System to become comets. "Its battered surface is a vivid record of the bombardment endured by the inner Solar System.

World:
Watching Too Much TV May Actually Rot Your Brain After All, Study Finds
NEWS | 25 July 2026
If you click on the TV and hear a voice from your childhood saying, "That idiot box is going to rot your brain!" Brain regions associated with the frequency of TV watching (left) and sitting during work (right). Watching TV is considered a cognitively passive activity. Research also can't prove that watching TV directly caused the brain differences, and clearly there's a gender element too. Other unmeasured lifestyle factors, such as snacking, drinking alcohol, or reclining or napping while "watching" TV, could have contributed to the findings.

Current Events:
A Common Gym Supplement May Give Cancer-Fighting Cells an Energy Boost
NEWS | 25 July 2026
The latest discovery is that creatine can also act as a backup battery for dendritic cells, the support workers behind the T cells that direct them into the fray. Having identified the importance of creatine, the researchers tested its effect in human cells and mouse models of cancer. The researchers determined that creatine acts as an energy battery powering dendritic cells. They found the creatine transporter – tasked with pulling in creatine – was much more active in these cells compared to dendritic cells in healthy tissue. "Understanding how to metabolically support dendritic cells is about supporting the entire anti-tumor response, not just the killer T cells at the end of it," says molecular biologist Elliot Kang.

News Flash:
If You Remove a Mirror While a Photon Is Reflecting, It Somehow Makes Infinite Photons
NEWS | 25 July 2026
"Surprisingly, we will find that a truncated photon is a complicated state involving photon numbers up to infinity," the researchers say. So the researchers calculated what would happen if one were to remove an optical shutter – basically a mirror – while it's in the act of reflecting a photon. But could one really generate infinite photons, either in theory or in practice? When truncating the photon by removing the mirror, the expected number of produced photons is not infinite." There would appear to be a single photon to the left of the mirror, an explosion of many photons in the transition area in the middle, and zero photons to the right of the mirror.

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SPONSORED | 25 July 2026
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Latest:
Itching May Have Its Own Sensory Organ
NEWS | 25 July 2026
A new study in mice suggests this protective impulse may even have its own dedicated sensory organ: vellus-like hairs. Humans, by contrast, are almost totally covered in vellus hairs, also known as 'peach fuzz'. Vellus hairs in mice grow most prolifically behind their ears and on their hind paws. Vellus hairs, aka 'peach fuzz', cover almost every inch of the human body. A gentle stroke of the tip of a vellus-like hair was enough to trigger itching in mice.

Breaking:
A Wild Parasite Makes Ants Live 10x Longer And Tricks Others Into Worshipping Them
NEWS | 25 July 2026
Infected ants start to change color, becoming pale yellow rather than their usual darker brown. Infected workers (right) become much lighter in color than uninfected ants (left). Infected ants, meanwhile, lean into their new lifestyle. (April Nobile/AntWeb/CC BY 4.0)Intriguingly, the similarities between queens and infected workers disappeared when the researchers looked at their brains. Strangely though, the researchers found that the signaling molecules in the brains of infected ants don't really resemble those produced by the parasite.

Trending:
Naked Mole-Rats Just Got Even Wackier; Turns Out The Queen Keeps Her Colony Infertile Through Scent
NEWS | 25 July 2026
Naked mole-rats are wonderfully strange. Naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber) also have ridiculously high levels of pain resistance. "In the world of naked mole-rats, it is reality." The researchers first confirmed that naked mole-rats rely heavily on smell to recognize colony members. Unlike many odor molecules that quickly evaporate, IPM can linger in the tunnels where naked mole-rats spend their lives.

This Just In:
The US Eliminated Measles in 2000, Now It's Surging. Scientists Explain What It'll Take to Get The Disease Under Control Once More
NEWS | 25 July 2026
Measles cases in the United States have reached levels not seen in over three decades, raising concerns that the country could soon lose its measles elimination status. "We eliminated measles in 2000 after decades of hard-won public health work… It was a huge win for public health," public health expert Jessica Steier, founder of Unbiased Science, told ScienceAlert. This elimination status was recertified in 2011, but since then, it has not been reviewed. When it comes to measles, elimination status doesn't mean the virus is totally eradicated from a country's borders. Experts say that is no longer the landscape of the measles virus in the US.

Today:
Orcas Keep Punching Giant Sunfish to Smithereens, And Scientists Are Mesmerized
NEWS | 25 July 2026
A pod of orcas approaches a sharptail mola (Masturus lanceolatus), or sunfish, apparently just hanging out, minding its own business. – marine biologist Erick Higuera Rivas. "Initially, upon seeing a high-speed ram, our instinct leads us to assume it is the killing blow intended to incapacitate a moving target," Higuera Rivas said. "Through a 'stabilization-and-ram' model, two orcas combine their physical attributes to compensate for the lack of appendages for tearing," Higuera Rivas told ScienceAlert. Higuera Rivas believes sunfish ramming may serve a dual purpose: breaking the sunfish into bite-sized chunks, and assisting the youngsters' physical and social development.

Top Stories:
Study Finds a Worrying New Side Effect of GLP-1 Drugs That No One's Talking About
NEWS | 25 July 2026
There was a notable link between GLP-1 treatments and hair thinning: a 37 percent higher risk compared to SGLT-2 inhibitors, and a 68 percent higher risk compared to DPP-4 inhibitors. Hair loss risk was greater with GLP-1 compared to SGLT-2 inhibitors. (Tang et al., BMJ, 2026)The study involved a large number of people: 12,004 patients using GLP-1 drugs were compared to 15,221 using SGLT-2 inhibitors, with an additional 11,964 GLP-1 users compared to 11,233 using DPP-4 inhibitors. Other variables that could account for hair loss risk, including age, sex, ethnicity, and pre-existing conditions, were factored into the statistics. On the flip side, GLP-1 drugs have also been associated with protection against dementia and certain types of cancer.