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Today:
Scientists Have Discovered Where Native Hawaiians Came From, And The Genetic Effect of Their Long Voyage
NEWS | 08 November 2026
Millennia later, they reached Hawaii, a lush paradise born of Earth's inner fire, and among the most isolated places on Earth. "Hawaii is the only Polynesian island in the Northern Hemisphere, so it's a long way from everything." Also, 12 unpublished genomes from Rapa Nui, and genomic data from Native Hawaiians, Samoans, and Tongans from the NIH's All of Us Biobank. They isolated genetic segments of Polynesian ancestry via the machine learning Gnomix analyzer, using genomic data from diverse populations around the world as a reference panel. The researchers also performed a genetic analysis of people from Tahiti, as they represent the largest genomic dataset.

Top Stories:
This Robotic Hand Walks on Its Fingers Like Thing From The Addams Family, And It's Creepy as Heck
NEWS | 08 November 2026
Watching a hand walk away on its fingers brings to mind Thing from The Addams Family. To walk, a robotic hand has to keep shifting that support while carrying its entire weight. The robotic hand walks along a stone ledge outdoors, carrying its own battery and computer. Kazemipour, Hehui Zheng, and Katzschmann started with a WUJI robotic hand, adding a battery, a small computer, and a motion sensor. The robotic hand stands on its fingertips, carrying its battery, computer, and motion sensor on its back.

World:
Meet The 'Hell Chicken', a Dinosaur With an Extremely Rare Type of Diet
NEWS | 08 November 2026
Meet Infernogallus jamesi – the 'hell chicken' that lived alongside icons like Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops. "The anatomy of Infernogallus is bizarre among dinosaurs, and we quickly realized that we were dealing with something special." Instead, the hell chicken seemed to have a taste for mushing up soft foods, like fruit. CT scans showed that the muscles in the hell chicken's jaws were positioned in a front-to-back direction, rather than up-and-down. Now, we get to picture this little hell chicken munching on cherries while watching a T. rex fight a Triceratops.

Current Events:
Scientists Identified 10 Healthy Diets Linked to Slower Biological Aging
NEWS | 08 November 2026
Biological aging is how quickly or slowly our bodies are wearing out, and it doesn't necessarily match up with how many birthdays you've had. Across the board, and for all of the diet regimes covered by the study, healthier eating was associated with slower biological aging. There were also the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI-2010), the Plant-based Diet Index (PDI), the Healthful Plant-based Diet Index (hPDI), and the EAT-Lancet Diet. "We applied three different approaches, so-called epigenetic clocks, to read biological aging from DNA methylation," says epidemiologist Juliana Tavares, from DZNE. The same associations emerged, broadly speaking: healthier eating meant slower biological aging.

News Flash:
Humans Are Still Evolving Right Before Our Eyes. Here Are 5 Signs on Our Bodies
NEWS | 08 November 2026
It contains one of the strongest documented examples of modern natural selection that scientists have yet found. Some of our ancestors, however, had gene variants that meant they could tolerate dairy without getting sick. (Sienna R. Craig)Some signs of natural selection can also be seen on the outside of our bodies. A map showing global differences in ultraviolet (UV) radiation, human skin pigmentation, and the genes associated with skin color. Even the way that you are reading this article right now might be a product of natural selection.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 08 November 2026
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Latest:
Less Than 42 Minutes of Bright Light Daily Is a Stronger Predictor of Dementia Than Obesity, Study Finds
NEWS | 08 November 2026
In fact, spending at least 42 minutes a day exposed to bright light (5,000 lux or more) was associated with a 17 percent lower relative risk of dementia. Greater daytime light exposure was linked with up to a 41 percent lower risk of dementia. "These findings position daytime light exposure as a novel, robust and measurable indicator of dementia risk," write the study authors, led by researchers at Guangzhou Medical University in China. Sunlight on the skin, meanwhile, stimulates vitamin D production, which is also tied to dementia risk. "No prior study has investigated associations between average daytime and nighttime light exposures and dementia risk," the authors note.

Breaking:
Scientists Discover Two Enormous Tears in a Tectonic Plate Beneath Iran
NEWS | 08 November 2026
On the scale of human generations, the tectonic plates that form Earth's crust and upper mantle are moving incredibly slowly. Researchers led by a team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have now found extensive evidence of two giant tears in a tectonic plate called the Arabian Plate, underneath southeastern Iran. Meanwhile, the other part of the plate is continental rock – thicker in size but less dense in composition, with lighter ingredients that make it granite-like. As these vibrations change speed based on rock temperature and density, a picture of tectonic plate activity can be put together. "We further identify another slab tear that probably initiated at the junction between the Makran Trench and the transform boundary and has propagated southward as the continental plate advances northward."

Trending:
Belief in Magic Is Not Disappearing in The Modern World, Study Shows
NEWS | 08 November 2026
The researchers wanted to understand what happens to supernatural beliefs as religious institutions lose influence. The researchers compared these views with three categories of supernatural belief. Their magic score included belief in ghosts, curses, spirits inhabiting objects, communicating with the dead, predicting the future, and magic itself. For sociologists, the findings suggest that questioning religious authority doesn't always mean abandoning supernatural beliefs. Following the same people over time could show how their supernatural beliefs change alongside their relationship with religion.

This Just In:
Treating Sleep Apnea Could Improve Sperm Quality, Study Finds
NEWS | 08 November 2026
A small prospective study has now found that while obstructive sleep apnea is not associated with erectile dysfunction, it is associated with poorer sperm quality. frameborder="0″ allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen>Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the airway becomes restricted during sleep, leading to loud snoring that's interrupted by pauses in breathing. (Grandriver/E+/Getty Images)Male participants in the study were aged 18 to 50, and some were diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea using an overnight test at a sleep center. Compared to those without sleep apnea, researchers found that those with sleep apnea had lower semen quality, independent of erectile function. Participants in the sleep apnea group had roughly 10 percent fewer sperm capable of swimming forward and 10 percent fewer sperm capable of swimming at all.

Today:
A Stinky Gas Seeping From The Bowels of Mars May Reveal The Planet Is Still Volcanically Active
NEWS | 08 November 2026
Now, the detection of some stinky gas suggests its heart (or gut) is still beating with melty magma. (ESA)"Our results are best explained by ongoing igneous processes in the Martian interior," the researchers say in the study. (ESA/TGO/CaSSIS)Multiple regions of the red planet show signs of recent volcanic activity over the past tens of millions of years, and hot mantle plumes could be melting parts of the Martian interior even today. However, a handful of HCl signals seem to seep from within the planet's potentially still-molten bowels. This means that the HCl signals are more likely to be of magmatic origin, rather than the result of atmospheric aerosols.

Top Stories:
A Cheap Daily Vitamin Shows Promise For People at Risk of Leukemia, Early Trial Finds
NEWS | 08 November 2026
Vitamin C levels are often chronically low in people with blood cancers, and there's long been debate about whether topping up these levels might work as a cancer therapy. Better survival rates for those on vitamin C were among the report's key findings. frameborder="0″ allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen>Based on previous research, vitamin C has been identified as an important helper for the TET2 enzyme (a kind of worker protein). Overall, the results are positive and suggest that vitamin C could be a relatively easy, low-cost way of reducing the chances of cancer developing in those at high risk. However, a larger phase 3 trial will need to be needed to definitively say whether a course of vitamin C can reduce cancer risk or extend lifespans.

World:
University Exams Produce a Distinct Chemical Signature in Sewage, Study Suggests
NEWS | 08 November 2026
In a new study, scientists showed that you can do this, and it's all thanks to human sewage. In the study, the University of Queensland team analyzed wastewater collected from an Australian university campus (serving 30,000 people), comparing sewage collected during the teaching semester with samples from an examination period, and also examining wastewater from a nearby general community. The findings provide a proof of concept for using wastewater surveillance to monitor stress-related responses in university populations, the researchers say. "The consistent direction of change across multiple antidepressants and metabolites suggests a possible examination-period increase in antidepressant consumption within the university campus, although the evidence remains suggestive rather than conclusive," the team writes in their paper. "This pattern is broadly consistent with the well-established association between academic stress and worsening depressive and anxiety symptoms among university students."

Current Events:
Scientists Used a 'Psychomanteum' to Summon Ghostly Encounters. Then It Got Weird.
NEWS | 08 November 2026
The experiment took place in a small chamber called a psychomanteum, where participants tried to experience the presence of someone who had died. An infrared camera filmed the mirror area, while an electronic device produced random numbers to investigate possible associations between participants' experiences and its output. Small specks appeared both with and without participants present, with no significant difference in their overall frequency. Dust, airborne particles, and small mirror movements remain possible explanations. Many participants also reported prior ghost experiences, limiting how widely the results might apply.

News Flash:
MIT Scientists Break a 20-Year Rule And Unlock Never-Before-Seen Crystal Structures
NEWS | 08 November 2026
In a new study in Nature Materials, the researchers went for the opposite approach, building connector molecules that were floppy rather than rigid. Crucially, the researchers found that this gave them better control over the number of links between the nanoparticles, and the direction of those links. Materials made of nanoparticles are already widely used in a variety of fields, but they can be difficult to scale up. Mater., 2026)In tests, the team was able to create ordered crystal structures that haven't been seen before. Materials scientists have previously tried to fine-tune nanoparticle connections by precisely aligning them, or changing the shape of the particles themselves.