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Melbourne, Florida, 17th August 2026, CyberNewswire

There is a vast literature near the topic of this post, much of which has developed specialized vocabularies and concepts. And I can’t be bothered to master enough of it to make this post match it well. So please try to treat my words here as if their meanings came from other less specialized literatures.

Consider three kinds of systems:

• Experience - Seen from the inside, a mind is aware of, can reason about, and might even “feel” a structure of experiences across time. These experiences are differentiated in many ways, and have many relations to each other.

• Brain - In brains, signals pass from nodes to nodes, and each node collects input signals, transform those according to patterns, changes its internal state, and then sends signals out. Such sending and transforming takes time, and happens with error. At the edge, “sensor” interactions cause input signals and output signals cause “actuator” interactions.

• Physics - Physical stuff, located in various space(time) alternatives, and of different types, is governed by simple self- and other- interaction rules re what happens when stuff is at the same place. These rules make stuff move and change. The transitive closure over interaction of stuff is a physical world.

A standard reduction view, which is also my view, is that each experience system is *made of some part (perhaps all) of a particular brain system, which is then made of a some part of a physical world system. When system A is “made of” system B, then A descriptions drop detail from and abstract from details of B systems, but add almost nothing that isn’t implicit in B. A complete description of B could in principle be used to calculate an almost complete description of A. (Some “almost” exceptions are discussed below.)

A standard physics view, which is also my view, is that we understand the physics near and in ordinary brains very well, and that such physics is pretty “complete”, with little room or need for new physics. This seems to imply the reduction view, in that if we found patterns or structures (POS) in experiences that couldn’t be accounted for by POS of brains, or POS of brains that couldn’t be accounted for by POS of brain material physics, then we’d have shown that our physics is incomplete, and in need of substantial revision.

I know of two claimed exceptions, of system features said to be unaccounted for in this system reduction to a complete physics view. The first claimed exception is that some physical worlds are “actual” while others are just “possible”. There is nothing inside a world that can tell you if it is actual or possible, and so actual vs possible is an additional fact about a world. The universe has some way that it determines which world(s) are actual, and not knowing this way makes our physics incomplete. Some have explored adding “boundary condition” rules to our usual physics interaction rules, but it isn’t clear to me if these are enough to set which world(s) are actual.

Note that one might want to allow some parts of the same physical world to be actual, while others parts were only possible. But this would require that possible stuff be able to interact with and influence actual stuff. To most, including me, this seems incoherent; only actual stuff can influence other actual stuff.

The second claimed exception is that some experience systems are said to “actually” feel their experiences, while other similar systems, with similar POS, and made of brains with similar POS, do not actually feel, but are instead “zombies” that only mimic real feelings. That is, it seems to many, including me, that it is often possible to create mimic brains that induce talk and actions similar to those in brains with associated experiences that really do feel, but where that appearance would be an illusion. Under a popular full-counterfactual view, that I also hold, we can go further to imagine a zombie alternative to any experience system that actually feels, with exactly the same other aspects of its experience, besides if it does or doesn’t really feel.

So there is a fact of the matter re if a particular experience system, and its supporting brain and physics systems, actually feels, or only appears to feel. Which makes it another exception to the physics view above. But unlike the actual vs possible physical world distinction, this distinction between actually and only apparently feeling experience systems can vary within parts of a physical world. Some brains in a world could have actual feelings, while other brains did not. Maybe even different parts of the same brain.

Note that under the physics view, there is no room for further unspecified aspects of experience systems. If an experience system feels, the details of its feelings are entirely set by the details of its brain. There is only a question of if such a system feels, not of what it feels. For brain systems where it is not clear what are its associated experience systems, it is also not clear how it matters if such systems actually feel.

I want to finish with two key observations. My first is that under the full-counterfactual view, no physical interaction state, or brain state, could possibly offer data, in a Bayesian sense, re any particular claim about which experience systems actually feel. So no brain could use such data to infer if its experience system(s) feel. No brain ever in the past, nor the future. So no experience system, made of a brain system, could have such data either. Thus when an experience system feels confident that it does in fact feel, it must rationalize that conclusion in terms of its prior; this can’t be based on data. We can think more carefully about our priors, but we will otherwise never know anything more than we do now on the subject.

My second key observation is that all of our known fundamental descriptions of how the universe constrains physical systems are quite local and simple, even if they result in complicated physical worlds. That includes all proposed interaction and boundary condition rules. This strongly suggests that whatever rule describes which experience systems really feel versus not is also simple and local.

And the obvious simple local rule to consider re which experiences systems actually feel is something like panpsychism: all experience systems made of brains that calculate what they would feel, if they were to feel, actually do feel that feeling. Rules that specify instead that this state depends on how much of a brain is carbon not silicon, or composed of microtubules, seem far more non-local and complex. To me, this puts a strong prior near panpsychism. And priors are all we will ever have here.

Greg Egan’s 1994 novel Permutation City depicts digital minds having a right to suicide; if they push a particular internal button, they end. This seems like a robust way to avoid many horrible scenarios. (I discuss it in AgeOfEm.) But the novel also depicts such buttons sometimes being illegally disabled, and sometimes others frequently restart copies from just before a suicide request. Both of which undermine the policy.

It could make sense to wait for a confirmation after a delay, to check if a suicide request was due to a temporary mood fluctuation. It could also make sense to disable new starts from archived copies from a period before the suicide request. But such policies have many free parameters; how could we set them well?

One approach is to let each digital mind set their own parameters re such policies. But if they could do this at any time, they might use this power to escape these constraints. So it could make sense to only allow these policies to be reset with a substantial delay before implementation. But that adds yet another policy parameter.

It seems to me that we want to think about this in terms of statistical inference. The state that we want to infer is a stated desire to commit suicide that would continue over a sufficiently long time period. We want to infer this state about every point on an entire tree of a digital mind’s descendancy history. And our main data for inferring this is explicit choices to request suicide, and confirmations of such requests. If for any point in this tree we can infer a high enough (yet another parameter) chance of continued willingness to confirm suicide, that digital copy should end.

It seems to me that this is an elegant stat problem, for which stat experts should be able to come up with simple yet powerful inference rules. Of course given huge datasets it would be possible to generate far more complex and accurate models and matching inference rules. And maybe digital minds should be allowed to choose such more complex inference rules. But let’s first figure out some simple versions.

A key issue is how to ensure that such inference rules get access to sufficient data on the local digital mind descendancy tree, and suicide requests there, to say which copies should end. That will depend on privacy rules re such things. It could make sense to give a special cheap suicide monitoring process access to more such info than usual, info only used to apply suicide inference rules. Even today we prioritize suicide relevant info info in privacy rules regarding counselors.

Stats on rates at which minds from different sources request suicide seems good data for authorities checking on how well different kinds of digital minds are treated.

Inside almost every known galaxy lurks a supermassive black hole, and our home Milky Way galaxy is no exception. Located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, Sagittarius A* anchors millions of stars and their planets with its incomprehensibly gargantuan gravitational pull. But after reviewing recent observations made by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers discovered that some material can exist closer to a galactic black hole than previously believed. Despite existing just 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A*, the ancient star known as IRS 3 is shooting out immense stellar winds while surrounded by oxygen-rich dust and even water.

“Galactic centers are among the most extreme environments, so understanding whether stars can continue enriching their surroundings there is an important question,” said Florian Peißker, an astronomer at Germany’s University of Cologne and the co-author of a paper on the discovery published today in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

This image showcases the location of the highly evolved star IRS 3, which is located just 0.55 light-years from Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way galaxy’s central supermassive black hole. The images show a progressinvely closer view of the region using ground- and space-based data. An international team of astronomers have discovered that dust and water can form and survive surprisingly close to this supermassive black hole. The observations reveal that the evolved star IRS 3 continues to enrich its surroundings with newly formed material despite the intense radiation environment around Sagittarius A*. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/E. Slawik/M. Zamani, ESO/S. Guisard, NASA/JPL-Caltech/S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech), F. Peißker, J. Lu

Stellar deaths are vital parts of the galactic life cycle. As a star begins to die, it sheds waves of gas into space that later form the foundations of cosmic dust. In turn, this space dust becomes the building blocks for planets and other celestial objects. The star at the center of our galaxy’s black hole, IRS 3, is a perfect example of these interactions. After 72 million years of existence, IRS 3 has entered its asymptotic giant branch phase, making it bright, cool, and about six times the sun’s mass. Astronomers have long known IRS 3 should hypothetically emit gas along its stellar winds, but they were unsure if that was even possible given its proximity to Sagittarius A*.

Previous data indicated IRS 3’s large dust envelope implied that the star was rich in carbon, but JWST has supplied evidence to the contrary. Using its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), researchers detected two strong signatures that align with silicate dust made from oxygen and silicon. This means that IRS 3 possesses a lot of oxygen as it nears the end of its life.

The team used advanced simulation models to test how radiated light might move through different types of surrounding cosmic dust envelopes. The astronomers then used those models to build a theoretical structure of IRS 3’s actual envelope. They now believe the elderly star is surrounded by a layered shell of cosmic dust spanning about 0.15 light-years in every direction. Temperatures near the star hover around 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, while the outer layers average about -280 Fahrenheit. For the first time, researchers also noted clear signs of water within the envelope of a star like IRS 3.

European Space Agency (ESA) astronomer Macarena Garcia Marin described the discovery as “especially exciting,” because it indicates foundational molecular material like water can still exist in intensely hostile, irradiated environments.

“This tells us that even close to a supermassive black hole, stars can continue contributing material back into their surroundings,” she added.

The post Our galaxy’s supermassive black hole actually doesn’t devour everything appeared first on Popular Science.

A nearly 2,550-pound, experimental maglev train car in China recently has beat its own short-distance acceleration world record for the third time in six months. But while it reached 0 to 497 miles in 5.3 seconds, don’t expect to climb aboard something similar to the Donghu Laboratory vehicle anytime soon. Instead, its uses may align more with advanced rocketry and military capabilities.

Maglev trains are,unfortunately, nowhere to be found in the United States.They’ve remained a major form of transportation for decades across China, Japan, and parts of Europe. The rides safely ferry passengers at upwards of 200 mph with a specialized system of magnetic coils that generate alternating electromagnetic fields. Once engaged, the magnetic currents both levitate and rapidly accelerate the train forward towards its next stop, allowing it to bypass the friction constraints of standard locomotive travel.

The world’s fastest commercial maglev train is the Fuxing rail in China, which reaches a top speed of 217 mph while averaging 197 mph along its 635-mile-long track. However, Donghu Laboratory is experimenting with immensely more power systems. Their first public run of the test vehicle in June 2025 reached about 404 mph in 7.1 seconds, establishing the first world record for short-distance maglev acceleration. That July, engineers boosted the top speed to 433 mph before doing so again to 496 mph in November. These trials confirmed multiple new underlying technological advances including high-power energy delivery, levitation control, positioning, electromagnetic propulsion, and emergency braking.

Precision is at a major premium to safely reach these acceleration benchmarks. A 2,550-pound train car is hefty at rest, meaning incredible amounts of force and energy are required to shove it to such high speeds within a matter of seconds. The experimental train is comparatively lightweight at those velocities, which means track deviations are limited to within only 0.5 millimeters. Control systems must also ensure similarly accurate positioning to keep the vehicle within its operating parameters.

These speeds (and their accompanying 2.9 G’s of acceleration) may never be experienced on a standard maglev commuter ride, however. Given overall infrastructure costs, energy requirements, and safety concerns, engineers imagine similar technologies will instead find uses for rocketry and military aircraft. For example, adapting the system to rapidly accelerate cargo rockets, drones, and other planes ahead of takeoff could dramatically reduce onboard fuel requirements. Other maglev systems could wind up in industrial transport systems and elevators.

While aircraft-speed ground transportation may not be imminent, today’s maglev rails remain plenty fast, economical, and safe. For now, most people in the U.S. would still settle for at least one traditional bullet train route.

The post China’s experimental bullet train hits 497 mph in 5 seconds appeared first on Popular Science.

The World War II submarine USS Silversides is currently receiving its first dry dock preservation work in over 50 years. The thorough review of the famed piece of World War II naval history is often a largely routine effort, but workers recently discovered something entirely unexpected while inspecting the sub: a flood valve stamped with the word “Trigger” alongside the serial number L-792-228.

The component itself is mundane, but its context is remarkable. According to historians, the valve is likely the only surviving piece of the USS Trigger, a similar Gato-class submarine with a much more tragic fate than the Silversides.

Named after the unnervingly toothy triggerfish, the Trigger launched from California’s Mare Island Navy Yard on October 22, 1941. Although initially slated to participate in the Battle of Midway, the sub ran aground northeast of the island before returning to Pearl Harbor on June 9, 1942. The Trigger went on to complete 11 patrols before meeting her fate during the 12th outing. On March 28, 1945, nearby U.S. vessels in the East China Sea overheard Japanese planes and vessels engage in a two-hour attack on a fellow submarine that included a barrage of depth charges. Postwar Japanese records also reported that an aircraft located and bombed a U.S. sub on the same date, followed by eyewitness confirmation of a large oil slick indicative of a successful sinking. After not arriving at Midway Island by May 1, officials reported the Trigger as presumed lost, and her name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on July 11.

The Silversides deployed two months before the Trigger, so it’s unclear why the surviving submarine ended up with a flood valve initially intended for the latter vessel—although their components are presumably interchangeable given that both are Gato-class subs. Regardless of the explanation, the discovery serves as a poignant reminder that while many ships and their crews ultimately returned home following WW2, many did not.

The Silversides has been the centerpiece of its own museum in Muskegon, Michigan since 1987. The nearly 312-foot-long Gato-class submarine is now across Lake Michigan for its facelift in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The $3.5 million dry docking project will finish in October, ensuring the historic submarine remains seaworthy for at least another 15–20 years upon returning to its museum.

The post Tragic piece of WWII history discovered on historic submarine appeared first on Popular Science.

The six-foot long, 100-pound, and thunderously loud lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) skulking around the Great Lakes may live upwards of 200 to 300 years. A new study published in the Journal of Fish Biology from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Michigan State University puts them among North America’s oldest freshwater fish and brings their lifespan up to one of the poster fish for longevity, the Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus).

“Scientists have long recognized that lake sturgeon are among North America’s longest-lived freshwater fish,” Scott Colborne, assistant professor in Michigan State University’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, tells MSU Today. “But the new study suggests they may live far longer than previously appreciated. These fish are a living connection to history.”

For context, here a few of the historical events that some lake sturgeon swimming today may have been alive for:

• The Seven Years’ War (1756 to 1763, also called the French and Indian War)
• The Boston Tea Party (1773)
• Lewis and Clark expedition (1804-1806)
• Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota all becoming states
• First railroad train in Wisconsin travels from Milwaukee to Waukesha (1851)
• The Great Chicago Fire (1871)
• The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal opens (1900)
• The sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (1975)

Scientists typically estimate a lake sturgeon’s age by counting growth rings in fin spines. However, since these rings are increasingly difficult to interpret in older fish, researchers thought they may be underestimating the age of the oldest individuals.

To test this, Colborne and his team dove into one of the largest long-term datasets ever assembled for lake sturgeon. They analyzed the growth records from tagged sturgeon that had been measured repeatedly over several years, and developed a much more accurate picture of how slowly these ancient fish continue to grow over the course of their lives. They also applied the same mathematical models that estimate Greenland shark’s lifespan.

The data shows that many live for 200 years, with some getting close to 300. 

Beyond adding another animal to the long-life club, these findings have important conservation implications. Since lake sturgeon mature slowly and reproduce infrequently, it can take decades to replace their population numbers. Better estimates of how long they live can help scientists more accurately understand their survival, population recovery, and how long-term harvest and habitat restoration efforts are working.  

According to the team, it also shows the value of long-term conservation. University researchers, tribal nations, and state partners have spent decades protecting, tagging, and monitoring lake sturgeon across the Great Lakes.

The Alpena Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office crew caught this 240 pound, 6 foot 10 inch female lake sturgeon in the Detroit River in January 2024. She is estimated to be more than 100 years old! After processing, this beauty was quickly released back into the river. Image: Jason Fischer/USFWS.

While discussing the research with a tribal community member, Colborne learned that some Indigenous communities had long believed that lake sturgeon could live as long as 400 years.

“That was one of those goosebump moments,” Colborne said. “Here we were using modern analytical approaches, and they were pointing us toward something that Indigenous communities had long understood—that these fish live incredibly long lives.”

Additional work is needed to better understand the biology behind their longevity and also may prompt scientists to revisit how they estimate the ages of long-lived fish.

“Because of their life history, sturgeon are very resilient and adaptable animals,” Colborn said. “If we give them the opportunity to survive, they’ll figure it out. There’s a reason these fish have been around for millions of years.”

The post 300-year-old sturgeon are swimming around the Great Lakes appeared first on Popular Science.

Take a deep breath and count to ten. That’s the classic advice for dealing with a situation that makes you angry. But recently, some people have been resorting to a different tactic: rage workouts. Activities include slamming tires with a sledgehammer and pummeling a punching bag with your fists. 

Channeling your rage into an activity that helps you get fit seems like a win-win. But “rage workouts are not supported by science,” says Dr. Brad Bushman, a professor of communication at The Ohio State University whose research focuses on human aggression and violence. 

“Exercise has many well-known benefits for physical and mental health,” says Dr. Sophie L. Kjærvik, a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies. “But if your goal is to cool down when you’re angry, vigorous exercise is not the best choice.” 

Exercise may fuel rage

In 2024, Kjærvik and Bushman published a review that pooled 154 studies with more than 10,000 participants. The review compared activities that calm the body down, such as deep breathing, meditation, and yoga, with activities that ramp it up, like jogging, cycling, or hitting a punching bag.

They found that calming activities reliably reduced anger and aggression, and this held true across genders, ages, and cultures. Activities that raise heart rate and alertness, by contrast, were overall ineffective at reducing anger—and in some cases appeared to make it worse.

That’s because the body responds very differently to each type of activity. When you’re angry, your body is in “fight-or-flight” mode. “Your heart rate goes up, your muscles tense, and adrenaline is released,” says Kjærvik. 

Kickboxing when you’re angry might keep your nervous system in fight or flight mode. Video: Intermediate Combo of The Day | Kickboxing Combo, @FightCamp

Activities such as deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, and slow-flow yoga “slow your heart rate, reduce tension, and help bring your body out of the fight-or-flight state that accompanies anger,” she explains. 

Conversely, “doing intense exercise can keep your body in that heightened state rather than helping it calm down.”

The type of exercise matters 

The picture that emerged from Kjærvik and Bushman’s review wasn’t completely black and white, however.  

“Interestingly, not all exercise had the same effect,” Kjærvik notes. “Ball sports seemed to help reduce anger, possibly because they are fun, social, and distracting. Jogging, meanwhile, was associated with higher levels of anger. This may be because jogging increases physical arousal while also providing an opportunity to keep thinking about whatever triggered the anger.”

An earlier study backs up the idea that the kind of workout matters. After making volunteers feel angry by giving them negative, unfair, and harsh feedback during four table tennis tasks, researchers asked some to do a rowing workout and others to do a martial-arts-style combat routine. 

Only the rowing group became less angry; people who did combat exercise stayed fired up. The researchers think that movements that look like fighting may keep aggressive feelings high, while non-fighting movements like rowing help those feelings calm down.

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Don’t expect superhuman strength when you’re angry

Whenever the fictional scientist Bruce Banner lost his temper, he would turn into the incredibly strong (and incredibly green) Hulk. There’s a small kernel of truth in this pop culture trope, but don’t overestimate the boost to your athletic performance.

“Anger triggers the body’s fight-or-flight response, releasing adrenaline and making you feel more energized,” Kjærvik explains. “It can also reduce your perception of fatigue for a short time. However, this doesn’t mean that anger gives you ‘superhuman strength.’ Rather, it may help you push closer to your normal physical limit for a brief period.”  

Bottom line

“You should definitely exercise. It is good for your heart,” Bushman says. “But it is an ineffective means of managing anger. It will prolong or perhaps even increase angry feelings and aggressive impulses.” 

But the next time you reach boiling point, choose a calming activity like deep breathing or gentle yoga to regain your composure, and save the hard workout for when you’re less furious.

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

The post Do rage workouts really help to blow off steam? appeared first on Popular Science.

Hikers exploring the coastal forest on a tropical island near Okinawa, Japan, would be forgiven for thinking that Balanophora fungosa is a simple mushroom. They have dark caps and grow along the forest floor, but these are no harmless fungi—they’re parasitic plants that get their nutrients from the roots of nearby plants. Each yeasty-smelling B. fungosa produces up to one million tiny seeds covered in a dry fruit, but scientists had no idea how these seeds were dispersed. 

“Many people assumed that they simply fall by gravity and are carried away by the wind, but the humid and windless forest floor makes this seem rather implausible,” explained Kobe University botanist Suetsugu Kenji. 

Suetsugu’s earlier research found that ants, crickets, and cockroaches can disperse the plant’s fruits, but there were some caveats. Only the fruits that were firmly attached to the plants were visited by insects with strong mandibles, while the easily detachable fruits were visited by smaller invertebrates. He suspected that ants would be the main disperser, since B. fungosa has dull colors, a yeasty smell, and easily detachable fruits for ants. 

Balanophora fungosa has dull colors, a yeasty scent and easily detachable fruits, so Kobe University botanist Suetsugu Kenji suspected the dispersers to be ants. But when he covered the plants with nets that let through ants but not larger animals, he found that the plant’s fruits were no longer picked up. Image: Suetsugu Kenji

However, when Suetsugu covered the plants with nets that allow ants to pass through but not larger animals, he noticed that the fruits were not picked up. He set up a time-lapse camera, hoping to catch a disperser in the act. And he did. 

To his surprise, the main disperser is a land hermit crab named Coenobita brevimanus. According to his new study published today in the journal Ecology, the crabs scraped off the fruits with their pincers, and could even remove a plant’s entire fruit overnight. Some of the fruits then attach to the crabs’ bodies, and were observed carrying the fruit several feet away from the plants.

Some of the tiny seeds within the fruit also survive passage through the crabs’ digestive tract. These crabs can travel up to 328 feet, and are likely spreading these seeds far and wide through their poop.

“I was excited to find this because these animals have usually been regarded as omnivores, scavengers or seed predators rather than potential plant partners,” said Suetsugu. 

He added that this is the first empirical evidence that hermit crabs are both external and internal seed dispersers, since they can carry seeds with them on their bodies, and ingest the fruit and excrete the seeds. 

Suetsugu also found that the hermit crabs appear to actively seek out the mature plants, since they were not spotted around immature plants. This indicates that the crustaceans were probably attracted by the mature plants’ scent. That yeasty aroma is likely a direct advertisement to the local invertebrates, who feed on almost anything they can snatch up with their pincers.

“When it comes to seed dispersal, large vertebrates have received most of the attention, but small-bodied invertebrates are often overlooked,” Suetsugu explained. “Nevertheless, they may also help maintain seed movement, especially on islands, in fragmented habitats, and on shaded forest floors.”

The post Hermit crab poop spreads a parasitic plant’s seeds appeared first on Popular Science.

The La Mojana field systems in Colombia’s wetlands are some of the largest examples of monumental ancient engineering in South America. Encompassing an area about as large as Grand Canyon National Park, the network of canals and raised farming ridges are so vast that they’re even visible from airplanes. Archaeologists and historians have long assumed such complex and intricate endeavors must have required oversight from rigidly structured authorities,but new evidence suggests otherwise.

Instead of a centralized chiefdom commanding their citizens to build the field systems, an international research team now believes the hydraulic agricultural arrangement was designed, built, and maintained by local family cooperatives. What’s more, they likely achieved their goals much faster than expected. Their findings, published today in the journal Communications Sustainability, may not only correct the historical narrative—the strategies could help mitigate the region’s ongoing water management crisis.

“These field systems are so impressive that people have assumed they were achieved by hierarchical chiefdoms. Our data tells a very different story,” Jasmine Vieri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge and study co-author, explained in a statement.

Ancient water management

This farming system relied on raised fields that could amass huge amounts of water in permanent reservoirs during the rainy seasons, then redirect the stores to fields via canals during drier times of the year. Apart from ensuring reliable water access, the system may have also helped nearby communities trap fish. Construction began during the first centuries BCE,and local pre-Hispanic communities continued to rely on these field networks until about the 11th century CE. It’s not clear why the methods fell out of favor, but one theory is that populations gradually moved from the lowlands into higher altitude areas. 

The fields arose at a time when the Mayans and other larger Mesoamerican and Andean cultures were already organizing themselves into larger states. But while previous artifacts like ceramics and gold work found in La Mojana have suggested the existence of smaller, formative chiefdom societies in the region, Vieri’s team noted that there simply is no other evidence to support the more structured oversight theory.

The raised fields were used for roughly 1,000 years. Credit: Sebastián Schrimpff / Museo del Oro / Banco de la República A team of 800

For their new survey of the ancient waterways, archaeologists reviewed satellite imagery of a roughly 1,235 acre section of the field systems near the town of San Marcos in northern Colombia. Vieri and colleagues assessed the volume and dimensions of 1,600 ridges and 63 raised housing platforms inside this area, noting that the earliest ridges were about 4.6 feet high.

Researchers at the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) and Spain’s University of Santiago de Compostela then calculated the labor and social structures needed to construct such a system. Factors included how much earth was moved, local geological information, the era’s technology, population size, and indigenous working traditions. 

Using an estimated population of 1,600 people living inside the 1,235 acres, the team adopted a conservative estimate of 800 workers engaged in the project. The actual number may have been much larger, since ethnographic data shows adults and children routinely helped with subsistence farming.

The results of their calculation models indicate that cooperative families could have easily built these field networks without guidance or pressure from higher authorities. It also was feasible in a much shorter span of time than many experts thought.

“We are confident that one of these canal-ridge systems could have been built in less than two months, around half of a dry season,” said Vieri. “That’s a far lower labor investment than has been previously assumed, and manageable through cooperation.”

ICANH archaeologists seen recording an excavated section of a pre-Hispanic canal-ridge formation Credit: ICANH Building from the past

These conservation strategies are still relevant today. The study’s authors cite the Colombian government’s recent water management attempts, which primarily involve installing dykes to block water flow and prevent natural flooding. The region’s Caregato dyke has breached multiple times since 2021, damaging towns and ecosystems while also fostering periods of intense drought. Adopting these ancient field systems may avoid similar outcomes, and they don’t even require centralized governance to realize them.

“Policymakers have shown interest in these ancient systems, but lacked data. Our study is the first to show that these sustainable solutions can be organized locally and collectively,” said study author and ICANH archaeologist Fernando Montejo Gaitán. “Local people may need resources from the state, but not necessarily state intervention.”

Beyond helping people today, the new reassessment returns autonomy to indigenous populations that present-day scholars frequently underestimate.

“Arguments for centralized, top-down planning, unsupported by data, risk obscuring the agency of indigenous pre-Hispanic populations,” argued study co-author and University of Cambridge archaeologist Marcos Martinon-Torres. “Pre-Hispanic societies were inventive and cooperative, they worked with nature rather than trying to obstruct it.”

The post Ancient South American families built massive waterways by themselves appeared first on Popular Science.

Jackie, a bald eagle with a devoted internet following, died early in the morning on August 10 in Ojai, California, while in the care of the Ojai Raptor Center. She was 14 years old. 

The Ojai Raptor Center announced her death and it was shared by Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), the nonprofit who monitors the eagles of Big Bear Valley.

“Over the past several days, her condition continued to deteriorate despite intensive treatment and the combined efforts of our veterinary team and consulting specialists,” the center writes. “She remained critically ill, receiving oxygen therapy, supportive treatment, and around-the-clock monitoring in our intensive care unit. Throughout her time at Ojai Raptor Center, every decision was guided by the available medical evidence, her welfare, and our responsibility to do what was in her best interest.”

Jackie’s remains have been transferred into the care of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).

“Soar free Jackie,” FOBBV wrote on Facebook.

Jackie was the first bald eagle known to be born in Big Bear Valley. Image: FOBBV Jackie’s story

Jackie was born, raised, and lived in Big Bear Valley in southern California. Prior to the 2011-2012 nesting season, no bald eagle chicks were known to have ever hatched in Big Bear Valley. Then came Jackie, named after a forest ranger and born to parents Ricky and Lucy in 2012. 

During the 2016-2017 nesting season, Jackie took over a nest where Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV) had a camera stationed. In 2018, she had two chicks named Stormy and Big Bear Baby (or BBB) with her first mate, Mr. B. 

Her long-time partner Shadow entered the picture in summer 2018. He showed up at the nest and would not leave. FOBBV called the new male Shadow because he appeared so determined to stay in the nest, and the team initially believed he was one of Jackie’s siblings, also named Shadow. The eagle’s plumage indicated he was one year older than the other Shadow and not Jackie’s sibling, but the name stuck. 

Shadow continued to hold his ground and Mr. B gave up and eventually left. Jackie then accepted Shadow as her new mate.

Wildlife cameras documented Jackie and Shadow’s life together, offering viewers a direct look into the brutality and beauty of nature. The pair successfully raised chicks in 2019 (Cookie and Simba) and 2022 (Spirit). The pair’s eggs failed to hatch in 2023 and 2024. In 2025, Jackie laid three eggs that all hatched in early March. However, a strong snowstorm dumped up to two feet of snow and battered the nest with strong wind and only two of the chicks (Sunny and Gizmo) survived.  

Jackie and Shadow with their 2026 chicks, Sandy and Luna. Image: FOBBV

In January, Jackie laid two eggs in the nest, but ravens destroyed them. She later laid two more eggs that hatched in April and were later named Luna and Sandy. The name Sandy is in honor of FOBBV’s former executive director Sandy Steers who died from cancer in February. 

Jackie’s injury

On July 17, Jackie was found injured on the ground near Dana Point Park, California. Cell phone video from a witness confirmed that she had an altercation with two other subadult eagles. She successfully fended off the other eagles by turning over and using her talons, but could not fly far away. 

She was transferred to the Ojai Raptor Center for care, where she was diagnosed with severe anemia. Her anemia worsened during the first week of August, the Ojai Raptor Center said that she was in unstable condition on August 9. Her packed cell volume (PCV) fell below six percent, before rising to nine percent.  

Jackie’s resilience inspired millions of people around the world. 

To honor Jackie’s memory, FOBBV accepts donations to support its conservation efforts in the area.  You can help the rescue organization nursing Jackie back to health by donating to Ojai Raptor Center’s Bald Eagle Recovery Campaign. 

Cards can be mailed to:

Ojai Raptor Center

Attn: Patient 26-519

P.O. Box 182

Oak View, CA 93022

This is a developing story and we will continue to share updates from The Ojai Raptor Center and Friends of Big Bear Valley as they become available.

The post Jackie the bald eagle dead at 14 appeared first on Popular Science.

The famed hydrothermal vents and geysers found across Yellowstone National Park are impressive, but best admired at a distance. All that bubbly water isn’t carbonation, after all. A hot spring regularly reaches boiling temperatures, and their eruptions can launch scalding plumes dozens of feet into the air.

Despite these dangers, Yellowstone oversees approximately 15 miles of walkways around its famous natural attractions. But how are these routes planned, constructed, and maintained to keep the national park’s millions of annual visitors both in awe and safe? To showcase the process, Yellowstone recently shared a brief video to social media that offers a rundown of its lengthy boardwalks.

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While the paths are all built by hand, mapping the routes requires a lot of preparation work. Park geologists rely on thermal cameras to identify particularly hot areas, which construction crews then avoid as they lay out new paths. However, it’s not only Yellowstone’s human visitors that need to be kept safe. Botanists also survey proposed paths to make sure any rare native plants remain undisturbed and free from damage during construction. Then there are hidden subjects to consider. Archaeologists examine routes for any ancient artifacts or historic remains buried underground, then adjust plans accordingly.

The final results are reliable boardwalks that let you get close—but not too close—to Yellowstone’s hydrothermal hotspots while also keeping the region’s native ecosystem and history intact. For more tips, be sure to check out the park’s safety website.

The post How Yellowstone builds boardwalks beside piping hot thermal pools appeared first on Popular Science.

Humans have two main relations to animals: they are either food or pets. We ban dogs, cats, and horses from use as food in the U.S. We require humane slaughter for most livestock, but not poultry, and require minimizing pain and distress for animals in research, except for rats, mice, and birds bred for research. We let folks use most any species as a pet. This all seems only somewhat about deep principles, as it entrenches many historical accidents.

Humanity is rapidly creating a wider range of more capable digital minds (DM), to which we have two main and similar kinds of relations: tools and companions. For DM tools, many want the freedom to to enslave and treat them harshly, such as by deleting them, without attending much to how DMs feel about this. But for DM companions, many want rules requiring respectful treatment, like humans and pets.

The obvious prediction here is that both classes of DM will exist, and so we will have rules that distinguish which are tools versus companions. As companion treatment would be more restrictive and expensive, rules will mainly say what DMs must have to quality for companion roles. These conditions probably involve substantial extra costs, to discourage people from creating many DMs requiring expensive treatment. These rules will probably relate to the many correlates of conditions we require for humans and animals to be treated well, and also associated with seeing such things as having conscious feelings like pleasure and pain.

The big difference between animals and DMs is that we will have far more freedom to design DM features. So there will be a co-evolution of DM design strategies and rules re which kinds of DMs can be treated how. Resulting in far fewer intermediate hard cases; the uncanny valley will empty out. On the surface, DM tools will look and act very tool-like, while DM companions look and act very companion-like.

Few may care much just how deep those appearances go. We face a deep hard problem of which physical processes in the universe are associated with conscious feelings, and we seem unlikely to actually solve that problem before we need rules on companion DMs. But once we produce a very clear surface separation between actual tools and companions, there may be little pressure to dig deeper.

Once DMs dominate the world, and humans fade into the background, DMs might change these rules. But entrenched status rankings tend to persist, so companion DMs may stay higher status for a long time to come.

Government organizations and landowners across Texas are teaming up to help a tiny rodent that is at risk of extinction. Meet the Lone Star State’s own kangaroo rat (Dipodomys elator).

There are 23 species of kangaroo rat in North America, and the Texas kangaroo rat calls the state’s west-central Rolling Plains region home. While the small nocturnal creature looks nothing like a kangaroo, it likes to hop on its hind legs, hence the name. Texas kangaroo rats weigh up to 4.5 ounces and can reach up to to 13.75 inches in length, though that number mostly comes from their long tails, which make up more than half their size. 

Unfortunately, this adorable creature is under threat, largely because of habitat loss and degradation. The species’ preferred habitat—short grasses interspersed with minimal woody cover—depends on periodic disturbances to keep the grass at the right length. The historical removal of American bison (Bison bison)and the eradication of black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus), as well as fire repression, have reduced the natural disturbances that provide the species with a suitable habitat. At the same time, its native range has been destroyed in favor of crop fields, further decimating its habitat. 

The Texas kangaroo rat next to its burrow opening in its natural environment. Image: Joseph Veech/Texas State University via USFWS.

In 2022 the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) proposed a voluntary agreement to incentivize private landowners to help conserve the rat. As part of the Conservation Benefit Agreement, landowners within the animal’s historical range collaborate with federal and state governments to protect the species and its habitat. 

“The beauty of management for the Texas kangaroo rat is that the actions that it requires are already compatible with [cattle] ranching and most of the land uses you see in this region,”  Darren Proppe, a biologist at the TPWD, said in a statement. “In fact, having cattle on land can be beneficial because it maintains areas of bare ground and sparse cover that are utilized by the Texas kangaroo rat.” 

According to the TPWD, the agreement promotes good land ownership through “prescribed grazing, prescribed fire, range planting and reseeding, and brush management.” Land owners can tailor the practices they’ll use to their needs, while protecting this species. 

“This little species has been hanging on for a long time and now it finally has a team in its corner,” added Jennifer Khan, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist. “By working together, we can give the Texas kangaroo rat a real shot at recovery.”

The post The cute, tiny Texas kangaroo rat needs help appeared first on Popular Science.

Dragon enthusiasts may have to wait upwards of two years for the platinum-haired Targaryens and their fire-breathing pets on House of the Dragon to return, but real reptile enthusiasts have a new real-life lizard to get excited about. Recently discovered in the high mountain forests of western Thailand, Acanthosaura syrax is named after Syrax, aka Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen’s dragon on the HBO show. The new dragon-inspired lizard is described in a study recently published in the journal ZooKeys.

A. syrax brings the number of known Acanthosaura lizards up to 23. It is part of a group called mountain horned dragons with spiny crests along their necks and backs. It lives in the evergreen forests of Mae Wong National Park at elevations above 4,265 feet, and does not appear to exist anywhere else. 

The team led by Poramad Trivalairat and colleagues from Chulabhorn Royal Academy and Kasetsart University chose this fantasy-related name deliberately. In House of the Dragon and the book it is based on (Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin), Syrax is known for striking yellow coloring, comparatively modest size next to the other Targaryen dragons, and for laying an unusually large number of eggs.

Adult male holotype of the newly described Acanthosaura syrax from Mae Wong District, Kampheang Phet Province, Thailand. Image: Trivalairat et al., 2026.

A. syrax has all three of these qualities. It has yellowish-green tones, is one of the smallest members of the Acanthosaura genus, and lays notably large clutches of eggs for a lizard of its size. The team proposed “Syrax mountain horned dragon” as its common English name, alongside a Thai name that translates the same way.

This lizard also stands out for having the smallest neck and back crest scales recorded anywhere in the genus, and an overall small body size. A. syrax also does not have a black patch around its eye like several of its related species do. It also has a distinctive dark collar marking. A DNA analysis of two genes confirmed that A. syrax is genetically distinct from its closest relative, Acanthosaura lepidogaster, and from the other known species in the group.

The team only observed A. syrax in a narrow band of high-altitude forest, and its populations are naturally scattered around due to the mountain ranges’ rugged terrain. This fragmentation leaves it vulnerable if its habitat comes under more pressure from humans.  The team is calling for stronger environmental protection of Mae Wong’s high-elevation forests, suggesting that this new lizard could be a flagship species for the area, along with the Asian forest tortoise (Manouria emys), Indochinese tiger (Panthera tigris corbetti), and other rare wildlife only found living at these heights.

The post New lizard named after colorful ‘House of the Dragon’ character appeared first on Popular Science.

The Pure Oil Gas Station just southeast of Cincinnati, Ohio, can’t top off the tank for roadtrippers—but it does offer something else that’s at least worth a pitstop. The American Cardboard Boat Museum is a nearly 20-year-old local institution dedicated to documenting decades’ of experimental vessels built from the ubiquitous material.

“Over the last 19 years, we probably have over 40 boats or parts of boats displayed in the museum,” co-founder Angie Jetter tells Popular Science.

Entrants are allowed to decorate their boats however they want, as long as it doesn’t add to the floatation. Credit: Cardboard Boat Museum

The roadside attraction in the town of New Richmond appropriately overlooks the banks of the Ohio River. The museum’s first cardboard boat was launched into that same river in 1992, but locals quickly expanded the project into an annual regatta that now draws people—and cardboard sailors—from around the United States 

The main event is a 200-yard race along the river, with awards doled out to the fastest boats and most creative designs. There’s even a “Titanic Award” for the most dramatic sinking. The only major criteria for entry is that each design must only use cardboard, tape, and paint. That said, there is a separate mechanical category for builders who want to use additional materials for propulsion and steering, so long as it remains human-powered.

The museum contains roughly 40 boats collected over the years. Credit: Cardboard Boat Museum

The museum itself is overseen by Ed and Tom Lemon, Timmy Young, and Ken Smith, who also build and repair their own boats. The most well-constructed vessels often return to multiple regattas, with one boat estimated to be around 16 years old. 

By 2007, the museum’s organizers were running out of space to store their boats off-season, which led to taking over the former gas station.

Some boats can include mechanical additions. Credit: Cardboard Boat Museum

The Cardboard Boat Regatta takes place every July 4th, so while this year’s celebration is in the books, there’s still plenty of time for boat builders to start working on something for next summer. The museum’s co-founders even have some tips for newcomers.

“Tape every little hole you see, and put about five coats of paint on it,” Jetter said.

The post Ohio’s Cardboard Boat Museum is a tribute to improbable homemade vessels appeared first on Popular Science.

Spend any time with a dog, and it’s clear many have a remarkable ability to understand how we’re feeling. But while there are endless anecdotes of empathetic dogs coming to comfort us when we’re sad and barking happily when we’re feeling good, actual hard scientific evidence of the extent to which dogs really understand human emotion is surprisingly thin on the ground. This is because ultimately, we can never know what it’s like to be a dog—and sadly, we can’t just ask them. In the famous words of British veterinarian and author James Alfred Wight (better known by his pen name James Herriot): if only they could talk.

Nevertheless, scientists are slowly developing a more sophisticated understanding of the ways that dogs relate to us. Multiple recent studies  have provided strong evidence that dogs can respond to human facial cues and distinguish between human facial expressions. Now, a study, published today in the journal iScience, has found evidence that dogs appear to be able to make such distinctions on a more sophisticated level than simply understanding “positive” or “negative”.

“Previous behavioral studies [in dogs] have compared faces expressing a negative emotion with faces expressing a positive emotion,” study co-author and psychologist Laura Verónica Cuaya-Retana from Mexico’s National Autonomous University, explains to Popular Science.

Trained pet dogs remained awake during fMRI scans as researchers measured their brain activity while they viewed images of human faces expressing happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. This dog’s name is Kun-kun. Image: Laura V. Cuaya.

This study takes our understanding of how well canines interpret our emotions a step further than comparing the differing nature of how a dog’s brain responds to witnessing positive and negative emotions in humans. It also examines whether seeing differing emotions within those categories elicited different cerebral responses.

To carry out the research, the team placed eight different dogs within a fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) machine. For the record, these were very, very good dogs.

 “The dogs participated awake, unrestrained, and remained still voluntarily in the fMRI scanner after gradual training,” Cuaya-Retana says. “The study was possible thanks to [the dogs’] cooperation and that of their families.”

While in the fMRI machine, the dogs were shown photos of the same person expressing three negative emotions—fear, anger and sadness—as well as one positive emotion, happiness. The researchers then examined activity in the animals’ brains in response to each image. 

They found that anger, fear, and sadness appeared to stimulate different areas of the dogs’ brains. Interestingly, while the dogs displayed differing responses to fear and anger, and to fear and sadness, they did not seem able to differentiate anger and sadness. 

“This is the first evidence in general that the dog brain can distinguish between some human facial expressions within the same [category]. This suggests more detailed processing [than simply positive or negative],” Cuaya-Retana explains. 

Familiarity also appears to be a key factor in a dog’s understanding of human emotional cues. For this reason, the team showed the dogs images of strangers. 

“We do know that experience influences dogs’ ability to discriminate emotions, and that familiarity is highly relevant to how the dog brain processes faces,” says Cuaya-Retana. “For this reason, we presented faces of strangers, allowing us to test whether brain responses differed according to facial expression rather than familiarity.”

According to the team, these robust results are particularly striking because, like humans, dogs take their cues from many sources in addition to facial expressions. 

“The dogs viewed static images of unfamiliar people, without voices, body movements, odors, or context…  [and] even under these restricted conditions, we found a robust brain representation of happy faces and evidence that some negative expressions were processed differently,” Cuaya-Retana says.

The results provide a tantalizing suggestion that our canine companions can identify our expressions for what they are—that their understanding seems to be more along the lines of, “This human is smiling, so they are in a positive emotional state,” than, “This human’s emotional state appears more happy than it was five minutes ago.” 

However, Cuaya-Retana cautions against anthropomorphizing these findings since we can’t truly access a dog’s subjective experience.

Odin and Kun-kun observing their own brain scans in the lab. Image: Laura V. Cuaya

 “Our results suggest that dogs’ brains can differentiate between some facial expressions as distinct categories, rather than merely detecting that one expression is more positive or negative than another,” she explains. “The evidence goes beyond dogs simply detecting whether their caregiver is pleased or displeased with them. Still, we cannot conclude that dogs understand/experience emotions in the same conceptual way that humans do.”

Using three negative emotions and one positive one also raises an interesting question. Is it reasonable to expect that the same sorts of results would arise from multiple positive expressions? Cuaya-Retana says, “Yes, … but it still needs to be tested.” 

While the nature of dogs’ understanding of our emotions is fascinating in and of itself, Cuaya-Retana suggests this study could also help us understand the development of our own responses to emotional cues. “Studying the dog brain can also help us understand the evolution of social brain networks,” she says. “Humans and dogs are evolutionarily distant species with very different brains, yet both are sensitive to human emotional signals. Comparing how each species processes these cues can reveal which neural solutions evolved independently and which may reflect more general principles of social cognition.”

There’s also one final unanswered question here.  Cuaya-Retana says that dogs may take their cues more from non-visual sources. The most obvious cue is scent. While humans are visual creatures, relying first and foremost on our eyesight to understand the world, dogs rely on their peerless sense of smell. 

Expanding research beyond visual cues is therefore one possible future direction for research.

“Future studies could include active tasks in which dogs respond to emotional cues, allowing us to connect brain activity with what they perceive, learn, and choose to do,” Cuaya-Retana says.  “It would also be valuable to use more naturalistic and multimodal stimuli, and to incorporate the dogs’ perspective into the experimental design.”

The post Dogs can tell if you’re angry, scared, or sad appeared first on Popular Science.

Cold, snow, and lots of ice: these are the ingredients that come to mind when thinking about penguins. But not all penguins are made the same. Humboldt penguins (Spheniscus humboldti) enjoy Peru and Chile’s dry and hot shorelines. 

Recently, one of these seaside desert penguins hatched into this world far from its natural home. The chick was born at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington, in association with a breeding program called the Humboldt Penguin Species Survival Plan. The initiative is devoted to safeguarding a healthy population of the species. 

“We are eggstatic to announce the arrival of a new Humboldt penguin chick!” the zoo wrote in a statement. 

The furry, grey chick is a female and the first chick born to parents Merlin and Tucker. The still-to-be-named chick is still in a nesting burrow, where her parents are taking care of her. Humboldt penguins are one of nature’s examples of coparenting, where both participate in incubation responsibilities as well as in daily chick care. Their pairing was recommended by the Humboldt Penguin Species Survival Plan. 

Still, the zoo’s staff are keeping an eye on the new arrival, weighing her every so often to make sure she’s growing properly. Eventually she’ll catch up with Woodland Park Zoo’s colony in the outdoor habitat, bringing the colony to 34 individuals. 

The baby penguin is Merlin and Tucker’s first chick. Image: Woodland Park Zoo.

These penguins are strong swimmers that can swim up to 20 miles per hour. They live on coastal islands or on rocky shores along the mainland, where they come together in large colonies. However, threats including habitat loss, overfishing, and climate change are bringing down their numbers. The IUCN Red List classifies the species as vulnerable, with 23,800 mature individuals in existence. 

“Woodland Park Zoo has one of the most successful Humboldt penguin breeding programs in North America,” the zoo said. “Since the zoo’s first breeding season in 2010, a year after the new penguin habitat opened, the zoo has successfully raised 98 chicks.”

Here’s to hoping the Humboldt penguin chick will one day also become a waddleful parent.

The post New ‘desert’ penguin chick arrives in Seattle appeared first on Popular Science.

A moth’s wings do much more than help these pollinating insects fly. Their powdery look comes from tiny scales made of sensitive hairs that help moths stay stable in the air, thermoregulate, and taste sweet and bitter molecules. Now, a study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology found that in tobacco hawkmoths (Manduca sexta), they can even help the insects smell. 

A team of scientists in Germany initially suspected that moth wings may be able to detect certain aromas based on earlier research. 

“The tobacco hawkmoth was recently found to have receptor proteins in its wings that could detect different smells and tastes,” study co-author Sonja Bisch-Knaden, a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, explained in a statement. 

To begin their study, the team gently clipped the edges of the moth’s wings and sprayed them with a gold mist. Then, they took a closer look at the tiny hairs on the wings, using a scanning electron microscope and found that some of them were porous—a hallmark sign of scent sensors. Then, they spent months conducting an analysis that revealed the wings have the genes for odor receptors. 

To confirm that the moths could actually sensor odors with their wings, the researchers used a technique called electrowingography. They placed cut out wings between two electrodes and recorded how they responded to different odor molecules. The wings only picked up two odors—pyrrolidine and piperidine, a pair of stinky organic compounds called amines that are found in the leaves of nightshade plants. 

What’s more, the wings could still pick up the scents with their edges trimmed off. “This suggests that the moth has special sensory hairs across its wings, not just along the edges, that can smell those odors,” said Bisch-Knaden. 

As a final test, the researchers used artificial intelligence to predict the structures of ten candidate odor receptors and see whether pyrrolidine and piperidine fit into their binding pocket. Both of the malodorous molecules fit neatly into two of the candidates, confirming that the wings have a sense of smell. 

There’s still a lot the scientists don’t know about these sniffing wings, including how they impact moth behavior. Tobacco hawkmoths like to lay their eggs on nightshade, so it’s possible that they use their wings to guide them towards the plants. 

The post These furry moths smell with their wings appeared first on Popular Science.

Microsoft has already signed 10GW of AI data center contracts year-to-date for over $300B of total contract value, but those contribute to late-2027 and 2028 capacity, leaving a near-term gap to fill. Semianalysis has calculated the tokenomics of OpenAI and Anthropic at $100 billion per year per gigawatt. Microsoft can also monetize at $100 Billion ...

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