Evidence of active volcanoes on Mars may boost chances of finding life

 

Image courtesy of Mars Express & HRSC

Joel Kontinen

Active volcanoes may hint that Mars has or had life.

Mars may be volcanically active, say scientists who have linked evidence of gases often produced by magma with photographs of fresh fissures found on the surface of the Red Planet. The findings could be interpreted as good news in the hunt for life, as a continuous heat source would be needed to keep microorganisms safe from frigid temperatures on the surface.

Scientists have seen evidence of volcanoes on Mars in the past few million years and seismic activity has hinted that some may still be active, but no evidence of lava flows or current eruptions had previously been found.

Daniel Mège at the Polish Academy of Sciences and his colleagues looked at the little data available – just 15 recorded instances of the gas – alongside newly taken photographs of the surface. They were able to link recent, narrow fissures in the Alba Mons region of Mars to the HCl emissions, providing strong evidence of underground lava flow.

“We have 2 kilometres of wind between them, and in this season there are a lot of dust devils. So, the atmosphere is turbulent. It’s an enormous mess,” says Mège.

Nicolas Thomas at the University of Bern, Switzerland, another team member, stresses that until the area is investigated up-close, there will always be doubt about the source of the gas. But, he argues, this finding makes the case for further surface exploration of Mars.

“Suspicion is one thing, proof is better, right?” says Thomas. “I’m a terrible sceptic. Until you put something down there and you actually sniff the stuff coming out of the ground, you haven’t got unambiguous proof.”

But Mars is not a place where we could find life. It has not been created for life.

Source:

Matthew Sparkes 2026 Evidence of active volcanoes on Mars may boost chances of finding life | New Scientist 5 November

The slaughter of Jews did not begin in 1948

 

Image courtesy of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler's official photographer

Joel Kontinen

In 1929, Arab mobs in Hebron massacred 67 of their Jewish neighbours, many of them young yeshiva students, with knives and axes. From 1936 to 1939, Arab gangs waged a three-year campaign of terror against the Jews of the Land of Israel. There was no “occupation” back then, no checkpoints, no settlements and no Netanyahu. There were Jews living in their land, and Arabs who wanted them dead or gone.

And then the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was pictured with Hitler. He wanted to destroy all Jews.

Source:

Elie Mischel, 2026 Thank you, Osama Saadi - Israel365 News 5 November

‘Oddball’ test lets us glimpse how monkeys see the world

 

Image courtesy of Ryhor Bruyeu/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

We can never know what it is like to be a bat, philosopher Thomas Nagel famously agued. But what about monkeys? Do they see the world in the same way?

How do monkeys see the world? At least macaques see it probably different from us. Some researchers did a study on macaques  in India: 

To find out, neuroscientists in India used an “oddball” test to compare visual performances between people and macaques. They found that, although the different species scored similarly many aspects of perception, there were two intriguing differences: the monkeys were less fazed by images being flipped upside down and they seemed far more focused on fine details.

Source:

Jo Marchant 2026 'Oddball' test lets us glimpse how monkeys see the world | New Scientist 26 October 

There may be a new dwarf planet just beyond Pluto

 

NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA Image courtesy of M. Juric (UW), D. de Martin & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

Joel Kontinen

Astronomers spotted what appears to be a dwarf planet in the outer solar system using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory – if confirmed, it joins a small and exclusive club.

A mosaic of images captured by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory of the newly discovered dwarf planet candidate ED138.

There might be a new dwarf planet beyond Pluto. This suggestion was presented by researchers who have looked up at the sky past Pluto.

The small club of dwarf planets in our solar system may have just grown by one. Astronomers using the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile have spotted an object beyond Pluto that seems to be big enough to qualify as a dwarf planet. In fact, it is one of the largest dwarf planet candidates we have spotted so far from the sun.

Source:

Leah Crane 2026 There may be a new dwarf planet just beyond Pluto | New Scientist 28 October 

 

Inhaling CO2 may rescue nerves’ ability to regrow

 

Image courtesy of Marcial Quiroga-Carmona

Joel Kontinen

Breathing out after birth switches off the ability of tissues to regenerate, a study in mice suggests. But the pathway seems to be reversible.

Taking our first breaths marks the beginning of a new life, yet this may be the very act that limits our ability to grow and heal as adults. Studies in mice have pinned down newborns’ exhalation of carbon dioxide, immediately after birth, as the starting gun that switches off their cells’ intrinsic ability to regenerate.

“We were very surprised and excited by the CO2 effect,” says Zhigang He at Harvard Medical School, who led the research.

Does inhaling a lot of CO2 make limb grow? This is what some researchers say. The study was done on mice, so that it might not apply to humans at all.  

Source:

Jo Marchant 2026 Inhaling CO2 may rescue nerves’ ability to regrow | New Scientist 29 October 

Turks spread lies about the Mossad and France

 

Image courtesy of wp-post-image 

Joel Kontinen

“Jewish lobbies” secretly pulling the strings behind student riots in France. No, this isn’t some neo-Nazi conspiracy site. It’s @CNN’s Turkish affiliate. Viewers were told Israel can “push the button” in France using its “Jewish lobbies,” economic power and intelligence apparatus. And apparently, “it wouldn’t be right to say that Mossad ALONE is responsible.” This is textbook antisemitic conspiracy-mongering, broadcast under the CNN brand.

The Turks are spreading lies. If would not benefit the Jews. Just  look at the pro Palestinian flags all over France.

Source:

Honest reporting. 2026,  HR on X: Our Top X Posts for October 2026 | HonestReporting  5  October.

Wind turbines have killed 19 million bats in 40 years in the US

 

Image courtesy of Michael Durham/Nature Picture Library/Alamy.

Joel Kontinen

Wind turbines kill bats at an alarming rate. Nearly 19 million bats are estimated to have been killed by wind turbines in the US between 1981 and 2024, but measures can be taken to make them less deadly.

Bats play a vital role in ecosystems, particularly by controlling insects like mosquitoes and moths that produce crop-killing caterpillars.

“We know bats are being impacted, but could we change the engineering or sites of a turbine to minimise those impacts?” she asks. “There’s been an increasing interest in this, but we just haven’t had the appropriate data yet.”

Now, Straw, Labuzzetta and their colleagues have analysed 499 reports from wind farms across the 48 adjoining US states to estimate how many bats were killed by turbines from 1981 to 2024, focusing on 10 species. They used a statistical model that considered differences in how wind farms searched for dead bats, the size and design of their turbines, and the surrounding environment.

Their results suggest that wind turbines killed an estimated 18.7 million bats between 1981 and 2024. Annual deaths seem to have exceeded 1.5 million from 2021 onwards, which may be the result of more wind turbines being installed.

The researchers aren’t sure why bats fly so close to wind turbines.

Source:

Christa Lesté-Lasserre. 2026 Wind turbines have killed 19 million bats in 40 years in the US | New Scientist 26 October

Bottlenose whales may look after each other when they’re sick

 

Image courtesy of Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures/Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Animals know when a member of their tribe has sickness and they try to help it. And bottlenose etches are nor an expecting, For instance ants know this.  We would not expect animals to care for their wounded comrades in a Darwinian world, but in a created world it is no big deal, as God has given animals the intelligence they need for coping in a post-Fall environment.

A  paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B features African Matabele ants (Megaponera analis) that are known for waging wars against other ant colonies. Now, researchers found that they care for the injured, carry them home and even clean their wounds, perhaps with an antibiotic substance to “fend off infections,” as an article in The Guardian puts it.

Northern bottlenose whales have stronger social bonds when they are starving or sick. This discovery was a surprise, because often in mammals, social connections are associated with better health. But during tough times, these whales may rally round and care for others in need.

That idea fits with early whalers’ descriptions of the animals’ behaviour. In a report from 1882, David Gray, commander of the whaling steamer Eclipse, said he had observed thousands of northern bottlenose whales, and noted they had a peculiar response to injured individuals. “The herd never leaves a wounded companion so long as it is alive,” he said. “They come from every point of the compass towards the struck one in the most mysterious manner.”

 Source:

Jo Marchant 2026 Bottlenose whales may look after each other when they’re sick | New Scientist 19 October 

 

All tropical coral reefs could collapse within 50 years

 

Image courtesy of Mathilde Maslin

Joel Kontinen

Some researchers think that the corrals will be destroyed in 50 yeas,   Some,  however feel  that corrals can withstand  rising temperatures.  

Imagine a world without tropical coral reefs, a world nearly devoid of iconic species like elkhorn and pillar corals and sea creatures like the clownfish from Finding Nemo. That world could come to pass within 50 years due to humanity’s continuing fossil fuel emissions.

At least 96 per cent of shallow-water coral reef ecosystems are at extremely high risk of collapsing by 2075, according to an assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the leading authority on endangered species. The remaining ecosystems weren’t evaluated due to lack of data, but are probably just as vulnerable, according to Marcos Valderrábano at the IUCN.

Source:

Alec Luhn 2026 All tropical coral reefs could collapse within 50 years | New Scientist 22 October 

Discovery of T. rex’s cousin upends our understanding of tyrannosaur evolution

 

An artist’s illustration of the new-to-science Tromerosaurus dinosaur hunting some juvenile Brachylophosaurus. Image courtesy of Henry Sharpe

Joel Kontinen

A new species of tyrannosaur has been discovered by scientists in Canada. Fossils of the carnivorous dinosaur, a cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, suggest it lived 77 million years and was 8 metres long with lengthy, lean legs. This is a rare addition to an unusual branch of the tyrannosaur family tree and complicates our understanding of how these dinosaurs supposedly evolved.

The timing of the dinosaur is off by thousands of years. According to the Bible, a great dinosaur known as Behemoth lived at the time of Job.

Tyrannosauridae, a family of dinosaurs, split into two subfamilies: tyrannosaurines, made up of T. rex and other stocky, heavy species with relatively long heads, and albertosaurines, which had relatively short skulls and lighter builds.

 Source:

Jake Buehler 2026 Discovery of T. rex's cousin upends our understanding of tyrannosaur evolution | New Scientist19 October

Japan is launching a mission to Mars’s largest moon Phobos

 

Artist’s representation of the MMX Spacecraft

Joel Kontinen

Japan has launched a mission to Phobos, a moon of Mars.

We may be on the verge of solving the mystery of the Martian moons. On 20 October, the Martian Moons exploration (MMX) spacecraft launches towards the larger of the two moons, Phobos, with the goal of bringing back a sample that may finally explain how Phobos and its sibling, Deimos, formed.

MMX will launch from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. If all goes to plan, it should arrive at Mars in August 2027, entering an orbit that keeps it alongside Phobos so it can build a detailed map of the surface. Along the way, it will also observe the surface of Deimos.

Once the map is complete enough, the spacecraft’s operators at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will use it to pick out a spot on Phobos for MMX to land. During one or two brief landings, it will take on two tasks: to drop off a small rover called IDEFIX and to pick up samples. The rover is the first anyone has ever placed on such a small cosmic body, so part of its purpose aside from scientific observations is to confirm that a wheeled rover even works on an object with such low gravity.

The samples, though, are the most important part of the mission. MMX has two different sampling devices: one that shoots a puff of gas onto the surface, blowing dust and pebbles back up into a sampling container, and another that blasts a hollow cylinder into the ground to take a sample a several centimetres deep. After the samples are taken, they will be stowed away inside the spacecraft, which will then head back towards Earth. It is expected to arrive home in 2031.

Once these samples get back to Earth and are analysed by scientists on the ground, they should finally solve the mystery of how Phobos and Deimos formed. For more than a century, researchers have debated whether the two are captured asteroids or formed from an impact on Mars, similar to how Earth’s moon formed. On first look, their shapes and surfaces resemble asteroids, but their circular orbits around Mars’s equator are more consistent with the impact hypothesis. Figuring out what they are made of should settle it once and for all.

This will also help illuminate what the solar system was like billions of years ago when these strange moons formed. “Having the answer will help illuminate that early era when Earth and the other inner planets may have been acquiring much of their water and organic compounds,” said Tom Statler, part of the NASA team that is collaborating on the MMX mission, in a statement.

Mars and millions pf years seem to belong together, as Darwinians believe that Mars was formed that way.

If we are very lucky, the samples from Phobos may even contain bonus bits of dust and debris from Mars itself. Impacts on the planet could have launched material into space, which would have collected on the moon’s surface and been preserved there for billions of years. That means that these samples could illuminate not just the history of Phobos and Deimos, but also of Mars.

Source:

Leah Crane 2026 Japan is launching a mission to Mars’s largest moon Phobos | New Scientist 16 October

Netanyahu fires back at Obama over ‘stolen land’ accusation: ‘We’re Jews in Judea’

 

Image courtesy of WIN

Joel Kontinen

Obama lashed out at the Israelis—in Ireland, of all places In Ireland, which hates Israelis. Obama has been attacking Israel since 2015, when he gifted Iran many millions of euros.

The clash erupted after Obama told an audience in Northern Ireland that Israelis “took land off people and they were excessive,” arguing that Palestinians were justified in demanding their land back.

During his Belfast appearance, Obama argued that Israel’s military and technological superiority could not provide a lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “You have ceded moral ground if that is the position you take,” he warned. He specifically cited the presence of seven million Palestinians, saying they were “not going anywhere.”

“The obstacle to peace is not Israel,” Netanyahu said, arguing that the fundamental problem is the rejection of the Jewish people’s right to a state of their own. Netanyahu also pointed out that the Jews were in Judea first, as history clearly shows.

He also linked Israel’s struggle for security to the broader confrontation between the United States and hostile regimes in the Middle East.

Pointing to chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” Netanyahu said the hostility directed at the Jewish state is part of a wider campaign against the West. “We are the ‘Little Satan,’ you are the ‘Great Satan,'” he said, referring to the labels used by Iran’s leadership for Israel and the United States. Both countries, he argued, are defending a shared civilization against common enemies. The prime minister concluded with a warning against diplomatic arrangements that fail to account for the threats Israel faces.

“A peace built on illusions will crash against the rocks of Middle Eastern reality,” Netanyahu said. He insisted that Israel would not compromise its security simply to satisfy international demands or reach an agreement with adversaries unwilling to recognize its legitimacy.

“Israel will not gamble with its survival to accommodate those who refuse to accept the facts of history, to accept our right to exist, or who wish to appease terror.”

Source:

World Israel News Staff 2026Netanyahu fires back at Obama over 'stolen land' accusation: 'We're Jews in Judea' | World Israel News October 16

 

Two large asteroids found spinning as fast as a fairground ride

 

Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Joel Kontinen 

Space is wonderful and surprising odd, but this does not mean that it was not planned by God because everything has been planned by Him.

Large asteroids have been found spinning so fast they should break apart, suggesting they might be stronger than we thought.

Dmitrii Vavilov at the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues analysed some of the first data collected by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which began a 10-year survey of the sky in June 2026. From a sample of more than 9000 asteroids, they measured the rotation of 260, based on a change in their brightness caused by the spinning asteroids’ irregular shapes.

Of these, 66 were deemed to be super-fast rotators, spinning quickly enough to complete a rotation in less than 2.2 hours, a limit at which asteroids should no longer be able to hold themselves together under their own gravity.

Source:

Jonathan O’Callaghan 2026 Two large asteroids found spinning as fast as a fairground ride | New Scientist 9 October 

The land’s ability to store carbon has bounced back after two bad years

 

Image courtesy of Junhwan Hyun / Alamy Stock Photo.

Joel Kontinen

Carbon absorption by forests and grasslands bounced back in 2025 thanks to favourable growing conditions, but El Niño could lead to another sharp slump next year

For the past two years, scientists studying the health of forests, grasslands and swamps have been worried. Since 2023, the amount of carbon dioxide Earth’s landscapes have been able to absorb has dropped dramatically in the face of extreme weather, resulting in a record jump in atmospheric CO2 concentrations in two successive years.

But 2025 has bucked that worrying trend, with preliminary research revealing a strong rebound in the land carbon sink and a corresponding decline in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2.

However, the next season with high carbon dioxide could break havoc on the globe.  But the ones who believe in global warming say that carbon dioxide will arise in the future.

Source:

 Madeleine Cuff  2026 The land's ability to store carbon has bounced back after two bad years | New Scientist 13 October

A "Peace Prize" for the Vilification of Israel

 

Image courtesy of AP Photo/Paul Schemm

Joel Kontinen

There are bad decisions and disgraceful ones. And then there’s the awarding of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay.

Donald trump has castigated Norway for its design, and so has Israel.

The choice is hardly out of character for an award whose history has repeatedly shown that its name guarantees nothing about its recipients’ merit.

Indeed, this isn’t an aberration of the Norwegian committee. It has also provided Jasser Arafat with the peace price. 

But it’s an especially egregious example of a familiar pattern: an international establishment congratulating itself for advancing peace while rewarding people whose records make a mockery of the concept.

Pillay, who chaired the United Nations Commission of Inquiry that accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, has become a symbol of the double standards permeating the global system.

The woman now being feted in the name of peace presided over a more aptly dubbed “inquisition” whose whole purpose was to brand the Jewish state with a bloody—blood libelous.

The term “genocide” has a specific legal definition, including the requirement to establish intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

It’s laughable to suggest that Israel’s behavior even remotely fits that description, as it took great pains to avoid civilian casualties and flooded Gaza with humanitarian aid.

Source: 

Ruthie Blum 2026 A ‘Peace Prize’ for the Vilification of Israel | United with Israel October 11

 

 

Record El Niño threatens Great Barrier Reef with ecological shift

 

Image courtesy of fadhlanbr/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

Australian Researchers are worried about the impact the strongest-known El Niño will have on the Great Barrier Reef, and whether anything can be done to avert the World Heritage Area’s demise.

With the potentially catastrophic, record-smashing El Niño still peaking in the Pacific Ocean, scientists are warning of a fundamental ecological shift that would see swathes of the Great Barrier Reef become dominated by seaweed instead of coral.

During El Niño events, warmer ocean waters pool in the eastern and central Pacific. However, the phenomenon also dramatically disrupts the usual monsoon troughs, low-pressure zones that bring cooling clouds and rain to the Great Barrier Reef region.

This is why the worst Great Barrier Reef coral-bleaching events have coincided with past El Niños, such as the devastating reef mortality that occurred in 2024.

But corrals have their own way to avert disasters. Coral reefs around the world are at risk of collapse due to rising temperatures and ocean acidification, but the natural adaptability of some species may help buy time.

Coral reefs may be able to adapt better to warmer and more acidic oceans than previously thought, raising hopes that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and restore reefs could offer a chance to preserve these biodiverse ecosystems.

"These results offer us a potential path forward, but it depends entirely on what we decide to do about climate change and local stressors," says Chris Jury of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

God created corals as part of the animal kingdom, and they help fish and octopuses survive amidst dangers.

Sources: 

James Woodford 2026 Record El Niño threatens Great Barrier Reef with ecological shift | New Scientist 8 October

James Dinneen 2024 Here's how coral reefs might survive hotter, more acidic oceans | New Scientist 30 September 

Stunning early mammal fossil sheds light on the evolution of suckling

 

Image courtesy of April I. Neander,

Joel Kontinen

“Wood, plant fibres, hides, bone and other organic materials must have been central to daily life, but they normally disappear,” says Mariana Nabais, also at the Catalan Institute. “So when a site like Abric Romaní preserves wooden imprints and charred wooden objects, it is almost like suddenly seeing the missing half of the toolkit.”

Naoki Morimoto at Kyoto University in Japan describes the wooden objects as “remarkable”.

“The mammalian ways of swallowing and suckling are unique,” says Zhe-Xi Luo at the University of Chicago. “It is one of several biological adaptations of mammals that stand out from all other vertebrates.”

Luo and his colleagues have discovered a new genus of mammaliform, a creature that lived before the last common ancestor of the living mammalian groups – monotremes, marsupials and placentals – that would have been able to chew and suck.

It is also the earliest known example of a mammal that evolved for a semi-aquatic lifestyle. The animal has been dubbed Megacauda sungei, referencing its broad tail and palaeontologist Sun Ge.

The fossil, which evolutionist say is dated to between 163 million and 168 million years ago, was found by local farmers in the Daohugou area of Inner Mongolia, China.

“It is a chimera,” says Luo. “The back half of Megacauda is more similar to the platypus, of all mammals. But the skull and teeth are analogous to river otters.”

With an estimated weight of 1 kilogram, the creature is the largest known mammaliform from the Middle-Late Jurassic, when the planet was dominated by dinosaurs.

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Stunning early mammal fossil sheds light on the evolution of suckling | New Scientist 7 October 

Fly Dubai Hijacker Was Targeting Ben Gurion

 

Fly Dubai Hijacker Was Targeting Ben Gurion airport in Israel.

Fossil mammal with reptile-like teeth changes picture of our evolution

 

Image courtesy of Paul Bowden. This shows an animal known as Dongoconodon platycauda,

Joel Kontinen

A newly discovered, semi-aquatic mammal – which would have lived alongside the dinosaurs – had the streamlined appearance of a water rodent, feet almost identical to a platypus and teeth that grew like a reptile’s. It is an ancient mammal that replace  its teeth throughout its life.

The researchers who studied the near-complete, 120-million-year-old fossil, named Dongoconodon platycauda, say its disparate anatomy offers a window into early mammal evolution. That is what the evolutionists say.

Evolution and millions of years are not the way some animals evolve.  The believe in millions of years is not a scientific one.

D. platycauda was found in 2018 in Liaoning, China. Shundong Bi at Yunnan University, China, and his colleagues studied the fossil after the collector who found it took it to the Mongolia Museum of Natural History. When it was alive, the mammal would have weighed up to 190 grams and measured about 40 centimetres long

 Source:

James Woodford 2026 Fossil mammal with reptile-like teeth changes picture of our evolution | New Scientist 2 October 

Elephants imitate each other when they produce deep rumbling sounds

 

Image courtesy of ElephantVoices

Joel Kontinen

Elephants appear to harmonise their vocal rumbles when they join together to form choruses, tuning their voices to sound more alike as the chorus unfolds.

Elephants  talk with each other with deep rumbling sounds.

“It’s sort of like what humans do in conversation, where you almost start to adopt the speaking patterns or accents of whoever you’re interacting with,” says Sara Keen at Earth Species Project. 

Elephants communicate using a rich repertoire of body language, but also a wide range of sounds. These include their iconic trumpet call, and also throatier roars. The most common call is the rumble – so low-pitched it is often undetectable by humans – which can travel up to 10 kilometres, transmitting long-distance information that can potentially include the identity of the caller and what’s happening at the time.

Joyce Poole at Elephant Voices, a non-profit organisation based in Washington DC, that promotes the study and protection of elephants, says scientists have long been intrigued by the way elephants will rumble together in choruses. Studying those complex sounds, however, has proved extremely difficult because it is hard to pick out any given rumbling elephant in the chorus – what researchers call “the cocktail party problem”.

 Source:

Christa Lesté-Lasserre 2026 Elephants imitate each other when they produce deep rumbling sounds | New Scientist 1 October

Spectacular feathered dinosaur fossil shows bird-like adaptations

 

Image courtesy of Andrea Cau et al., Nature Communications (2026)

Joel Kontinen

The 57-centimetre-long fossil is between 100 million and 145 million years old, and was discovered by a farmer near the town of Lamadong in Liaoning, China.

Some Darwinist sat  that a bird like dinosaur was found in China,  it was was donated to a museum at Hebei GEO University in 2023, where Ji Qiang and his colleagues examined the exquisitely preserved specimen, complete with plumage, teeth, wings and articulated spine.

he researchers determined that the dinosaur was a new species, which they named Norellraptor barsboldi in honour of palaeontologists Mark Allen Norell and Rinchen Barsbold. It belongs in a group of small dinosaurs with both feathers and wings known as microraptorines.

Based on evolutionary relationships, the researchers found that around 30 per cent of anatomical changes in microraptorines also evolved in the bird lineage, but in a different order, providing evidence that the two groups evolved flight separately and for different reasons.

Analyses of N. barsboldi’s bone microstructure, its growth patterns and its evolutionary relationships show that the evolutionary sequences leading to flight adaptations in living birds and in bird-like dinosaurs were quite different, says Jacqueline  Nguyen.

This survey does not say that dinosaurs and birds are relatives.

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Spectacular feathered dinosaur fossil shows bird-like adaptations | New Scientist 29 September 

Why is this monster El Niño so strong?

 

Image courtesy of CSU/CIRA & JMA/JAXA

Joel Kontinen

Some researchers are thinking why is the el Niño so powerful this autumn, although the time for it is gone.   

Many who spoke a lot about evolution are now talking about global warming.

Mind-blowing. Unprecedented. Off the charts. Jaw-dropping. Godzilla-level. Superlatives have been flying about the current El Niño climate pattern, which is already the strongest on record months before it is expected to peak – and unusually, they are coming from scientists, rather than the media. So, what has made this such an exceptional event?

This will no doubt be the subject of many studies to come, but the broad picture is clear. Two main factors have driven the formation of this record-smashing El Niño, the first of which was set in motion long before it began.

Source:

Michael Le Page 2026 Why is this monster El Niño so strong? | New Scientist 28 September 

Milei rips apart the UN:s anti-Israel circus

 

The Argentinian president Javier Milei rips apart the UN:s anti-Israel circus.

Copying others can help young orangutans build a broad diet

 

Copying others can help young orangutans build a broad diet

Image courtesy of Guilhem Duvot, SUAQ Project

Joel Kontinen

According to evolution,  orangutans  are almost human,  so they are able to copy some of the traits of humans and from other apes. But animal intelligence is not something we would smirk at. Some birds are intelligent than apes. 

Young orangutans acquire a substantial body of knowledge before they can survive independently, which they must do by the time they are 8.5 years old. This includes understanding what foods are safe to eat, where to fi intelligrent than apes. nd them and how to process them in a rainforest offering hundreds of food options of varying levels of accessibility – from easy-to-access leaves to the more inaccessible but also manimal ore nutritious seeds at the heart of a tough, spiny neesia fruit.

The findings suggest that orangutans have different strategies for developing broad survival skills, says Revathe Thillaikumar at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

Scientists already know that orangutans can acquire this knowledge both by observing their mothers and other individuals in their social circle – a process known as social learning – and by exploring entirely on their own without any input from others, which is known as individual learning. But how these two forms of learning work together – and how they affect what orangutans learn to eat before becoming independent – hasn’t been clear.

To find out, Thillaikumar and her colleagues analysed nearly 7000 instances of learning recorded during more than 1700 hours of observations of wild Sumatran orangutans at Suaq Balimbing, a research station in Indonesia.

Youngsters who learned by watching others also tended to continue manipulating new objects or trying new foods for about 145 minutes after they had closely observed another orangutan. This activity is reminiscent of the way in which children will spend time imitating an activity they have just seen demonstrated by an adult, says Thillaikumar. “Yeah, it’s practice.”

Source:

Christa Lesté-Lasserre 2026 Copying others can help young orangutans build a broad diet | New Scientist 24 September 

Fire amoeba breaks heat tolerance record for complex life

 

Incendiamoeba cell reproducing at 63°C Image courtesy of Felix Mikus.

Joel Kontinen

Animals cam be incredible,  A species of amoeba discovered in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park can survive and thrive in temperatures that had been considered impossibly high for complex life.

Previously, according to Angela Oliverio at Syracuse University, New York, 60°C was considered the “4-minute mile” barrier for eukaryotes.

But the four minute mile has been broken.

Oliverio and her colleagues collected I. cascadensis from a small geothermal stream within California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park, flowing through a “beautiful meadow” less than half a metre wide for most of its length. Temperatures in the stream range from 49°C to 65°C, with a pH range of 6 to 7.

At full stretch, I. cascadensis is, on average, about 40 micrometres long and 10 µm wide, says Oliverio.

“This is over 10 times the size of the average bacterial cell, and closer to the width of a human white blood cell,” she says. In such a hot environment, the fire amoeba is the top-order predator, feeding on thermophile bacteria, which are far more common.

Bob Leung at Monash University, Australia, says the discovery means he will have to rewrite his lectures on extremophiles.

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Fire amoeba breaks heat tolerance record for complex life | New Scientist 22 September

Our brain evolved from two primitive nervous systems that merged

 A 9.5-day-old mouse embryo. The front of the brain is blue and the back of the brain is red, which extends into the spinal cord.  Loh Laboratory/Stanford Medicine

Joel Kontinen

Our brain may be a hybrid of two ancient nervous systems that were packaged together hundreds of millions of years ago. This is based on the finding that the front and back brain regions in people and several other species develop from two distinct cell types in embryos, instead of sharing the same developmental origin, as previously thought..

This is based on Darwinian speculation that has no backfiring in real science.

This is what the evolutionists say of this incredible fusion;

The research suggests that evolution took two existing neural systems and pushed them together spatially,” says Kyle Loh at Stanford University. “Having the brain as one organ would probably be more efficient, but we rely on this primordial way to make the brain as two separate pieces.”

Loh and his colleagues studied early stages of mouse embryo development and found its brain develops from two types of early progenitor cells, proliferative cells with a limited capacity of self-renewal. One type expresses a gene called OTX2 and turns into the neurons found in the front part of the brain, comprising the forebrain and midbrain.

The hindbrain coordinates fundamental life-sustaining processes, such as breathing, sleeping, eating and the beating of the heart, .

The researchers also studied early-stage embryos of chickens, zebrafish and acorn worms, and found their nervous systems are similarly derived from two different types of progenitor cells. This suggests our shared two-origin brain system arose at least 550 million years ago.

What would, evolution do without millions of years.

Source:

Alice Klein 2026 Our brain evolved from two primitive nervous systems that merged | New Scientist 18 September 

Beautiful new cat species is first to be named in a century

 

The tilcayo (Leopardus tilcayo) in an animal refuge in La Paz, Bolivia. Image courtesy of Paola Nogales-Ascarrunz

Joel Kontinen

Some evolutionist say that animal species die all the time.  Contrast to this a tiger cat recently found in Bolivia.    

The tiger cat is one of the creatures they describe as Lazarus animals.

Tiger cats, which are about the size of a house cat are found in Costa Rica in Central America, and across a vast swathe of South America including Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Historically, there have been many local and scientific names for them, but they all got subsumed into a single species, Leopardus tigrinus.

Eduardo Eizirik at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and his colleagues have analysed the complete genomes of 38 individuals from the Leopardus genus, including 26 tiger cats from across their known range.

L. tilcayo has a combined head and body length of between about 42 and 50 centimetres and weighs between 1.5 and 2 kilograms. The genomes revealed that it diverged from the lineage containing L. tigrinus and L. pardinoides nearly 1.4 million years ago.

Source:  

Chris Simms 2026 Beautiful new cat species is first to be named in a century | New Scientist 17 September 

Asteroid hit the moon and flung rocks 120 kilometres from the crater

 

The crater site, before and after impact  Image courtesy of NASA/Mark S. Robinson et al. 2026

Joel Kontinen 

An asteroid hit the moon. The area was  222 metres across.

A newly formed crater on the moon is teaching us about our nearest neighbour’s complex geology. The crater, formed by an asteroid impact in 2024, is the largest that we’ve ever watched form in real time.

It was first spotted last year, when researchers compared sets of images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in both 2024 and 2025, and was named McGetchin crater. According to models of how often impacts occur on the moon, one this big – about 222 metres across – is only expected to occur about once every 132 years.

Thus gives us an opportunity to learn about the lunar surface and its geology. “Cratering is probably the most common process that happens in the solar system, so we spend a lot of time trying to understand how a new crater will modify a surface and watching that degrade over time,” says Tyler Powell at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

Some evolutionist think that this  incident will help us to understand what happened on the moon tens or thousands of years ago.

 Source: 

Leah Crane 2026 Asteroid hit the moon and flung rocks 120 kilometres from the crater | New Scientist 16 September

Exquisite 66-million-year-old bird feather preserved in dinosaur dropping

 

Image courtesy of O'Connor et al.

Joel Kontinen

A bird that was eaten and partially excreted by a dinosaur 66 million years ago has left behind the best-preserved feathers ever recovered by scientists from dinosaur-age rock.

“This is the best feather we’ve ever seen in a Mesozoic [252 million to 66 million years ago] deposit,” says Jingmai O’Connor at the Field Museum in Chicago. “[It’s] like a feather you could pick up off the ground.”

Further analyses showed that the 9.3-millimetre-long primary feather had a water-repellent structure, similar to that of modern pelicans, says O’Connor. Both this and a second, smaller wing feather also had lightweight, spongy cores surrounded by a harder outer layer. This combination makes them both light and stiff, which is typical of modern feathers.

According to evolution, millions of years have gone by. So where is the evolution?

“These are the feathers that are responsible for keeping the body warm, right?” says O’Connor. “So maybe these primitive feathers were good enough to keep them warm during the greenhouse world of the Mesozoic, but not good enough to keep them warm during this environmental catastrophe that was triggered by this impact event.”

Source:

Christa Lesté-Lasserre 2026 Exquisite 66-million-year-old bird feather preserved in dinosaur dropping | New Scientist 10 September