A new image of the Helix Nebula reveals how dying stars return material to the galaxy. The Helix Nebula offers a rare look at what happens after a dying star releases its outer layers into space. New observations show fragments of that material colliding with surrounding gas, breaking apart, and beginning their return to the [...]
What turned an ordinary primate into a species capable of civilization, consciousness and mass violence?For more than a decade, scientists have known that strange bacteria living in aquatic mud can conduct electricity along distances thousands of times longer than a single bacterial cell. Such long-range electrical conduction should be extraordinarily difficult for a living organism, and how they accomplish the feat has remained a biological mystery.
Now, researchers say they have found the wiring. Inside so-called cable bacteria, scientists have discovered an elaborate network of nickel-rich nanoribbons arranged into what amounts to a naturally grown electrical cable.
The structure is unlike the conventional machinery biology normally uses to move electrons and may represent the first known example of a metal-organic framework produced by a living organism.
What surprised lead study author Dr. Filip Meysman, a professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, most was not how alien the structure looked, but how familiar it was.
“It had a very familiar feeling: a braided wire consisting of thin individual wires surrounded by a protective shell layer,” Meysman told The Debrief. “This is very similar to the power cords that we use to charge our smartphones, only the cable bacterial version is 20,000 times smaller in size. Evolution came up with this design 600 million years earlier than electrical engineers.”
Meysman’s comparison is not simply rhetorical. Molecular-clock estimates suggest the cable bacteria lineage may have diverged roughly 560 million years ago, although when their unusual electrical capabilities evolved is still unknown.
Published in Nature Communications, the findings could eventually provide researchers with a biological blueprint for creating flexible, biodegradable electronics that organisms effectively manufacture themselves.
Cable bacteria first attracted scientific attention because of their outstanding ability to move electrons over centimeter-scale distances. The multicellular organisms live in sediments where different layers offer different chemical resources. Cells buried deeper can harvest electrons from sulfide, while cells closer to oxygen-rich water dispose of them.
The result is an organism that successfully separates parts of its metabolism across space, with electrical current passing along the filament connecting them.
Scientists eventually identified dozens of parallel fibers running through the bacteria’s outer layers as the likely electrical pathways. Measurements later showed conductivity reaching levels unusual for any biological material and, in some experiments, comparable to materials used in electronic inks. The new study notes previously reported conductivity values reaching up to 500 siemens per centimeter.
But knowing where the current traveled was not the same as knowing how it traveled.
Most biological electron conduction relies on proteins containing metal-bearing cofactors, commonly iron-containing structures such as hemes or iron-sulfur clusters. Electrons typically move between those sites in a sequence of molecular transfers often described as “hopping.”
Previous research showed that cable bacteria did not fit neatly into that model. Their conducting fibers were associated with sulfur-bound nickel rather than the usual iron cofactors. At the same time, theoretical work suggested electron movement was too fast to be explained by conventional non-adiabatic hopping alone.
The mystery deepened in 2024, when some of the same researchers examined cable bacteria at temperatures approaching that of liquid helium and found that their electrical behavior matched an unusually efficient multistep hopping mechanism. But even then, the extraordinary conductivity challenged standard models of electrons simply hopping between isolated molecular sites.
The new structural work may help explain why.
Rather than a series of small, separated metal cofactors, the researchers have now found an extended nickel-organic structure running through the conductive fibers.
Using electron microscopy, X-ray fluorescence, Raman spectroscopy, electron paramagnetic resonance, X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and computer modeling, the team found that each conductive fiber contains roughly 11 extraordinarily thin nanoribbons, about 1.4 nanometers across.
Those ribbons pass through the center of the fiber and are built from repeating nickel bis-dithiolene complexes, which the researchers call NiBiD. Nickel atoms are linked through sulfur-containing organic molecules, creating planar units that appear to stack into an extended, highly ordered electrical pathway.
That arrangement may explain the extraordinary conductivity. Rather than electrons simply jumping between isolated metal centers, the stacked structure creates extensive electronic interaction and delocalization, allowing charge to spread across overlapping molecular networks. In that sense, the bacterial wire begins to resemble an organic electronic material more than a conventional biological electron-transfer chain.
The arrangement also appears mechanically well-suited to the bacteria’s lifestyle.
Cable bacteria move through sediment and can bend sharply while maintaining electrical contact between cells. A single rigid conducting strand could be vulnerable to damage. Multiple intertwined nanoribbons, however, offer something closer to braided copper wire: strength, flexibility, and redundancy at the same time.
The discovery also appears to broaden scientists’ understanding of what biology can manufacture.
Metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs, are structures in which organic molecules link together metal centers into larger networks. Chemists have spent years designing them for uses ranging from gas storage and chemical separation to catalysis and electronics.
Until now, the researchers say, no one had observed a metal-organic framework configuration naturally constructed inside a living organism.
Cable bacteria appear to have arrived at the idea on their own, and this natural version appears to conduct electricity exceptionally well.
Previous electrical conductivity measurements of cable bacteria used the entire cross-section of their conductive fibers. But the new structural work indicates that the current is concentrated within a much smaller network of nanoribbons.
Recalculating conductivity based on the estimated dimensions of those conducting channels, the researchers found that an individual nanoribbon could have a conductivity of roughly 150 to 15,000 siemens per centimeter.
That range, the researchers say, ranks among the highest reported for any metal-organic structure. The upper figure remains an estimate, however, instead of a direct measurement of a single nanoribbon.
“We need to be able to isolate the individual nanoribbons from the cable bacteria and connect them electrically with electrodes,” Dr. Meysman explained. “This would provide the direct proof of the high conductivity. We are currently working on such nanoscale electrical measurements.”
Doing so would let researchers determine whether the extraordinary conductivity predicted for an individual nanoribbon holds up experimentally.
If it does, the technological implications could extend well beyond understanding an unusual microbe.
Researchers have long been interested in bio-based electronics because living systems can manufacture sophisticated materials through self-assembly while operating under relatively mild conditions. Biological materials can also be flexible and potentially biodegradable.
Their weakness has usually been electrical performance. Cable bacteria suggest nature may have found a way around that tradeoff.
Scientists still do not know exactly how cable bacteria biosynthesize the nickel-organic framework, and parts of the nanoribbon architecture remain unresolved.
But evolution has already solved one problem materials scientists would like to reproduce: how to build a highly conductive, flexible electrical pathway largely from organic components under biological conditions.
Dr. Meysman says one especially promising possibility is flexible printed electronics, where conductive inks are deposited onto surfaces to create circuits, sensors, and other electronic components.
“The material produced by the bacteria provides a flexible and conductive material, and so flexible printed electronics—conductive inks—emerges as a promising application domain,” Dr. Meysman said.
“The challenge is to demonstrate that the biomaterial can be made in a cost-effective fashion,” Meysman added, “and that it has the same—or even better—properties than the electronic ink materials currently in use.”
Ultimately, for hundreds of millions of years, bacteria buried in mud may have been growing microscopic power cables.
Scientists are only now beginning to understand how they work.
The study, “Highly efficient long-range conduction through a biosynthetic nickel-organic framework,” appeared in Nature Communications.
Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan. Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com
From fireflies to mammals, evolution may have tuned communication to the rhythm of neurons.The extinct American cheetah wasn’t a true cheetah at all, say biologists in new research overturning our previous understanding of the legendary predator, revealing a cautionary tale about superficial scientific interpretations.
In a recent paper published in Current Biology, a research team led by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, revealed that the so-called “American cheetah” is actually a relative of the Puma, adapted to Arctic conditions.
Scientifically known as Miracinonyx trumani, the American cheetah has turned out to be a fish-eating Puma relative and quite a distinct creature from the one envisioned by earlier researchers, as their suggestions were based primarily on the animal’s physical form. Using fossils discovered as far north as the Arctic Yukon, the team analyzed the species’ nuclear paleogenomes and stable isotopes, reconsidering the big cat at the genetic level.
M. trumani had long front legs and a slender body, weighing roughly 150 pounds and measuring about eight feet long and three feet tall. This sleek form allowed it to cross vast swathes of Pleistocene North America and achieve cheetah-like speeds.
While it may have developed a form similar to the cheetah, this is simply a case of convergent evolution, after the “American cheetah” split from the puma lineage some 2.6 million years ago. Fossils used in the research date from 23,000 to 31,000 years old, considerably more recent than that initial split.
Although the American cheetah is extinct today, its influence is still felt. One evolutionary theory is that the fastest North American land animal, the pronghorn, which can run up to 60 miles per hour, owes its tremendous speed to evolving to escape the swift predator.
One of the most intriguing elements of the new research is that it extends the cat’s habitat north by 20° latitude, into the Arctic Yukon. The team says that, depending on latitude, the species could occupy distinctly different ecological niches, demonstrating a high degree of adaptability to prevailing conditions.
To the south, the American cheetah had long been recognized as residing in Florida and Wyoming. In these areas, rich in temperate grasslands, the cat would have behaved as a generalist predator. However, in the harsher Arctic Yukon, it acted as a tertiary predator, living off fish like salmon.
“These cats were remarkably flexible, much like pumas are across their range today,” said lead author Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, a Ph.D. candidate in the Paleogenomics Lab at UC Santa Cruz. “We found loss-of-function mutations in certain genes that regulate circadian rhythms, suggesting they may have adapted to the extreme light cycles of summers and winters in northern latitudes.”
The genes revealed further peculiarities of M. Trumani. Generally, cats are known for a lack of interest in sweet foods, but this particular cat also lacked a sour taste receptor, a trait associated with specialized diets. Animals normally use this receptor to identify food that is safe to eat.
The fossils tell the story of a slow, steady decline in the species over the course of the Pleistocene. One notable factor could be their distinct lack of genetic diversity, which the researchers do not attribute to inbreeding.
“Miracinonyx persisted for a very long time without the signs of inbreeding we’d expect before a collapse,” senior author Beth Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz and co-director of the Paleogenomics Lab, concluded. “The decline was slow, not sudden, and that may be what left it unable to adapt when the climate shifted.”
The paper, “Range and Diet Diversity in the Pleistocene American ‘Cheetah,’ Miracinonyx Trumani,” appeared in Current Biology on September 4, 2026.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
Some of nature’s most unusual finds remain unrecognized for decades, or even centuries, after their initial discovery—and that has proven true once again with several strange new creatures recently uncovered in museum collections and from other sources.
The findings reveal at least ten new examples of some of the animal kingdom’s strangest worms, showcasing their remarkable diversity and a few unusual traits, such as bodies that appear to repeatedly branch into multiple different ends, almost evoking the fantastic beasts of ancient mythology.
Such characteristics, however, are what earned these creatures their unique name: branching worms. These marine animals belong to a group of creatures known as annelids and possess a single head but grow elaborate, almost plant-like networks of branching bodies.
The creatures are known to science, although they are reclusive, spending most of their lives hidden inside sea sponges that thrive in a range of different ocean environments, with their many branching appendages spreading throughout the internal structures of their aquatic hosts.
Previously, only three varieties of these oceanic oddities were known. However, a new study published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society has revealed as many as ten likely new species, some of which had been hidden away in museum collections for more than a century.
The study, led by researchers at the University of Göttingen, used the specimens, along with genetic data and other information, to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the animals with the help of DNA sequencing, anatomical analyses, and several newly collected specimens.
Based on their findings, a total of thirteen distinct forms of branching worms are now known, which are found across the Indo-Pacific, the Red Sea, and the ocean waters near New Zealand. Based on the available genetic data, these creatures appear to stem from two major evolutionary lineages: Ramisyllis, a genus that was already known to researchers, and now an entirely new genus, which has been dubbed Cladosyllis.
“Our findings would have been impossible without access to valuable museum specimens,” said study leader Professor Maria Teresa Aguado, Scientific Curator of the Biodiversity Museum at Göttingen University. “These collections are not just repositories of old samples, but resources that continue to generate new discoveries.”
Remarkably, some of these specimens had been accessible to researchers for more than a century. Several of the newly assessed early specimens were retrieved from within sponges held in the Senckenberg collection, which dates to 1914.
Researchers were successfully able to reveal these “hidden” specimens without damaging their hosts by using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) imaging.
However, along with the discoveries, a few answers to longstanding questions have also emerged.
Going back to the nineteenth century, many of these rare branching worms were classified as a single widespread species. However, now researchers say that a far more diverse evolutionary family exists, with various kinds associated closely with specific sponge hosts in each of the geographic regions where they reside.
Some of the newly identified specimens inhabit sponges that thrive in shallow water, while others dwell within glass sponges, a species that is found at depths exceeding 1,000 meters below the surface. This reveals the level of specialization among different hosts, which the research team believes has been a driving force behind the diversity of these bizarre worms that have evolved to rely on them.
Despite their special adaptations, it is nonetheless believed that all branching worms evolved from a common ancestor, meaning that their very unusual body plan evolved only once, and thereafter produced two major lineages with some physical differences.
The research team believes there are likely to be other undiscovered varieties of branching worms out there, and thanks to the new research, discovering them could be more feasible in the near future, and may reveal additional insights into these bizarre ocean worms and their unique evolutionary place in marine biodiversity.
The study, “Many Branches, One Lineage: Museomic Insights into the Diversity and Evolution of Branching Syllid Worms,” appeared in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
For several decades, paleontologists have described Miracinonyx trumani -- an extinct species of cheetah-like felid that roamed the North American prairies and steppe terrains more than 13,000 years ago -- as North America’s answer to the African cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus).
The post Ancient DNA Rewrites Story of Enigmatic ‘American Cheetah’ appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
The American cheetah (Miracinonyx trumani) stalked North America’s Pleistocene grasslands for nearly 2.5 million years, but new evidence suggests they likely didn’t resemble their present-day African namesake. After comparing M. trumani DNA to nine other feline species ranging from house cats to lions, it now appears that the ancient predator’s closest relative is an entirely different big cat. What’s more, M. trumani often roamed much farther north than researchers once assumed.
“It’s really surprising and exciting to identify another predator present in Beringia,” Molly Cassatt-Johnstone, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), said in a statement.
Berinigia is the ancient stretch of land that once connected northeastern Asia to northwestern North America. While submerged in the Pacific Ocean today, its exposure during the Pleistocene allowed megafauna like the woolly mammoth and other large animals to migrate between continents.
Cassatt-Johnstone and her colleagues presented their findings in a study published today in the journal Current Biology. Their evidence is based on four of the most complete sets of M. trumani DNA found to date. Paleontologists previously discovered one of the specimens in Wyoming, but the other three come from Canada’s Yukon territory. While the latter samples were previously believed to belong to a completely different big cat species, the UCSC team successfully proved that they were actually also American cheetahs. This means M. trumani often lived as much as 20 degrees of latitude farther north than experts thought.
M. trumani fossils exhibit long forelimbs, large nasal cavities, and a slender body, which led paleontologists to theorize the predators resembled the present-day cheetah. The presence of big cat remains near pronghorns (aka the American antelope) further suggested M. trumani chased down fast prey. However, the discovery of American cheetahs so far north into Canada complicates this image—pronghorns didn’t live in the Yukon.
So what did these M. trumani eat? An analysis of the Yukon fossils’ carbon and nitrogen levels revealed the big cats subsisted on a diet almost entirely of fish, while the Wyoming predators mainly ate herbivores. The team also identified two genes in M. trumani tied to circadian rhythm that were nonfunctional. This allowed the animals to handle the extended periods of daylight and darkness experienced in northern latitudes, and perhaps even made them nocturnal.
As for their closest relatives, it now appears that M. trumani was much more similar to today’s pumas, since the two species share a common ancestry about 2.6 million years ago. By comparison, the closest shared relative between M. trumani and cheetahs is 4.7 million years ago. Taken altogether, the latest findings highlight a big cat that was highly adaptable to its environment, as well as regional climates and available prey.
“It’s very hard to imagine a prehistoric species we’ve never seen without comparing it to something we know,” said Cassatt-Johnstone. “But this approach can limit our understanding of ancient animals’ complexity, unique evolutionary histories, and behaviors.”
The post Ancient American cheetahs were not exactly cheetah-like appeared first on Popular Science.
I consider myself to have a somewhat challenging personality. The popular Myers-Briggs test labels me an ‘INTJ,’ commonly referred to as an “Architect.” We’re supposedly independent, determined, curious, and original, but we’re also considered combative, overly critical, dismissive of emotions, and more concerned with “rationality and success over politeness.”
My family would generally agree with that description of me. Perhaps thankfully, we are a rare bunch: only two to four percent of people, and about one percent of women, are INTJs.
I’m expecting my first child, a daughter, in January. The prospect of meeting a mini “Architect” has me wondering: Are we born with our personalities?
The answer is complicated—and still evolving.
“All of it comes from genes, and all of it comes from [the] environment in a sense,” says Matthew Keller, a behavioral geneticist at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Dozens of twin studies have found that personality is partly heritable, but exactly how genes shape who we become is far from straightforward, and it’s even less clear how environmental factors play a role.
The very definition of personality is complex and somewhat “squishy,” Ted Schwaba, a personality psychologist at Michigan State University, concedes.
Most people think of personality as traits. The adjectives we use to describe a person: creative, hard-working, honest, kind. But personality also encompasses identity, life story, reputation, and how other people see you, says Schwaba.
Brent Roberts, a personality psychologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, adds that skill, ability, interests, and motivations also play a role. Someone can have remarkable talent in, say, soccer or music, but without the interest or motivation to pursue those areas, one’s ability may never become central to what they do.
“Personality is really any kind of stable characteristic of a person that makes them who they are,” says Schwaba.
While personality itself remains somewhat difficult to define, most psychologists use the standardized “Big Five” model to measure it. The framework scores people along five broad traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, the tendency to experience negative emotions.
Though imperfect, the model lets researchers compare personality across people and over time. The Big Five and other measures of personality have proven consistent predictors of school and work performance, relationships, health, and even longevity.
Throughout much of the 20th century, researchers studied twins to understand how genes and environment shaped personality. One 1996 study compared 123 pairs of identical twins, who share nearly all their DNA, with 127 pairs of fraternal twins, who share about half, and found that genetic differences accounted for roughly 40 to 60 percent of variation across the Big Five traits.
That estimate has endured. A 2015 meta-analysis of more than 100,000 people found that personality is about 40 percent heritable.
Heritability tells us how much of the variation in personality, or other traits, can be linked to genetics. If something is 100 percent heritable, all the differences we see among people would be linked to genetics, Keller explains. If it is 0 percent heritable, then genetics would explain none of those differences.
So, when researchers say personality is about 40 percent heritable, they don’t mean 40 percent of a person’s personality comes from their genes. An outgoing mother may pass along genetic variants that make her child more likely to be outgoing too, but her daughter is not destined to share the trait.
And just because a trait is heritable doesn’t mean it is immutable or set at birth. Environmental factors still matter. Height, for example, is roughly 80 to 90 percent heritable, yet genes don’t determine exactly how tall someone will become. A child with tall parents may have the genetic potential to be tall, but without proper nutrition may never reach that potential.
Both height and personality are genetically complex. A 2022 study of 5.4 million people identified more than 12,000 genetic variants associated with height, while a 2024 study of the Big Five identified 254 genes associated with at least one trait. There is no single gene for height nor is there a single gene for being extroverted, agreeable, or conscientious. Instead, these traits appear to arise from the combined effects of many genes, each with a very small influence.
Schwaba likens individual genetic variants to grains of sand on a beach. One grain tells you nothing about what the beach will look like, but collectively thousands of them help shape the landscape.
If genes explain only part of personality differences, what explains the rest? Scientists are still trying to figure that out.
Over the past few decades, researchers have investigated everything from parenting and birth order to socioeconomic status and major life events. Except for extreme experiences such as abuse, trauma, or severe deprivation, most non-genetic aspects have turned out to have surprisingly small effects.
Roberts calls it “death by a thousand cuts.” No single experience appears to explain much, but thousands of small environmental influences may accumulate over a lifetime to shape personality.
Studying environmental factors is much harder than studying DNA. Scientists can sequence a genome, but understanding environmental impacts requires psychologists to follow thousands of people for decades.
Researchers do know that personality isn’t fixed; it can change over the course of one’s life. People can even deliberately alter some traits. Therapy can change personality, Schwaba says, and adults can even become more outgoing, for example, if they put intensive effort into socializing and pushing themselves outside their comfort zone.
Scientists aren’t certain when personality first emerges. Schwaba says individuality is obvious by preschool, but recently he and a colleague found themselves wondering whether future extroverts might kick more in the womb.
“We don’t actually know of a study on that,” he says.
Will my daughter be a mini-Architect? Maybe in some ways. The genes she inherits may nudge her personality in certain directions, but they won’t lock her into them. Who she becomes will depend on a lifetime of experiences that scientists are still trying to untangle.
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 What shapes your personality? Your genes and environment play a big role. appeared first on Popular Science.
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