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Today:
How Long Poop Stays in Your Body Could Impact Your Health, Study Finds
NEWS | 05 December 2025
Since the human gut microbiome is intrinsically linked to health, this could have implications that have gone unnoticed before now. In particular, slow transit times and constipation have been linked with metabolic and inflammatory disorders, as well as neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease. Figuring out the microbiome profiles associated with these gut transit times could help develop new ways to treat and manage these conditions. Understanding gut transit time isn't as simple as keeping a record of one's poop schedule. People with fast gut transit times had dramatically different microbiomes from people with slower transit times.

Top Stories:
Scientists Discover The First Single Gene to Directly Cause Mental Illness
NEWS | 05 December 2025
Changes to just one gene, called GRIN2A, have now been tied to psychiatric symptoms, including early-onset schizophrenia. Recently, strong evidence has found that changes to the GRIN2A gene are associated with early-onset schizophrenia in childhood or early adolescence, sooner than the disorder typically presents. This suggests that the GRIN2A change can drive isolated mental health disorders early in life without other neurodevelopmental issues. Interestingly, all four participants experienced positive improvements to their mental health disorder after treatment. How exactly the GRIN2A gene may drive these disorders is another matter that needs further investigation.

World:
Specific Hand Gestures Can Make You Instantly More Persuasive, Study Says
NEWS | 05 December 2025
When people use hand gestures that visually represent what they're saying, listeners see them as more clear, competent and persuasive. The short answer is yes, but only when the gestures visually represent the idea you're talking about. In the AI-analyzed TED Talk data, illustrative gestures predicted higher audience evaluations, reflected in more than 33 million online "likes" of the videos. And in our experiments, 1,600 participants rated speakers who used illustrative gestures as more clear, competent and persuasive. Think about where your hands naturally illustrate what you're saying – emphasizing size, direction or emotion – and let them move with purpose.

Current Events:
Mysterious Figurine With Stitched Lips Found at 11,000-Year-Old Site
NEWS | 05 December 2025
The latest finds – a stone figurine with stitched lips, carved stone faces, and a black serpentinite bead with expressive faces on both sides – offer clues about Neolithic beliefs and rituals. The project includes the UNESCO heritage site Gobekli Tepe – "Potbelly Hill" in Turkish – which is home to the oldest known megalithic structures in Upper Mesopotamia, where the late German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt began excavations in 1995. "We don't have any written records, obviously, because it's prehistory," said Clare, who has worked at Gobekli Tepe since 2013. At Karahan Tepe, human symbolism is widely seen whereas in Gobekli Tepe, animal imagery is more dominant. "Before the excavations began at Karahan Tepe and other sites, the area mainly attracted religious tour groups, drawn largely by its association with the prophet Abraham," tourist guide Yakup Bedlek said.

News Flash:
An Existing Vaccine Could Slow Dementia And Cut Death Risk by 30%
NEWS | 05 December 2025
It goes a long way to reducing the influence of other factors that play into dementia risk, such as education level or other medical conditions. Of the 14,350 people diagnosed with dementia prior to the start of the vaccine program, about half died of the condition within nine years. Combined with the earlier findings that the vaccine reduced the risk of dementia starting at all, these are encouraging signs. One of the next challenges is going to be figuring out why the shingles vaccine might be having this impact on dementia development and diagnosis. There might be nervous system or immune system mechanisms at play – viruses affecting the nervous system have been linked in animal models to the toxic protein build-up seen with Alzheimer's, for example.

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 05 December 2025
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

Latest:
Blackest Fabric Ever Made Absorbs 99.87% of All Light That Hits It
NEWS | 05 December 2025
Engineers at Cornell University have created the blackest fabric on record, finding it absorbs 99.87 percent of all light that dares to illuminate its surface. It requires manipulating the structure of a material on the nanoscopic scale so that it captures as much light as possible. The Cornell material actually outperforms the bird's natural ultrablackness in some ways. The material, on the other hand, retains its light absorption powers when viewed from up to 60 degrees either side. While the fabric isn't the blackest material humans have ever created, it comes close.

Breaking:
'Holes' in Kim Kardashian's Brain Scan May Not Be What They Seem, Expert Says
NEWS | 05 December 2025
Discussing Kim's recent brain scan, her doctor pointed out "holes" on her brain scan he said were related to "low activity". I study brain health, including imaging the brain to look for early signs of disease. While SPECT has some clinical use under limited circumstances, there is not good evidence for SPECT scans outside these purposes. Areas in which blood flow is reduced have been described as "holes", "dents" or "dings" on such SPECT scans. And as SPECT scans are not recognised as a medical requirement, patients pay upwards of US$3,000 for a SPECT scan, with dietary supplements costing extra.

Trending:
Black Death's Carnage Traced to a Volcanic Eruption Half a World Away
NEWS | 05 December 2025
A major volcanic cataclysm may have been ultimately responsible for the spread of the Black Death across Europe in the 1340s. frameborder="0″ allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen>The ice cores provide the strongest physical evidence of a volcanic eruption occurring at a critical moment in history. Snapshots of the atmosphere's composition at the time the ice was deposited as snow preserve an exceptionally detailed record of past climate and major volcanic events. Cores from the middle of the 14th century revealed a massive spike in sulfur levels coinciding with snow deposited around 1345 CE – an ice core signature almost always associated with a major volcanic eruption. An unidentified volcano, likely somewhere in the tropics, underwent a massive, violent eruption in 1345.

This Just In:
New Tick-Borne Disease Discovered in Dogs May Pose a Risk to Humans
NEWS | 05 December 2025
Several dogs in the US have died following infections by a newly discovered tick-borne disease from the same genus responsible for 'spotted fever'. When the team sequenced the bacterium's genome, they realized it was a whole new species in the spotted fever group. "Until recently, R. rickettsii was the only [spotted fever pathogen] known to cause disease in dogs in North America," write researchers at NC State. Its genome alignment shows very few differences from other spotted fever pathogens. Tellingly, the geographic range of this tick species also overlaps with the places where the sick dogs came from.

Today:
Kimchi Targets Key Parts of Your Immune System, Study Reveals
NEWS | 05 December 2025
A recent study suggests that kimchi may also help support the immune system. One group received a placebo, while the other two groups received two different types of kimchi powder (kimchi that had been freeze-dried and put into a capsule). The amount of kimchi powder participants were given daily was roughly equivalent to eating 30 grams of fresh kimchi. Since helper T cells coordinate immune responses, these changes mean they're better equipped to help other immune cells fight infections effectively. Most other immune cells stayed the same, meaning kimchi targeted helper T cells rather than activating the entire immune system.

Top Stories:
Your Driving Choices Could Be Hiding Signs of Future Cognitive Decline
NEWS | 05 December 2025
Early signs of cognitive decline may influence our driving habits, making our choices in travel times and routes a potential indicator of future mental health. Combined with other symptoms, information on a patient's driving may help inform a diagnosis. An analysis of the driving data on its own correctly identified individuals with MCI 82 percent of the time. "Looking at people's daily driving behavior is a relatively low-burden, unobtrusive way to monitor people's cognitive skills and ability to function," says Babulal. "Of course, we also need to respect people's autonomy, privacy, and informed decision-making and ensure ethical standards are met."

World:
Close Brush With 'Cosmic Dog' May Still Be Seen at Solar System's Edge
NEWS | 05 December 2025
About 4.5 million years ago, a great cosmic dog kicked past our Solar System – and its effects may still be seen today. Their intense heat may have ionized gas in local interstellar clouds that shroud our Solar System, to a degree that had previously puzzled scientists. But inside that bubble lies a pocket of relatively dense matter that astronomers call the local interstellar clouds – and within that sits the Solar System. Roughly 30 light-years in length, the local clouds are composed mostly of a form of hydrogen and helium that exhibits a surprising level of ionization. One is the hot plasma along the edge of the Local Bubble, which fires off a significant amount of ionizing photons.

Current Events:
Computers Made From Human Brain Tissue Are Coming. Are We Prepared?
NEWS | 05 December 2025
Second, techniques for growing brain tissue outside the body have matured, with the pharmaceutical industry jumping on board. And what ethical questions arise when human brain tissue becomes a computational component? This is catchy and media-friendly, but it risks implying parity with artificial intelligence systems, despite the vast gap between them. The coming years will determine whether organoid intelligence transforms computing or becomes a short-lived curiosity. As billionaires such as Elon Musk pursue neural implants and transhumanist visions, organoid intelligence prompts deep questions.

News Flash:
'Tornado' of Galaxies Is The Longest Spinning Structure Ever Seen
NEWS | 05 December 2025
It's at least 49 million light-years in length – representing the single longest rotating filament ever found in the Universe, a vast vortical strand of the cosmic web. It's one of the largest spinning structures we've ever seen, recording the way the cosmic web shapes the Universe and even imprints its mark on the galaxies that fill it. Each galaxy is like a spinning teacup, but the whole platform – the cosmic filament – is rotating too. If you look at a deep-field image of the Universe, the galaxies appear to be relatively randomly scattered and unconnected. "We find that the galaxies exhibit strong evidence for rotation around the spine of the filament – making this the longest spinning structure thus far discovered," the researchers write in their paper.