NuseReal science news

August 2025

Bruce Willis' dementia brings to light eating habits doctors say could be early signs (LINK) 31 August 2025

— Frontotemporal dementia, a brain disorder characterized by the degeneration of the front and sides of the brain, affects eating habits in various ways. Some patients become fixated on specific foods, such as bananas, while others develop obsessive behaviors like eating non-food items. The condition can also lead to overeating or undereating due to the brain's inability to regulate appetite.

As drug deaths hit a 5-year low, Trump continues to cite fentanyl as major threat (LINK) 30 August 2025

— Fatal overdoses fell to 77,648 in the 12-month period ending in March of this year, the lowest tally since at least March 2020. Some states have seen significant improvements in reducing drug deaths, with West Virginia experiencing a 42% decline in fatal overdoses.

Stunning discovery of hydrothermal vents deep in the Pacific Ocean dwarfs the famous Atlantic 'Lost City' (LINK) 30 August 2025

— At 11.1 square kilometres, the newly discovered hydrothermal field is over a hundred times larger than its Atlantic counterpart. The 'Lost City', with its jagged landscape of towers and turrets, was discovered near the mid-Atlantic ridge in 2000, and it was once the largest field of hydrothermal vents known anywhere in the world.

Gulf Stream 'could collapse in our lifetime', warns EU climate chief after Dutch scientists found key ocean currents are weakening faster than thought (LINK) 28 August 2025

Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds — (LINK)

— The research found that if carbon emissions continued to rise, 70% of the model runs led to collapse, while an intermediate level of emissions resulted in collapse in 37% of the models. Even in the case of low future emissions, an Amoc shutdown happened in 25% of the models. Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided "at all costs". It would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many millions of people rely to grow their food, plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts, and add 50cm to already rising sea levels.

Microplastics found in highest amounts in these popular drinks: hot tea: 49 to 81 MPs per litre, soft drinks only 13 to 21 MPs per litre (LINK) 28 August 2025

Deforestation has killed half a million people in past 20 years, study finds: localized rises in temperature caused by land clearance cause 28,330 heat-related deaths a year, researchers find (LINK) 27 August 2025

Quantum myths, e.g. Einstein hated entanglement (LINK) 26 August 2025

Bee venom saved a woman's life from Lyme's disease — and could be the basis of future drugs for a range of painful conditions. (LINK) 23 August 2025

Abrupt changes taking place in Antarctica 'will affect the world for generations to come', from rising sea levels to extreme changes in the climate system (LINK) 22 August 2025

Sea-level projections from the 1990s were spot on, study says (LINK) 22 August 2025

— In 1996, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected that the most likely amount of global sea-level rise over the next 30 years would be almost 8 cm, remarkably close to the 9 cm that has occurred. But it also underestimated the role of melting ice sheets by more than 2 cm.

Scientists link U.S. air pollution from oil and gas to 91,000 premature deaths each year, with Black, Asian, Native American and Hispanic groups consistently among the most affected (LINK) 22 August 2025

Scientists are divided over whether there is a 'sixth mass extinction' (LINK) 21 August 2025

Abrupt Antarctic climate shifts could lead to "catastrophic consequences for generations", experts warn (LINK) 20 August 2025

— After increasing slightly during the first 35 years that satellite data was available, Antarctic sea ice cover plunged dramatically over the last decade. Since 2014, sea ice has retreated on average 120 kilometres from the continent's shoreline. That contraction has happened about three times faster in 10 years than the decline in Arctic sea ice over nearly 50.

Swiss Aletsch glacier 'will disappear by 2100' if nothing is done, according to Legambiente, an Italian group that monitors the health of glaciers in Italy and abroad (LINK) 20 August 2025

— Between 2000 and 2023, the glacier retreated by an average of 40 metres a year, according to Glamos, the Swiss glacier monitoring network. At this rate, and without taking into account a higher level of global warming than today, the glacier will disappear in its current form by 2100, "leaving only patches of ice at the highest altitudes". A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Aletsch glacier is the second Swiss glacier to be analysed by Legambiente after the Morteratsch glacier in Graubünden, in 2023. It is now just 20 km long.

At Europe's melting glaciers, signs of climate peril are everywhere: glaciers in the Alps and Pyrenees have lost about 40% of their mass since 2000 (LINK) 19 August 2025

— In Europe, glaciers support several important industries, like agriculture and tourism. Communities depend on meltwater for drinking and farming, as well as on the ice and snow for winter tourism. Downstream, it feeds rivers that eventually result in rising sea levels worldwide. The retreat of glaciers has also left behind unstable landscapes that are rapidly shifting, causing destructive landslides that threaten Alpine villages.

Peter Brannen, Guardian: 'A climate of unparalleled malevolence': are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction? (LINK) 19 August 2025

Plastic pollution treaty talks in Geneva end without an agreement (LINK) 15 August 2025

— They remain deadlocked over whether the treaty should reduce exponential growth of plastic production and put global, legally binding controls on toxic chemicals used to make plastics. The Youth Plastic Action Network was the only organization to speak at the closing meeting Friday. Comments from observers were cut off at the request of the U.S. and Kuwait after 24 hours of meetings and negotiating. Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said it's too soon to say how long it will take to get a treaty now.

UNEP: Talks on global plastic pollution treaty adjourn without consensus — (LINK)

World first: scientists film the exact moment a human embryo implants (LINK) 15 August 2025

Climatological assessments by researchers such as Markus Stoffel (University of Geneva) have renewed debate around the global systemic risks posed by a potential super-eruption at several other active volcanic complexes worldwide (LINK) 15 August 2025

— Climatologist Markus Stoffel and affiliated risk researchers estimate a ~16% probability of a super-eruption occurring globally before the year 2100.

Nike co-founder Phil Knight is donating $2 billion to the Oregon Health and Science University's Knight Cancer Institute, the single largest donation ever to a U.S. university, college or health institution (LINK) 14 August 2025

CarbonBrief: Trump's climate report includes more than 100 false or misleading claims (LINK) 14 August 2025

— The 140-page report — "A critical review of impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the US climate" — was published by the US Department of Energy (DoE) on 23 July, just days before the government laid out plans to revoke a scientific finding used as the legal basis for emissions regulation. The executive summary of the controversial report inaccurately claims that "CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed". It also states misleadingly that "excessively aggressive [emissions] mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial".

Entirely new species of human ancestor discovered: ancient teeth, dated to between 2.8 million and 2.6 million years ago, found in Ethiopia belong to a never-before-seen species in the Australopithecus genus of human ancestors: this newly identified member of the human family lived alongside early representatives of our own genus, Homo (LINK) 13 August 2025

70 years of data show extreme heat is already wiping out tropical bird populations (LINK) 12 August 2025

University College London (UCL) scientists invent record-breaking indoor solar panels that could make batteries obsolete (LINK) 12 August 2025

— Solar panel for indoor use, reportedly six times more efficient than currently available options, could soon render batteries for remote controls, keyboards, sensors, alarms, and other home electronics obsolete. Engineers have turned to perovskite-based solar panels, which are more efficient than silicon-based panels and can be adapted to specific light wavelengths to also convert indoor light. They are also simpler and less expensive to produce.

Jellyfish swarm triggers complete shutdown of four reactors at France's Gravelines six-reactor nuclear plant between Dunkirk and Calais (LINK) — ground.news: ?? media reports (LINK) 11 August 2025

— EDF said the shutdowns did not affect safety or the environment. The incident removed roughly 10% of France's nuclear capacity temporarily. It's also happened in Scotland, Sweden, Japan, and Israel. Three of those occurred in 2011 alone.

Eating French fries three times a week raises type 2 diabetes risk by 20%, and 5 times a week by 27%, study finds (LINK) 6 August 2025

— Baking, boiling or mashing potatoes raises risk by 5% and replacing with whole grains lowers risk significantly. However, replacing any form of potatoes with white rice is a bad idea as it leads to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, the paper found. The researchers stressed their findings were observational and did not prove a cause and effect relationship between eating chips and type 2 diabetes risk.

Health secretary RFK Jr. shuts door on U.S. investment in U.S. mRNA vaccine research (LINK) 5 August 2025

Billions of starfish have died in a decade-long epidemic off the Pacific coast of North America. Scientists say they now know why: Vibrio pectenicida bacteria (LINK) 4 August 2025

— Starting in 2013, a mysterious sea star wasting disease sparked a mass die-off from Mexico to Alaska. The epidemic has devastated more than 20 species and continues today. Worst hit was a species called the sunflower sea star, which lost around 90% of its population in the outbreak's first five years. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has listed Pycnopodia Helianthoides, is among the largest sea stars in the world with a maximum arm span of one metre, as critically endangered.

— Early research hinted the cause might be a virus, but it turned out the densovirus that scientists initially focused on was actually a normal resident inside healthy sea stars and not associated with disease, said Melanie Prentice of the Hakai Institute, co-author of the new study. Other efforts missed the real killer because researchers studied tissue samples of dead sea stars that no longer contained the bodily fluid that surrounds the organs. But the latest study includes detailed analysis of this fluid, called coelomic fluid, where the bacteria Vibrio pectenicida were found.

— Prentice said that scientists could potentially now test which of the remaining sea stars are still healthy — and consider whether to relocate them, or breed them in captivity to later transplant them to areas that have lost almost all their sunflower sea stars. The study notes that Vibrio bacteria have been called "the microbial barometer of climate change" because the species are more prevalent in warming water temperatures. The authors say an important next phase of research will be to work on better understanding the relationship between rising seawater temperatures and sea star wasting disease.

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