https://www.psypost.org/how-growing-up-i...ater-life/

EXCERPTS: Older adults who lived in socialist East Germany before the 1989 reunification show better cognitive health and slower mental decline today than their West German peers. This unexpected advantage seems linked to the former East German educational system, which featured longer compulsory schooling and widespread early childcare. The findings were recently published in the journal Research on Aging.

[...] The contrast between East and West Germany represents a rare situation where culturally similar populations were separated by completely different modes of governance. The East German welfare state prioritized collective investments, aiming to build a highly productive workforce through extensive health and education services.

Previous research has consistently shown that East Germans suffered worse physical health and lower life expectancies compared to West Germans. These physical disparities are largely attributed to differences in health behaviors, economic development, and cardiovascular health.

Sociologist Ariane Bertogg at the University of Konstanz and gerontologist Jeffrey E. Stokes at the University of Massachusetts Boston wanted to see if these political systems left a similar footprint on the aging brain. They tested two competing ideas about cognitive aging.

One theory suggested West Germans would perform better on cognitive tests in later life because they enjoyed stronger economic growth, better nutrition, and more civil liberties. Another theory proposed that East Germans might have an advantage due to their state funded educational system.

East Germany mandated ten years of compulsory schooling, compared to eight or nine years in West Germany. The East also provided universal early childcare and a less socially divided school structure. Educational exposure early in life is a primary driver of cognitive reserve. Cognitive reserve is the brain’s ability to build dense neural connections, which helps it compensate for age related damage and delay the onset of memory loss.

[...] The data revealed that individuals who lived in East Germany before reunification performed better across all four cognitive tests. They also showed a slower rate of cognitive decline as they aged.

West German residents experienced a steady decline in immediate memory and verbal fluency over the course of the study. In contrast, East German residents maintained stable scores or even slightly improved in these areas.

East Germans also demonstrated less steep declines in their orientation and numerical abilities. The researchers noted that these advantages were especially pronounced in men.

The results present an unusual paradox in aging research. Usually, populations with poorer physical health and lower life expectancies also suffer from worse cognitive aging.

Despite East Germans having higher rates of cardiovascular disease and earlier mortality on average, their aging brains remained more resilient. This suggests that the early benefits of an egalitarian, intensive education system can offset some of the physical wear and tear associated with a lower standard of living... (MORE - missing details)

PAPER: https://doi.org/10.1177/01640275251383810

https://www.popsci.com/science/physicist...ng-survey/

EXCERPT: After reviewing answers from over 1,600 physicists, the questionnaire’s authors published their key takeaways earlier this year in Physics Magazine. The results? Physicists are very divided on explanations for some of the universe’s fundamental operations.

The most dramatic relates to the big-bang theory (technically known as the Lambda Cold Dark Matter theory). About 68 percent of respondents said they don’t think the famous moment necessarily marks the beginning of time. Some of this has to do with how the big bang is presented in popular culture—contrary to many depictions, the theory specifically explains how the universe expanded from a single extremely hot, dense prior state of existence. This means it technically may have very little to do with the beginning of time.

The only other majority opinion pertains to the immediate moments following the big bang. Only 51 percent of physicists agreed that the immediate moments following the big bang involved an incomprehensibly fast period of expansion commonly known as inflation.

Subjects got far more contentious from there, although some of it was understandable. Given how much remains to still learn about dark matter, 17 percent of survey takers think the mysterious material is composed of an undiscovered particle or particles. Around 12 percent argued it could be explained by tweaking the theory of gravity. At best, barely 21 percent of physicists hypothesized it may be some combination of these and other answers.

Quantum physics continues the chaos. Nearly 19 percent of scientists think string theory is likely the best way to integrate gravity into quantum physics, while only 12 percent offered loop quantum gravity as an alternative. Meanwhile, 18 percent lean towards the suspicion that gravity can’t be integrated in any way.

If the survey presents one clear takeaway, it’s that these diverse theories are in no way an indictment of the present-day state of physics. These aren’t amateurs—they’re researchers who base their arguments on volumes’ worth of data, calculations, and scientific testing... (MORE - missing details)

https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/live-from-...-years-ago

INTRO: The oldest private correspondence in human history is about marriages and divorces, trade and tax evasion, livestock breeding or weaving… Women’s voices stamped in clay four millennia ago offer eerily topical accounts of the affairs of the day.

Their names were Suhkana, Kunnaniya, Lamasha or Hattitum. They were wives, widows, cattle breeders, accountants or religious devotees, and they lived in Mesopotamia – 4,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found thousands of letters written on clay tablets. The messages sent or received by these women convey their emotions, their anger, fatigue, enthusiasm or anxiety.

The historian and archaeologist Cécile Michel, a senior researcher specialising in Mesopotamia at the ArScAn1, has compiled the oldest private correspondence in the history of humanity. And has sorted out part of it to allow us to walk in the shoes of some 30 women, sharing their daily lives.

In Ashur (present-day Qal’at-Sherqat, in northern Iraq) and Kanesh (present-day Kültepe, in Turkey, see map below) lived families of traders, whose members sometimes took off for several months, travelling hundreds of kilometres from home to sell fabrics, oil, tin, spices… “There were about 10,000 people living in Ashur at the beginning of the second millennium BC and 30,000 in Kanesh, forming the core of a network of about 40 Assyrian trading posts in Anatolia,” the researcher explains.

The only way to keep in touch with loved ones, to oversee the construction of a house or a family’s daily life from a distance, was by writing. These populations mastered cuneiform script, using the tip of a reed to etch characters into tablets of wet clay. The tablets were then placed in clay envelopes, closed and stamped with a small cylinder seal that identified the sender.

“Wrapped in leather or cloth, they were transported on the backs of donkeys,” Michel recounts. “A regular caravan took about six weeks to cover 1,000 kilometres. For urgent matters, it was possible to hire a private messenger with a mule who could deliver the mail in three weeks.”

The scientist has helped decipher 12,000 of the 22,000 tablets found at the Kanesh site. In a society based on trade, a great many of the messages concern money and merchandise. For example, a woman named Shishahshushar received this note from her husband: “Why did you write this: ‘Apart from 20 sacks of wheat and 15 sacks of barley that Kudubis gave me, there is nothing else!’? Where are the 40 minas of copper in the form of sickles and the 2.5 minas of tin that Ili-ishar and Huluba brought to Shana? This is urgent! Send me a report if they fail to get payment for the outstanding debts…”

The letters bear witness to an entire very modern-style social and economic system, which already included bearer cheques (redeemable by any adult) and limited partnerships, some of whose active associates were merchants.

“In this society, people took out many loans, for commercial purposes or personal necessity,” Michel explains. When grain reserves were exhausted and parents no longer had enough to feed their families, they would go into debt. And if they couldn’t meet the repayment deadlines, they would sometimes offer the creditor a family member, a child or woman, as a slave to discharge the debt. “When local sovereigns ascended to the throne, they would sometimes enact measures for the general cancellation of debts, freeing these slaves,” she adds.

Marriage contracts in some regions – for example in Ashur and the southern Babylonian city of Nippur (present-day Niffer, or Nuffar) – seem surprisingly modern. Husbands and wives enjoyed equal rights. Both could receive inheritances, lend money and purchase houses and slaves. Either party could request a divorce, and each would pay the same compensation fees... (MORE - details)

https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/09/...ever-seen/

EXCERPTS: Last week, the Atlantic hurricane season blew through its traditional peak—which comes around September 10—with nary a tropical wave in sight, let alone a storm or hurricane.

This is remarkable. Usually this is the time of year when sea surface temperatures reach their warmest in the tropics, and with a favorable atmosphere it should be smooth skating for tropical systems. But this year, the main region where most tropical systems develop is choked with Saharan dust and wind shear.

No one is complaining. Landfalling hurricanes are incredibly destructive for coastal areas and have the potential for considerable inland rainfall. Even storms at sea, in the Gulf of Mexico, can send energy prices skyrocketing—the last thing needed this year.

Nevertheless, the quietude is historic.

Beginning in 1944, the United States began monitoring the Atlantic basin, which includes the Gulf, Caribbean Sea, and northern Atlantic Ocean, with aircraft to detect hurricanes. Dating back to 1944, a hurricane had formed every year by September 11. The latest “first” Atlantic hurricanes came in 2002, with Gustav, and in 2013, with Humberto on this date.

Atlantic hurricane records officially go back to 1851, although older records are less reliable because observations of storms developing at sea were reliant on reports from shipping vessels. So some storms were missed. If we extend the hurricane record all the way back to 1851, every year still records at least one Atlantic hurricane. But in 1941, the first hurricane did not form until September 17. This is the date of the latest first Atlantic hurricane on record.

[...] So what’s going on out there? The short answer is that a strengthening El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has put the kibosh on the main development region of the Atlantic this year. The El Niño anomaly this summer, nearly 3° C above baseline in the Pacific, is stronger than any observed at this time of year in the modern record. This generally produces hostile wind shear levels over the Atlantic, and that has been measured this year.

This clearly is having some benefit in the tropical Atlantic, in the form of fewer tropical systems this year. But on balance, El Niño will probably be far more disruptive than beneficial when it peaks this fall and winter, with diminished rains already impacting travel through the Panama Canal and possibly leading to poor rice harvests in Asia and famine elsewhere. (MORE - missing details)

https://www.astronomy.com/space-explorat...-in-orbit/

INTRO: In a groundbreaking announcement, the U.S. Space Force stated publicly on Monday, Sept. 14, that it currently has on-orbit weapons in space.

Department of the Air Force Secretary Troy Meink’s keynote address at the 2026 Air and Space Cyber Conference focused on plans to modernize the Air Force against AI-powered weapons and capabilities wielded by adversaries — capabilities that, in his view, have outpaced the Air Force’s current budget process, and are moving faster than he imagined when he took the job 18 months ago.

The Air Force, according to Meink, will look “radically different” by 2032. Part of that change involves weapons placed in orbit to defend the United States against what Meink calls “existing threats” from its adversaries. It’s an unsurprising announcement given President Trump’s space policy over the last several years — but one that could reshape the geopolitical landscape for years to come as the U.S. finds itself in the midst of what some experts have called a second space race.

“We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” said Meink during his address.

Transparency without details
Michelle Hanlon, executive director of the Center for Air and Space Law at the University of Mississippi, tells Astronomy that she appreciates the announcement and the increased transparency. “The United States depends enormously on space-based capabilities, and publicly acknowledging that it has capabilities to protect its access to space and its space assets sends an important deterrent signal. It also reflects the reality that space is already a military domain and that the United States is taking the protection of its space infrastructure seriously.” (MORE - details)

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-09-16-why...for-months

EXCERPTS: Chimpanzee and bonobo mothers sometimes continue to carry their infants after they have died, a behaviour known as infant corpse carrying (ICC). It is widely documented, and many explanations have been proposed, but few have been quantitatively tested.

The research found that infants that were older when they died, and therefore more closely bonded with their mother, were carried for longer than younger infants and that infants who died from disease were carried for longer than those that died through infanticide.

The study brought together data from 83 published cases of ICC across 15 different sites. The cases document mothers that carried their dead infants for only about 30 minutes, through to periods as long as 126 days. The average ICC duration was about 11 days.

Chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives. Most experts think our last common ancestor lived between 6 and 8 million years ago, and studying death-related behaviours in these species may provide key insights into the evolutionary origins of human responses to death.

[...] The finding that older infants, who the carrying mother is more closely bonded to, are carried for longer suggests that the strong social bond between chimpanzee mothers and their infants drives ICC. The importance of maternal factors in driving the behaviour is also supported by the finding that mothers carry for longer at sites with longer average intervals between births.

However, of these factors, cause of death was the most consistent predictor. The strong association between disease-related infant deaths and prolonged periods of ICC supports the ‘cause of death’ hypothesis, which proposes that infants who die from disease are carried for longer than those who die from traumatic causes such as infanticide, because their death may be more ambiguous to the mother.

This assumes that chimpanzees can recognise death, a capacity which has yet to be scientifically demonstrated. However, things may not be so simple. In multiple cases, chimpanzee mothers have continued to carry their infants well beyond the point of mummification, a condition that probably provides a clear and persistent signal of death.

[...] Comparing how chimpanzees and bonobos respond to death with our own responses is informative about where human ideas of death came from. If death recognition is not needed to explain the behaviour in chimpanzees and bonobos, some of the complex cognitive frameworks required to recognise death’s finality may have emerged in the hominin lineage after our last common ancestor... (MORE - missing details)

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-...re-cancer/

INTRO: Researchers at the University of Oxford analysed data from 977, 282 adults taking part in the UK Biobank and Million Women Study. The participants reported whether they generally drank hot beverages “warm,” “hot” or “very hot.” Researchers then followed their health records for more than a decade.

Over that period, 2,348 participants developed esophageal cancer, which affects the muscular tube carrying food and drink from the mouth to the stomach.

There was a striking difference when researchers separated those cancers by type. People who preferred “very hot” drinks had 3.17 times the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, or SCC, compared with people who preferred warm drinks. Those who preferred drinks simply “hot” also faced a higher risk, though the increase was smaller.

The second major type, adenocarcinoma, showed no comparable relationship with drink temperature. This suggests that it’s not an ingredient in tea or coffee (in which case you’d expect a broader pattern). Instead, the association concentrated on the cancer arising directly in cells exposed to the passing liquid.

It’s not the first study to look at very hot drinks and esophageal cancer. In fact, such studies have been carried out for decades, particularly in parts of South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East where tea or maté may traditionally be consumed at very high temperatures... (MORE - details)

PAPER: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ijc.70654

"Annie Dillard, who spent a lifetime showing readers the wonder hidden in the mundane, died on Tuesday at the age of 81. Dillard was just 28 when she published "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," the book that launched her long writing career and won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize -- and it began, as all her best work did, with the simple, radical act of paying attention. "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives," she once wrote, and she spent hers noticing what the rest of us hurry past: a backyard tree suddenly ablaze with light, the world going silver and strange during a total eclipse, a mockingbird's joyful free fall.

That creek was Tinker Creek, in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, where in the early 1970s Dillard spent a year walking, watching, and writing down what she saw. Readers often compared the result to Thoreau's "Walden," which made sense -- she had written her graduate thesis on Thoreau himself -- but she resisted being called a nature writer. What she was really after was God, and she was willing to stare directly at the brutality of the natural world in the search. She refused to prettify any of it. The beauty and the violence came tangled together in her pages -- a tree lit up like a burning bush one moment, a moth caught and consumed in a candle flame the next -- and she set them down exactly that way, in sentences that could move from precise observation to something close to prayer without missing a step.

The acclaim that followed unsettled her. Reporters treated her youth and her looks as though they were part of the story, and she came to guard her privacy fiercely, moving across the country and away from the attention so she could work. She had been born Meta Ann Doak in Pittsburgh in 1945, and grew up a curious, half-wild reader and roamer -- a childhood she would later turn into the best-selling memoir "An American Childhood." The other books came steadily and restlessly: "Holy the Firm," a short, burning meditation on suffering and faith; "Teaching a Stone to Talk," with its now-famous essay on a total eclipse; "The Writing Life," which working writers have pressed on one another for decades; and two novels, the last of them "The Maytrees," in 2007, after which she mostly laid down her pen.

Her real subject, underneath the moths and the eclipses and the weather, was attention itself -- the conviction that to look hard at anything is to begin to love it, and that most of us sleep through a world that is, on close inspection, almost unbearably alive. She spent her final years quietly, painting watercolors at her home on Cape Cod; in 2014 she stepped back into public view just long enough to accept the National Humanities Medal from President Obama.

Dillard asked a great deal of her readers, because she asked even more of herself. "You can't be anything else," she once wrote of the writer's vocation, in words that describe the whole of how she lived. "You must go at your life with a broadax."

To explore Annie Dillard's work, here are some of her most acclaimed books:

- "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" -- her Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork, a year of close watching along a Virginia creek that turns the natural world into a meditation on beauty, violence, and God, at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780061233326 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4iQmx1x (Amazon)

- "The Abundance: Narrative Essays Old and New" -- a career-spanning collection that gathers her finest essays in one volume, an ideal introduction for readers new to her work, at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780062432964 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4xXZx5b (Amazon)

- "For the Time Being" -- a searching, wide-ranging meditation on suffering, chance, and what it means to be human, weaving together sand, clouds, birth, and the divine, at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780375703478 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/3Vz3wqo (Amazon)

- "An American Childhood" -- her best-selling memoir of growing up curious and half-wild in 1950s Pittsburgh, and of a young mind waking up to the world, at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780060915186 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4hwaMvO (Amazon)

- "Teaching a Stone to Talk" -- a celebrated collection of essays, including "Total Eclipse," widely considered one of the finest American essays of the twentieth century, at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780060915414 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4j4uu2X (Amazon)

- "The Maytrees" -- her final novel, an unexpectedly tender story of love and long marriage set on the tip of Cape Cod, at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9780061239540 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4h4sWn2 (Amazon)

- To read a tribute to Annie Dillard in The New York Times, visit https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/books...-dead.html