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Welcome again to the Summary! These are the research this week that peacefully handed the crown, predicted bother on the horizon, gave life after demise, and coastally shelved an thought.
First, scientists watch a succession story play out for years in a unadorned mole rat colony. Then: prediction markets as a public well being menace, the thorny questions of posthumous replica, and a stroll on the shores of an historical alien seas.
As all the time, for extra of my work, take a look at my guide First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens or subscribe to my private e-newsletter the BeX Information.
Digging into the palace intrigue of a rodent realm
Abeywardena, Shanes C., M. Schraibman, Alexandria et al. “Peaceable queen succession within the bare mole rat.” Science Advances.
Murderous queens. Bloody energy struggles. Strictly enforced hierarchies. I’m talking, in fact, of bare mole rats, a weird species of rodent that turns into embroiled in violent conflicts over the succession of 1 breeding queen to the following.
Although aggression in succession is the norm for these animals, scientists now report a uncommon peaceable transition of energy from one queen to her daughter in a captive colony.
The invention means that “the much less frequent peaceable trajectory to queen succession…is feasible beneath some circumstances” particularly when “aggression-based enforcement could also be inadequate or pointless and when the price of a ‘conflict’ could also be too excessive,” based on the brand new examine.
As we’ve lined earlier than on the Summary, mole rats (each the bare type and the non-naked type) are the one mammals to stay in eusocial colonies much like bees or ants, that means they’re reigned over by one breeding queen and her subordinate staff. Along with this distinctive social construction, mole rats show a lot of fascinating behavioral and genetic variations, together with lengthy lifespans and low charges of most cancers, which has made them a well-liked species for analysis.
Bare mole rats might not look all that intimidating, however when it’s time to anoint a brand new queen, the fur begins to fly (or it could, if these animals had any fur). If a queen dies or is deposed by rivals, subordinate females within the colony battle to take the throne.
However scientists co-led by Shanes Abeywardena and Alexandria M. Schraibman of the Salk Institute for Organic Research noticed a unique succession story that unfolded over a few years within the Amigos captive colony housed in San Diego.
Beginning in 2019, a queen named Teré reigned over the colony and produced many wholesome pups. As soon as the colony grew to become crowded, with practically 40 members, Queen Teré started delivering litters with no surviving pups. When the researchers eliminated half of the members, she started to supply surviving pups once more, although not many. The workforce then intentionally launched one other stressor by transferring the colony to a brand new facility in 2022, which ceased Queen Teré’s fertility.
Abstract of the Amigos colony’s succession story. Picture: Abeywardena, Shanes C., M. Schraibman, Alexandria et al.
In response, Alexandria, certainly one of Teré’s daughters, grew to become pregnant in 2023 and 2024, however her litters additionally produced no survivors, and she or he needed to be euthanized in 2024 as a result of a uterine torsion. Lastly, the lengthy reproductive hiatus was ended after three years by the ascension of Alexandria’s sister, Arwen, who grew to become Queen Arwen upon her supply of wholesome pups in October 2025.
“Except for a single incident on 6 February 2025 wherein one animal was discovered with a superficial chew wound and dried blood across the face, an damage that resolved with out recurrence, no aggression or dominance associated battle was noticed,” the researchers mentioned. “As an alternative, Queen Teré was reported to exhibit ‘guarding’ conduct of Arwen and her litter. No different indicators of social instability, behavioral escalation, or colony-wide misery had been documented.”
“Collectively, these observations point out that following the decline of Queen Teré’s reproductive capability and the lack of the middleman breeder Alexandria, Arwen efficiently assumed the reproductive function with out eliciting aggression from the reigning queen or from different colony members,” the workforce concluded.
The examine is an antidote to the story we lined final week a couple of deadly chimp “civil conflict,” demonstrating that animals with strict dominance buildings select peace over violence in some circumstances. My solely notice is that Teré’ be given the honorific Queen Mom for her service.
In different information…
The over/beneath on predication markets
Packin, Nizan Geslevich and Rabinovitz, Sharon. “Prediction markets as a public well being menace.” Science.
Prediction markets (PMs) are exploding in reputation, however researchers warn that the “addictive design, susceptible customers, and permissive regulatory environments” that characterize these markets “are a well-established formulation for population-level hurt,” based on the Coverage Discussion board part of the journal Science.
PMs operated by firms like Kalshi or Polymarket “pose underappreciated threats to democratic integrity” and are linked to “addictive behaviors,” based on authors Nizan Geslevich Packin of Baruch School Zicklin Faculty of Enterprise and Sharon Rabinovitz of the College of Haifa. As an illustration, PMs can allow insider buying and selling about categorised authorities data and expose tens of millions of customers to the chance of habit and main monetary losses.
“A public well being strategy reframes PM dangers as predictable outcomes of environmental design, analogous to tobacco management’s success in treating smoking as population-level publicity slightly than particular person vice,” the workforce argued within the article.
“The window for precautionary motion is closing,” the researchers emphasised. “Every week of billion-dollar PM exercise…prolongs a big uncontrolled experiment on customers.”
It stays to be seen whether or not this warning concerning the risks of a wild new business will materialize into significant regulatory motion. Wish to make a guess?
Creating new life after demise
Bamford, Sandra Carol. “Spectral Connections: Anthropological Engagements with Posthumous Copy.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal.
Posthumous youngsters—youngsters born after the demise of 1 or each dad and mom—are in style in delusion and fiction, from the Greek Dionysus to extra fashionable characters like John Connor or Daenerys Targaryen.
However that is additionally an actual demographic of individuals that will evolve in attention-grabbing methods as reproductive applied sciences allow bigger numbers of posthumous conceptions—wherein the sperm and egg donors for an embryo could also be deceased, such because the case of a boy born in 2018 whose mom and father had each died years earlier in a automotive crash.
On this means, “frozen sperm, eggs (or embryos) are, at one and the identical time, each alive and lifeless,” mentioned Sandra Bamford of the College of Toronto in a brand new anthropological examine of the subject. “By way of their frozen gametes and the potential of latest kin connections sooner or later, the lifeless stay as lively members influencing the lives of the dwelling.”
The examine, which is a part of a broader journal problem exploring kinship, pulls collectively many intriguing case research, together with the “Nuer ghost marriage” practices of Sudan, wherein a deceased man might be thought of the daddy of a kinsman’s youngsters, or the case of William Kane, who bequeathed frozen sperm to his girlfriend, sparking a authorized battle together with his grownup youngsters after his demise by suicide.
In different phrases, the authorized, moral, and sensible implications of posthumous conception are nonetheless very a lot in flux, elevating thorny questions on when, and the way, the lifeless can produce new life. As an illustration: the ambiguities over judging the consent of a deceased individual over the usage of their posthumous gametes; the rights of posthumously conceived youngsters to be named heirs of estates; and the potential emotional and psychological toll on posthumously conceived youngsters, together with their relations.
The Rime of the Actually Historical Mariner
Zaki, Abdallah S. and Lamb, Michael P. “Figuring out the topographic signature of early Martian oceans.” Nature.
We’ll shut, as all issues ought to, with waves lapping on long-lost alien shores. The floor of Mars is etched with the reminiscence of rivers, lakes, and maybe even an expansive ocean that will have lined a lot of its northern hemisphere between three and 4 billion years in the past.
Scientists have already mapped out the tough contours of what could also be an historical Martian shoreline, however a brand new examine throws the seas into sharper aid by figuring out topographic indicators of a potential coastal shelf. The workforce argued of their examine that these shelf options could also be a greater indicator of a previous ocean than shoreline options, primarily based on related observations on Earth.
An illustration taken from orbiter information figuring out the coastal shelf area on Mars. Picture: A. Zaki
“Our outcomes point out that long-lived historical oceans on presently arid planets could also be finest recognized not solely by discrete shorelines but additionally by…a world coastal shelf,” mentioned researchers led by Abdallah Zaki and Michael Lamb of Caltech College. The examine helps “the presence of an historical ocean on the northern plains of Mars that was bounded by a coastal shelf.”
Whereas this ocean dried up way back, its topographic remnants are a reminder of a time when Mars was heat, moist, and maybe, wriggling with life.
Thanks for studying! See you subsequent week.
