The Authors are grateful to project PID2023-149764OA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033 and FEDER, EU. The authors are also grateful for the support received from Consolidated DI project nº 039.317/2023, PUCV, Chile. This work was partially supported by CSIC (Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica) of the Universidad de la República, in Montevideo, Uruguay, and PEDECIBA – Física, Uruguay. The Authors are grateful to FONDECYT Project No.: 1220107, Millennium Institute on Green Ammonia as Energy Vector, MIGA, ICN 2021–023, Chile and ANILLO ACT240020 Project, Chile. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence...

Human health and the health of the living world around us are so intertwined that you can’t talk about one without the other. As species disappear and ecosystems unravel, the risks to our food, mental health and even the air we breathe rise. Yet everyday choices can be good for our health and part of the solution for the planet. A sixth mass extinction The evidence suggests that species are disappearing at tens to hundreds of times the natural rate, leading many to describe a ‘sixth mass extinction’. Unlike past extinction events driven by volcanoes or meteor strikes, this one is largely caused by people: land clearing, intensive agriculture, pollution, climate change and invasive species. For the Northern Rivers, this is not an abstract global problem. We see it in damaged forests, stressed wildlife, more intense bushfires and floods, and declining marine life. The science is clear: there is no viable future for human health on a biologically impoverished planet. This ecological crisis is also a health crisis: our wellbeing depends on healthy, diverse ecosystems in more ways than we may realise. Nature: our life-support system Biodiversity, the variety of life on Earth, is our life-support system. Ecosystems provide food...

AUGUST 17 — Antarctica is best known for its vast ice sheets and its role in regulating the Earth’s climate. Yet beyond its frozen landscape lies one of the world’s last great frontiers for scientific discovery. Researchers from Universiti Malaya have uncovered promising evidence that fungi from Antarctica may contribute to the development of future treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, demonstrating how Antarctic research can generate tangible benefits for human health and society. The study focuses on Pseudogymnoascus, a group of fungi isolated from Antarctic ecosystems. Living in one of the harshest environments on Earth, these microorganisms have evolved remarkable survival strategies to withstand subzero temperatures, intense ultraviolet radiation, prolonged darkness and limited nutrient availability. These extraordinary adaptations have enabled them to produce unique natural compounds rarely found elsewhere, making Antarctica a valuable natural laboratory for discovering new medicines, biotechnology innovations and other solutions to global challenges. Using advanced computational approaches, including molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulations and pharmacokinetic prediction, the research team identified several fungal compounds capable of interacting with proteins closely associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Laboratory studies further revealed that one fungal extract possesses antioxidant activity comparable to well-known natural antioxidants such as vitamin C and carotenoids. These findings...

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. The trial of a Boston-area mother charged with murdering her three small children in 2023 is leading to calls to improve postpartum mental health care. While the prosecution paints her as a deliberate killer, Lindsay Clancy's defense team argues she was in the grips of severe postpartum psychosis, and didn't receive proper medical care. The unrelenting national attention on the Clancy trial has been difficult for people who've had postpartum psychosis, says Meghan Cliffel who experienced the disorder and is now a mental health advocate. She says many women believe that sheer luck prevented a similar disaster from happening to them. For ongoing coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial, visit WBUR. Advocates like Cliffel say the case highlights gaps in mental health care for new mothers and the urgent need for more research and public education about a rarely discussed but severe illness. Doctors emphasize, if diagnosed correctly, it's treatable and patients can go on to live normal lives. 'In a deluded reality' Cliffel's psychosis started suddenly,...

Newswise — Harmful algal blooms are becoming more frequent and widespread as warming, eutrophication, agricultural runoff, aquaculture, and wastewater alter freshwater ecosystems. Once a bloom is visible, treatment can be costly, ineffective, or environmentally disruptive, making early warning essential. Yet many forecasting systems work at daily or weekly resolution, rely on fixed thresholds, or return only one predicted value without showing uncertainty. Deep-learning models may improve accuracy, but their decision processes often remain difficult to interpret, especially when drivers change rapidly before bloom onset. These gaps point to a need for in-depth research to develop high-frequency forecasting systems that quantify risk and explain when and why harmful algal blooms may emerge. The study was conducted by researchers from Beijing Institute of Technology, China University of Mining and Technology, and the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published (DOI: 10.1016/j.ese.2026.100733) online on July 21, 2026, in Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, the work introduces BloomNet as a multi-horizon forecasting system for harmful algal blooms. The model combines historical water-quality observations with environmental information available over the forecast window, producing hourly algal-density predictions for the next 24, 48, and 72 hours together with interpretable indicators of uncertainty and...

Obesity and mental health challenges have both reached epidemic levels, posing considerable public health concerns that increasingly affect young people.1,2 Roughly half of all mental disorder cases emerge during childhood and adolescence,3 with subclinical symptoms being even more prevalent. The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease framework suggests that periods of rapid physical growth are especially sensitive to external influences and insults.4 Given that accelerated growth and substantial psychosocial changes occur during adolescence, this developmental stage may represent a critical window for the emergence and consolidation of the relationship between obesity and mental health challenges.5 Therefore, it is essential to understand if and how these associations change with age in order to clarify how the dynamic relationship between mental health and weight development evolves across adolescence. So far, this has remained poorly understood. Previous research on mental health and physical growth has primarily focused on psychological distress, such as depression or anxiety, and the risk of obesity, with substantial evidence supporting their co-occurence.6,7,8,9,10 Two meta-analyses summarizing longitudinal studies in adolescents concluded that particularly females with depressive symptoms have an elevated risk of obesity over varying follow-up periods.9,10 This finding is corroborated by another systematic review.11 Anxiety, another indicator of psychological...

Each forkful of grilled branzino with a tangy, briny salsa is pure Mediterranean summer—smoky and sweet, sharp and salty, bright and herby all at once.

Howard County Executive Calvin Ball announced some funding help for Grassroots when feds pulled funding, but a huge gap remains.