Gleanings of the Week Ending December 6, 2025

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Vitamin C Rejuvenates Aging Ovaries in Primates - A long-term primate study suggests vitamin C may slow ovarian aging by reactivating antioxidant defenses—though fertility effects remain untested. Oxidative damage contributes to aging not only in ovaries but also in the brain, heart, and kidneys—raising the possibility that similar interventions might benefit other organs.

Rings of Rock in the Sahara - In northeastern Africa, within the driest part of the Sahara, dark rocky outcrops rise above pale desert sands. They are thought to have formed as magma rose toward the surface and intruded into the surrounding rock. Repeated intrusion events produced a series of overlapping rings, their centers roughly aligned toward the southwest. The resulting ring complex—composed of igneous basalt and granite—is bordered to the north by a hat-shaped formation made of sandstone, limestone, and quartz layers. Photo taken from International Space Station.

How your hormones might be controlling your mind - Hormones are chemical messengers released by certain glands, organs, and tissues. They enter the bloodstream and travel around the body, before binding to receptors in a specific place. The binding acts as a kind of biological "handshake" which tells the body to do something. For example, the hormone insulin tells liver and muscle cells to suck up excess glucose from the blood and store it as glycogen. We still don't understand exactly why some people are so sensitive to hormonal fluctuations, while others aren't. We know that hormones impact mood and mental health, but we need to figure out how they do so before we can come up with the proper treatments.

Texas Voters Approve $1 Billion per Year for 'Critical' Water Infrastructure – Wise move by Texas voters; hopefully it will be enough to keep up with the state’s growing population and resulting demand for water. More details here.

How Does Sugar Affect Our Oral Microbiome and Teeth? - Less processed foods, especially those high in fiber, are often less sticky, which decreases bacteria’s ability to adhere and overgrow at a surface. Additionally, the fiber acts like miniature brushes. “These fibers constantly remove plaque from your tooth surfaces. The additional chewing of these types of foods also increases saliva production, which washes out the oral cavity, removing excess bacteria from the mouth surface to limit the formation of biofilms. Meanwhile, additional sugar from candy and other sweet products disrupts this whole community. Not only are these processed foods stickier, giving the bacteria a place to latch onto, but they also form biofilms.

How Satellite Imagery Reveals Plastic Pollution Hotspots in the Ocean - Plastic pollution isn’t just a sad environmental story we scroll past on the news anymore; it has become a personal health emergency. It is a genuinely scary reality that microplastics, those tiny, unseen fragments, have made their way into our lungs and bloodstreams. To grasp the sheer scale of this threat, researchers are turning to Sentinel satellite imagery, utilizing it as an essential “eye in the sky” to track exactly where these hazardous accumulation zones are growing. However, mapping is just the diagnostic tool; the ultimate cure lies in fixing land-based waste management.

The photos showing why pink dolphins are the Amazon's 'great thieves' - As fishermen cast their nets into the river, suddenly a sleek pink shape emerged from the depths, swimming toward the trapped fish. Moving quickly, the creature – an Amazonian pink river dolphin – poked holes in the net and stole a catfish. Known locally as boto in Portuguese and bufeo in Spanish, the pink river dolphin is a funny sight. With its melon-shaped head, rose-colored skin, and slender, hundred-toothed snout, it is the largest freshwater dolphin in the world, growing up to 2.5m (8.2ft) long and weighing as much as 200kg (440lbs). Four types of pink river dolphins live in the Amazon River basin. All of them are endangered, facing significant population declines in recent decades due to hunting, entanglement in fishing nets, pollution and droughts.

Half of heart attacks strike people told they’re low risk - A new study led by Mount Sinai researchers reports that commonly used cardiac screening methods fail to identify almost half of the people who are actually at risk of having a heart attack. People who appear healthy according to standard assessments may already have significant and silent atherosclerosis. Because of this, depending solely on symptoms and risk calculators can delay detection until meaningful prevention is no longer possible. Doctors should shift their focus from detecting symptomatic heart disease to detecting the plaque itself for earlier treatment, which could save lives.

Clogged Glymphatic System Linked to Dementia Risk - The brain’s built-in clearance system, called the glymphatic system, removes toxins from the brain through the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) via minuscule channels that trace blood vessels. Scientists have suspected that the glymphatic system may play a role in processes such as sleep and recovery from traumatic brain injury. MRI scans from nearly 40,000 people revealed biomarkers linked to defective toxin clearance in the brain predicted the susceptibility to dementia later in life.

Ansel Adams Photos Capture Daily Life Inside Japanese Internment Camps During WWII - The establishment of Japanese internment camps is arguably one of the darkest moments in American history. Between 1942 and 1946, about 120,000 people of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated into these concentration camps. This was done out of unfounded suspicions that Japanese Americans might act as saboteurs or spies following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. In 1943, celebrated American photographer Ansel Adams visited the Manzanar War Relocation Center in California, creating a timeless document of the daily life on this site. The 244 photo collection can be browsed on the Library of Congress website.