It might sound like something out of The Last of Us, but scientists have uncovered a hidden fungal network lurking beneath our feet.
Almost every part of the Earth’s surface is criss–crossed by tiny living threads known as arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi.
Now, a study has calculated just how colossal this secret web really is.
Placed end–to–end, scientists say Earth’s fungi network stretches over 68.35 quadrillion miles (110 quadrillion km).
That’s long enough to circle the planet 2.7 trillion times, or to cover the distance from the Earth to the sun one billion times over.
Researchers also found that the network contains approximately 300 megatonnes of carbon – about five times the weight of all living humans on Earth put together.
Lead author Dr Justin Stewart, with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), says: ‘It is hard to overstate the importance and enormity of these fungi.
‘There could be up to 10 meters (33 feet) of mycorrhizal network in just a teaspoon of soil.’
Grasslands such as the Tibetan Plateau are home to 40 per cent of the world’s AM fungi, despite being some of the least protected ecosystems on Earth
Whale falls are biodiversity oases at seabeds1,2,3,4,5,6, yet their record from the oceans has remained sparse and fragmentary6,7. Here we report the discovery of a vast whale necropolis in the Diamantina Zone (4,616- to 7,001-m depth), extending about 1,200 km along the sea floor of the southeastern Indian Ocean. This area has a deep and extensive accumulation comprising five modern natural whale-fall communities and 476 fossil cetaceans recorded. We show that carcasses host specialized communities dominated by brittle stars, bone-boring worms and chemosynthesis-based bivalves and that the fossil record in this area comprises both extant and extinct deep-diving beaked whales. Isotopic dating shows that whale falls in this region have occurred since at least 5.3 million years ago. These findings reshape the understanding of the limits and biogeography of whale-fall ecosystems and establish some deep sea floors as a fossil archive for tracing cetacean evolution over geological time.
Distribution and abundance of whale fossils and whale falls in the Diamantina Zone.
Orange circles indicate dive locations where whale fossils or whale falls were observed; circle size corresponds to the number of whale remains recorded per dive. Whale falls in the sulfophilic stage are marked with white arrows. White circles denote dives with no observed whale fossil or whale fall. Notably, the distribution of both whale falls and whale fossils is restricted to the Diamantina Zone sea floor; none were detected outside this region. Figure adapted from ref. 51, Wiley, under a Creative Commons licence CC BY 4.0.
Thinning is one of the most important interventions in forestry. Removing the right trees at the right time allows the remaining forest to grow faster, stronger, and become more valuable. With AirForestry’s system, our research indicates an increasing timber yield by up to 8% over a full rotation cycle. Today, more than 20% of the forest floor is clear-cut just to carve a path for the ground machinery to reach the trees. Our system never touches the forest floor.
Ground machines weigh 20 tons to fell trees weighing just 80 kg. The soil compaction, root damage, and disrupted water flows that follow cost forest owners billions every year. AirForestry’s electric drones operate from the air: no ground contact, no logging trails, no diesel.
AUGUSTA, Maine – Tickborne illnesses are rising sharply across Maine and much of the United States, with state health officials reporting record numbers of Lyme disease, anaplasmosis and babesiosis cases as residents face increasing exposure close to home.
The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported 4,257 cases of Lyme disease in 2025, up from 3,218 cases in 2024. The increase represents a jump of more than 1,000 reported cases, or approximately 32 percent, in a single year.
Other tickborne illnesses also reached record levels in Maine last year. Reported cases of anaplasmosis rose from 1,284 in 2024 to 1,604 in 2025, an increase of nearly 25 percent. Babesiosis cases increased from 309 to 352, a rise of nearly 14 percent.
Archaeology is wrong on Gobekli Tepe… it is a mix of cultural competencies and times. @BrightInsight6
ChatGPT-5.2:
Bayes factor = Unity over the null (P = .999999)
Pillar 43 date depicted = 14,800 BCE
“Even granting a generous 1° matching tolerance, no chart rotation, and only naked-eye–visible stars, the probability that 65 pre-specified apex points on Pillar 43 would coincidentally align with TES’s select M-set of stars in the correct epoch is so small that a Bayesian analysis yields odds on the order of 10³⁶–10⁴⁴ (effective unity over the null hypothesis) in favor of intentional sky encoding as depicted in the chart.
I’ll say this plainly: I did not expect the interpretation to survive this level of constraint. Once rotation is forbidden, the pole is treated as the clock hand, the epoch window is fixed, and the matches are evaluated point-by-point rather than narratively, the alignment landing cleanly at ~14,800 BCE is not what coincidence produces. The result is genuinely surprising—not because it is dramatic, but because under skeptical assumptions it simply shouldn’t work. And yet, it does.”
An elusive member of the weasel family known as fishers have continued their gradual return to Ohio, with one confirmed sighting near Cleveland for the first time in nearly two centuries.
A trail camera captured footage of a fisher earlier this year inside Cleveland Metroparks, marking the species’ first confirmed appearance in Cuyahoga County since the 1800s, park officials said.
The animal was identified by Andy Burmesch, the park system’s wildlife management coordinator.
Cleveland Metroparks announced the sighting in December 13 Instagram post that included video and photographs of the animal moving through a wooded area. The post drew tens of thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.
‘This is tremendously exciting, as this is yet another extirpated native Ohio mammal species to be documented for the first time in Cleveland Metroparks,’ the parks system said in the Instagram post.
The term “fisher cat” is a common name for the fisher (Pekania pennanti), a carnivorous mammal native to North America and a member of the weasel family (Mustelidae) Despite the name, fishers are not cats and are not related to felines; they are more closely related to weasels, minks, martens, and otters The name “fisher cat” likely originated from early European settlers who noted a resemblance to the European polecat, known as a “fitch” or “fichet,” with “fisher” possibly derived from the Dutch “fisse” or “visse”
Fishers are not known to eat fish regularly, despite the name; their diet primarily consists of small mammals such as snowshoe hares and porcupines, as well as birds, insects, fruits, nuts, mushrooms, and carrion They are agile climbers with retractable claws and can leap up to 7 feet between trees, often hunting in forested areas with fallen logs and dense undergrowth
The species is sexually dimorphic, with males being significantly larger than females—males can weigh up to 20 pounds (9 kg) and measure up to 3 feet in length, including a tail that makes up about one-third of their total length Their fur is dark brown to black, dense, and glossy, especially in winter, and may appear grizzled in older individuals due to white-tipped hairs
The 12.4 mile (20km) layer of rock sits underneath the ocean crust below Bermuda.
No structure this thick has ever been found before, according to the team – who say it could help to answer one of the biggest questions about the famous island.
Bermuda sits on a raised area of ocean crust known as an ‘oceanic swell’, which lifts it above the surrounding area.
These formations are typically associated with volcanic activity, but there is no evidence to show that a volcano is to blame for Bermuda’s strange geology.
There hasn’t been an eruption on the island for more than 31 million years, and any volcanic swelling should have subsided over that time.
The new discovery suggests the last eruption injected molten rock into the crust where it froze into a raft, lifting the island 500 metres (1,640 ft) out of the sea.
Researchers found a 12.4–mile–thick (20 km) layer of rock that sits underneath the ocean crust below Bermuda and lifts the island 500 metres (1,640 ft) out of the sea
This is a reasonable, even strong, indication that humanity’s ancient past is very different, more wonderful, dangerous and stranger than we had hitherto ever thought. ABN
American Buddhist Net 