The outer solar system is getting crowded with theoretical planets. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
November 6, 2026—How bad, really, are ultraprocessed foods for health? Plus, a biological mechanism that turns wild foxes into loveable friends. And did astronomers find Planet Nine?
—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
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This artist’s concept shows an ice giant planet adrift in the outer reaches of the solar system. nagualdesign/Tom Ruen/background from ESO/CC BY-SA 4.0
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Archived astronomical observations seem to show a moving object in the far-distant outer solar system. Is it Planet Nine? | 5 min read
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We sat down with tech journalist Kevin Roose to discuss his new book on AI, which asks the question: What happens when a technology becomes more powerful than its creators can fully understand? | 28 min podcast
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Approximately 71 percent of land in Medan, Indonesia, is sinking at around 30 millimeters per year. It's the fastest sink rate of 465 urban areas surveyed in a new study. | 2 min read
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An AI tool called REA can take apart software that isn’t meant to be altered in printers, smart TVs, cars, and more. Check out our exclusive conversation with the developer of the tool, who asked to remain pseudonymous. | 5 min read
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Most-clicked link in yesterday's newsletter: These are the doctors and scientists elected in the 2026 midterms. | 5 min read
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Ultraprocessed Foods
In the U.S. and the U.K., ultraprocessed foods make up at least half of the average diet. Research from the past few years has linked eating a lot of them to heart disease, diabetes and early death. But what, specifically, makes ultraprocessed foods so bad for us? It turns out that not all ultraprocessed foods are created equal (literally).
The details: One experiment by a team at the National Institutes of Health looked at national dietary survey data from more than 5,000 people. Ultraprocessed foods that contributed to poor health outcomes contained added sugar, salt, saturated fat, refined grains and alcohol. But ultraprocessed foods including canned vegetables, low-sugar yogurt, diet sodas and low-fat products, weren’t correlated with the same adverse health indicators. This suggests that the nutrients in the food are really what matters—not necessarily the processing.
What the experts say: Ultraprocessing physically alters the structure of some food molecules, explains Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition at New York University. Corn chips, for example, start as whole corn kernels, which get cooked in an alkaline solution to loosen the hull and ground into wet dough that is then formed into shapes and fried. This process eliminates the physical structure of the corn and creates something resembling a predigested food—which the gut digests faster than it would a whole food, Nestle says. The authors of the new study hope the results help encourage people to incorporate more whole foods into their diets: “We really want to try to encourage people to eat more foods straight from the produce section” rather than relying on the “ultraprocessed versus nonultraprocessed” distinction,” says Leah Lipsky, the study’s lead author and a nutrition epidemiologist at the NIH.
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A fox (yes a fox!) from the Domesticated Silver Fox Experiment. What a sweet floof. Tanya_Terekhina via Shutterstock
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Tamed Foxes
For 70 years, Russian scientists have been selectively breeding foxes for docility as part of the Domesticated Silver Fox Experiment. With wagging tails, floppy ears and overflowing affection, the latest generations of foxes in the experiment act more like the family dog than cunning predators. Despite the experiment’s success at transforming wild animals into pet-like creatures, scientists didn’t know exactly what was happening in the animals’ brains. Now, a team of neuroscientists has pinpointed one receptor protein in the fox's brain that may be behind its lovable behavior.
What they found: In a new study, the team compared the brains of domesticated foxes, aggressive foxes and wild foxes, focusing on the ventromedial hypothalamus, a region that’s been linked to aggressive behaviors in mice. In particular, when a receptor protein called estrogen receptor alpha was activated in that brain region, the mice were more aggressive. In the new study the researchers found that the tame foxes had notably fewer estrogen receptor alpha neurons than the aggressive or wild foxes.
What experts say: According to Cheryl Rosenfeld, a neuroscientist at the University of Missouri who was not involved in the study, the research “gets to the heart of brain programming” in animals. “If this can happen in foxes, it could also mean that by altering the hormone profile or the receptor profile in us and even other species, it could change our patterns of behavior and last a lifetime,” she says. —Mary Randolph, News Intern
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TRAVEL WITH SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN
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I am so excited to announce that we have just TWO spots remaining for an extraordinary trip next year. Join me, your humble newsletter writer, out in the real world and in the Mexican mountains to witness the annual monarch butterfly migration. We'll hike into oyamel fir forests and see them transformed into living tapestries. Plus, we'll visit the birthplace and home of artist Freda Khalo, explore the canals of an ancient Aztec waterway system, stargaze with a local astronomer and so much more. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime journey!
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A subscription to Scientific American helps make this newsletter possible—and gives you full access to the stories that spark your curiosity. Try it out for 90 days for just $1.
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It's the stuff of fairy tales and childhood dreams that the sweet-faced, furry creatures of the forest might walk into our homes and cuddle next to us like a family dog. The remarkable Domesticated Silver Fox Experiment was run for more than six decades by geneticist Lyudmila Trut. If you're looking for a good read this weekend, I recommend Trut's account from 2017 in Scientific American of how the experiment came to be, in which she also describes one of the first domesticated foxes that captured her heart—Pushinka, which is Russian for “tiny ball of fuzz.” It's like a fairy tale come true.
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Please send your thoughts, comments or feedback on this newsletter to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you Monday.
—Andrea Gawrylewski,
Chief Newsletter Editor
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