New study raises concerns about climate feedback loop as melting Arctic glaciers flush ancient methane from rocks beneath the ice

The more glaciers melt, the more methane they are likely to release

iC3 Polar Research Hub

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Conducting a radar survey on a Svalbard glacier during winter

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Credit: Gabrielle Kleber

Meltwater rivers flowing from Svalbard glaciers are carrying ancient methane from rocks beneath the ice into the open air, new research shows.

The findings reveal a natural feedback loop that may worsen as the Arctic continues to get warmer. Melting glaciers can open hidden pathways for methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Put simply, the more glaciers melt, the more methane they are likely to release.

Methane in the rocks

The study was led by Gabrielle Kleber, a researcher with the iC3 Polar Research Hub in Tromsø, Norway. Her team sampled rivers draining valley glaciers across central Svalbard. They found methane in every river they tested.

The study team took 148 water samples from 19 glacier-fed rivers in central Svalbard, providing by far the most extensive assessment yet of methane in glacier meltwater in the region. Every river in their survey contained more methane than expected from contact with the atmosphere, with the highest values reaching up to 425 times that level.

Co-author Silje Waaler says the team deliberately designed the survey to capture the diversity of glaciers across the region.

“We wanted to study many different glaciers, across a range of rock types and ice conditions. That gave us a clearer picture of why some glacier rivers carry more methane than others,” she says.

A key finding is that this methane is mostly not being made by microbes under the ice, as has been observed beneath glaciers in Greenland.

Instead, it appears to come from Svalbard’s geology. Many parts of the archipelago contain old shale layers rich in organic carbon. Over millions of years, heat and pressure can turn this material into methane and other gases.

They also analysed the carbon in the methane to identify its source. In some samples, they measured related gases, including ethane and propane, which helped confirm that much of the methane came from geological sources.

“These glaciers are mostly melting on their surfaces,” Gabrielle says. “But this meltwater finds its way to the bottom of the glaciers through crevasses and holes. This means that it interacts with the rocks underneath, and where those rocks contain ancient gas, the water can flush methane out into rivers.”

The most methane-rich waters came from glaciers resting on shale-bearing rock formations. But geology alone did not explain everything.

The team also found that the physical state of the glacier bed matters. Glaciers with thawed, wet and active beds were far better at picking up methane. Glaciers frozen to their beds were less connected to the rocks below, even when methane-rich geology was present.

A map of where methane can escape

To understand these processes, the researchers combined river chemistry with ice surveys. They used ground-penetrating radar to map ice conditions within selected glaciers. This allowed them to estimate how much of each glacier bed was thawed and able to carry water.

Co-author Leonard Magerl says that this combination was crucial.

“The temperature at the base of glaciers is an important piece of the puzzle,” Leonard says. “We found that the biggest methane releases happened where the right rocks and the right glacier conditions came together. This insight can help to estimate emissions from other ice-covered regions.”

The researchers estimate that land-terminating glaciers across Svalbard may transport roughly 182 to 368 tonnes of methane per year in meltwater, depending on how the estimate is scaled. This is in addition to previous, much higher estimates for methane released by groundwater springs in front of glaciers. But it still points to a widespread and undercounted pathway for ancient carbon to reach the atmosphere.

Why this matters

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. While this study focuses on Svalbard, similar methane-release pathways likely occur in other glaciated regions where ice overlies organic-rich rocks or sediments. These include large parts of the Arctic, the Himalayas and Antarctica.

Gabrielle explains that: “The amounts reported here are small compared with human-caused emissions from fossil fuels, farming and waste. But they matter because they reveal a natural feedback loop that is not confined to Svalbard, and that may grow as the Arctic warms.”

As glaciers thin and retreat, more meltwater may reach their beds. This can increase contact with fractured rock, sediment and groundwater. In some places, that may flush out more methane.

However, the story is not simple. Some Svalbard glaciers are also becoming colder at their beds as they shrink. If a glacier becomes frozen to its bed, its ability to flush methane through subglacial rivers may fall.

“Our results show that future methane release will depend on both geology and glacier change,” Gabrielle says. “That makes it important to know what lies beneath the ice, not only how fast the ice is melting.”

Links to previous research

The new study builds directly on previous iC3 work on methane around retreating Svalbard glaciers. Gabrielle Kleber and Leonard Magerl have previously found that meltwater from one Svalbard glacier could carry geologic methane from beneath the ice, making it release more methane per area than Greenland glaciers. Meanwhile, newly uncovered groundwater springs are also releasing the potent greenhouse gas in Svalbard forefields, demonstrating the many understudied sources of methane in these environments.

The new study, published in Nature Communications today, takes the next step. It shows that methane-rich meltwater is not unique to one glacier. It is widespread across central Svalbard, but strongest where shale-rich geology and thawed glacier beds overlap.

Find out more

The study, “Subglacial geology and thermal conditions regulate methane emissions from Svalbard glaciers”, is published open access in Nature Communications today.

Lead researcher Dr Gabrielle Kleber and co-authors Leonard Magerl and Silje Waaler work at the iC3 Polar Research Hub, which is hosted by the Department of Geosciences of UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Gabrielle studies Arctic methane emissions and glacial hydrology. Leonard works on glacier biogeochemistry and cryosphere processes. Silje studies how material released from glaciers affects downstream ecosystems.

 

Researcher hiking to the next sampling site on Svalbard

Credit

Gabrielle Kleber

 

Dr Gabrielle Kleber taking Svalbard water samples

Credit

Erik Mannerfelt

 

Researcher hiking to the next sampling site on Svalbard

Credit

Gabrielle Kleber

River flowing out of the bottom of a melting Svalbard glacier (IMAGE)

iC3 Polar Research Hub

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River flowing out of the bottom of a melting Svalbard glacier

Credit

Leonard Magerl

 

Taking hydrochemical measurements of a glacial river on Svalbard

Credit

Gabrielle Kleber

 

Taking water samples from a glacial river on Svalbard

Credit

Gabrielle Kleber

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-77190-z 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Subglacial geology and thermal conditions regulate methane emissions from Svalbard glaciers

Article Publication Date

8-Sep-2026

Worm’s radical transformation shows metamorphosis can change the functions of cells

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Stanford University

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A Schizocardium californicum larva

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Credit: Paul Bump/Stanford University

A squishy worm that starts its life as something of a floating head in the Pacific Ocean is changing what scientists know about metamorphosis at the cellular level.

Unlike humans, about 80% of animal species undergo metamorphosis, a stepped development from egg to larva to adult, but how it works at a cellular level is not well understood. Some theories and prior research suggested that the original cells in the larva die and are replaced with newly generated adult cells. Other work pointed to cells growing into their same function—for example, larval skin cells would become adult skin cells. 

Instead, a Stanford-led study has found strong evidence in an acorn worm called Schizocardium californicum that most larval cells were reprogrammed, with even neurons taking on a new role in the adult organism.

“Reprogramming is a bit of an exotic fruit in developmental biology,” said Christopher Lowe, senior author on the study and biology professor in the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. “Generally, we used to think that as cells develop, they become increasingly restricted in their function. But when we start looking at more animals that go through metamorphosis, they may reveal that reprogramming is a much more common feature of development.”

Cellular reprogramming is thought to happen after an injury, or in some species that regenerate organs or whole limbs—but not as a feature of normal development. This study, published in Nature Communications, is the first known research to suggest extensive cellular reprogramming during normal development in an animal with a bilateral body plan, where one side of the body matches the other, as in humans. Previous research has found some of this developmental type of reprogramming in sponges and jellyfish, two organisms that are far from humans on the evolutionary tree. In contrast, these acorn worms are part of the hemichordata phylum, considered an evolutionary link to vertebrate animals, including all mammals.

Following the cells
For this study, the team, led by first author Paul Bump, a former doctoral student in Lowe’s lab at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station, conducted genetic analyses on more than 87,000 cells from these acorn worms. The researchers performed single cell RNA sequencing on samples from worms in five developmental stages: early and late larvae, metamorphosis, and early and late juvenile. Using this information, they categorized the cells into 12 classes, such as cartilage, immune, and skin cells.

This analysis found that many larval cells were more similar to each other than they were to the adult cells performing the same function. For example, larval neurons were more like larval gut cells than they were to adult neurons. This was true for more than half of the cells, suggesting that there had been extensive reprogramming. There were some exceptions. For instance, the functions of muscle cells and mesoderm cells, which make up some organs, stayed the same from larval to juvenile stages.        

Bump was also able to place a label, a type of persistent dye, on some larval cells before metamorphosis and follow them through the process to see that they persisted in the adult organism.

“This suggested that cells were not large-scale dying; they were actually being carried over,” Lowe said. “Based on their RNA sequence data, we saw that they had become very different in cell type, which was supportive of the idea that larval cells were being reprogrammed into new fates during metamorphosis, which goes against what most of the field would have predicted.”

An unusual animal for an unusual discovery
Working with the Schizocardium californicum was a challenge. It is not a species used often for research, which meant the scientists had to adapt tools and techniques normally used for other animals.

But the fact that this worm is not usually studied is exactly why it is of interest to the Lowe team. His lab specializes in “non-model” marine organisms as they may reveal more about not just their own development, but also the larger evolutionary history of many animals.

Most model organisms—the types of animals typically used in research, such as mice and zebra fish—are direct developers. They grow directly from an egg or embryo into an adult. These animals are more frequently studied partly because they are closer to humans genetically and partly because direct development is easier to manage in a lab.

Yet the focus on direct development leaves a huge gap in knowledge about the larger animal world, Lowe said, since so many animals are indirect developers that have a larval stage and undergo metamorphosis before growing into an adult.

The Schizocardium californicum worm also has a cousin that is a well-studied direct developer: Saccoglossus kowalevskii, sometimes called the Virginia acorn worm.

There are key differences between the way the two acorn worms develop, which is apparent from observation: When the Virginia acorn worm hatches from an egg, it has the worm-like shape it will have its entire life , while the young larva of the Schizocardium californicum looks nothing like its adult form. This study also suggests that the California worm’s incredible transition is inside and out.

“You can watch this process of metamorphosis and see physically how things radically change, but this morphological transformation is also mirrored by a massive change in cellular components,” Lowe said.
 

 

Lowe is also the John B. and Jean De Nault Professor of Marine Science at the Hopkins Marine Station and a member of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Bio-X, and an investigator at Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in San Francisco.

Bump is now an assistant professor at Pomona College.

Additional Stanford co-authors on the study include Laurent Formery, a former postdoctoral scholar, and Lauren Lubeck, a doctoral student, in Lowe’s lab.

Other co-authors include researchers affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston; Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in San Francisco; Johns Hopkins University; Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, Missouri; and University of California, Berkeley.

This research received support from a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Intercampus Research Award, the National Science Foundation, Myers Trust Award, and Haderlie Memorial Award.

Digging [VIDEO] | EurekAlert!

The adult Schizocardium californicum worms live in shallow tidal bays off the Pacific coast and often burrow more than a foot deep into the muddy sand. For this study, the researchers had to dig for specimens in the tidal flats of Morro Bay.

 

An adult acorn worm, Schizocardium californicum, has a shape that is dramtically different than its larva.

Credit

Paul Bump for Stanford University

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-77191-y 

Article Publication Date

8-Sep-2026

 

New research rethinks plastic from the inside out

Changing the molecular architecture – rather than chemical ingredients – can create stronger, more flexible materials with potential for sustainable packaging.

Virginia Tech

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(From left) Yifan Cheng, assistant professor of food science and technology, with Ph.D. students Huida Duan, Ziyu Huo, and Xiaoyu Xie, in the lab of chemical engineering associate professor Rong Tong, who is in Japan for the fall 2026 semester.

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Credit: Photo by Peter Means for Virginia Tech.

What if the key to making stronger, more sustainable plastics isn't changing their ingredients, but rearranging their molecules?

Virginia Tech researchers have put that idea to the test, creating degradable polymers with a new molecular architecture that combines properties that are often difficult to achieve in one material: strength, toughness, flexibility, and the ability to block oxygen.

The findings could have implications for food packaging, which needs to keep oxygen out while remaining strong and flexible enough to withstand processing, transportation, and storage. By rearranging polymer chains into rings, the researchers created materials that blocked oxygen as effectively as a widely studied biodegradable plastic while being significantly tougher and better able to stretch without breaking.

The work, led by Rong Tong, professor of chemical engineering, in collaboration with Yifan Cheng, assistant professor of food science and technology, was published in Nature Communications and supported by the National Science Foundation.

Reshaping molecular architecture

Most conventional plastics consist of long, linear molecular chains. The research team, which included Ph.D. students Ziyu Huo, Xiaoyu Xie, and Huida Duan, altered plastic's molecular architecture.

The researchers joined the ends of polymer chains to form continuous rings. They also controlled the sequence of the molecules within each ring, gradually changing the composition from one type of building block to another to create what researchers call a “gradient” polymer.

The resulting polymers contained properties that are often difficult to achieve together.

“By controlling both the shape and the sequence, we are able to make materials that are strong, tough, flexible, and good at blocking oxygen,” Tong said.

One material recovered much of its shape after being stretched and fractured. Tong said the combination of strength and toughness was particularly surprising.

“Usually, when you improve the strength of a material, you have to make some sacrifices — the material could become more brittle, for example,” he said. “But here, we see both the strength and the toughness improve together. That shows us that the ring-shaped structure and the controlled arrangement work together in a way we haven't seen in previous approaches.”

Food packaging potential

Several of these cyclic polymers showed oxygen-barrier properties comparable to polylactic acid, or PLA, a widely studied biodegradable plastic.

PLA blocks oxygen well, an important property for food packaging because oxygen exposure can degrade food. But its brittleness limits broader use in packaging.

The Virginia Tech materials matched PLA's oxygen-barrier performance while demonstrating substantially greater toughness and ductility.

“For decades, developing better plastics has largely focused on changing what they're made of,” Cheng said. “Our work suggests that how the molecules are arranged, whether as lines or circles, can be just as important. That opens up an entirely new design space for creating packaging that protects food, performs well, and is easier to recycle or recover at the end of its life. Creating better food packaging is a balancing act, and these cyclic polymers give us a new way to balance strength, functionality, and sustainability at the same time.”

What’s next for the research

The materials are not yet ready for commercial food packaging. Tong and Cheng next plan to process the polymers into films and other forms to test how they withstand storage and transportation conditions — and whether their molecular building blocks can be recycled or recovered.

For Tong, the possibility of recovering and reusing those building blocks is a key goal. “The material itself is degradable,” he said. “But for more economic applications, we hope not only to degrade it, but also to recycle it and use the degraded material to make additional plastics.”

That vision may still be a long way from the grocery-store shelf, but the research points to another approach to designing plastics: changing molecular architecture to balance performance, degradability, and the potential for material recovery.

Original study: doi:10.1038/s41467-026-77071-5

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-77071-5 

Article Publication Date

8-Sep-2026

Cash transfers to mothers with low income may slow biological aging in children

Max Planck Institute for Human Development

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A four-year randomized controlled trial tested whether unconditional cash transfers to low-income mothers could alter biological indicators of aging in them and their children. 

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Credit: MPI for Human Development

In the Baby’s First Years study, one thousand mothers with low income were randomized to receive either $333/month or $20/month during their child's first four years of life. Using measures of the child’s epigenome — biological mechanisms that regulate how genes are expressed — the researchers found that higher cash transfers caused a small difference in an indicator of children's biological aging linked to better long-term health outcomes. Because of the randomized controlled trial design, the researchers concluded that these changes were caused by receipt of the higher cash transfer, rather than other factors. 

"Previous research has shown correlational evidence in other studies suggesting that poverty may accelerate epigenetic aging in children, but correlations alone can't tell us whether intervening can slow that process. So it is notable to see a causal impact of the cash transfers. It supports the notion that addressing childhood poverty is a public health priority to protect long-term health," says lead author Laurel Raffington, research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. 

Previous Baby's First Years studies found that mothers who received higher cash transfers increased their spending on and time in activities with their young children, and the intervention may have caused increased fast-paced brain activity in patterns associated with subsequent cognitive development. However, no differences have been found in other measures of children's health, cognitive, or behavioral development. The current study demonstrates that even without accompanying psychosocial or nutrition interventions, cash transfers alone can produce small, but potentially important, effects on children's biology. 

Epigenetic measures respond to factors such as stress, nutrition, and aging, and have been linked to the pace of adult aging and the timing of disease onset. The differences in children's epigenetics across the two groups were small, and “it remains to be seen whether these differences persist as children grow older,” note senior authors Kimberly Noble and Kathryn Paige Harden. “If these differences do persist,” Noble, Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, continues, “this work has the potential to inform early childhood interventions aiming to reduce disparities in health, disease, and longevity.” Harden, Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed, saying that, “The fact that we already see differences in four-year-old children in their biological aging is striking.” 

There was no evidence of differences in biological aging among the mothers themselves, which is consistent with the theory that the effect may be somewhat specific to the developmental period of early childhood. While these results are encouraging, it is not yet known whether biological changes measured at age four predict long-term health outcomes in adulthood — highlighting the importance of continued follow-up of this cohort.  

At a glance  

• A four-year randomized controlled trial tested whether unconditional cash transfers to low-income mothers could alter biological indicators of aging in them and their children.  

• In the Baby's First Years study, 1,000 low-income mothers were randomly assigned to receive $333 or $20 per month; by age four, children in the higher-transfer group showed epigenetic markers linked to a slower pace of biological aging.  

• Because assignment was random, researchers could attribute this effect directly to the cash transfers themselves, even without added psychosocial or nutrition support.  

• Mothers' own biological aging did not differ between groups, and it remains unknown whether the children's epigenetic differences persist or predict long-term health outcomes. 

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Journal

Nature Human Behaviour

DOI

10.1038/s41562-026-02568-4 

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

Human tissue samples

Article Title

Effects of a randomized controlled trial of unconditional cash transfers on epigenetic measures of ageing and cognition in children and mothers.

Article Publication Date

8-Sep-2026