A Lost Mosquito, a Toxic Surprise, and AI's "Cognitive Debt"

The Point by Modern Sciences - October 29, 2025

Author

Don Smith
October 29, 2025

By The Modern Sciences Team

October 29, 2025

Happy Halloween, Cultivators of Curiosity!


Welcome to the 43rd volume of The Point by Modern Sciences, where this week we're exploring the power of the unexpected and the unseen. Science often moves forward not just through deliberate experiments, but through chance encounters, accidental discoveries, and new questions about the technologies we use every day.


First, we travel from Papua New Guinea to Australia, where a citizen scientist armed with just a camera and an app rediscovered a mosquito species that had been lost to science for 90 years. It’s a remarkable story that highlights the vital role ordinary people now play in monitoring public health and their surroundings. Then, we look at another stroke of scientific serendipity in Oklahoma, where researchers hunting for one thing accidentally made the first-ever atmospheric detection of a toxic industrial pollutant, revealing a hidden threat and providing a new way to track it. Finally, we turn our focus inward. A provocative new MIT study asks if using AI like ChatGPT creates a "cognitive debt," and we unpack the complicated truth about whether this powerful tool is helping us learn or simply helping us forget how to think.

NATURE

This mosquito species from Papua New Guinea was lost for 90 years – until a photographer snapped a picture of it in Australia

A new mosquito species, Aedes shehzadae, has been discovered in Australia for the first time, 90 years after its only other sighting. This remarkable find in Queensland was made by a citizen scientist using the iNaturalist app, highlighting the critical role the public plays in monitoring mosquito populations and identifying potential public health threats alongside official surveillance programs.



The Point:

  • A rare mosquito is discovered in Australia: The species Aedes shehzadae was photographed by a citizen scientist in Queensland, marking its first appearance in the country and only its second recorded observation in 90 years.

  • Citizen science proves vital for surveillance: Public participation through programs like Mozzie Monitors and platforms like iNaturalist supplements official monitoring efforts, leading to significant discoveries and tracking of both native and invasive species.

  • The discovery highlights an ongoing public health concern: While Aedes shehzadae is not a known threat, its discovery underscores the need for vigilance against other dangerous invasive mosquitoes amid existing risks such as Japanese encephalitis.


EARTH

In scientific first, researchers accidentally detect toxic industrial pollutant in Oklahoma air

In a case of scientific serendipity, researchers unexpectedly detected a class of toxic industrial pollutants in the atmosphere for the first time in the Western Hemisphere. The findings from Oklahoma provide a crucial new method for tracking these persistent chemicals, which may be entering the air from biosolid fertilizers as an unregulated replacement for other banned substances.



The Point:

  • Accidental discovery reveals hidden pollutants: While conducting air quality research in Oklahoma, scientists made the first-ever real-time atmospheric detection of medium-chain chlorinated paraffins, a class of persistent toxic industrial chemicals.

  • Replacement chemical is now an airborne threat: Researchers suspect the pollutants became airborne from biosolid fertilizers and theorize their increased use is an unintended consequence of regulations that banned a similar class of toxic compounds.

  • New detection method aids future research: This scientific breakthrough provides a crucial technique for monitoring these long-lasting pollutants, enabling further investigation into their atmospheric transport, environmental fate, and potential health risks.


HEALTH AND THE BODY

MIT researchers say using ChatGPT can rot your brain. The truth is a little more complicated

A recent MIT study suggests that using AI tools like ChatGPT for essay writing can create a "cognitive debt," potentially decreasing critical thinking and learning skills. Researchers observed significantly lower cognitive engagement in AI users, fueling the debate on whether artificial intelligence is a helpful educational tool or a gateway to metacognitive laziness and a general "dumbing down" of students.



The Point:

  • AI use may create "cognitive debt": A new MIT study suggests that relying on ChatGPT for writing tasks reduces cognitive engagement and can hinder a user's ability to think critically without AI assistance.

  • The study's methodology is questioned: Critics argue the findings may be influenced by a 'familiarisation effect', in which one group improved at the task through repetition, rather than proving that AI actively diminishes cognitive skills.

  • Educators are urged to 'raise the bar' in assessment: The author argues that to avoid 'metacognitive laziness', educators must adapt by creating complex assignments that make AI a necessary tool, as calculators did for mathematics exams.