The findings suggest that both male and female belugas reproduce with multiple partners over the course of their lives. Researchers believe this behavior may help this relatively small and isolated population avoid inbreeding and preserve genetic diversity.

“We still know very little about beluga whales, despite their immense popularity,” said Dr. Greg O’Corry-Crowe of Florida Atlantic University, lead author of the paper in Frontiers in Marine Science. “The primary reason for this is the difficulty of studying a species that lives beneath the waves in the cold and often frozen north. But this is the challenge that makes discovery, when it happens, more exciting.”

Using DNA to Study Elusive Arctic Whales

Over a period of 13 years, researchers collected small tissue samples from 623 beluga whales. The project involved scientists from Florida Atlantic University, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and Alaska Native subsistence hunters from Bristol Bay.

Because little was known about mating patterns in wild belugas, the team developed predictions based on evolutionary theory and what scientists already knew about the species. For example, male belugas are noticeably larger than females, and females typically produce only one calf every few years.

“We predicted that beluga whales had a polygynous mating system where a few of the most competitive and possibly largest males secure most of the matings within a season or even across a few seasons, and that they provide little or no parental care,” said O’Corry-Crowe.

At the same time, belugas live in large social groups that regularly break apart and come back together. Researchers thought this social structure could give females access to many different potential mates over time. As a result, they predicted that females might reproduce with multiple males across different breeding seasons.

DNA Reveals Unexpected Mating Patterns

The genetic analysis produced a surprising result. Both males and females were found to have offspring with different partners over the years. When calves had siblings, they typically shared only one parent rather than both.

Although all whales produced relatively few offspring, there was greater variation among males. Some males fathered more calves than others, but the difference was not as extreme as researchers had expected.

“Beluga males were indeed polygynous, but, surprisingly, only moderately so,” said O’Corry-Crowe. “The three-dimensional aquatic environment likely limits a male’s ability to successfully court or corral multiple females. However, a long life may also be key. Belugas can live 90 years, possibly more. Male beluga whales may, therefore, play a long game of securing a few matings each year over a very long reproductive life!

“The female story is just as fascinating. The genetic profiling revealed that female belugas regularly switch mates across breeding seasons, also over a long reproductive life. This could be a bet-hedging strategy to limit the risk of mating with low-quality males.”

High Genetic Diversity in a Small Population

One of the most unexpected discoveries involved the population’s genetic health.

Despite numbering only about 2,000 individuals, the Bristol Bay belugas showed high levels of genetic diversity and relatively little evidence of inbreeding. Researchers compared the results with both historical samples and other beluga populations and found that genetic diversity in Bristol Bay is comparable to that of much larger populations. It has also remained stable over time.

“A leading concern for small populations is that they tend to lose genetic diversity faster than large populations and the risks of inbreeding are higher,” explained O’Corry-Crowe. “We expected to find low diversity and high inbreeding, but we found something quite different. The mating system may explain this surprising finding. Frequent mate switching limits the number of highly related offspring in the population. This in turn reduces the risk of highly related individuals mating and producing highly inbred offspring. It also minimizes the risk of diversity loss. We cannot afford to be complacent, but we can be optimistic that beluga whale mating strategies provide evidence of nature’s resilience.”

More Questions About Beluga Behavior

The researchers caution that other beluga populations may not behave in the same way.

Belugas in Bristol Bay show relatively small differences in size between males and females compared with some other populations. That could indicate lower levels of competition among males and potentially different mating systems elsewhere.

“To me, the differences in sexual dimorphism among populations of beluga whales could indicate that mating systems also vary, and this is something we are currently working on,” said O’Corry-Crowe. “We also can’t determine if females mate with multiple males within a season using genetics, as a female only produces one calf from one lucky male. But we are working on this, using drones at other locations to determine if we can observe mating behaviors in the wild. More on that soon…”

The study offers one of the clearest views yet into the hidden social lives of beluga whales. It also suggests that their flexible mating behavior may be helping these Arctic animals maintain strong genetic diversity despite living in a relatively small and isolated population.

An international research team led by Professor Dongchen Qi from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) School of Chemistry and Physics and Professor Xiao Renshaw Wang from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore investigated the physics behind the nonlinear Hall effect (NLHE), a quantum phenomenon with significant potential for future energy-harvesting technologies.

Unlike the classical Hall effect, the NLHE can convert alternating electrical signals directly into direct current. This means energy from wireless transmissions or other ambient sources could potentially be transformed into usable electricity without relying on conventional diodes or other bulky electronic components.

“The NLHE is a sophisticated quantum phenomenon in condensed matter physics where a voltage is generated perpendicular to an applied alternating current, even in the absence of a magnetic field,” Professor Qi said.

“This effect allows us to convert alternating signals straight into direct current, which is what’s needed to power electronic devices. In principle, it means sensors or chips that could operate without batteries, drawing energy from their environment.”

Quantum Material Shows Stable Performance at Room Temperature

To better understand how the effect works, the researchers examined a high-quality topological material known for its unusual electronic behavior.

Their experiments showed that the nonlinear Hall effect remains stable even at room temperature, an important step toward practical applications outside the laboratory.

The team also discovered that temperature plays a key role in determining both the strength and direction of the electrical voltage produced by the material.

How Defects and Atomic Vibrations Control the Effect

At lower temperatures, tiny imperfections within the material had the greatest influence on the quantum effect. As temperatures increased, naturally occurring vibrations in the crystal structure became more important.

This shift caused the direction of the generated electrical signal to reverse, revealing a previously unseen mechanism for controlling the phenomenon.

“Once you understand what’s happening inside the material, you can design devices to take advantage of it,” Professor Qi said.

“That’s when quantum effects stop being abstract and start becoming useful — supporting future applications ranging from self-powered sensors and wearable technology to ultra-fast components for next-generation wireless networks.”

The findings provide new insight into how quantum materials behave and could help researchers develop smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient technologies that harvest power from their surroundings.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that GLP-1 medications were associated with lower risks of developing substance use disorders involving alcohol, nicotine, cannabis, cocaine, opioids, and other substances. The drugs were also linked to fewer overdoses, hospitalizations, and drug-related deaths among people already living with addiction.

The findings were published in The BMJ.

GLP-1 Drugs and Addiction

GLP-1 receptor agonists were originally developed to help manage type 2 diabetes, but their popularity has surged in recent years because of their effectiveness for weight loss. Along the way, researchers began noticing something unexpected.

Some patients reported losing interest in alcohol and cigarettes after starting the medications. Earlier observational studies also found links between GLP-1 treatment and lower risks of alcohol and cannabis use disorders, opioid overdose, and alcohol-related hospitalization.

However, most previous studies focused on individual substances. Researchers wanted to determine whether the effects extended across multiple forms of addiction and whether the drugs could help reduce the most serious consequences associated with substance use disorders.

To investigate, the research team analyzed electronic health records from 606,434 U.S. veterans with type 2 diabetes.

Study Examines More Than 600,000 Veterans

Participants were divided into two groups. One group included people without a substance use disorder at the start of the study. The second group consisted of people who already had a diagnosed substance use disorder.

Researchers reviewed up to three years of health records after participants began taking either a GLP-1 receptor agonist, most commonly semaglutide, liraglutide, or dulaglutide, or an SGLT2 inhibitor, another type of diabetes medication.

Among the 524,817 participants who did not have a substance use disorder when the study began, those taking GLP-1 medications were less likely to develop one over time.

Compared with patients taking non-GLP-1 diabetes medications, GLP-1 users had a 14% lower risk of developing any substance use disorder. Risks were lower across every major substance examined, including alcohol (18%), cannabis (14%), cocaine (20%), nicotine (20%), and opioids (25%).

The researchers estimated that this translated to seven fewer new substance use disorder diagnoses per 1,000 GLP-1 users.

Fewer Overdoses and Drug-Related Deaths

The study also examined outcomes among the 81,617 participants who already had a substance use disorder.

In that group, GLP-1 use was associated with fewer addiction-related emergencies and serious health consequences. After three years, participants taking GLP-1 drugs experienced a 30% reduction in emergency department visits, a 25% reduction in hospitalizations, a 40% reduction in overdoses, and a 50% reduction in drug-related deaths.

Overall, the researchers estimated that GLP-1 use was associated with 12 fewer serious addiction-related events per 1,000 users.

“In addiction medicine, a lot of treatments target just one thing, for example, a nicotine patch helps with smoking, but not alcohol, but there is no medication that works across addictive substances, let alone all of them,” said senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a WashU Medicine clinical epidemiologist and Chief of the Research and Development Service at the VA Saint Louis Health Care System.

“The revelation about GLP-1 medication is that it really works against all major substances, and it works uniformly, not because it acts against alcohol or opioids or nicotine specifically, but because it is likely acting against the craving itself. It blunts that craving that pulls people toward whatever they’re addicted to.”

Targeting the Biology of Craving

Al-Aly said the study was partly inspired by patient reports describing unexpected changes in behavior after starting GLP-1 treatment.

Researchers also considered evidence showing that GLP-1 receptors are present in brain regions involved in reward processing. That raised the possibility that the drugs could influence the cravings that drive addiction.

The findings suggest that GLP-1 medications may act on a shared biological pathway underlying multiple forms of addiction. Rather than targeting a specific substance, the drugs may be affecting the craving itself.

The idea is particularly significant because some addictive substances, including methamphetamine, currently have no approved medication treatments.

“GLP-1s may offer a dual benefit for patients with chronic conditions like diabetes or obesity who are also struggling with a substance use disorder: one medication can treat both conditions at once,” Al-Aly said.

A Potential New Approach to Addiction Treatment

Millions of Americans already use GLP-1 medications, and that number continues to grow. If future studies confirm these findings, the public health implications could be substantial.

The researchers say the results support conducting clinical trials specifically designed to test GLP-1 drugs as addiction treatments, including studies capable of measuring effects on overdose and drug-related death.

“People taking these drugs for obesity often describe a quieting of ‘food noise,’ the persistent preoccupation with food that drives overeating,” Al-Aly said.

“What our study suggests is something broader: GLP-1 drugs may also quiet what I call ‘drug noise,’ the relentless craving that drives addiction across substances. That cross-substance signal points to a shared biology underlying addiction, and it opens the door to a fundamentally different approach: not treating one addiction at a time, but targeting that common biologic signal, that common craving across addictions. Moving beyond food noise to drug noise, GLP-1s are quieting the roar of addiction.”

The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. According to the authors, the funders had no role in the study’s design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, review, approval, or publication decisions. The researchers also noted that the findings do not represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the U.S. government.