EverythingScience

Comet 3I/ATLAS continues to make astonishing headlines, thanks to new findings from astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This new research reveals that 3I/ATLAS is packed with an unusually large amount of the organic molecule methanol—more than almost all known comets in our own solar system.

"Observing 3I/ATLAS is like taking a fingerprint from another solar system," shares Nathan Roth, lead author on this research, and a professor with American University. "The details reveal what it's made of, and it's bursting with methanol in a way we just don't usually see in comets in our own solar system."

By simulating the life cycle of a minimal bacterial cell—from DNA replication to protein translation to metabolism and cell division—scientists have opened a new frontier of computer vision into the essential processes of life. The researchers, led by chemistry professor Zan Luthey-Schulten at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, present their findings in the journal Cell.

The team simulated a living cell at nanoscale resolution and recapitulated how every molecule within that cell behaved over the course of a full cell cycle. The work took many years: vast computer resources, large experimental datasets, a suite of experimental and computational techniques and an understanding of the roles, behaviors and physical interactions of thousands of molecular players.

The researchers had to account for every gene, protein, RNA molecule and chemical reaction occurring within the cell to recreate the timing of cellular events. For example, their model had to accurately reflect the processes that allow the cell to double in size prior to cell division.

Researchers have uncovered evidence for our sun joining a mass migration of similar "twins" leaving the core regions of our galaxy, 4 to 6 billion years ago. The team created and studied an unprecedentedly accurate catalog of stars and their properties using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite. Their discovery sheds light on the evolution of our galaxy, particularly the development of the rotating bar-like structure at its center.

While archaeology on Earth studies the human past, galactic archaeology traces the vast journey of stars and galaxies. For example, scientists know that our sun was born around 4.6 billion years ago, more than 10,000 light years closer to the center of the Milky Way than we are today.

While studies of the composition of stars support this theory, this has long proven a conundrum for scientists. Observations reveal an enormous bar-like structure at our galactic center which creates a "corotation barrier," which makes it difficult for stars to escape so far from the center.

So how did we get here? To answer this question, a team led by Assistant Professors Daisuke Taniguchi from Tokyo Metropolitan University and Takuji Tsujimoto from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan have undertaken an unprecedentedly large study of solar "twins," stars which have very similar temperature, surface gravity, and composition to our sun. The team has published their findings in two papers in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

They used data taken by the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite mission, a daunting trove of observations from two billion stars and other objects. They created a catalog of 6,594 stellar "twins," a collection around 30 times larger than previous surveys.

From this immense list, they were able to obtain the most accurate picture to date of the ages of these stars, carefully correcting for selection bias of stars which are easier to see.

Extra virgin olive oil is a fundamental pillar of the Mediterranean diet and is well known for supporting heart and metabolic health. Scientists have long recognized these benefits, but its potential influence on the brain through the digestive system has received far less attention.

New research led by scientists from the Human Nutrition Unit at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), the Pere Virgili Health Research Institute (IISPV), and CIBERobn suggests that extra virgin olive oil may help protect cognitive function by shaping the gut microbiota.

Improved cognitive function and more diverse microbiota
The findings showed that participants who regularly consumed virgin olive oil instead of refined olive oil experienced improvements in cognitive performance. These individuals also had greater diversity in their gut microbiota, which is considered an important indicator of digestive and metabolic health.

By comparison, people who consumed refined olive oil tended to show a decline in microbiota diversity over time.

For decades, scientists have dreamed of creating a universal vaccine capable of protecting against many different pathogens. The idea has often been compared to a Holy Grail of medicine — a goal that seemed almost impossible to achieve.

Now, researchers at Stanford Medicine and their collaborators say they may have taken a major step toward that vision. In a study conducted in mice, the team developed an experimental vaccine designed to defend against a wide variety of respiratory threats, including viruses, bacteria, and even allergens. The vaccine is administered through the nose — such as with a nasal spray — and produced broad immune protection in the lungs that lasted for several months.

The findings, published in Science, showed that vaccinated mice were protected from SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses, as well as from Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter baumannii (common hospital-acquired infections). The animals were also shielded from house dust mites (a common allergen). According to Bali Pulendran, PhD, the Violetta L. Horton Professor II and professor of microbiology and immunology, who served as senior author of the study, the vaccine has demonstrated protection against an unusually wide range of respiratory dangers tested so far.

If future research confirms these results in people, the approach could eventually replace several yearly vaccines for seasonal respiratory infections and also serve as a rapid defense against emerging pandemic viruses.

As it goes, there are many reasons why dung is so important to dung beetles - including all of the above!

See how and why their lives centre around this smelly substance in this week’s Surprising Science! 🪲

We’ve finally seen a star exploding in real time. For the first time, we have a front-row seat to one of the most violent events in the universe: a supernova. But there’s a catch - the shape of the explosion was not what we expected. In this video, we investigate the inner workings of the blast to find out what’s really going on inside.

0:00 We Saw a Supernova
5:09 Type II Supernovae
7:56 Collapse
8:44 Shockwave
9:42 Explosion
11:40 Polarisation Patterns
14:14 Neutrinos
15:36 Jets
16:57 SN 2024ggi
20:15 Catching More Supernovae

You could fit about a dozen of them across the full stop at the end of this sentence. Under a microscope they look like tiny eight legged bears shuffling around in slow motion. They have been frozen, boiled, irradiated, sent into the vacuum of open space and brought back alive. Scientists have been studying them for over two hundred years and they still have the capacity to astonish. Their name is tardigrade, though most people know them by the rather more charming nickname of water bears. And right now, they might be one of our best tools for figuring out how to survive on Mars.

A team of researchers from Penn State University has just published a study that used tardigrades in a genuinely novel way, not to test how tough they are, but to test how tough Mars is. Specifically, they wanted to understand how the planet's regolith, the loose mineral deposits that cover the Martian surface rather like soil covers our own, would interact with living animals. Could it ever be adapted to support plant growth for future human explorers? And could it actually help protect the planet from contamination that humans might inadvertently bring with them?

To find out, they mixed active tardigrades with two different simulated Martian soils, both designed to precisely replicate the mineral and chemical composition of regolith sampled by NASA's Curiosity Rover from a region called the Rocknest deposit, inside the Gale Crater.

The first simulant, known as MGS-1 was designed to represent the Martian surface broadly and yielded terrible results. Within just two days, the tardigrades showed severely reduced activity. For an animal that routinely shrugs off the vacuum of space, that is extraordinary. The second simulant was still inhibitory but far less damaging, which itself tells researchers something important about exactly which aspects of Martian soil pose the greatest risk.

Then came the surprise. When the team rinsed the MGS-1 simulant with water before introducing fresh tardigrades, the damage almost vanished entirely. Something in the soil, possibly dissolved salts or another soluble compound, was responsible for the harm, and water washed it away. The same property that made the regolith so hostile to life also makes it a potential natural barrier against Earthly contamination. Mars, in a sense, may have its own built in defence system.

Researchers have identified segments of “flipped” DNA that may allow fish to adapt rapidly to new environments and eventually form new species. These unusual genetic changes appear to function as evolutionary “superchargers,” helping populations diversify at remarkable speed.

Why does Earth contain such a vast variety of plants and animals? One of the central questions in biology is how new species originate and how the extraordinary diversity of life developed over time.

Cichlid fish in Lake Malawi in East Africa provide an important example. Within this single lake, more than 800 species have emerged from a shared ancestor. This diversification happened in far less time than it took humans and chimpanzees to split from their own common ancestor.

Even more striking is that this evolutionary explosion took place in the same body of water. Some cichlids evolved into large predators, while others specialized in grazing on algae, filtering sand for food, or feeding on plankton. Over time, each species adapted to its own ecological niche.

Searching the Genome for Answers
Scientists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Antwerp set out to understand how this rapid evolutionary change occurred. Their findings were published in the journal Science.

The research team examined the DNA of more than 1,300 cichlid fish to see whether any unusual genetic features might explain the group’s extraordinary rate of diversification. “We discovered that, in some species, large chunks of DNA on five chromosomes are flipped – a type of mutation called a chromosomal inversion,” said senior author Hennes Svardal from the University of Antwerp.

In most animals, reproduction involves a process called recombination. During this process, genetic material from each parent is shuffled and mixed together.

However, recombination is largely prevented inside a chromosomal inversion. As a result, the group of genes contained in that flipped section remains linked and is passed down together from one generation to the next. This preserves useful combinations of genes that support survival in specific environments, which can accelerate evolutionary change.

“It’s sort of like a toolbox where all the most useful tools are stuck together, preserving winning genetic combinations that help fish adapt to different environments,” said first author Moritz Blumer from Cambridge’s Department of Genetics.

Bones fractured in a (skiing) accident often mend without medical intervention. However, when a break is especially severe, or a bone tumor must be surgically removed, doctors may place an implant to stabilize the area and help the bone knit back together.

These implants are commonly made from the patient’s own bone, referred to as autografts, or from metal or ceramic materials. One major limitation of many current treatments is that harvesting autografts requires a second surgical procedure. Metal implants also present challenges. Because they are typically much stiffer than natural bone, they can loosen over time and reduce long-term stability.

Taking biology into account
Bone is not simply a hard, lifeless structure. It is a living organ filled with an intricate system of tiny channels and hollow spaces.

“For proper healing, it is vital that biology is incorporated into the repair process,” says Xiao-Hua Qin, Professor of Biomaterials Engineering at ETH Zurich. For healing to succeed, different types of cells must first move into the implant and establish themselves there before new bone tissue can form.

With this in mind, Qin and his team, working alongside ETH Professor Ralph Müller, developed a new type of hydrogel designed for future implant use. The material has a soft, jelly-like consistency and slowly dissolves inside the body. It could potentially be customized for individual patients

In the absence of gravity, electrostatic forces can induce semi-stable orbital motion between charged bodies.

Using a homemade Van Der Graff generator to charge droplets with opposite polarity to a statically charged rod create these crazy orbits!

Life's capacity to survive in simulated lunar and Martian soils has been explored in two papers published in Scientific Reports. Treating simulated lunar soil with both symbiotic fungi and worm-produced compost can significantly improve the likelihood of reproduction for chickpea plants growing in the soil, indicates one study. A separate paper suggests that some microbes may be able to absorb enough water from the atmosphere to grow in simulated Martian soil at atmospheric humidity levels comparable to those on the planet.

Global warming has accelerated since 2015, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). After accounting for known natural influences on global temperature, the research team detected a statistically significant acceleration of the warming trend for the first time.

Over the past 10 years, the estimated warming rate has been around 0.35°C per decade, depending on the dataset, compared with just under 0.2°C per decade on average from 1970 to 2015. This recent rate is higher than in any previous decade since the beginning of instrumental records in 1880.

"We can now demonstrate a strong and statistically significant acceleration of global warming since around 2015," says Grant Foster, a US statistics expert and co-author of the study, which was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

"We filter out known natural influences in the observational data, so that the 'noise' is reduced, making the underlying long-term warming signal more clearly visible," Foster added.

Short-term natural fluctuations in global temperature caused by El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles can mask changes in the long-term rate of warming. In their data analysis, which is based on measurement data, the researchers worked with five large, established global temperature data sets (NASA, NOAA, HadCRUT, Berkeley Earth, ERA5).

"The adjusted data show an acceleration of global warming since 2015 with a statistical certainty of over 98%, consistent across all data sets examined and independent of the analysis method chosen," explains Stefan Rahmstorf, PIK researcher and lead author of the study.

Researchers have uncovered specific biological changes in taste buds that could help explain why a small number of people continue to struggle with taste loss long after a COVID-19 infection.

The study, published in Chemical Senses, is the first to directly connect patients’ lingering taste complaints with measurable abnormalities inside the cells responsible for detecting flavor.

For decades, researchers have recognized that Alzheimer’s disease is marked by the buildup of toxic protein fragments in the brain. What has remained unclear is exactly how and where those harmful fragments are generated.

In a new study, scientists at Northwestern University report that they have identified both the location and timing of this toxic buildup in Alzheimer’s patients. The team also found that an inexpensive drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can interrupt the process before the damage begins.

Using a combination of animal models, lab-grown human neurons, and brain tissue from individuals at high risk for Alzheimer’s, the researchers focused on a particularly harmful fragment known as amyloid-beta 42. They discovered that this peptide accumulates inside synaptic vesicles, the small sacs neurons use to release chemical signals and communicate with one another.

When the scientists treated animals and human neurons with levetiracetam, a widely prescribed anti-seizure medication that has been available for decades, the drug blocked the formation of amyloid-beta 42. By preventing production of the peptide, levetiracetam stopped the chain of events that leads to amyloid plaque buildup.

“While many of the Alzheimer’s drugs currently on the market, such as lecanemab and donanemab, are approved to clear existing amyloid plaques, we’ve identified this mechanism that prevents the production of the amyloid-beta 42 peptides and amyloid plaques,” said corresponding author Jeffrey Savas, PhD, associate professor of behavioral neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Our new results uncovered new biology while also opening doors for new drug targets.”

In the critical hours after an offshore oil spill, response teams must make a difficult choice: allow the slick to spread or set it on fire.

When responders ignite the oil, they create what is known as an ‘in-situ’ fire pool. This method can prevent oil from drifting and contaminating fragile marine ecosystems — but it comes at a heavy cost. Thick smoke rises into the air, soot and other pollutants spread through the atmosphere, and a layer of partially burned residue remains on the ocean surface.

In a first-of-its-kind large-scale experiment, scientists tested a different strategy: enormous fire whirls, spinning columns of flame that rise vertically like a tornado instead of spreading across the water.

Fire Whirls: A Cleaner, Faster Oil Spill Solution
This rotating column acts like a powerful engine. As it spins, it pulls in extra oxygen, which allows the flame to burn hotter and more efficiently than a traditional fire pool.

The improvement was dramatic. Compared with standard in-situ fires, the fire whirl generated 40 percent less soot and burned up to 95 percent of the oil, leaving behind far fewer hazardous particles and toxic remnants.

Scientists at Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan have identified a new and unexpected behavior in cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus). When shown a mirror, these small reef fish did more than appear to recognize their reflections. They also began interacting with the mirror using a piece of food, suggesting a level of cognitive sophistication not typically associated with fish. The findings indicate that cleaner wrasse may be capable of “contingency testing,” a complex mental process most often observed in highly intelligent marine mammals such as dolphins.

The research team was led by Specially Appointed Researcher Shumpei Sogawa and Specially Appointed Professor Masanori Kohda at the Graduate School of Science. In earlier work, the group demonstrated that cleaner wrasse can identify themselves in photographs.

In the current study, the scientists observed new behaviors during a series of mirror test experiments, a widely used method for evaluating self-recognition and animal cognition. Previous research had already shown that cleaner wrasse respond to their reflections in ways consistent with self-recognition.