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  • A whole new world of tiny beings challenges fundamental ideas of life
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    LifeThe surprising discovery of entities smaller than viruses raises profound questions about what life is and how it got started 12 February 2025 Natalia KokkinosTheodor Diener had a problem. It was 1967, and he and a colleague had successfully isolated the infectious agent causing potato spindle tuber disease, which devastates crops. But it wasnt like anything they recognised. Although they called it a virus, it didnt behave like one.It took Diener four years to demonstrate that the mysterious entity was something even simpler than a virus: a single naked molecule that could infect the cells of potato plants and thereby reproduce. He suggested calling it a viroid. It was the smallest replicating agent ever identified. At a stroke, Diener had expanded our understanding of life in the microscopic world.You might think that such a dramatic discovery would go, er, viral. Yet hardly anyone noticed. Apart from a few other plant pathologists, the scientific world largely forgot about viroids for half a century. So obscure were they that, in 2020, when Benjamin Lee at the National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Maryland, was advised to try looking into viroids, he had never even heard of them.Since then, thanks to Lee and others, there has been an explosion of discoveries. We now know of thousands of viroids and viroid-like entities, with exotic names like obelisks, ribozyviruses and satellites. They appear to be everywhere, in a huge range of organisms and microorganisms. We have no idea what most of them are doing, including whether they are benign or dangerous. But these simplest-possible replicators raise fundamental questions about what it means to be alive. They may even date back to the origins of
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  • The science behind the gardening hack of adding aspirin to plant water
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    An autumn display of freshly cut ChrysanthemumsGAP Photos/Nicola StockenMost of us will probably have heard of the 1980s tip of popping a soluble aspirin into the vase water of cut flowers to extend their life. Or, if you arent quite as old as I am, maybe you will have come across what sounds like a hipster-era rebrand of the same idea, as an early 2010s internet hack for growing tastier tomatoes. Honestly, some permutation or other of this idea is all over the gardening internet.The rationale behind this seems to be that what perks up humans must
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  • How big is a neutrino? We're finally starting to get an answer
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    Pinning down the size of the neutrino is a tricky taskagsandrew/ShutterstockThe first direct measurement of the size of the neutrino, a fundamental particle, suggests they are at least larger than an atomic nucleus but they could potentially be trillions of times larger.Part of the problem in answering this question is that, rather than being spherical, quantum mechanics tells us that particles are inherently fuzzy waves, moving and vibrating as they travel through space. Physicists mark the boundaries of a particle, and thus its size, by looking for its wave packet, an area inside which the wave vibrates strongly, and beyond which it sharply trails off. AdvertisementFor neutrinos, measuring the wave packet is particularly challenging because these particles rarely interact with normal matter. Until now, we have only calculated the wave packets size indirectly, with estimates spanning a range of 13 orders of magnitude from smaller than an atomic nucleus to as large as a couple of metres, or 10 trillion times bigger.Now, Joseph Smolsky at the Colorado School of Mines and his colleagues have made the first direct measurement of the wave packet, finding that neutrinos must be at least hundreds of times larger than the previous smallest estimate, making them larger than typical atomic nuclei.To do this, Smolsky and his team measured radioactive beryllium as it decayed into lithium, a process called electron capture. When this happens, an electron in the beryllium atom combines with a proton in its nucleus, producing a neutron. This transforms the beryllium atom into lithium, producing a kick of energy that fires the atom in a certain direction and generating a neutrino that fires in the opposite direction to balance the momentum. By putting the beryllium inside very sensitive superconducting detectors and studying it using a particle accelerator, they could then measure the lithium atoms extremely precisely and infer the neutrinos properties. Untangle the weirdness of reality with our subscriber-only, monthly newsletter.Sign up to newsletterThe researchers found that the neutrinos were at least 6.2 picometres, which is hundreds of times larger than the atomic nucleus. It was a little bit surprising, says Smolsky. When I think of an electron capture process, I imagine it within the nucleus because the electron has to overlap with a nucleus. But the limit we showed says that the size of the neutrino is actually much larger than the nucleus itself when it comes out.Technically, this is a very difficult measurement, says Alfons Weber at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. They used a really very neat method to make a precision measurement, something which I thought you could never do.Measuring the size of the neutrino wave packet is important for building future neutrino detectors capable of precisely measuring how often neutrinos switch, or oscillate, between three different types, says Weber.These neutrino oscillations are key to working out why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, but they can only be precisely measured if the neutrino is above a certain size. If it is too small, then the three different types of neutrino, each of a different mass, will spill over the edges of the neutrino wave packet, and mess up the measurements.Journal reference:Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08479-6Topics:neutrinos
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  • The story of how rape became a forensic crime is grim but gripping
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    Rape kits are used to collect evidence of sexual assault for testingJaclyn Nash/National Museum of American HistoryThe Secret History of the Rape KitPagan Kennedy (Vintage Books)While writing Inventology, a book on inventions that create social change and the people behind them, Pagan Kennedy became fascinated by what she describes as a piece of technology designed to hold men accountable for brutalizing women: the rape kit.But who invented it? Newspaper reports credited Chicago police sergeant Louis R. Vitullo at the citys crime lab, but a few accounts mentioned a woman he collaborated with. Kennedy investigated, and
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  • Earth wouldnt have ice caps without eroding rocks and quiet volcanoes
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    Antarctic ice on 1 Jan 2024NASAs Scientific Visualization StudioEarths climate isnt easy to cool down especially if you want it cold enough for ice caps to form. According to a model of the geological forces shaping the climate over the past 420 million years, reaching such ice house temperatures requires a combination of rapid rock erosion removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and less CO2-releasing volcanic activity.Despite record high temperatures on brief human timescales today, Earths climate is currently colder than usual. When you look back in the geological past and you try to
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  • Surprising fossils suggest early animals survived outside of water
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    Trace fossil of an animal that may have lived on a mudflat during the Cambrian PeriodGiovanni MussiniAnimals living about 500 million years ago spent time on mudflats that were periodically exposed to the air. The finding suggests that some of the earliest animals were able to survive outside of water, if only for a limited time tens of millions of years before some animals started living permanently on land.They must have had mechanisms to cope with some of the stressors of this environment, says Giovanni Mussini at the University of Cambridge. There was already the genetic
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  • Farmers used trash to grow crops in barren sand 1000 years ago
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    HumansCrops don't generally thrive in desert-like ground, but 1000 years ago farmers in Israel utilised refuse such as ash and bones to turn sand into fertile land 14 February 2025 One thousand years ago, people along Israels Mediterranean coast dug deeply enclosed plots in the sand, filled them with 80,000 tonnes of trash and used the fertile soil that formed for farming, allowing them to produce crops that would otherwise fail on such harsh ground.This represents the oldest-known, large-scale plot-and-berm system that allows crop-growing in sand, putting it among multiple, less clearly dated sites across the globe. It might even be the origin of such oasis-like agricultural sites in deserts, some of which still exist today, says Joel Roskin at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
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  • Dyes made by microbes could reduce the environmental impact of clothes
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    Pigment-producing microbes growing in Petri dishesColorfixThe colour in our clothes has many serious environmental consequences, from the use of fossil fuel by-products to manufacture dyes to the heavily polluted water left after dyeing. But a UK-based company called Colorifix says it can greatly reduce these impacts by using microbes both to make the dyes and to help fix them to fabrics.Weve had considerable interest in this, because consumers are really starting to think about what they wear and how it damages the environment, says chief science officer Jim Ajioka.
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  • Meet the man who single-handedly tracks every spaceflight mission ever
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    Jonathan McDowell with some of his extensive space archiveMAX ALEXANDERJonathan McDowell has been a load-bearing part of the worlds spaceflight knowledge for more than four decades. His monthly newsletter on the industry Jonathans Space Report details all upcoming launches and has become an essential resource for everyone from keen amateurs to space professionals, while his library of space industry information and ephemera, which occupies around 90 square metres, is one of the most extensive private collections on the subject in the world.But now, McDowell is retiring and searching for a new home for this trove. He spoke
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  • Documentary-maker films the fallout as her husband opts to be a cyborg
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    Pre-implant couple Scott Cohen and Susanna Cappellaro getting marriedStrike MediaMy Husband, the CyborgSusanna CappellaroAvailable to buy digitally from 14 FebruaryAround a decade ago, music industry executive Scott Cohen made a decision that rocked his marriage. His wife, actor and filmmaker Susanna Cappellaro, wasnt a fan of the two titanium piercings near his sternum but they werent the problem. Cradled by metal bars in his chest but not permanently anchored was a small circuit board Cohen co-developed that vibrated whenever he faced north. NorthSense, he said, would enhance his perception of the world and make
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  • Images that capture our timeless obsession with the moon
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    A close-up photograph of an astronauts shoe and shoeprint in the lunar soil, photographed by Buzz Aldrin in July 1969NASA/Johnson Space CenterWe will never stop thinking and talking about the moon, says Matthew Shindell, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.In cities where there is a lot of artificial light that tends to make it hard to look at the stars, the moon still shines very brightly above us. Even though weve kind of obscured the stars, the moon still is this very constant presence in our nighttimes, no matter where we are, he says.In Lunar: A history of the moon in myths, maps and matter, which Shindell edited, 19 authors tell the story of this coexistence between humanity and the celestial body through a series of insightful essays, striking images and detailed maps of the moons geological features.AdvertisementIts a story of how peoples views of the whole universe changed, their views of how physics worked, their views of their place in the universe and what the universes purpose is, says Shindell.Geological maps almost four dozen of themposition Lunar to change its readers understanding of the realities of the moon. They are part of the Lunar Atlas produced by NASA and the United States Geological Survey between 1962 and 1974 and are based on telescope observations, images and samples captured by robotic landers and astronauts.In these maps, the moon is divided into 144 sections called quadrangles, some of which were named as early as the 1600s, when cartographers started sketching what they saw through newly developed telescopes (see below).Three depictions of the Moon by Claude Mellan (1637) are thought to be the earliest detailed and realistic depictions of the lunar surfaceThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkBeyond being scientific documents, the maps revealed the culture of their times. Parts of the moon were named after contemporary monarchs, such as Oceanus Philippicus for King Philip IV of Spain. The moons dark plains were often labelled seas because the earliest observers imagined they were like Earths oceans. A quick look at lunar maps even today can leave you thinking about sailing the Sea of Serenity, or taking a dip in the Bay of Rainbows.The more powerful telescopes became, the more they stoked our imaginings of the moon, says Shindell. One prominent example is the Great Moon Hoax from 1835 when the New York Sun newspaper published a series of false reports about the discovery of life on the moon accompanied by engravings of flying and otherwise fantastical creatures. The same era saw the beginnings and proliferation of science fiction stories about visiting the moon, connecting tales of ancient people worshipping it as a deity to modern writers folding it into their vision of a scientifically advanced future.The Great Moon Hoax (1835) published by The Sun depicts a lunar valley and bat-like flying creatures with human featuresLibrary of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.Shindell says that even with scientific advances, many researchers continued to value a very direct and personal approach to the moon. It became possible to photograph the moon in the 1840s by combining cameras and telescopes, but due to the technological challenges, many lunar cartographers still found their eyes to be the best map-making instrument.The map below shows the Petavius quadrangle, named after 17th-century theologian Denis Ptau, and features a crater of the same name that measures almost 200 kilometres in diameter.Petavius quadrangleDavid Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford LibraryThe quadrangle named after the ancient Roman emperor Theophilus is dotted with many smaller craters a testament to how much of the moons geologic history has been marked by asteroid bombardments. As noted in Lunar, the surface of the moon preserves the history of violence in our solar system, which marked the systems early days. Such history is not evident on Earth where water and life keep reshaping the planets surface.Theophilus quadrangleDavid Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford LibraryThe other map reproduced here shows the Sea of Humors, a plain of what was once lava, dotted with smaller craters.Sea of Humors, or Mare Humorum, quadrangleDavid Rumsey Map Collection, David Rumsey Map Center, Stanford LibraryDuring their visit to the moon in 1969, Aldrin used a lunar surface camera to capture a close-up of his fellow astronauts shoe and the print it made in the lunar soil (see main image). Over the next three years, crews from six different missions from the Apollo programme brought over 380 kilograms of that soil back to Earth for study. A better understanding of moon dust, or regolith, continues to be a top priority, with experiments exploring whether it could be used for making moon-based bricks or growing food.Buzz Aldrin (left) and Neil Armstrong practice using geology tools while wearing their spacewalk suits during a training exercise at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, TexasNASA/JSCNASAs Apollo missions offered a new perspective on our planet, through photographs like the one of Earth rising above the moon, depicted below. It inverts the roles of the two celestial bodies, again underlining that we are as connected to the moon as it is to us.The view of Earth from the moon, captured by the Apollo 8 crew in 1968Lunar and Planetary Institute/NASAAnd the next several years are likely to add chapters to the centuries-long story that is artfully laid out in Lunar. In 2025 alone, almost a dozen spacecraft teams plan to visit the moon.Edgar Mitchell, left, and Alan Shepard participate in lunar surface simulation training at the Kennedy Space Center, July 1970NASA/JSCAs we start sending even more humans to the moon and doing more on the moon, its cultural significance will only increase as it becomes a place thats now tied even more closely to human existence, says Shindell.Topics:
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  • Giant megalodon sharks may have sparred with their jaws
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    Illustration of two sparring megalodonsClarence Shoe Schumaker, Courtesy of the Calvert Marine MuseumSeveral fossil teeth from the giant predatory shark Otodus megalodon show scratch marks that could only have been made by members of their own species, suggesting that thelargest sharks of all time may have fought by sparring with their jaws.Between 23 and 3.6 million years ago, megalodon, which may have grown up to 24 metres long, swam the worlds oceans. Now, Stephen Godfrey at the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland and his colleagues have studied four teeth from fossil sites in North and
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  • Using AI tools like ChatGPT can reduce critical thinking skills
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    Are we losing critical thinking skills to artificial intelligence?Naeblys/AlamyGenerative AI tools can limit users critical thinking when doing tasks. People using generative AI also think less critically when they trust the AI to do a task, such as developing an argument for a paper or presentation. The researchers behind the findings say the solution is to adapt the technology, rather than to limit its use.Lev Tankelevitch at Microsoft Research and his colleagues asked 319 people to take part in a survey. The participants,
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  • Why we may crave dessert even when we are full from dinner
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    You always have room for a sugary treatMarioGuti/iStockphoto/Getty ImagesEven after eating a large meal, most people can still find room for sweets. Now, research in mice shows that the neurons responsible for feelings of fullness are also those that trigger sugar cravings. In other words, there seems to be a neurological basis for our love of dessert.Previous studies have shown that naturally occurring opioids in the brain play a crucial role in sugar cravings. The main producers of these opioids are neurons located in a brain region that regulates appetite, metabolism and hormones, called the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus. These cells, known as pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) neurons, also control feelings of satiety after eating. AdvertisementTo understand whether the cells have a role in sugar cravings, Henning Fenselau at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Germany and his colleagues traced the opioid signals the POMC cells send in the brain. They did so by bathing brain slices from three mice in a fluorescent solution that binds to receptors of these opioids.The brain region with the highest density of these receptors was the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT), known to regulate feeding and other behaviours. That suggested that sugar cravings were related to communication between these two brain regions the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus and the PVT.So, the researchers monitored the activity of neurons in these regions as mice ate their usual food. After 90 minutes, the animals seemed to be full they only nibbled at additional food. At that point, the team gave them a dessert of sugary chow.On average, neuronal activity between the brain regions roughly quadrupled while mice ate their dessert compared with when they ate their regular meal. The spike began before they even started eating the sweets, suggesting this brain pathway dictates sugar cravings.The researchers confirmed this using a technique to switch cells on and off with light, called optogenetics. When they inhibited signals from POMC neurons to the PVT, the mice consumed 40 per cent less dessert.The cell types, which are extremely well known for driving satiety, also release signals that cause the appetite for sugar, and they do so particularly in the state of satiety, says Fenselau. This would explain why animals humans over-consume sugar when theyre actually full.We dont know why this pathway evolved in animals. It may be because sugar is more easily converted into energy than other sources like fats or proteins, says Fenselau. Eating dessert could thus be almost like topping up your gas tank.He hopes this research could lead to new treatments for obesity, though he acknowledges that hunger and cravings are complicated in day-to-day life. There are so many other pathways in the brain that, of course, could override this. We have found this pathway, but how it plays together with many others is something we dont know at the moment.Journal reference:Science DOI: 10.1126/science.adp1510 Topics:
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  • Rewilding is often championed, but could it be bad for biodiversity?
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    A Eurasian beaver that was reintroduced in Devon, UKNature Picture Library/AlamyBetween 1990 and 2014, forests in Europe expanded by 13 million hectares, an area roughly equivalent to the size of Greece but that came with a cost. Crops consumed in the European Union had to be grown somewhere, so, in other countries mainly tropical nations around 11 million hectares of forest was chopped down to make up for the drop in EU production.Such biodiversity leakage is a major problem with conservation and rewilding projects, particularly schemes in higher-income, industrialised countries that tend to have lower biodiversity, says
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  • Californias groundwater drought continues despite torrential rain
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    The Los Angeles river, with the downtown LA skyline in the distanceEkaterina Chizhevskaya/Getty ImagesIn 2023, a parade of atmospheric rivers brought months of heavy precipitation to much of California, filling reservoirs and raising snowpack far above average levels. This flood of water was a major relief after nearly two decades of drought. But a seismic study has now revealed that water on the surface did little to restore the states depleted reserves underground.There was very limited recovery, compared to the groundwater lost over the recent droughts, says Shujuan Mao at the University of Texas at Austin.
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  • Carbon-neutral hydrogen can be produced from farm waste
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    Farm waste could be turned into hydrogen fuelImageryBT/ShutterstockHydrogen could be made using agricultural waste under a new production process that uses less energy than existing methods and emits no greenhouse gases.The novel process turns bioethanol into clean hydrogen and acetic acid, a substance found in vinegar that is also used in the chemicals, food and pharmaceutical industries. AdvertisementMost hydrogen is produced from natural gas; the process is energy-intensive and expensive. Hydrogen can also be produced from water using renewable electricity, but this approach is even more expensive than using natural gas.Graham Hutchings at the University of Cardiff, UK, and his colleagues have developed an alternative method that relies on a catalyst made of platinum and iridium to extract hydrogen from bioethanol and water, without releasing any carbon dioxide. The bioethanol used in the process can be made from waste plant material, Hutchings says.We dont make CO2, and so we are not making something that is an environmental burden, says Hutchings. We are taking a biologically sustainable source of carbon and hydrogen, and we are turning that into renewable hydrogen and renewable acetic acid. Thats quite neat. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month.Sign up to newsletterThe team says the process is likely to be scalable and commercially viable, requiring much less energy to run than making hydrogen from natural gas. The next step is to attract commercial investment to set up a demonstration plant, says Hutchings.Clean hydrogen production will need to scale up radically to enable global decarbonisation, with industries such as steel, chemicals and long-haul transportation expected to need hydrogen fuel.But the world uses only around 15 million tonnes of acetic acid a year, limiting the potential role this new process could play in meeting demand for zero-carbon hydrogen.On a molecule basis we make twice as much hydrogen as acetic acid, says Hutchings. But acetic acid is much heavier than hydrogen. That means producing 15 million tonnes of acetic acid the worlds entire annual demand in this way would yield only just over 1 million tonnes of hydrogen, far less than the demand of a net-zero world. In terms of scale, theres a bit of a mismatch, says Klaus Hellgardt at Imperial College London.Rather, the new process could offer a potential path to decarbonising part of the chemicals industry, with clean hydrogen production an attractive byproduct, says Hutchings. Acetic acid at the moment is effectively made from fossil carbon. And here we are, we can make it from sustainable sources of carbon, he says.Journal reference:Science DOI: 10.1126/science.adt0682Topics:
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  • How the future rise of AI lawyers could force Big Oil to pay up
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    Fossil fuel companies were never going to voluntarily admit to their role in the climate crisis An oil refinery at twilight.Samart Boonyang/AlamyFossil fuel companies were never going to voluntarily admit to their role in the climate crisis. By the late 2020s, people turned to two methods to force the issue. Illegal means involved sabotage, destruction of oil infrastructure and more. Legal methods focused on litigation to force governments to comply with emissions targets and on corporations to pay reparations for past damage. If the energy policies of the 47th US president, Donald Trump, were drill, baby, drill,
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  • Tiny dwarf galaxy might house a supermassive black hole
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    The Large Magellanic Cloud may have its own supermassive black holeAlan Dyer/VWPics/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesA supermassive black hole in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) may be the source of nine stars zooming through our galaxy a surprising hint that dwarf galaxies can host large black holes.This is the first compelling evidence for a supermassive black hole in [a dwarf] galaxy, says Jiwon Jesse Han at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. He estimates the mass of the black hole inside the LMC would be about 600,000 times that of the sun. For comparison,
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  • Mouse brain slices brought back to life after being frozen for a week
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    Reviving samples of mouse brain could bring us closer to freezing whole brainsBSIP SA / AlamySlices of mouse brain that were kept at -150C for up to a week have shown near-normal electrical activity after being warmed up. The results could take us a step closer towards cooling and reviving entire brains for purposes such as putting people in suspended animation for space flights.At the moment, it is not possible, but I think there are existing techniques that can be combined to achieve this, and there is room for careful optimism, says Alexander German at
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  • Most Europeans may have had dark skin until less than 3000 years ago
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    A model of Cheddar Man, a person who lived in Britain 10,000 years ago, based on analysis of his DNASusie Kearley / AlamyA study of ancient DNA from people who lived in Europe between 1700 and 45,000 years ago suggests that 63 per cent of them had dark skin and 8 per cent had pale skin, with the rest somewhere in between. It was only around 3000 years ago that individuals with intermediate or pale skin started to become a majority.Until a few years ago, it was assumed that the modern humans who moved into
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  • Dating apps should fix their problems before saddling us with new ones
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    Simone RotellaFrom lawsuits to fumbled advertising campaigns, are we falling out of love with online dating? Recent Ofcom data showed a decline in UK users, and Gen Z seems to increasingly hanker after in-person romantic spontaneity. More broadly, the rise of online dating has been accompanied by growing social isolation and loneliness, as well as polarisation of attitudes between younger men and women on topics like the value of feminism or ideals of healthy masculinity.To understand these changes, we need to recognise that dating apps have transformed how we connect in two ways: they make our search for intimacy
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  • Virgin Money flusters chatbot, but just try living in Scunthorpe
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    Josie FordFeedback is New Scientists popular sideways look at the latest science and technology news. You can submit items you believe may amuse readers to Feedback by emailing feedback@newscientist.com NDCs TBCEverythings a bit quiet in the fun world of international climate negotiations at the moment. The last big news was Novembers COP29 meeting in Azerbaijan, which was a roaring success for the fossil fuel companies promoting their wares on the sidelines. Then came Donald Trumps return to the White House as US president. He promptly ordered the country to withdraw from the Paris Agreement that governs international climate action. Negotiators could be excused for being a bit shell-shocked.Nevertheless, the wheels of the climate bureaucracy grind on. This year, Paris Agreement signatories are required to submit updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), which are essentially a list of promises to take action to deal with climate change. The deadline was 10 February, and most countries missed it. Climate strategist Ed King noted in his newsletter that three small, hilly countries with lots of sheep (the UK, New Zealand and Switzerland) had managed to submit theirs, but that we would have to wait till later in 2025 for China, India and the EU.AdvertisementNo rush folks; you take your time. Its not like half of Los Angeles just burned to the ground. Have a cup of tea, put your feet up, live your best life. Itll be done when its done.The V-wordReporter Matthew Sparkes draws our attention to the experience of one David Birch, who went online with Virgin Money to discuss some savings accounts, asking its chatbot: I have two ISAs with Virgin Money, how do I merge them? The chatbot responded: Please dont use words like that. I wont be able to continue our chat if you use that language.It seems the online assistant had been programmed to avoid certain words and phrases that had been deemed discriminatory or otherwise offensive, including virgin. After Birch posted angrily about this on LinkedIn, there was some media coverage and Virgin Money apologised and withdrew the chatbot (which was an outdated model anyway).This was yet another example of a recurring problem in online discussions: context is crucial. It is certainly possible to use the letter string V-I-R-G-I-N to be insulting, but it is also the name of a multinational corporation. Tools that simply filter for certain letter strings are liable to block a lot of innocuous messages, while also missing abuse that doesnt rely on obvious slurs.The problem goes back to at least 1996, when AOL refused to allow residents of Scunthorpe in England to create accounts. The towns name contains a letter string that many people find offensive hence the term Scunthorpe problem for such technological mishaps.The virgin incident is just the latest example. The Wikipedia page for the Scunthorpe problem is a treasure trove of inadvertent potty-mouthed humour and, more importantly, surprises. You will probably be able to guess the issues faced by promoters of a certain mushroom with a Japanese name, but we defy readers to anticipate why the New Zealand town of Whakatne, a software specialist and even a London museum fell foul of similar context-blind controls.Readers are welcome to submit their own stories but Feedback cant guarantee our email filters will let them through.Is it finally happening?On 26 January, the website of the Daily Express newspaper issued a major alert: Yellowstone warning as supervolcano could be gearing up to explode. Good gravy, we thought. Could it be that the supervolcano under Yellowstone is going to cease its perennial rumbling and finally let rip, blanketing North America in ash and blotting out the sun?Upon closer inspection, the story was merely reporting the existence of a short YouTube documentary entitled What If the Yellowstone Volcano Erupted Tomorrow? This was released on a channel called What If in March 2020. Feedback felt, and readers may agree, that this did not entirely justify the Expresss headline.Still, it does fill pages. Feedback found a half-dozen articles from early January on exactly this theme, with headlines like Yellowstone crater movement sparks fears of supervolcano explosion as scientists assess risk. This noted that some scientists had found movement deep in the crater and that this was alarming, before quietly noting that the main source was a paper in Nature that used a new imaging technique to determine that the volcano doesnt contain anywhere near enough magma to erupt. Others said this study sparks new debate on where and when it will erupt, which is certainly one way of interpreting a study that says no eruption is imminent.Lurching further back in time: on 23 July last year, there was a small hydrothermal explosion in the Biscuit Basin area of Yellowstone, essentially trapped steam blowing out debris as it escaped the ground. Cue the headline Is Yellowstone going to erupt? This was handily answered by a geophysicist, who explained that volcanoes only erupt if there is enough eruptible magma and pressure, and that neither condition is in place at Yellowstone right now.We tried to go further back, but after the 50th article with pretty much the same headline, Feedbacks brain broke. At this point, there have been so many stories proclaiming a Yellowstone eruption is imminent, were not sure we will believe it even if we see it go off on live TV.Got a story for Feedback?You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This weeks and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
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  • Oil firms' plans for net-zero oil extraction labelled as 'PR spiel'
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    An oil drilling rig in Californias Central ValleyAshley Cooper / AlamyFossil fuel companies are experimenting with using carbon dioxide captured from the air in oil extraction to usher in a new era of planet-friendly net-zero oil but the idea is an illusion, according to researchers.In enhanced oil recovery (EOR), crude oil is extracted by injecting CO2 underground to squeeze out any remaining oil from a depleting reservoir. Combining EOR with CO2 sucked out of the air by direct air capture (DAC) plants will result in net-zero oil, some oil firms claim, a process they hope can
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  • The story of ancient Mesopotamia and the dawn of the modern world
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    The Great Zigguratof Ur, in presentday IraqMohammed Al ali/AlamyBetween Two RiversMoudhy Al-Rashid (Hachette (UK, 20 February); W. W. Norton (US, 12 August))A new and spellbinding book tells the history of the very ancient past of Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Between Two Rivers by Moudhy Al-Rashid, a researcher at the University of Oxford, weaves together the many strands of the story of the region, which covers much of what is now Iraq.Ancient Mesopotamia has languished in obscurity, at least compared with the better-known Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilisations. So
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  • Competition opens to find the world's most perplexing computer code
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    A 2011 entry to the International Obfuscated C Code Contest, designed to look like a manga characterPGM/PPM images and ASCII art by Don, YangComputer programmers are being challenged to write the worlds sneakiest and most confusing code in a competition that opens next week. To win, entrants must find ways to write programs in the C language that baffle judges on first reading, then perform unusual, unexpected or catastrophic tasks when run.The International Obfuscated C Code Contest (IOCCC) began in 1984 and its co-founder, Landon Noll, says it is the longest-running online competition of any kind.
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  • Using common painkiller in pregnancy might raise ADHD risk in children
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    Microscopic view of paracetamol crystalsHenri Koskinen/ShutterstockChildren whose mothers used paracetamol, also known as acetaminophen, during pregnancy are more likely to develop ADHD than those whose mothers didnt, suggests a small study. While far from conclusive, the finding lends weight to the contested idea that the widely used pain reliever may affect fetal brain development.Previous studies on paracetamol and neurodevelopmental conditions have provided conflicting findings. For instance, a 2019 study involving more than 4700 children and their mothers linked use of the painkiller in pregnancy with a 20 per cent greater risk of children developing ADHD. However, an analysis published last year of nearly 2.5 million kids showed no such association when comparing siblings who either were or were not exposed to paracetamol before birth. AdvertisementOne issue is that most of these studies rely on self-reported medication use, a significant limitation given that people may not remember taking paracetamol while pregnant. For example, only 7 per cent of participants in the 2019 study reported using paracetamol during pregnancy far below the 50 per cent seen in other studies. A lot of people take [paracetamol] without knowing it, says Brennan Baker at the University of Washington in Seattle. It could be the active ingredient in some cold medication youre using, and you dont necessarily know.So, Baker and his colleagues used a more accurate metric instead. They looked for markers of the medicine in blood samples collected from 307 women, all of whom were Black and lived in Tennessee, during their second trimester. None of them were taking medications for chronic conditions or had known pregnancy complications. The researchers then followed up with participants once their children were between 8 and 10 years old. In the US, about 8 per cent of children between 5 and 11 years old have ADHD.On average, children whose mothers had markers of paracetamol in their blood were three times as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than children born to mothers who did not even after adjusting for factors like the mothers age, pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), socioeconomic status and mental health conditions among their immediate family members. This suggests that using paracetamol during pregnancy may raise childrens risk of developing ADHD. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday.Sign up to newsletterIt is, however, also possible that the actual factor raising ADHD risk is whatever led someone to take paracetamol in the first place, rather than the drug itself. They havent been able to account for things like the mothers reason for taking [paracetamol], such as headaches or fevers or pains or infections, which we know are risk factors for adverse child development, says Viktor Ahlqvist at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.But Baker believes it is the drug itself that is responsible. A subsequent analysis of tissue samples from 174 of the participants placentas showed that those using paracetamol had distinct metabolic and immune system changes. These changes are similar to those seen in studies that tested the effects of paracetamol in pregnant animals without an infection or underlying health condition.The fact we see the immune upregulation in animal models as well, I think, really strengthens the case for causality, says Baker. There is a lot of prior work showing that elevated immune activation during pregnancy is linked with adverse neurodevelopment.Still, these findings are far from conclusive. For one thing, the study included a small number of participants, all of whom were Black and lived in the same city limiting the generalisability of the findings. For another, it only measured blood markers of paracetamol at one moment in time. These markers stick around for about three days, so the study probably captured more frequent users, and there may be a dose-dependent effect, says Baker.[Paracetamol] is currently the first-line therapeutic option for pain and fever in pregnancy, says Baker. But I think agencies like the [US Food and Drug Administration] and different obstetric and gynaecology associations need to be continually reviewing all available research and updating their guidance.Meanwhile, people should talk with their doctors if they are uncertain whether they should take paracetamol during pregnancy, says Baker.Journal reference:Nature Mental Health DOI: 10.1038/s44220-025-00387-6 Topics:
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  • Dancing turtles help us understand how they navigate around the world
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    Some turtles flap about when a magnetic field suggests they are about to be fedGoforth et al., Nature (2025)Baby loggerhead turtles dance when they are expecting food, a behaviour that researchers have used to investigate their navigation abilities. By learning to associate a magnetic field with a food, this cute display has helped indicate that the sea turtles have two distinct geomagnetic senses to help them navigate during their epic ocean journeys.The turtle dance is a strange pattern of behaviour that emerges quickly in young captive sea turtles when they figure out that food comes from above, says Ken Lohmann at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They would get very excited and raise their heads up out of the water and come swimming over, and often if the food wasnt dropped in immediately, they would begin to flap their flippers and spin around. AdvertisementLohmann and his colleagues realised that there might be a way to use this behaviour to reveal how turtle navigation works. They put juvenile loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in tanks surrounded by coil systems that created magnetic fields in the water, replicating those in their natural habitats.The juveniles spent an equal amount of time in two magnetic fields, but were only fed in one of them. Soon, when they were in a magnetic field they associated with food, the turtles started to dance in anticipation, a learned behaviour reminiscent of Ivan Pavlovs famous dog experiment. We demonstrated that the turtles can learn to recognise magnetic fields, says team member Kayla Goforth at Texas A&M University. The latest science news delivered to your inbox, every day.Sign up to newsletterThe researchers then reproduced a magnetic field near the Cape Verde islands, an area where loggerheads tend to turn south-west when migrating. The team demonstrated that the juvenile turtles also did this. Then the researchers trained other turtles to associate the Cape Verde field with food.One of the ideas about how some animals sense magnetic fields is that there is a complex set of chemical reactions, possibly taking place in the eye, that are influenced by Earths magnetic field.To try to affect any such system, the team used an additional magnetic field that oscillates at a radio wave frequency, which should interfere with that cascade of chemical reactions.Regardless of whether the oscillating field was turned on, the turtles could detect the underlying Cape Verde magnetic signature and would dance, which suggests their map sense isnt dependent on this chemical reception mechanism. But the oscillating field did make them turn in random directions, rather than south-west.Scientists tested for this behaviour via a series of experiments in tanksGoforth et al., Nature (2025)This is good evidence that there are actually two different magnetic senses in the turtles: one that is used for the map sense, one that is used for the compass sense, says Lohmann. The simplest explanation would be that the magnetic map sense does not depend on this chemical magnetoreception process, but the magnetic compass sense does.The magnetic map sense is a positional sense, kind of like a GPS, and their compass sense tells them which way to go, says Goforth. This is probably how theyre getting back to important ecological locations such as feeding grounds and nesting areas.Its a new way of thinking about how turtles are using the magnetic field to navigate, says Katrina Phillips at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Whats really fascinating is we still dont understand how theyre even perceiving the magnetic field. So, this is getting at what is going on mechanistically.Journal reference:Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08554-yTopics:animal behaviour
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  • Strongest evidence yet that Ozempic and Wegovy reduce alcohol intake
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    People report lower alcohol cravings when on semaglutideShutterstock/David MGSemaglutide really does seem to help people who are addicted to alcohol reduce their intake, according to the first randomised clinical trial of the drug for this purpose.Sold under brand names including Wegovy and Ozempic, semaglutide works by mimicking a gut hormone called glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), hence the technical term for it is a GLP-1 receptor agonist. The drug was first used to treat type 2 diabetes, but because it reduces appetite, Wegovy has now also been licensed for weight loss in eight countries. Semaglutide has also shown hints of helping an extraordinary number of medical conditions. AdvertisementWhen it comes to alcohol use, a 2024 study of 84,000 people linked injecting Ozempic or Wegovy with a lower risk of alcoholism. Promising as that result was, it showed correlation rather than causation.But now, Christian Hendershot at the University of Southern California and his colleagues have completed the first randomised clinical trial of semaglutides effect on alcohol use disorder, a type of study that can tease out causation.Their trial involved 48 people in the US who had been diagnosed with the condition, of whom 34 were women and 14 were men. Half received weekly low-dose injections of semaglutide for nine weeks and the rest had placebo injections. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday.Sign up to newsletterThose on semaglutide consumed fewer drinks per drinking session and had reduced weekly alcohol cravings compared with those on placebo.We didnt have any evidence of significant adverse effects or safety concerns with the medication in this population and we found overall that across several different drinking outcomes it reduced the quantity of alcohol that people consumed, says Hendershot.The results are promising, says Rong Xu at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Ohio. Despite the small sample size, this randomised clinical trial highlights the therapeutic potential of semaglutide in treating alcohol use disorder.Ziyad Al-Aly at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, says the study adds yet another piece of evidence that GLP-1RAs [GLP-1 receptor agonists] may be helpful in addiction disorders.Larger studies are needed to corroborate the work, he says, and to answer questions about whether people increase their drinking if they come off semaglutide and what its longer-term effects might be, especially given concerns around loss of bone and muscle mass.The study should be treated as promising initial evidence, says Hendershot, but more research is needed. People shouldnt start taking semaglutide for alcohol problems, he says.This is the first study like this and people are excited about it, but we do have approved and effective medication for alcohol use disorder, so until more research has been done, people are advised to pursue existing medications that are out there and approved right now, says Hendershot.Journal reference:JAMA Psychiatry DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2024.4789 Topics:
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  • 'Sexome' microbes swapped during sex could aid forensic investigations
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    Male and female genitals offer distinct environments for microbesArtur Plawgo/Getty ImagesSexual partners transfer their distinctive genital microbiome to each other during intercourse, a finding that could have implications for forensic investigations of sexual assault.Brendan Chapman at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia, and his colleagues collected swabs from the genitals of 12 monogamous, heterosexual couples, then used RNA gene sequencing to identify microbial signatures for each participant. The researchers asked the couples to abstain from sex for between two days and two weeks, and took follow-up samples a few hours after intercourse. AdvertisementWe found that those genetic signatures from the females bacteria were detectable in their male partners and vice versa, says Chapman. This change in a persons sexome, as the team has dubbed it, could prove useful in criminal investigations, he says.The amount of transfer varied from couple to couple, and the team also found that not even condom use completely prevented the movement of the sexome from one partner to another. However, one major limitation of the results was that the female sexome changed significantly during a period.Chapman says that even though there may be some homogenisation of the microbiomes of long-term, monogamous couples, the bacterial populations clearly differ between the sexes. Get the most essential health and fitness news in your inbox every Saturday.Sign up to newsletterThe great benefit we have with the penile and vaginal microbiomes is that because of the vast difference in the two environments, we observe very different bacteria types on each, says Chapman. For example, the penis is mostly a skin-like surface and thus reflects similarities with the skin microbiome. We see anaerobic bacteria types in the vagina and aerobic types on the penis.As such, many of these bacteria cant persist indefinitely in the opposite environment, he says. Its a bit like comparing land and sea animals there are some that exclusively live in one or the other location and would die if removed, but also some that happily move between and persist.Having established the transfer of bacteria during intercourse, the team is now hoping to prove that an individuals sexome is unique, like a fingerprint or DNA. I think theres enough diversity and uniqueness contained within everyones sexome, but theres still a bit of work to do in order for us to demonstrate that with a technique that is robust enough to meet the challenges of forensic science, says Chapman.If the researchers are able to prove this, it could aid in sexual assault investigations, particularly ones in which a male suspect doesnt ejaculate, has had a vasectomy or uses a condom. Bacterial genetic profiles might be able to corroborate or oppose propositions or testimonies about what happened in alleged sexual assault cases, says Dennis McNevin at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia.Standard profiles of human DNA will always be prioritised in such cases because of their great power to differentiate between individuals, he says, but the sexome could offer a useful alternative. Bacterial genetic profiles may one day complement DNA evidence or may even help point to a perpetrator of a sexual assault in the rare cases where DNA profiles are not available, says McNevin.Topics:
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