News Planetary Science A possible new dwarf planet skirts the solar system’s edge The faraway object travels in a weird, wide orbit A newly discovered object called 2017 OF201, likely a dwarf planet, travels in an extremely wide elliptical orbit, a new study suggests. The orbit of the dwarf planets Sedna and Pluto are shown for reference. Tony873004/Wikimedia CommonsBy McKenzie Prillaman June 6, 2025 at 11:00 am A possible cousin of Pluto seems to be circling the far reaches of the solar system. The dwarf planet candidate 2017 OF201 travels in a superwide orbit, with the sun relatively near one end of its huge elliptical path, researchers report in a paper submitted May 21 to arXiv.org. Its route differs from those of other distant large objects in a way that may challenge the idea that the solar system houses an undiscovered planet. For around a decade, researchers have been hunting for a planet beyond Pluto, demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006. The gravitational pull of an unknown giant planet — dubbed Planet Nine or Planet X — could explain the clustered orbits of several faraway objects, whose routes are all roughly oriented the same way. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #possible #new #dwarf #planet #skirts

News Space A private Japanese spacecraft failed on its way to the moon’s surface  A lost signal marks the second imperfect attempt at a lunar landing for Tokyo-based company ispace The Resilience lunar lander, owned by Tokyo-based company ispace, attempted to touch down on the moon’s surface on June 5. The spacecraft contains several payloads, including a micro rover called Tenacious. ispace By McKenzie Prillaman 6 hours ago A Japanese lunar lander called Resilience failed to softly touch down on the moon’s surface on June 5. The spacecraft’s status is currently unknown after Tokyo-based company ispace lost communication with it, but the lander was unable to decelerate properly. The company is calling it quits on the current mission. “This is our second failure, and by these results, we have to really take it seriously,” ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada said during a June 5 press briefing. “We have to do some analysis to find out what caused” the problems. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #private #japanese #spacecraft #failed #its

News Earth Small earthquakes can have a big impact on the movements of major faults The little quakes can disrupt the growth of slow-slip events along megathrust faults Megathrust faults can generate some of Earth’s largest quakes. One example is the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, which rocked Japan and fomented a tsunami that devastated coastal areas, as shown. These same faults can also release immense amounts of seismic energy over days or weeks in harmless slow-slip events. enase/Getty Images By Nikk Ogasa 15 hours ago Seismic symphonies of minor earthquakes may affect grand movements on major faults. Small and distant earthquakes can disrupt the growth of slow-slip events — gradual fault movements that can release tremendous amounts of energy at gentle tempos, a new analysis of seismic data suggests. Reported in the May 16 Science Advances, the research shows that the more frequently small earthquakes occur near a fault’s slow-slip zone, the less synchronized the slipping becomes. Megathrust faults — massive fractures where one tectonic plate pushes under another — are notorious for hatching Earth’s most devastating temblors. These same faults can also slide steadily for days or weeks in slow-slip events while emitting faint vibrations called tectonic tremor. First identified around two decades ago, these softly humming events can shift stress on faults and may influence the timing of large, destructive earthquakes. But it’s not clear why these enigmatic events can grow for hundreds of kilometers along some faults while remaining restricted to small parts of others. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #small #earthquakes #can #have #big

Great star corals in the grip of disease have been saved with probiotics — beneficial bacteria that attack or displace invading pathogens or possibly trigger immune responses to them. What’s causing this deadly disease remains unidentified. But researchers at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Fla., were able to successfully halt progression of the disease’s symptoms, the team reports June 5 in Frontiers in Marine Science. The condition is called stony coral tissue loss disease and is characterized by white lesions that lead to the loss of polyps — tiny soft-bodied organisms similar to sea anemones — blanketing coral. Eventually, nothing but the white coral skeleton is left behind. The disease emerged in Florida in 2014 and has spread rampantly throughout the Florida Keys and the Caribbean. A great star coralcolony is infected with stony coral tissue loss disease on the coral reef in Fort Lauderdale. The lesion, where the white band of tissue occurs, typically moves across the coral, killing coral tissue along the way. Kelly Pitts/Smithsonian Researchers suspect that the disease is bacterial in nature. Antibiotic treatments can offer a quick fix, but these drugs do not prevent reinfection and carry the risk of the mysterious pathogen building resistance against them. So, in late 2020, the Smithsonian group tried for a more sustainable solution, giving probiotics to 30 infected great star coral colonies. The helpful microbes came from corals tested in the lab that showed resistance to the disease. “We noticed that one of the coral fragments would not get infected … so one of the first things we did was try to culture the microbes that are on this coral,” says microbiologist Blake Ushijima, who developed the probiotic used in the team’s experiment. “These microbes produce antibacterial compounds … and one had a high level of activity against bacteria from diseased corals,” acting as a “pro” biotic, by somehow neutralizing pathogens. The identified microbe, a bacterium called McH1-7, became the active ingredient in a paste delivered by divers to several infected colonies. They covered these colonies with plastic bags to immerse them in the probiotic solution, injecting the paste into the bags using a syringe. They also applied the paste directly to other colonies, slathering lesions caused by the disease. A probiotic paste of McH1-7 is applied to the disease lesion of a great star coralcolony infected with stony coral tissue loss disease. The paste was then smoothed flat with a gloved hand so that all apparently infected tissue was covered by the lesion-specific treatment.Kelly Pitts/Smithsonian For two and a half years, the team monitored the corals’ health. The probiotics slowed or stopped the disease from spreading in all eight colonies treated inside bags. On average, the disease’s ugly advance was held to only 7 percent of tissue, compared with an aggressive 30 percent on untreated colonies. The paste put directly on the coral had no beneficial effect. The results are encouraging, but coauthor Valerie Paul cautions against declaring the probiotic a cure. She doubts the practicality of swimming around with heavily weighted plastic bags and putting them on corals. And, she points out, the study was limited to one species of coral, when the disease plagues over 30. Sponsor Message Still, Ushijima considers the study a proof of concept. “The idea of coral probiotics has been thrown around for decades, but no one has directly shown their effects on disease in the wild,” he says. “I think it’s very exciting because it’s actually opening the door to a new field.” #probiotics #helped #great #star #corals

News Astronomy A dwarf galaxy just might upend the Milky Way’s predicated demise The Large Magellanic Cloud could prevent a smashup between the Milky Way and Andromeda There’s about a 50 percent chance that the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy will merge into a single giant galaxy, dubbed Milkomeda, in the next 10 billion years, a new analysis shows. B. Whitmore/STScI, the Hubble Heritage Project, NASA, ESA By Nikk Ogasa 17 hours ago It may come down to a coin toss as to whether the Milky Way collides with the Andromeda Galaxy within 10 billion years. While scientists have previously reported that a convergence was certain, an analysis of the latest data suggests the odds are only about 50 percent, researchers report June 2 in Nature Astronomy. The Milky Way’s largest satellite system — the Large Magellanic Cloud — may be our galaxy’s saving grace, the study shows. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #dwarf #galaxy #just #might #upend

News Science & Society Students’ mental health imperiled by billion cuts to school funding Cutting mental health services will harm students over the long term, educators say The Parent Empowerment Program, or PEP, at La Mesa–Springs Valley School District in San Diego helps caregivers and their children work through various challenges. Here, mother Janet Walton leads a group activity aimed at helping children share. That includes Walton’s son, Elijah, who is passing a toy to a peer. LMSVSD PEP By Sujata Gupta May 29, 2025 at 11:00 am Four-year-old Elijah’s task was to draw a penguin, his favorite animal, and then rip up the paper so the scraps could be used for another project. The adults leading the project hoped that making Elijah uncomfortable would help the preschooler navigate similar tricky situations in his daily life. “He was not having it,” recalls Elijah’s mother, Janet Walton. “He freaked out.” For most toddlers, ripping up a beloved drawing would be a challenging ask. But Elijah’s struggles went beyond the norm. After a particularly bad tantrum at public preschool last year, a mental health expert with the La Mesa–Spring Valley School District in San Diego referred Walton to the Parent Empowerment Program, or PEP. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #students #mental #health #imperiled #billion

News Animals How luna moths grow extravagant wings Warm temperatures, not just predator pressure, may favor long, bat-fooling streamers Long, skinny streamers on the hind wings of luna moths tend to evolve in certain climate conditions, a new study shows. Keith Ramos/USFWS By Susan Milius 17 hours ago For the first time, biologists have linked the ribbony “tails” streaming from big, green luna moths’ hind wings with, of all things, a cozy climate. Those dangling wing tails rank among such evolution-was-drunk novelties as the narwhal’s single unicorn tusk or the peacock’s giant feather train. Wing streamers with twisting or cupped ends have evolved independently at least five times in the family of luna and other moon moths, says behavioral ecologist Juliette Rubin, now at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Balboa, Panama. Her new data crunch of environmental factors links the ribbony tails with growing up in a long stretch of even temperatures, she and colleagues report May 7 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #how #luna #moths #grow #extravagant

News Anthropology Males of this ancient human cousin weren’t always bigger than females Proteins from a collection of fossils hint at sex and genetic differences in P. robustus A new analysis of proteins preserved in fossil teeth provides the first molecular assessment of size differences between the sexes and genetic diversity in an ancient African hominid, Paranthropus robustus. Bernhard Zipfel By Bruce Bower 20 hours ago An ancient, distant human cousin from southern Africa called Paranthropus robustus has for the first time revealed molecular clues to its evolutionary status. Protein sequences preserved in four partial P. robustus teeth from different individuals that lived roughly 2 million years ago indicate that larger and smaller fossils of this hominid species cannot always be classed as male or female, as previously thought, researchers report in the May 29 Science. Sequences of a protein derived from a gene located only on the Y, or male, sex chromosome in present-day humans enabled the scientists to identify two teeth as having belonged to males, molecular biologist Palesa Madupe of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues say. One of those teeth was previously thought to have come from a female, based on its small size. Closer analyses of the two teeth lacking that male-specific protein indicated that those fossils, which are around the same size as the smaller male tooth, came from females. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #males #this #ancient #human #cousin

News Planetary Science Venus’ tectonics may be actively reshaping its surface The planet’s surface may be tectonically active in ways that are similar to Earth’s The 1989 Magellan mission captured images of Venus’ rounded mountain belts called coronae, which may be evidence of tectonic activity. JPL-Caltech/NASA By Nikk Ogasa 17 seconds ago Things may be moving on Venus’ surface. In 1983, researchers discovered that the planet’s surface was speckled with strange, circular landforms. These rounded mountain belts, known as coronae, have no known Earthly counterparts, and they’ve remained enigmatic for decades. But hot plumes of rock upwelling from Venus’ mantle are shaping the mysterious landforms, a new analysis suggests. If true, that mean that Venus’ surface is tectonically active, and not merely a stagnant layer, researchers report May 14 in Science Advances. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #venus #tectonics #actively #reshaping #its

News Animals Genetics might save the rare, elusive saola — if it’s not already extinct Environmental DNA could help scientists search for the large deerlike mammals in Southeast Asia The saola “Martha” was captured in Laos in 1996 and survived for a few weeks in a menagerie. She is the only living saola ever seen by Western scientists. World Wildlife Fund By Tom Metcalfe 2 hours ago It’s not looking good for the saola. If it still exists, it is one of the world’s rarest large mammals — a deerlike creature from the mountainous rainforests of Vietnam and Laos that’s been called “Asia’s unicorn” because of its scarcity. But the last living saolawas seen in 2013, in photographs from a motion-triggered trail camera. Even hopeful experts think there are now fewer than 100 still alive. “That number is extremely optimistic,” says University of Copenhagen wildlife geneticist Rasmus Heller. “The real number is probably much lower … and it’s possible that there are actually zero.” Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #genetics #might #save #rare #elusive

News Anthropology Humans used whale bones to make tools 20,000 years ago Beached whales provided Stone Age humans with bones to fashion into hunting weapons Researchers have identified the world’s oldest known whale bone tools. This spear point made of gray whale bone, from a French rock–shelter, dates to between 18,000 and 17,500 years old. Alexandre Lefebvre By Bruce Bower 2 hours ago Western Europeans crafted hunting weapons out of bones from whales stranded on the Atlantic shoreline between 20,000 and 14,000 years ago, researchers report May 27 in Nature Communications. Previously excavated finds at Stone Age cave and rock–shelter sites running from northwestern Spain to southwestern France, some located as far as about 300 kilometers inland, represent the oldest known examples of whale bone tools, say archaeologist Jean-Marc Pétillon of the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France, and colleagues. Implements made of whale bones in other parts of the world, such as the South Pacific islands, date to no more than several thousand years old. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #humans #used #whale #bones #make

Letters to the Editor Readers discuss the biology of sex, plastic in the brain and more By Science News Staff 2 hours ago It’s a matter of size A January executive order by President Donald Trump designates people as female if they make the “large” reproductive celland male if they make the “small” one. But the human sexes don’t fit neatly into a male–female binary due to factors such as genetics and hormones, senior molecular biology writer Tina Hesman Saey reported in “The real biology of sex.” Reader Root Gorelick, a biologist at Carleton University in Ottawa, appreciated the feature and wrote in to add some nuanced points. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #readers #discuss #biology #sex #plastic

Scientists seek out what’s new — discovery is at the core of science, and scientific journals and news organizations often focus on the latest breakthroughs. But getting to an innovation is usually a long game. In this issue, we note the 100th anniversary of the framework of quantum mechanics, the theory that describes how physics at very small scales behaves very differently from the classical world we live in. The quantum world is more like a fun house with seriously warped mirrors: Quantum effects can connect two objects at great distances, or make it possible for a hypothetical cat to be both alive and dead at the same time. Over the last century, that quantum revolution has led to many innovations, including semiconductor technologies, MRIs, lasers and the atomic clocks that make GPS navigation possible. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #long #short #science

News Health & Medicine Wet fingers always wrinkle in the same way The folds follow the paths of blood vessels Finger wrinkle patterns induced by a long soak stay consistent over time, a new study suggests. sellyhutapea/Getty Images By McKenzie Prillaman 3 hours ago Summertime soaks in the pool often leave fingertips shriveled and pruney. Each time someone goes for a dip, their digits wrinkle in the exact same patterns, researchers report in the May Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. That’s because the folds follow the paths of blood vessels below the skin’s surface, which generally stay in place. Many people think that fingers and toes wrinkle when wet because the skin swells when it absorbs water. But around 20 years ago, researchers discovered that the puckering comes from blood vessel constriction. A prolonged soak leads to water entering the skin and diluting the amount of salt in the tissue, which gets signaled to the brain via nerves. The brain then instructs stationary blood vessels to narrow, pulling in the anchored overlying skin in fingers and toes. It’s an evolutionary mechanism that boosts grip strength under water by creating texture. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #wet #fingers #always #wrinkle #same

This month, we visit a trendyspa with an unusual feature: hot mud beds. You lay a plastic sheet on the mud. Then you lay your body upon the sheet. Without any direct contact between mud and body, you spend several minutes enjoying the soft and saunalike heat, sweating all over the plastic. Even though the spa session doesn’t last long, it is said to be wonderfully restorative. One day, three friends arrive. Unfortunately, only two plastic sheets are available. No one wants to miss out; then again, no one wants to lie on someone else’s sweat. “Wait!” says one. “It’s simple! I’ll use one side of the sheet, and you can use the other.” “Are you kidding?” another replies. “That side will be covered in mud.” The first friend smiles. “Not if we plan ahead.” #1: How can all three friends partake in the spa using just two sheets? #2: The next day, five friends visit the spa, and only three sheets are available. Can they all partake?#3: Soon, 10 friends visit the spa. Only five sheets are available. “Someone will have to miss out,” one of them declares. “There’s no way to know that,” says another, “until we at least look for a solution.” Who’s right? #4: Later, the spa introduces a second kind of mud, which must not be mixed with the first. If three friends want to try both muds, how many sheets do they need at minimum?#5: Lurking here is a fully general question, one that mathematical researchers have yet to solve: What’s the minimum number of sheets that allows N friends to experience M kinds of mud if each side of a sheet may touch only a single person or a single kind of mud?While trying these puzzles, I recommend grabbing some index cards or sheets of paper to manipulate. Or if you’re feeling ambitious, grab some plastic sheets, some sweaty friends and a convenient mud patch. Looking for answers? Go to sciencenews.org/puzzle-answers. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Email us at puzzles@sciencenews.org. #math #puzzle #conundrum #sharing

The sloth family tree once sported a dizzying array of branches, body sizes and lifestyles, from small and limber tree climbers to lumbering bear-sized landlubbers.  Why sloth body size was once so diverse, while today’s sloths are limited to just two diminutive tree-dwellers, has been a long-standing question. Scientists have proposed that sloths’ body size might be linked to a wide variety of factors: habitat preferences, diets, changes in global temperature, or pressure from large predators or humans. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #sloths #once #came #dizzying #array

Skip to content News Health & Medicine It’s tricky to transplant a bladder. How surgeons finally did it The team had to navigate deep in the abdomen and tackle a tangle of delicate blood vessels The first successful bladder transplant in a human was done at the University of Southern California as part of a clinical trial for a new treatment option to patients with terminal bladder disease. Nick Carranza, UCLA Health By Payal Dhar 20 seconds ago The first successful human bladder transplant could offer hope for people with bladder problems. On May 4, 2025, Oscar Larrainzar, 41, became the first human to successfully receive a bladder transplant. The surgery was part of a clinical trial developed to demonstrate the feasibility of bladder transplants in patients with terminal bladder diseases. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be about 85,000 new cases of bladder cancer in 2025 in the United States, resulting in about 17,400 deaths, making it the 10th leading cause of cancer death in the country. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #its #tricky #transplant #bladder #how

News Climate Penguin poop gives Antarctic cloud formation a boost Ammonia wafting up from penguin guano in Antarctica is a key ingredient for cooling cloud formation  Adélie penguins walk near a breeding site in coastal Antarctica. Matthew Boyer By Carolyn Gramling 2 hours ago Penguins’ poop may be making Antarctica cloudier — and helping mitigate the regional impacts of climate change. Gases emitted from the birds’ guano are supplying key chemical ingredients to form the seeds of clouds — the tiny particles that clouds coalesce around, researchers report May 22 in Communications Earth & Environment. What penguin guano primarily contributes to the equation is ammonia. Previous studies have found that gaseous ammonia in the atmosphere can combine with sulfuric acid emitted by marine phytoplankton to form tiny particles called cloud condensation nuclei — the seeds of clouds. Those clouds may help cool the planet by reflecting more sunlight back into space. Researchers are keen to understand what drives climate and cloudiness over the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, which can have a powerful impact on the global climate. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #penguin #poop #gives #antarctic #cloud

News Science & Society Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ plan has a major obstacle: Physics The proposed missile defense system has many scientists expressing skepticism Posters depict a conceptual illustration of a planned Golden Dome missile defense system during a news conference at the White House. Mark Schiefelbein/AP photo By Emily Conover 5 minutes ago In sports, the best offense is often a good defense. It’s not clear if the same applies in nuclear war. In the face of nuclear threats from adversaries like Russia, China and North Korea, some politicians are clamoring for a system to reliably protect the United States from incoming missiles. That’s the aim of President Donald Trump’s plan for a next-generation missile defense system, dubbed the “Golden Dome.” Trump announced on May 20 that an architecture had been selected and that the system would be operational before the end of his term, at a cost of billion. But some scientists suggest that implementing such a system, as called for by a January executive order, would be daunting. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #trumps #golden #dome #plan #has

I confess: If I think about skeletons, it’s around Halloween. I especially enjoy the yard displays of larger-than-life skeletons engaging in mundane activities, like walking skeleton dogs. But our own skeletons are something we should be thinking about year-round, especially as we age. Heading into midlife and beyond, bones can lose their heft. A drop below a certain bone density leads to a diagnosis of osteoporosis and bones that are weak and fragile. Osteoporosis can happen to all adults, but it’s more common in women — about 27 percent of U.S. women age 65 and older have the disorder compared with close to 6 percent of men the same age, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sign up for our newsletter We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday. #dont #wait #until #menopause #strengthen