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<![CDATA[ Latest from Live Science ]]>
https://www.livescience.com
- Sat, 17 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Early research hints at why women experience more severe gut pain than men do ]]>
+ Differences in how gut cells respond to hormones may help to explain why women experience more frequent and severe gut pain than men do, a study in mice suggests.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects roughly 10% to 15% of people worldwide, with women getting diagnosed with the condition up to twice as often as men do. Symptoms of IBS — which include pain, constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating — can often flare up in response to triggers, like stress or certain foods. But the reasons behind the disparity between women's and men's IBS rates have remained elusive.
Now, researchers have found that estrogen, the primary female sex hormone, may set off a chain reaction in the gut that makes its nerves more sensitive to pain.
"We've long suspected that female hormones play a role in gut pain, but the exact mechanism was unclear," senior study author David Julius, a neurophysiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, told Live Science. "Our findings show a clear pathway for how estrogen can amplify pain signals."
The study, published Dec. 18 in the journal Science, first compared gut pain responses in male and female mice by recording nerve activity in response to gut stimulation and observing their reactions to mild colon inflation. Both tests showed that female mice had more sensitive guts at baseline.
Removing the mice's ovaries to stop estrogen production reduced this sensitivity to male-like levels, however. And restoring estrogen to normal levels brought back the increased pain response seen in female mice.
To find out where and how estrogen exerts its effects, the team examined different gut cells. Based on earlier work, they expected estrogen receptors to be on enterochromaffin cells, which produce about 90% of the body's serotonin, a chemical messenger involved in activating pain-sensing nerves that send signals to the brain. But surprisingly, the team found estrogen receptors not on enterochromaffin cells, but on specialized, rare cells in the lining of the gut.
When these cells, known as L-cells, detect estrogen, they crank up their production of a receptor called OLFR78. This receptor senses short-chain fatty acids, which are byproducts made when gut bacteria digest food. The addition of extra receptors makes L-cells more sensitive to these byproducts, and in turn, they release more of a hormone that helps tell the brain that the stomach is full immediately after a person eats.
To better understand this chain reaction, the researchers grew miniature models of the gut in the lab. They found that the fullness hormone, called PYY, also signals nearby enterochromaffin cells that then release extra serotonin. That serotonin then activates pain-sensing nerves. This chain reaction set off by estrogen may potentially explain why women experience more severe gut pain than men do.
Experiments in genetically engineered mice that lacked estrogen receptors on L-cells confirmed the cells' role in gut sensitivity, as those mice showed weaker nerve responses and reduced serotonin release compared with mice with intact receptors.
"Since estrogen levels fluctuate with the menstrual cycle, this mechanism provides insight into the changes in IBS severity seen in women," said Marissa Scavuzzo, an assistant professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine who was not involved in the study.
"It also validates the experiences of higher-estrogen or menstruating patients," she said, "which is important because differences in pain sensation in women have historically been overlooked or dismissed."
The findings, though preliminary, may also inform future therapies for gut pain. "PYY and OLFR78 could be promising targets for treating IBS in women," Julius suggested. The work may also help to explain why "low-FODMAP" diets, which aim to reduce the intake of sugars that feed gut bacteria, can ease IBS symptoms in some patients, he added.
Scavuzzo agreed that the work might point to promising treatments. "By pinpointing PYY and L-cell signaling, this study identifies concrete molecular targets that could guide more precise therapies for IBS," she said.
Additionally, the study "highlights the importance of considering how hormonal changes influence IBS symptoms, not only in menstruating women but also in post-menopausal patients and those receiving hormone therapy as part of gender-affirming care."
Translating these findings from mice to people will require caution. Human guts are more complex than those of mice, and factors such as lifestyle, genetics and gut-microbe diversity can influence individuals' hormone-gut interactions.
"Mouse models give us a starting point," Julius said, "but clinical studies are essential before we can make firm conclusions about human gut pain."
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/health/early-research-hints-at-why-women-experience-more-severe-gut-pain-than-men-do
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 22:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:26:45 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ 'Like watching a cosmic volcano erupt': Scientists see monster black hole 'reborn' after 100 million years ]]>
+ Scientists have observed a supermassive black hole waking up from a nearly 100 million-year nap.
The black hole lies at the center of a gigantic galaxy that's emitting extremely strong radio waves. A new analysis of these radio emissions reveals the black hole once spewed gargantuan jets of plasma hundreds of thousands of light-years into space, before suddenly shutting off sometime in the distant past. Those jets are now active once again, and they are interacting in complex and chaotic ways with the superheated gas around them, according to the new study.
"It's like watching a cosmic volcano erupt again after ages of calm — except this one is big enough to carve out structures stretching nearly a million light-years across space," study co-authorShobha Kumari, an astronomer at Midnapore City College in India, said in astatement.
Galactic engine trouble
Only 10% to 20% of supermassive black holes have jets that emit radio signals. In these galaxies, a spinning disk of dust and plasma swirls around the black hole, regularly feeding it large amounts of matter. This infalling matter creates a tangled magnetic field that can fling some matter away from the black hole in giant jets. Changes in the disk can cause these radio jets to turn off and on in rare cases.
In the new study, published Jan. 15 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, the researchers used the Low-Frequency Array, a radio telescope network located primarily in the Netherlands, to find more than 20 galaxy clusters that housed radio galaxies with irregularly shaped jets. They focused on one such galaxy, called J1007+3540, with a particularly unusual footprint.
The active black hole (at the center of the area marked 'host galaxy') and its twin lobes of high-energy radio jets. (Image credit: LOFAR/Pan-STARRS/S. Kumari et al.)
The giant galaxy has large, diffuse lobes of plasma that indicate past jet activity dating back some 240 million years. But within those lobes are smaller, brighter plasma jets that are just 140 million years old, the team found. That suggested that the active galactic nucleus (AGN) — the central region that houses a galaxy's supermassive black hole — had kicked back on after a period of silence.
"This dramatic layering of young jets inside older, exhausted lobes is the signature of an episodic AGN — a galaxy whose central engine keeps turning on and off over cosmic timescales," Kumari said.
The space between the galaxies in the cluster that includes J1007+3540 is filled with superheated gas known as the intracluster medium. That gas interacts with the radio jets, bending and shaping them as they extend from the AGN. One of the two older lobes is squished sideways and back toward its source by the surrounding gas. The other lobe has a long, kinked tail that suggests the intracluster medium is interacting with the jets in a different way.
"J1007+3540 is one of the clearest and most spectacular examples of episodic AGN with jet-cluster interaction, where the surrounding hot gas bends, compresses, and distorts the jets," study co-authorSurajit Pal, a physicist at the Manipal Centre for Natural Sciences in India, said in the statement.
Observing J1007+3540 will help researchers determine how often AGNs turn on and off and how old jets interact with their surroundings. In future work, the team plans to collect high-resolution observations of the galaxy to map how the jets propagate through the intracluster medium, according to the statement.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/like-watching-a-cosmic-volcano-erupt-scientists-see-monster-black-hole-reborn-after-100-million-years
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:45:08 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 21:45:08 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Tiny improvements in sleep, nutrition and exercise could significantly extend lifespan, study suggests ]]>
+ Small changes in exercise, sleep and dietary habits could do wonders for people's health and possibly extend their overall lifespan, a large U.K. study suggests.
The research, published Jan. 13 in the journal eClinicalMedicine, sought to find the smallest possible lifestyle improvements that could measurably lengthen people's lifespans. The researchers searched within data collected from almost 60,000 people in the UK Biobank cohort, a repository of medical and lifestyle data from hundreds of thousands of U.K. adults.
The team linked the participants' documented habits to their theoretical overall longevity and health, as calculated using statistical modelling. They found that people who slept as little as five extra minutes daily, engaged in just two extra minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, and added a half serving of vegetables per day tended to live significantly longer than the worst performers — meaning those whose sleep habits, exercise, and nutrition patterns put them in the bottom 5% of the overall cohort.
The former group had an extra year of overall lifespan compared with the latter, according to the statistical model.
That's not to say that adding a few minutes of exercise or sleep and making small changes to diet will guarantee an extra year of life, Stephen Burgess, a statistician at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email.
"By itself, this study does not prove that these habits improve health," he cautioned. "They model what might happen to our life span if changing these factors does improve health."
Interestingly, the data suggested that improvements across several aspects of well-being are "greater than the sum of their parts," lead study author Nicholas Koemel, a dietitian and research fellow at The University of Sydney, told Live Science. For instance, to gain one additional year of lifespan through sleep alone, the study suggested a person would have to sleep an extra 25 minutes per night — a luxury many cannot afford. But very small improvements in sleep, exercise and diet may have a significant combined effect.
Koemel said the findings suggest that "healthy habits work better as a package."
"Each one of our behaviors has an interlinking impact on what we do," he said. "If we have a poor night's sleep, we oftentimes eat differently, we move differently. And we see that across all of these different behaviors."
Per the model, the study participants with the most optimal combination of these behaviors — at least 40 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise, seven to eight hours of sleep per day, and an overall healthy diet — were predicted to live an extra nine years, overall, and live nine extra years in good health, compared with the poorest 3% of performers.
By their very design, studies like these, known as cohort studies, need to be taken with a grain of salt. They compare two groups retroactively rather than asking people to change their habits and seeing how that change affects their health. As such, they can never conclusively prove that one particular change caused an associated effect; they can only draw a link between the two.
For instance, sleep and exercise habits were measured for only up to a week in the UK Biobank cohort, and the data assume that people kept up those same habits in the long run. Similarly, diet was assessed only at the beginning of the study, rather than monitored over time. So it's possible that the participants changed their habits after these assessments were taken, which would weaken the possibility that their habits improved their lifespan.
All of this leaves room for the possibility that it was not these lifestyle differences, but rather some other factor that wasn't measured, that caused the improvement in lifespan.
It may be, for instance, that one group is wealthier, and it so happens that this makes it easier for that group to exercise, sleep well and eat well. But ultimately, that difference is partially explained by the wealth, not only the behaviors, Burgess explained. It is also possible wealthy people might live in a less polluted area than poorer people, which could contribute to the difference in lifespan. There's no way of telling from this study alone.
"The overall message that small changes in these factors are likely to be beneficial is probably correct," Burgess said. "But whether the exact numbers are accurate or not is less clear."
Koemel agreed, saying that more research is needed to confirm the findings. Still, the idea that even tiny changes in lifestyle could have large effects could offer an interesting alternative for those looking to improve their overall well-being, he suggested.
"New Year's resolutions oftentimes fail because we're pushing too hard," he argued. "We're trying to go to the gym every day. We're trying to be perfect." This research suggests there may be a "different path to get from A to Z," by making smaller changes across several areas of well-being that can build up to healthier habits while improving overall health.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/health/tiny-improvements-in-sleep-nutrition-and-exercise-could-significantly-extend-lifespan-study-suggests
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:27:44 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ James Webb telescope spies rare 'goddess of dawn' supernova from the early universe ]]>
+ Scientists have spotted a distant supernova unleashed by a collapsing star just 1 billion years after the birth of the universe.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured images of the Type II supernova on Sept. 1 and Oct. 8, 2025. Dubbed "Eos," after the Titan goddess of dawn in Greek mythology, the supernova will help scientists understand how stars and galaxies evolve over billions of years, researchers reported Jan. 7 on the preprint server arXiv.
A better understanding of early stars could help astronomers map out how those stars formed and distributed heavy elements, including those necessary for life, to their surroundings. But observing individual stars from the early universe is no easy feat.
"Due to their extreme distances, the opportunities to study such stars remain quite limited," the researchers wrote in the study, which has not been peer-reviewed yet. "However, the explosive deaths of massive stars as core-collapse supernovae, which can be brighter than the total emission of their host galaxies, allow us to probe the final stages of stellar evolution."
Deaths of the earliest stars
The supernova SN Eos was spotted within the galaxy cluster MACS 1931.8-2635, seen here. The magenta region outlines the area being magnified by the cluster's gravity. The supernova appears twice (marked 101.1 and 101.2) due to the effects of gravitational lensing. (Image credit: Coulter et al. / JWST)
A supernova occurs when a massive star explodes at the end of its life. Type I supernovas include those that have no hydrogen in their spectra, while Type II supernovas show some evidence of hydrogen. Regardless of the type, supernovas aren't very common; just two to three occur per century in galaxies the size of the Milky Way.
In the new study, scientists used a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing to capture images of the distant supernova. Gravitational lensing occurs when light passes through an area of space-time that's been warped by the immense gravity of a massive object, such as a black hole or galaxy cluster. The distortion magnifies that light, allowing scientists to spot objects that would be too dim to see otherwise.
The supernova was rich in hydrogen, and its star exploded in an environment that held a very low concentration of elements heavier than hydrogen. In fact, the progenitor star likely had less than 10% of these heavier elements than our own sun does, the team found. This apparent lack of heavy elements further confirms the supernova's extremely early age, as stellar fusion had yet to fill the universe with plentiful heavy elements.
By analyzing the ultraviolet light from the burst, the researchers determined that Eos is a Type II-P supernova. The light from a Type II-P supernova remains bright for a while after it peaks, before slowly fading out. (In contrast, Type II-L supernovas dim steadily over time.) Eos is likely near the end of its brightness plateau, the team found.
Scientists still need to observe more early supernovas to confirm if Eos' properties are typical for massive stars and supernovas of the epoch. But those findings could help scientists chart the evolution of stars and galaxies from the early universe to today.
"The discovery of SN Eos represents a critical step toward fulfilling JWST's core mission objectives of understanding the lives and deaths of the first stars, the origins of the elements, and the assembly and evolution of the youngest galaxies," the researchers wrote.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/james-webb-telescope-spies-rare-goddess-of-dawn-supernova-from-the-early-universe
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+ eGfW7obpZBFH5BKLrvSpXG
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:34:38 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Earth hit by biggest 'solar radiation storm' in 23 years, triggering Northern Lights as far as Southern California ]]>
+ A "severe" and record-breaking geomagnetic storm rocked Earth's magnetic shield last night, shortly after the sun unleashed a powerful X-class solar flare. The epic event, triggered by a stream of superfast solar particles, painted widespread auroras at unusually low latitudes across the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in Europe.
Some outlets have reported that the storm is the "largest" of its kind since 2003, which is an exaggeration (the "Mother's Day storm" of May 2024 was much stronger). However, the latest outburst has broken a specific 23-year-old solar radiation record.
The geomagnetic storm began on Monday (Jan. 19), when a fast-moving cloud of solar radiation, or coronal mass ejection (CME), slammed into Earth's magnetosphere, temporarily disrupting the invisible magnetic field lines surrounding our planet and allowing charged particles to penetrate deeper into the atmosphere. The CME was initially released on Sunday (Jan. 18) when an X1.9 magnitude solar flare suddenly exploded from a dark patch near the sun's equator, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.
Geomagnetic activity first peaked at 2:38 p.m. EST, when the storm reached G4 ("severe") status, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The storm calmed slightly before reaching G4 status again at 3:23 a.m. EST on Tuesday (Jan. 20), according to a second SWPC report.
G4 is the second-highest level a geomagnetic storm can reach. Under these conditions, solar radiation can cause temporary radio blackouts, disrupt or damage orbiting spacecraft and impact some ground-based infrastructure. However, it is too early to tell what specific issues this storm caused, if any.
The CME that hit Earth was unleashed by an X-class solar flare on Sunday (Jan. 18). (Image credit: NASA/SDO)
There were widespread aurora displays across the U.K. and parts of Europe — including France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Croatia — where the sun had already set before the storm peaked, according to Spaceweather.com.
Experts had predicted that up to 24 U.S. states would see auroras during the storm, according to Space.com. It is unclear if this actually happened, especially as the storm's first peak occurred before sunset in North America. However, skywatchers as far south as Alabama, Georgia, New Mexico and California reported seeing auroras overnight, according to Spaceweather.com.
More auroras are possible tonight, according to Space.com's latest aurora forecast. However, the storm is not expected to reintensify to G4 status.
Image 1 of 3
Vibrant red auroras were spotted above Austria's capital city, Vienna, on Jan.19. (Image credit: MAX SLOVENCIK / APA / AFP via Getty Images)
Image 2 of 3
Skywatchers in western France were treated to some stunning green auroras. (Image credit: Oscar Chuberre / AFP via Getty Images)
Image 3 of 3
Auroras were also spotted shining above Berlin. (Image credit: Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images)
A 23-year record
Despite some initial reports, last night's display was not the biggest geomagnetic storm of the past two decades. That title goes to the "Mother's Day storm" of May 2024, which reached G5 ("extreme") status for the first time since the infamous "Halloween solar storms" of 2003.
The term solar radiation storm refers to a solar outburst, like a CME, as it travels through space, rather than the actual effect it has on our planet. Big radiation storms often lead to powerful geomagnetic storms, but other factors influence how Earth's magnetic field will respond, such as the orientation of the incoming radiation and its magnetic configuration.
The solar radiation storm that sparked last night's auroras reached S4 ("severe") status — the equivalent of G4 on the solar radiation storm scale. This is the first time this has happened since 2003's Halloween storms, SWPC representatives wrote on the social platform X.
]]>
+ https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/earth-hit-by-biggest-solar-radiation-storm-in-23-years-triggering-northern-lights-as-far-as-southern-california
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+ ApUS63gpKxLgYJPiveXT2G
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:29:18 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:29:21 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Color blindness linked to lower bladder cancer survival, early study hints ]]>
+ Could being colorblind make you less likely to survive bladder cancer? That's the surprising hypothesis that researchers have proposed based on a small study.
The research, published Jan. 15 in the journal Nature Health, examined data from 135 patients with both bladder cancer and color blindness, and compared those patients to 135 patients with only bladder cancer. The data were taken from TriNetX, an international registry of electronic health records of more than 275 million patients.
Among these health records, people who had both color blindness and a bladder cancer diagnosis had shorter survival times than did bladder cancer patients without the vision deficiency. Overall, those with color blindness had a 52% higher risk of dying within 20 years of their bladder cancer diagnosis, compared with the normal-vision group.
The study authors suggested a plausible reason for this observed difference: Color blindness may make it more difficult to spot blood in your urine — an early sign of the cancer — thereby delaying diagnosis.
"Bladder cancer is a bad disease. If you delay your diagnosis, it will make a difference to your prognosis," Dr. Veeru Kasivisvanathan, a urological oncologist and surgeon at University College London who was not involved in the study, told Live Science.
A possible link
Blood in urine is one of the most common early symptoms of bladder cancer, alongside frequent urination; pain or burning during urination; feeling as if you need to urinate even if your bladder isn't full; and urinating frequently during the night.
If anyone spots blood in their urine, they should see their doctor straight away, Kasivisvanathan said. But, as the study authors suggested, being unable to clearly distinguish red from yellow could make it very difficult to spot this early warning sign.
Color blindness, also known as color vision deficiency, is a fairly common condition with one recent study reporting that about 1 in 40 people globally have some form of color vision deficiency. (Those figures are likely approximate, as screening for color vision deficiency is often not routine.) Color vision deficiency tends to be more common in males than in females, per the study.
The results of the new study should be taken with extreme caution, Kasivisvanathan and Shang-ming Zhou, a professor in e-health at the University of Plymouth who wasn't involved in the work, told Live Science. Indeed, the study authors also acknowledged that there are major limitations to their research.
For instance, because color blindness often goes undiagnosed, it's possible that some people with the condition were mistakenly added to the cohort without color blindness in the analysis, potentially muddying the results. The term "color blindness" also encompasses various conditions with different red-perception abilities. Protanopia (red-blindness) should theoretically carry a higher risk than deuteranopia (green-blindness) in this context, but the study cannot differentiate between these subtypes, said Zhou.
In addition, the study was very small, which makes the results less dependable, and makes it difficult to screen for other factors that could explain the difference in prognosis. Lastly, from these data alone, it's not possible to prove that color blindness delayed the diagnosis of the disease; for now, that is just a hypothesis.
"The authors properly frame this as the hypothesis-generating work," Zhou said. "Current evidence is insufficient to recommend routine blood cancer screening in [patients with color vision deficiency], and the absolute risk increase remains unclear," he emphasized.
In short, more research is needed to confirm that color blindness raises the risk of death from bladder cancer, and to evaluate how those patients might be better protected, if that's the case. Still, this is "the right type of [study] design for that type of question," Kasivisvanathan said, adding that while the research is not conclusive, it does open up interesting areas for investigation.
It could be that patients with known risk factors for bladder cancer — such as being a male over the age of 50, smoking, using blood thinners, or having a history of radiotherapy — might benefit from being warned about the potential risk of having undiagnosed color blindness on top of their other risk factors. And perhaps those with known color blindness and cancer risk factors could be encouraged to screen their urine in other ways, such as using test strips, Kasivisvanathan said.
This study also raises questions about other cancers that are associated with blood in bodily fluids in their early stages, such as oral cancers, Zhou added. But for now, more research is needed, all of the experts said.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
]]>
+ https://www.livescience.com/health/cancer/color-blindness-linked-to-lower-bladder-cancer-survival-early-study-hints
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:15:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:01:26 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Medieval 'super ship' found wrecked off Denmark is largest vessel of its kind ]]>
+ Archaeologists have discovered a massive medieval shipwreck sitting at the bottom of a strait off Denmark.
The 600-year-old ship was a cog: a round, single square-sailed vessel that was one of the most advanced ship types in the Middle Ages. At around 92 feet (28 meters) long and 30 feet (9 m) wide, the newly-found ship is the largest cog ever discovered, according to researchers at Denmark's Viking Ship Museum.
The researchers discovered the vessel off Copenhagen in Øresund, or "the Sound" in English — the strait between Denmark and Sweden. They described it as a "super ship" that could transport hundreds of tons of cargo at low cost during a period of burgeoning trade in the 14th and 15th centuries.
"The find is a milestone for maritime archaeology," excavation leader Otto Uldum said in a statement. "It is the largest cog we know of, and it gives us a unique opportunity to understand both the construction and life on board the biggest trading ships of the Middle Ages."
The discovery was made accidentally as part of seabed investigations for a new artificial island that Denmark plans to create off Copenhagen. Researchers removed what they described as "centuries of sand and silt" to reveal the outline of the ship, which they named Svælget 2 after the channel in which it was found.
Svælget 2 was well preserved on the seabed, located 43 feet (13 m) below the surface. Sand protected its starboard side, which retained traces of delicate rigging — unheard of in previous cog wrecks. The researchers also identified a brick galley, the first in a medieval ship in Danish waters, which allowed the crew to cook hot meals on an open fire. Artifacts on the ship included cooking materials, such as pots and bowls, and the crew's personal objects, such as hair combs and rosary beads for prayer, according to the statement.
The researchers have yet to find Svælget 2's cargo. Uldum noted that the hold wasn't covered, so cargo barrels would have floated away from the ship as it sank. However, with no signs of military use, Svælget 2 is likely to have been a merchant ship, the researchers said.
A historic replica of a medieval cog, the Kamper Kogge, sailing down IJsse river in the Netherlands. (Image credit: Sjo via Getty Images)
Svælget 2 was constructed in 1410, a fact the researchers deduced by tree-ring dating annual growth patterns on the ship's wood. The team also compared the patterns to previously published tree-ring data and determined that the ship's planks were from Poland, while the frame of the ship came from the Netherlands. Furthermore, construction patterns suggested that the planks were imported while the frame was cut at the ship's building site, indicating that the construction relied on a complex timber trade network across Northern Europe, according to the statement.
The giant ship was designed for a perilous journey from the Low Countries (including what is now the Netherlands) to the trading towns of the Baltic. A cog of this size would have allowed for the transportation of bulky everyday goods such as salt, timber, bricks and basic food items over long distances, which the researchers said would have previously only been done for luxury goods.
"The cog revolutionised trade in Northern Europe," Uldum said. "It made it possible to transport goods on a scale never seen before."
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+ https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/medieval-super-ship-found-wrecked-off-denmark-is-largest-vessel-of-its-kind
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 13:56:21 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 13:56:21 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Suunto Vertical 2 smartwatch review: Beauty and the beast ]]>
+ Suunto is slowly carving a formidable niche in the world of outdoor and multisport smartwatches. We can attest to that — last year, we tested the running-focused Suunto Race 2 and Suunto Run. While we had some minor quibbles with them, we were generally impressed by their stylish design, advanced workout-tracking features and long battery life. This year, we got our hands on something even better — the Suunto Vertical 2. This high-end adventure smartwatch has eerily similar specs and functionality to the ultra-premium Garmin Fenix 8, but costs around $300 less ($599 to $699, depending on the model).
The Suunto Vertical 2 boasts a durable design, up to 20 days’ battery life and multiple advanced navigation tools and workout-tracking features. It is a tough cookie, built for those who frequently venture off into the great outdoors and do not want to skimp on safety and reliability. Plus, it looks unusually stylish for an adventure watch.
We were keen to put the Suunto Vertical 2 through its paces and see whether it can make its way into our round-up of the best fitness trackers on the market.
Suunto Vertical 2 smartwatch review
Suunto Vertical 2: Design
Heavy, rugged build
Stylish and fairly comfortable to wear
10ATM water resistance
Our testing unit came in stainless steel and with a Pine Green strap. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
Key specs
Display: 1.5-inch AMOLED - 466 x 466 (resolution)
Always-On: Yes
Dimensions (in): 1.9 x 1.9 x 0.5
Dimensions (mm): 48.6 x 48.6 x 13.5
Weight: 3.07 oz (87 g)
Colors: Black, All-black, Arctic Gray, Canyon, Pine Green and Sage
Finish: Stainless steel or titanium
GPS: Yes
Compass: Yes
Altimeter: Yes
Offline maps: Yes
Water resistance: 10ATM
NFC payments: N/A
Compatibility: iOS and Android
Storage: 32 GB internal storage
Right off the bat, the Suunto Vertical 2 scores highly for its customizability. This adventure watch is available in two options, with a stainless steel finish or a more durable and heat-resistant titanium finish, and it comes with a range of removable silicon straps in gorgeous earthy colors. Should you wish to shake things up even more, plenty of other leather and nylon straps can be found at Amazon and other third-party retailers. There is something for everyone here.
Our testing unit came in stainless steel and with a Pine Green strap. First impression upon unboxing? Having tested multiple clunky smartwatches in the past (we are looking at you, TicWatch Atlas), the Suunto Vertical 2 feels like a welcome change. It is rugged in the full sense of the word, but at the same time, it manages to stay exceptionally sleek and, dare we say, stylish. While this smartwatch is designed primarily for outdoor explorations, it will not look too out of place in more mundane circumstances.
The Suunto Vertical 2 is exceptionally stylish for a rugged outdoor smartwatch. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
That is not to say that the Suunto Vertical 2 is a great option for 24/7 wear. Weighing a solid 3.07 oz (87 g), it is still a formidable piece of machinery, and you can definitely feel its presence on your wrist. To put that into perspective, the Fenix 8 weighs "only" about 2.82 oz or 80 g. We found it quite cumbersome, too. While we did not mind wearing it in bed, some people may find the sheer size of this smartwatch to be too disruptive for comfortable sleep-tracking. However, we got used to wearing the Suunto Vertical 2 pretty quickly, as it is actually quite comfortable to wear, or at least more comfortable than many other models that sat on our wrist before.
The Suunto Vertical 2 also feels well built. This smartwatch did not sustain any scratches or wear-and-tear damage after two months of testing, nor was it ever fazed by being exposed to freezing January temperatures and cold water. Even occasional bumps from a steel barbell did not cause us any issues. Given how durable this smartwatch is, you can easily forgive its heaviness.
Lastly, the silicone strap. It deserves a special mention here — it is pleasantly soft and flexible, has a beautiful green shade to it, and has never caused any skin irritation.
We found the silicone strap to be soft, pleasant to wear and easy on the skin. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
Suunto Vertical 2: Display
1.5-inch AMOLED display
Relatively easy to read and navigate
Responsive to the touch, even in cold temperatures
The Suunto Vertical 2 features a big, colorful 1.5-inch AMOLED display. There are upsides and downsides to this. AMOLED screens are vibrant and pixel-dense, but they also tend to drain the battery much faster than, for example, the transflective MIP displays employed in many other adventure watches. When this type of screen is employed in a model whose functionality is rooted in long battery life, it needs built-in dimming features that preserve its energy use — and the Suunto Vertical 2 is no different. While its AMOLED display is by no means difficult to read, it can still feel uncomfortably dark and lacklustre at times.
Look past this, however, and you should not feel disappointed. The touchscreen display in the Suunto Vertical 2 is responsive (but not nearly as prone to accidental swipes as was the case with the Suunto Race 2) and, in our experience at least, seemingly immune to lags and other performance issues caused by exposure to cold temperatures. The interface looks good, too. It is loaded with stats and widgets, but still easy to read and navigate — even though it could take annoyingly long to scroll to the sports mode we wanted.
The display in the Suunto Vertical 2 is relatively easy to read and navigate. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
Suunto Vertical 2: Features
Advanced navigation and mapping capabilities
Over 115 sports modes
No contactless payments, music storage or voice commands
The Suunto Vertical 2 is a full-on fitness and adventure watch, with its features centered around outdoor explorations and smashing workout PBs. Unlike the Fenix 8, for example, it can't be used for more "mundane" activities such as paying for your groceries or storing your favorite tunes. It also does not have a built-in microphone and voice recognition, nor can it answer a call from your mobile phone.
It is not a deal-breaker, though. The Suunto Vertical 2 has almost everything you may need or want on a hiking trail or running course, and its lack of advanced smart features does not overshadow these impressive capabilities.
To start with, the Suunto Vertical 2 comes with a comprehensive set of navigation tools, from a built-in LED flashlight to detailed offline maps and reliable dual-band GPS that supports all major satellite systems. Features like breadcrumb tracking, route planning and “find back” (a GPS navigation tool that retraces your steps and guides you back to your starting point — a lifesaver when you have gone off-trail or the weather obscures your path) make this smartwatch a particularly good companion for off-grid adventures.
The Suunto Vertical 2 is a great pick for off-grid adventures. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
Its range of workout-tracking tools is also impressive. The Suunto Vertical 2 comes with over 115 sport modes and an in-depth set of fitness stats for each of those activities, as well as continuous heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen sensing, sleep quality assessments and many more useful measurements.
(Image credit: Anna Gora)
As fitness buffs ourselves, we thoroughly enjoyed diving into our health and fitness stats after each workout. Exercise beginners, however, may feel a bit overwhelmed by the Suunto app. It does not offer the same level of holistic wellness coaching or AI-powered trend analysis as some of its competitors, and it could be information overload for those unfamiliar with complex fitness terms.
The Suunto Vertical is packed to the brim with workout-tracking features... (Image credit: Anna Gora)
...it even tracks your heart rate to temperature ratio — a useful stat for strength and HIIT training. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
Suunto Vertical 2: Performance
Up to 20 days of battery life in smartwatch mode
Relatively accurate measurements
Good app connectivity
According to the brand, the Suunto Vertical 2 can last up to 20 days in smartwatch mode, 65 hours in Performance mode (default multi-band GPS mode, with highly accurate navigation), 75 hours in Endurance mode (all-systems single-band GPS, less accurate), 110 hours in Ultra mode (all-systems single-band GPS, disabled heart rate measurements) and 250 hours in Tour mode (lowest GPS accuracy). Understandably, we could not thoroughly test every one of these modes and can't say for sure, but these claims seem pretty accurate. The battery life on the Suunto Vertical 2 is staggering, and we have barely had to charge this smartwatch at all.
Accuracy-wise, the Suunto Vertical 2 is a big step up from the Suunto Race 2 and a particularly solid performer for navigation, sleep and heart rate measurements. During one workout, for example, we wore it alongside a more precise Polar H9 chest-strap heart rate monitor. We found that both of these devices produced similar measurements, especially during periods of rest and steady state cardio. True, the accuracy did tail off slightly during high-intensity activities, but that is something we have observed in nearly every wearable we tested.
The Suunto Vertical 2 offers relatively accurate heart rate measurements. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
It is also worth noting that some of its tracking can be inconsistent at times. For example, the Suunto Vertical 2 appears to frequently overcount steps and overestimate the calories burned. However, these issues are rather minor and do not have a major impact on the overall user experience.
Lastly, the app connectivity seems very good. We had no issues with connecting our Suunto Vertical 2 or syncing the data between the devices. Again, that's not something we can confidently say about other smartwatches we tested before.
Suunto Vertical 2: User reviews
At the time of writing this review, Amazon's customer reviews placed the Suunto Vertical 2 at a solid 4.4 out of 5 stars. Buyers at the Suunto US website, on the other hand, rated it at a slightly higher 4.78 stars. This smartwatch was generally praised for its rugged build, extensive and accurate navigation features, and a handy built-in flashlight.
One happy user said: "I previously had the Suunto Peak Pro and this has been a very enjoyable upgrade. The screen brightness and readability alone are fantastic. I have put the watch through the paces with multi-sport and strength training, as well as on a recent 48-hour ski tour hut trip, on which maybe 15% of the battery life was used from start to finish. Though bigger than the Peak Pro, the weight and size are hardly noticeable. Heart rate and GPS access and navigation are well within standards."
However, the tracking accuracy receives mixed feedback, and some users also complained about its confusing interface and basic sleep-tracking features.
Should you buy the Suunto Vertical 2 smartwatch?
(Image credit: Anna Gora)
The Suunto Vertical 2 is an excellent no-nonsense smartwatch for outdoor enthusiasts and fitness pros. It offers a combination of outdoor-focused features, reliable tracking performance and rugged design, all at an approachable price and without pricey subscriptions. Plus, it is unusually stylish and customizable. This smartwatch may have skimped on smart features and extra frills, but it does a good job of the essentials.
✅ Buy it if: You are a keen explorer or outdoor fitness enthusiast looking for a reliable adventure watch, especially if you often venture on multi-day hiking or camping trips.
❌ Do not buy it if: You seek a day-to-day smartwatch with contactless payments, music storage and an extensive app ecosystem, or do not tend to spend much time in the great outdoors.
Suunto Vertical 2: Related products
The Coros Vertix 2 is one of the most suitable alternatives to the Suunto Vertical 2. Both of these smartwatches offer roughly the same features at a very similar price, but the former comes with slightly longer battery life and a more straightforward interface.
Looking for something more premium and do not mind splashing the cash? Then you can't go wrong with the Garmin Fenix 8. The direct and most formidable competitor to the Suunto Vertical 2, this high-end smartwatch offers similar ruggedness and tracking features, but it also throws in a bunch of smart features, a rich app ecosystem and the ability to use more advanced dive modes. It costs anywhere between $799 and $1,199 (depending on the model), but it is well worth the money if you are not willing to cut any corners.
On a budget? Consider the Amazfit T-Rex 3 or its more advanced sibling, the T-Rex 3 Pro. While this smartwatch does not have as advanced and comprehensive mapping and fitness-tracking features, it offers excellent battery life, durable design and good accuracy — and it costs "only" $279.99.
Suunto Vertical 2: How we tested
We spent over two months trying and testing the Suunto Vertical 2. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
We spent over two months trying and testing the Suunto Vertical 2, assessing its design, features, tracking performance, battery life, app connectivity and ease of use. We wore this smartwatch during the day, while sleeping, and when doing a range of activities, from hiking outdoors to indoor rowing and high-intensity strength training. Then, we compared the sleep, steps and heart rate measurements taken by the Suunto Vertical 2 with the data we obtained using a Polar H9 chest-strap heart rate monitor and our Whoop MG screenless fitness tracker. Lastly, we gave our verdict on its overall functionality and value for money.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/health/exercise/suunto-vertical-2-smartwatch-review
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:30:00 +0000Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:09:50 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ 1,700-year-old Roman marching camps discovered in Germany — along with a multitude of artifacts like coins and the remnants of shoes ]]>
+ Archaeologists in Germany have discovered four Roman marching camps, dating to 1,700 years ago, along with a multitude of artifacts, including coins and old shoe parts.
During the third century A.D., the Roman Empire conducted several military campaigns into what is now Germany. Their goal was to expand Roman territory north along the Elbe River, which flows into the North Sea. But Germanic tribes resisted Roman occupation and contributed to an imperial crisis in the third century. Archaeologists have discovered evidence of Roman occupation in the form of military camps.
"Roman camps were highly standardized facilities," archaeologists from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt, wrote in astatement. "The typical rectangular camp enclosure had rounded corners. From the gates, the main camp roads, laid out at right angles, led into the interior. At the intersection of these roads stood the headquarters building, the principia," the archaeologists wrote.
They noted that a "characteristic feature of marching camps is the so-called titulum — a segment of ditch with a rampart [defensive wall] located in front of the gate passages."
Two of the camps are located near the town of Aken; another camp is located near the town of Deersheim; and a fourth is located in the municipality of Trabitz, the statement said. The camps were discovered by amateur and professional archaeologists who used a combination of aerial and satellite imagery, as well as ground surveys and excavations to find and investigate the sites.
Metal detectors were used to help survey the camps, which led to the detection of more than 1,500 metal artifacts, many of them nails; some of them may have fallen off of sandals that Roman legionaries wore. Such nails, known as hobnails, likely provided traction for marching Roman legionary soldiers and auxiliaries.
An aerial photo showing the entrance to the Roman marching camp near Trabitz, Germany. It shows the titulum, a ditch with a rampart that is located in front of the gates. (Image credit: GeoBasis-DE / LVermGeo ST, Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – Version 2.0 (www.govdata.de/dl-de/by-2-0).)
The excavators also found coins that date to the second half of the second century and the early third century, discoveries that helped date the marching camps, the statement said. A number of radiocarbon dates confirmed this.
"Among the coin finds from Trabitz, a Caracalla denarius is the most recent discovery. It is therefore conceivable that the camp was established in connection with a campaign under [Roman emperor] Caracalla in 213 AD," the statement said. Historical records indicate that Caracalla's campaign in Germany was focused against a group referred to as the "Albanians" who may have lived along the Elbe River, the statement said.
Research into the marching camps is ongoing and may shed light on Caracalla's military campaign in Germany, the statement said.
Roman emperor quiz: Test your knowledge on the rulers of the ancient empire
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+ https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/romans/1-700-year-old-roman-marching-camps-discovered-in-germany-along-with-a-multitude-of-artifacts-like-coins-and-the-remnants-of-shoes
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+ Lko3g8mZczdridMZwo5Eqf
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:14:46 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Giant underwater plumes triggered by 7-story waves at Nazaré captured off Portuguese coast — Earth from space ]]>
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What's in the photo? Massive 7-story waves crashing along the coast, creating giant underwater sediment plumes
Which satellite took the photo? Landsat 8
When was it taken? Oct. 29, 2020
This striking satellite snap highlights the immense power of 7-story waves crashing along the Portuguese coast and ejecting massive sediment plumes under the sea. The same day this photo was taken, a local 18-year-old surfer set a new world record by riding one of the colossal crests.
The Landsat 8 satellite captured this epic scene near the town of Nazaré in western Portugal, a region famous for having some of the tallest waves on Earth. Nazaré is home to around 15,000 people and regularly hosts "big-wave" surfing competitions, which attract surfers from around the world. The swells there are so big that surfers often have to be towed into the breaking waves with a jet ski.
The monster waves in the image likely reached heights of around 80 feet (24 meters), which is roughly equivalent to a 7-story building. This is exceptionally tall — even for Nazaré, where waves usually peak up to 50 feet (15m) at this time of year — and would usually be considered too dangerous to surf.
As these waves broke along the shore, their powerful undercurrents ripped up sand and other sediments from the seafloor and spat them out in the opposite direction to the waves, creating murky underwater clouds that could be seen from space.
The plumes in this photo extend up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the coastline, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
Thousands of tourists visit Nazaré every winter to watch the "big-wave" surfing competitions. (Image credit: Shutterstock)
Later the same day, local surfer António Laureano rode an even loftier wave, estimated to be approximately 101.4 feet (30.9 m) tall — the largest wave ever surfed by a human.
This record is not officially recognized by the World Surf League (WSL) because the organization's representatives did not calculate the wave's height. Instead, the height was determined by oceanographers at the University of Lisbon, who analyzed a video of the wave sent to them by Laureano, surfing news site Surfer Today reported at the time.
The current WSL record for the tallest wave ever surfed belongs to German surfer Sebastian Steudtner, who rode a 93.7-foot (28.6 m) wave, also at Nazaré, on Feb. 24, 2024, according to Surfer.com.
In total, seven of the official top 10 largest waves ever surfed have occurred at Nazaré, according to Red Bull.
"Big-wave" hotspot
The secret behind Nazaré's giant waves is the Nazaré Canyon just southwest of the town. It is the largest submarine canyon in Europe, stretching 130 miles (210 kilometers) long and roughly 3 miles (4.8 km) deep into the Atlantic Ocean.
Water inside the canyon travels faster than shallower water, forming large waves at depth that are "bent" in the direction of Nazaré. As they approach the coast, these large waves collide with other waves coming from the northwest, which further amplifies their speed and allows them to quickly rise when they approach the shore.
Nazaré is often considered the best place for big-wave surfing on Earth, thanks to the giant swells triggered by the Nazaré Canyon. (Image credit: Zed Jameson/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Occasionally, the waves can be further amplified by strong offshore winds. This was the case with the supercharged swells in the satellite photo, which were partially fueled by the remnants of Hurricane Epsilon, according to the Earth Observatory.
Nazaré's big wave phenomenon is highly seasonal, with the largest waves typically occuring between November and February. In the summer months, the waves almost completely disappear, allowing tourists to flock back to the beaches and swim in the sea. However, even then, disaster can still strike.
In August 2012, for example, a five-year-old girl and her 66-year-old grandfather, both British nationals, were killed after being dragged out to sea by a massive "rogue wave" as they were walking on a nearby beach, according to the BBC.
For more incredible satellite photos and astronaut images, check out our Earth from space archives.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/giant-underwater-plumes-triggered-by-7-story-waves-at-nazare-captured-off-portuguese-coast-earth-from-space
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+ R4E4abChZ4Y4MG6Ds8GZgS
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+ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000Mon, 19 Jan 2026 16:49:05 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Indigenous TikTok star 'Bush Legend' is actually AI-generated, leading to accusations of 'digital blackface' ]]>
+ The self-described "Bush Legend" on TikTok, Facebook and Instagram is growing in popularity.
These short and sharp videos feature an Aboriginal man — sometimes painted up in ochre, other times in an all khaki outfit — as he introduces different native animals and facts about them. These videos are paired with miscellaneous yidaki (didgeridoo) tunes, including techno mixes.
Comments on the videos often mention his bubbly persona, with some comments saying he needs his own TV show.
This is a part of a growing influx of AI being utilized to represent Indigenous peoples, knowledges and cultures with no community accountability or relationships with Indigenous peoples. It forms a new type of cultural appropriation, one that Indigenous peoples are increasingly concerned about.
In the user description, the Bush Legend pages say the visuals are AI. But does the average user scrolling through videos on their social media click onto a profile to read these details?
Some of the videos do feature AI watermarks, or mention they are AI in the caption. But many in the audience will be completely unaware this person is not real, and the entire video is artificially generated.
These videos "bait" the audience in through a spectrum of cute and cuddly to extremely dangerous creatures. Comments left on the videos query how close the man is to the animals, alongside their words of encouragement.
One commenter on Facebook writes "You have the same wonderful energy Steve Irwin had and your voice is great to listen to."
The voice and energy they are referring to is fabricated.
A lack of respect
With any Indigenous content on the internet (authentic or AI), there remains racist commentary. As Indigenous people, we often say don't read the comments, when it comes to social media and Indigenous content.
While the Bush Legend is not real nor culturally grounded, it too is not immune to online racism. I have read comments on his videos which uplift this AI persona while denigrating all other Indigenous people.
While this does not impact the creator, it does impact Indigenous peoples who are reading the comments.
The only information available on Bush Legend, other than the fact it is AI, is the creator is based in Aotearoa New Zealand. This suggests there is likely no connection to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that this likeness is being taken from.
Recently, Bush Legend addressed some of this critique in a video.
He said:
I'm not here to represent any culture or group […] If this isn't your thing, mate, no worries at all, just scroll and move on.
This does not sufficiently address the very real concerns. If the videos are "simply about animal stories", why does the creator insist on using the likeness of an Aboriginal man?
Accountability to the communities this involves is not considered in this scenario.
Concerns for AI and Indigenous peoples lie across many areas, including education, and the lack of Indigenous involvement in AI creation and governance. Of course, there is also the cost to Country with considerable environmental impacts.
The recently released national AI plan offers little in terms of regulation.
Indigenous peoples have long fought to tell our own stories. AI poses another way in which our self determination is diminished or removed completely. It also serves as a way for non-Indigenous people to distance themselves from actual Indigenous peoples by allowing them to engage with content which is fabricated and, often, more palatable.
Bush Legend reflects a slippery slope when it comes to AI generated content of Indigenous peoples, as people can remove themselves further and further from engaging with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people directly.
A new era of AI Blakface
We are seeing the rise of an AI Blakface that is utilised with ease thanks to the availability and prevalence of AI.
Non-Indigenous people and entities are able to create Indigenous personas through AI, often grounded in stereotypical representations that both amalgamate and appropriate cultures.
Bush Legend is often seen wearing cultural jewelry and with ochre painted on his skin. As these are generated, they are shallow misappropriations and lack the necessary cultural underpinnings of these practices.
This forms a new type of appropriation, that extends on the violence that Indigenous peoples already experience in the digital realm, particularly on social media. The theft of Indigenous knowledge for generative AI forms a new type of algorithmic settler colonialism, impacting Indigenous self-determination.
Most concerningly, these AI Blakfaces can be monetized and lead to financial gain for the creator. This financial benefit should go to the communities the content is taking from.
What is needed?
It is concerning to be living in a time where we do not know if the things we are consuming online are real. Increasing our AI and media literacy levels is integral.
Seeing AI content shared online as truth? Let the person sharing this content know — conversations with our communities serve as an opportunity to learn together.
Support actual Indigenous people sharing knowledge online, such as @Indigigrow, @littleredwrites or @meissa. Or check out all the Indigenous Ranger videos on TikTok.
When engaging online, take a moment to consider the source. Is this AI generated? Is this where my support should be?
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+ https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/indigenous-tiktok-star-bush-legend-is-actually-ai-generated-leading-to-accusations-of-digital-blackface
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+ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 18:00:00 +0000Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:21:19 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Ever watched a pet cow pick up a broom and scratch herself with it? You have now ]]>
+
For the first time ever, a cow has been documented not only using a tool but selecting which part to use when scratching at different parts of her body.
Witgar Wiegele, an organic farmer and baker in Austria amid the slopes of the Eastern Alps, sometimes saw Veronika, his Braunvieh or Swiss brown cow (Bos taurus) picking up sticks in her mouth and using them to scratch herself.
She'd been doing it on and off for about nine years without any training when he sent the footage toAlice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.
Veronika is able to manipulate the tool depending on what area she wants to scratch, the scientists discovered. (Image credit: A.J. Osuna-Mascaró & A.M.I. Auersperg)
"People tend to think that anything an animal does with an object is tool use and sometimes you get sent videos of animals randomly interacting with objects, like 'My cat is using a tool because she's using my Amazon box as a house.' But this particular video was different," Auersperg told Live Science. "It showed the kind of a behavior I would expect from the stricter definitions of tool use, where you see a tool is an embodied part of the animal and it is used as a direct elongation of her body."
After seeing the video, Auersperg and her colleague,Antonio Osuna-Mascaró, an animal cognition researcher also at the University of Veterinary Medicine, set out to meet Veronika and put her to the test. They repeatedly placed a deck brush, or broom, on the ground in front of her in a random orientation to see what she would do.
"We decided to use a broom because a broom has a functional end and a non-functional end. So our prediction was that if Veronika is really sensitive to the functional properties of the tool, she will prefer to use the broom end," Osuna-Mascaró told Live Science.
Veronika picked up the object by the handle end and scratched herself with the broom end about 2.5 times more often than doing it the other way round, he said. But after a while, a more nuanced pattern emerged.
Veronika started using tools to scratch herself about nine years ago. (Image credit: Antonio J. Osuna Mascaró)
After 70 sessions, if Veronika was going to scratch the thick skin of her back, she generally picked up the broom in her mouth by the thin end and gave herself a good rigorous scratch with the big, abrasive brush. If she wanted to scratch a more delicate area, like her navel or udder, she would pick up the broom by the brush end and rub herself gently with the thin handle.
The study was published inCurrent Biology on Monday (Jan. 19).
Veronika's behavior also indicated that she knew which body part she intended to scratch before picking up the broom, rather than just using a tool in whatever orientation she happened to pick it up, Osuna-Mascaró said.
For example, she would raise her tail in anticipation when she was going to scratch her delicate anal region and readjust her grip on the tool to ensure she could reach it, he said.
The readjustment was no easy matter. To pick up the brush, Veronika would roll out her tongue, wrap it around the tool, bring it up to her mouth and press it between her lower teeth and the hard dental pad at the top of her mouth, said Auersperg. This means the tool sits there very firmly and can't be easily adjusted. Sometimes, Veronika would let go of the tool before scratching, then grab it again in a different place and then direct the tool at the body region that she wouldn't have been able to reach with the previous grip.
This behavior is very different from a cow just using a scratching pad, Auersperg said. Scratching yourself against something is just an interaction between an animal and an object. To qualify as tool use, the animal has to be responsible for the orientation of the object, as Veronika is.
"I have absolutely no doubt that this is tool use,"Josep Call, a comparative psychologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who wasn't involved in the study, told Live Science. "They clearly show that the cow uses the brush, the one end or the other, depending on the area that it is scratching. That's very nice."
Gloria Sabbatini, an animal biologist at the National Research Council of Italy's Unit of Cognitive Primatology and Primate Center in Rome, who wasn't involved in the research, agrees.
"Veronika shows an egocentric form of tool use, that is the use of a tool toward herself. This kind of tool use is simpler than tool use toward an external object or surface for many reasons," she told Live Science via email. "One is that she directly perceives the effects of tool using on herself and then she can quickly correct and modify the position of the tool."
Researchers believe Veronika's tool use is the result of her being a family pet and having objects to interact with. (Image credit: A.J. Osuna-Mascaró & A.M.I. Auersperg)
The findings represent the first documented case of tool use in cattle and use of a multi-purpose tool, Osuna-Mascaró said. The behavior can be partly explained by the fact that Veronika is kept as a family pet. She experiences different meadows and stables in the winter, and many objects fall into the meadow for her to interact with.
"Veronika was lucky to have the possibility to experience a day-a-day reality more complex and stimulating than the one usually offered to cows. Through the daily interaction between mind, body and environment, animals develop and improve their abilities and skills," Sabbatini said.
However, it doesn't mean this is a one-off. Osuna-Mascaró has also identified videos on social media of a Brahman bull (Bos indicus)using a stick to scratch an itch.
Given that the two species diverged more than 500,000 years ago and have been separately domesticated since, Osuna-Mascaró suggested that Veronica is showing a latent capability for innovation that could have been in cattle for thousands of years.
"We do not mean that ancient oxen were tool users, but that these animals have the capacity to innovate spontaneous solutions to complex problems," Auersperg said. "When they are little, cows play with objects, they love playing with balls, with ropes and also with sticks. So, if they have a rich environment, perhaps they will show these innovations more often."
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+ https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/ever-seen-a-pet-cow-pick-up-a-broom-and-scratch-herself-with-it-you-have-now
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+ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 12:09:52 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ HP Omen Max 16 (2025) review: This heavyweight pushes everything to the max ]]>
+
Specifications
CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (12 cores)
RAM: 32 GB DDR5 SDRAM
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080
Storage: 1 TB SSD
Display: 16-inch IPS HDR
Weight: 5.38 lbs (2.44 kg)
Dimensions (in): 14.07 x 10.59 x 1
Dimensions (mm): 357.5 x 269 x 25.4)
The HP Omen Max 16 is last year's follow-up to 2023's Omen, packing in more powerful parts to turn this machine into a true heavyweight. It really is heavy, tipping the pre-fight scales at 5.4 pounds (2.4 kilograms), while the price has also climbed a few bands, now coming in at around $2,500 thanks to the inclusion of an Nvidia GeForce RTX 50 series GPU. But do these changes pack a big enough punch to knock out its competitors?
While it has some quirks, the Omen Max overall offers premium performance and excels in tasks that give its high-end components a workout. In particular, the machine is built for gaming and can handle the latest AAA titles with ease — with its lightning-fast screen helping competitive players gain an edge. That means it's also primed to handle photo and video editing, and could potentially be a useful fixture on your desk at home.
HP Omen Max 16 (2025): Design
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The HP Omen Max 16 leans into a typical "gamer" aesthetic, with RGB lighting underneath and the keyboard glowing vibrantly in a range of colors. The software lets you customize colors, patterns and transitions, which is a neat touch — though it's probably expected at this price point. The machine's looks are likely to be divisive, however, and it's definitely not a "professional" machine — but if lights and colors are your thing, the overall design is neat if unremarkable.
The layout and looks have been tweaked since the 2023 model, expanding the keyboard to include a number pad and adding more lighting. The keys are all backlit and look excellent in dimly lit rooms, although the touchpad isn't lit and is positioned slightly left-of-center, which can make reaching for it a bit awkward at first.
The matte black adds a stylish, understated finish to the chassis, and the Omen logo on the outside and "016" written on the inside are subtle enough to not disrupt the appearance. The screen has some flex, which is a bit disconcerting and adds to a slightly less-than-premium feel to the Omen Max 16. It is also easy to leave fingerprints and marks around the case, due to the color and material — but these are easy to wipe away.
We found the lights and overall aesthetic struck a good balance between fun and understated, with the RGB lighting tasteful and not too over the top. They can, however, be deactivated if you find them more garish than appealing.
HP Omen Max 16 (2025): Display
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The display is generally good on the Omen Max 16, partly thanks to its 400-nit brightness that we verified in testing with a display calibrator. This is not market-leading but is still brighter than average, making it clear even in well-lit rooms. The 97.4% coverage of the sRGB gamut is also perfectly acceptable for most use cases. Additional testing rendered 71.8% and 76.7% coverage of the Adobe and DCI P3 spectra, respectively; the results aren't bad, and just shy of what you need for professional usage — but these days, you tend to find many laptops with displays that can hit above 90%.
For a non-OLED screen, and to a casual eye, the colors generally pack a punch, except for a slightly washed-out black level, which scored an underwhelming 0.5 nits in our tests. This also feeds into a contrast ratio of 797:1:1, which is relatively disappointing.
Where this screen really excels is its lightning-fast refresh rate of 250 Hz — making using it a pleasure. Movement across the screen is fluid and silky, while it is also quick to respond to inputs. The machine is first-and-foremost designed with gamers in mind, so this is evidently what HP has put its efforts into when it comes to the screen — and in this area, it doesn't disappoint.
HP Omen Max 16 (2025): Keyboard and touchpad
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The keyboard layout is good overall, although the small Enter key and the slender up and down arrows take a bit of getting used to. In a departure from the 2023 model, the design is gapless, although the keys have enough space between them for comfortable touch typing. Each keystroke is springy with a pleasing level of key travel and haptic feedback, while not requiring too much effort to push down, striking a perfect balance.
The backlighting on the keys is customizable, with several fun presets ranging from a pulsing glow to a rippling effect from each keystroke, like a stone dropped in a pool of water. A number pad adds more functionality over the previous Omen Max.
We do, however, question how durable this keyboard is. During testing, a cat decided to try the keys and managed to prise several out — something she has not been able to do with other keyboards, notably the surprisingly tough MacBook Air 2022. The keys, which are slim and a little flimsy, quickly click back into place (at least on this occasion), but it raises doubts over how much casual wear and tear it can stand.
The touchpad is large, smooth and responsive. But it's positioned awkwardly and we often activate the right-click by accident; any left clicks require an irritating amount of leaning over to activate. This is something frequent use will fix, as you adjust to the machine, but it initially feels unnatural.
HP Omen Max 16 (2025): Performance and Battery
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Let's start with the good — performance is excellent. The HP Omen Max 16 is built with power in mind, especially when it comes to gaming, and it performed excellently, handling the latest AAA titles, such as Black Ops 7, with ease on Ultra settings. Our review unit boasted an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU paired with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (12 cores) CPU, 32 GB DDR5 SDRAM, and a 1TB SSD. And these mostly top-tier components duly stand and deliver.
Some games put up a fight, however, with the frames per second (FPS) on "Senua's Saga: Hellblade II" dropping into the 40s and occasionally even the 30s on maximum settings (although the game looks incredible).
A propensity to handle high-end gaming meant we were excited for what it meant for users looking to work with graphics-based tasks. The machine excelled when performing other video and photo editing, with its superior performance also playing out across benchmark tests — with the GPU registering an eye-watering score of 181,959 in our OpenCL test with Geekbench 6. This blows anything else we've tested completely out of the atmosphere.
The CPU was also excellent in benchmarking. It registered a fantastic 2,967 for single-core and 15,420 for multi-core performance, putting it far ahead of the 2023 model and plenty of other recent Windows machines.
One drawback of this power is how noisy the fans are in order to keep the machine cool. When pushing the Omen Max to its limits, they run so loudly to blast out hot air in various directions that you'll probably need to wear headphones to hear any sound. It's enough to annoy anybody unfortunate enough to be near you, let alone yourself.
Meanwhile, as we all know by now, with great power usually comes terrible battery life, and the Omen Max 16 is no exception. In our standard looped video playback battery test, the Omen Max 16 lasted for just 7 hours and 31 minutes. The only thing we've ever tested that performed worse was the 2023 HP Omen 16, which survived for a pitiful 4 hours and 53 minutes. So while the 2025 model shows an improvement, it's still not good when you consider that plenty of high-end and premium Windows machines can last well above 10 hours. But poor battery performance is typical for gaming machines like this.
HP Omen Max 16 (2025): Ports and Features
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The HP Omen Max 16 is quite chunky — standing 1 inch (25.4 millimeters) tall — but chunkiness means room for plenty of ports. The machine therefore has space to fit in two USB-A ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, a headphone jack,an Ethernet port and two USB-C ports. They are laid out logically and are easy to reach.
Feature-wise, it comes with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless connectivity, and a 1080p webcam that captures you well enough. The machine also comes with HP's Omen Gaming Hub software, which lets you better monitor and manage gaming performance.
HP Omen Max 16 (2025): Should I buy it?
The HP Omen Max 16 is really quite excellent at handling graphics-heavy workloads, such as video editing or gaming. However, its screen isn't quite accurate enough for most photographers and videographers, and its noise and weight are also offputting for those tasks if you need to be using it out and about — not to mention the lacklustre battery life. Ultimately, this machine is built for gamers and gaming, and that is who it should primarily appeal to.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/technology/hp-omen-max-16-2025-review-this-heavyweight-pushes-everything-to-the-max
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+ <![CDATA[ Eerie 'sand burials' of elite Anglo-Saxons and their 'sacrificed' horse discovered near UK nuclear power plant ]]>
+ Archaeologists in the U.K. have discovered a 1,400-year-old burial ground that contains "sand burials" of two elite people and a horse dating to Anglo-Saxon times.
The archaeological team fromOxford Cotswold Archaeology found "at least 11 burial mounds, known as barrows, along with cremation and inhumation burials," they wrote in astatement. The researchers found the burial ground ahead of the construction of a nuclear power plant near the village of Sizewell, which is in the eastern English district of Suffolk.
The site has acidic soil, which tends to degrade bone, but in two graves the outlines of skeletons were found. One grave had the outline of a horse while the other had the outlines of two people. These remnants are known as sand burials, as it looks like the individuals were made out of sand.
The burials, even the horse's, contained grave goods.
"The horse was buried with its tack [riding gear] still on its head and shoulders that comprised [pieces] of copper alloy decoration and a probable iron bit in its mouth," Maria Bellissimo, a spokesperson at Oxford Cotswold Archaeology, told Live Science in an email. The two people "were buried with a sword, a spear, two shields, an iron banded bucket, along with a copper and a silver vessel."
Although the sand burials hold important clues, they don't impart as much information as a preserved skeleton would.
"We cannot tell their age as accurately" from their sandy silhouettes as experts could from a skeleton, Bellissimo said, "but it looks like they were both probably full-grown adults." The sex of the two people is unknown, but "our evidence indicates that the two individuals were buried at the same time and so it's very likely they died at the same time," Bellissimo said.
A shield boss was found with the two buried people. It would have been attached to the center of a shield. (Image credit: Copyright Oxford Cotswold Archaeology)
Their cause of death is also a mystery. "We can postulate that the horse was probably sacrificed to be interred with its owners, who we assume to be the two individuals in the adjacent grave," she said.
They appear to date to the sixth or seventh century A.D., a time when England was divided into several kingdoms. It's not clear who these people were, but the "weaponry, the horse and the copper and silver items within the grave as well as them being buried in a burial mound [suggest] that these were elite individuals," Bellissimo said.
Howard Williams, a professor of archaeology at the University of Chester in the U.K. who was not involved with the excavations, said that the burials are located on a ridge that is "prominent in the local landscape for those travelling inland" after landing at sea. At the time there "were maritime communities connected by trade and kinship along England's east coast as well as connections inland across south-east Britain."
This coin hoard consists of more than 300 coins and was found near the nuclear power plant site. It dates to several centuries after the sand burials. (Image credit: Copyright Oxford Cotswold Archaeology)
The new discovery promises "to add important information to our understanding of the practices and beliefs of these people who [were] part of the emerging East Anglian kingdom in the centuries after the collapse of the Roman province of Britannia," Williams told Live Science in an email.
Archaeologists made additional discoveries during the excavation. One of them was a hoard of more than 300 silver coins that dates to the 11th century.
Found bundled in lead and cloth, the "hoard is believed to have been a savings pot buried by a local figure as a precaution during a time of significant social and political unrest" in the 11th century, the team wrote in the statement.
What's more, experts identified a pottery kiln dating to the Roman period (A.D. 43 to 410), an oak ladder dating to the Iron Age (800 B.C. to A.D. 50), the remains of settlements from the Bronze Age (2300 to 800 B.C.), as well as numerous ovens from medieval times (600 to 1500). Research into the discoveries is ongoing.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/eerie-sand-burials-of-elite-anglo-saxons-and-their-sacrificed-horse-discovered-near-uk-nuclear-power-plant
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+ <![CDATA[ Last year, the oceans absorbed a record-breaking amount of heat — equivalent to 12 Hiroshima bombs exploding every second ]]>
+ The ocean soaked up more heat last year than in any year since modern measurements began around 1960, according to a new analysis published in Advances in Atmospheric Science.
The world's oceans absorb more than 90% of excess heat trapped in Earth's atmosphere by greenhouse gas emissions. As heat in the atmosphere accumulates, heat stored in the ocean increases, too, making ocean heat a reliable indicator of long-term climate change.
Ocean temperatures influence the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves, change atmospheric circulation, and govern global precipitation patterns.
Scientists measure the ocean's heat in different ways. One common metric is global annual mean sea surface temperature, the average temperature in the top few meters of ocean waters. Global sea surface temperature in 2025 was the third warmest ever recorded, at about 0.5°C (0.9°F) above the 1981-2010 average.
Another metric is ocean heat content, which measures the total heat energy stored in the world's oceans. It's measured in zettajoules: One zettajoule is equivalent to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules. To measure heat content in 2025, the study's authors assessed ocean observational data from the upper 2,000 meters of the ocean, where most of the heat is absorbed, from NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
They found that in total, the ocean absorbed an additional 23 zettajoules of heat energy in 2025, breaking the ocean heat content record for the ninth consecutive year and marking the longest sequence of consecutive ocean heat content records ever recorded.
"Last year was a bonkers, crazy warming year," John Abraham, a mechanical engineer at the University of St. Thomas and a co-author of the new study, told Wired.
Twenty-three zettajoules in one year is equivalent to the energy of 12 Hiroshima bombs exploding in the ocean every second. It's also a large increase over the 16 zettajoules of heat the ocean absorbed in 2024. The hottest areas of the ocean observed in 2025 were the tropical and South Atlantic, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Ocean.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/last-year-the-oceans-absorbed-a-record-breaking-amount-of-heat-equivalent-to-12-hiroshima-bombs-exploding-every-second
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+ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 13:21:19 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:14:46 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Remnants of spills on Renaissance-era textbook reveal recipes for 'curing' ailments with lizard heads and human feces ]]>
+ Folk medicine practitioners in 16th-century Europe left ingredients and fingerprints smudged on their manuals while developing remedies for minor ailments. Now, researchers are studying the chemical traces Renaissance people left behind to understand how they experimented with novel cures.
Two German medical manuals — "How to Cure and Expel All Afflictions and Illnesses of the Human Body" and "A Useful and Essential Little Book of Medicine for the Common Man" — were published in 1531 by eye doctor Bartholomäus Vogtherr. His systematically gathered recipe books for common ailments, like hair loss and bad breath, quickly became bestsellers in Renaissance domestic medicine.
One copy of Vogtherr's works, in the collection of the John Rylands Research Institute and Library at the University of Manchester in England, is covered with 16th- and 17th-century scribbles and notes that suggest users tested the recipes in the manual and made their own additions. These fingerprints contained invisible chemical traces of proteins, and for the first time, researchers have worked out how to analyze these remnants.
In a study published Nov. 19 in the journal American Historical Review, researchers reported their success at using proteomics analysis to identify the materials that medical practitioners were using as they flipped through Vogtherr's book centuries ago.
"People always leave molecular traces on the pages of books and other documents when they come into contact with paper," study co-author Gleb Zilberstein, a biotechnology expert and inventor, told Live Science in an email. "These traces include components of sweat, sometimes saliva, metabolites, contaminants, and environmental components." Proteins and peptides are part of this mixture and are "often invisible to the naked eye," Zilberstein added.
To analyze the proteins and peptides (molecules made up of strings of amino acids), the researchers first used specially made plastic diskettes to capture the proteins from the paper. Then, they used mass spectrometry to detect individual amino-acid chains that could be identified as specific proteins.
In total, the researchers sequenced 111 proteins from the Vogtherr manual. Most of the proteins were from the practitioners themselves, the team wrote in the study, but several were associated with plants or animals that were featured in the curative recipes.
"Peptide traces of European beech, watercress, and rosemary were recovered next to recipes recommending the use of these plants to cure hair loss and to strengthen the growth of facial and head hair," the researchers wrote, and "lipocalin recovered next to a recipe that recommends the everyday use of human feces to wash one's bald head for overcoming hair loss points to reader-practitioners following such instructions."
Other collagen peptides were harder to identify. One extracted protein could match either tortoise shell or lizards. While 16th-century medical literature mentions that turtle shells were reported to cure edema (fluid retention), pulverized lizard heads were used to prevent hair loss. But the protein was discovered on a page next to Vogtherr's hair-growth recipes, suggesting that the user of the medical manual may have experimented with lizards as hair-care therapy.
Another surprising discovery was the recovery of collagen peptides that may match a hippopotamus next to recipes discussing ailments of the mouth and scalp. Hippos were a popular curiosity across early modern Europe, and their teeth were thought to cure baldness, severe dental problems and kidney stones. The traces of hippo proteins may suggest that Vogtherr's readers struggled with tooth issues, the researchers wrote, as recipes to cure stinking breath, mouth ulcers and black teeth are dog-eared and annotated in the manual.
"Proteomics help contextualize both the symptoms that people possibly struggled with when turning to recipe knowledge for help and the bodily effects of recipe trials and treatments," the researchers wrote.
The scientists hope their novel analysis of invisible proteins clinging to centuries-old books will contribute to a better understanding of early modern household science.
"In the future, we plan to expand this work and examine other historical books," Zilberstein said, as well as "to identify individual readers based on their proteomic data."
Conspiracy theory quiz: Test your knowledge of unfounded beliefs, from flat Earth to lizard people
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+ https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/remnants-of-spills-on-renaissance-era-textbook-reveal-recipes-for-curing-ailments-with-lizard-heads-and-human-feces
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+ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 20:14:46 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Motorola Moto Watch Fit fitness tracker review: The perfect yoga companion ]]>
+ Choosing from the best fitness trackers available can feel overwhelming at times — how can you differentiate them? How do you know if they have all the features you're looking for? This is why we spend weeks testing fitness trackers, to help gather the information you need to make an informed decision.
When it comes to the Motorola Moto Watch Fit, there was a lot to like and only a few things that turned us off. However, when you consider the price of this fitness tracker, there isn't much to grumble about. We loved the amount of yoga types you could select from, the personalized workout screen that took minutes, if not seconds, to sort, the Velcro-adjustable strap, the battery life, the sleep tracking and the durability of the Gorilla Glass screen.
While the accuracy of the stress monitor was questionable, and the tracker was unable to determine when all workouts were paused or finished, there was still a lot to like about this budget fitness watch. So much so that we wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to newbies to the fitness tracking world, keen yogis or those looking to make tracking their fitness as easy as possible.
It's in tough competition with the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 in our eyes. The Smart Band 10 shines with an extra week of battery life compared to the Motorola Moto Watch Fit, but otherwise, these fitness trackers are very similar. So how did the Motorola Moto Watch Fit perform during our testing period? Read on to find out.
Motorola Moto Watch Fit review
Motorola Moto Watch Fit : Design
The Velcro strap on the Motorola Moto Watch Fit lets you adjust the strap to your precise wrist size. (Image credit: Kat Bayly)
The Velcro strap is a nice touch
Screen is a great size, durable and resistant
Lots of personalization features
There is a lot to like about the Motorola Moto Watch Fit, especially as it seems to be a fitness watch with numerous personalization features, which make this watch more compatible with you than you first realize.
For example, there is the standard personalization of the watch faces, with a huge amount to select from. However, beyond this, the Velcro strap design, while initially appearing somewhat cheap-looking, is actually a blessing in disguise. It allows you to get this watch to fit your exact wrist size, reducing the number of times it may slip down your wrist during exercise. While the silicone straps on other fitness watches are good, they tend to leave you with only a few options for sizing. The whole of the band on the Motorola Moto Watch Fit is available to use as a Velcro band, meaning even those with smaller wrists can get this watch to fit snugly.
While we love the Velcro strap, we aren't too keen on the color. Currently, it appears this watch is only available with this color strap, a dark green with a yellow race stripe down the center, which is a little disappointing. Motorola does note you can swap this band out with any other compatible 0.86-inch (22 mm) band, although it appears these need to be sourced elsewhere than Motorola.
The side button is discreet and doesn't interfere with this watch's performance during workouts. (Image credit: Kat Bayly)
Specifications
Display: 1.9" OLED, Gorilla Glass
Always-on: Yes
Dimensions (in): 1.75 x 1.49 x 0.37
Dimensions (mm): 44.46 x 37.9 x 9.5
Weight: 0.88 oz (25 g)
Colors: Trekking Green
GPS: Yes
Compass: No
Altimeter: No
Water resistance: 5ATM (up to a depth of 50 meters)
NFC Payments: No
Compatibility: Android 12 and up
The personalization feature we feel it's important to note is the fact that you can add and remove workouts on the workout screen with a simple touch of the Add and Remove buttons. Even the most uninterested person in tech could easily adapt their workout screen within seconds. This means that hitting go on a workout involves the minimal amount of faff possible — a real godsend compared to wading through tons of workouts until you find the one you want (and then that one appearing again on your workout screen for future reference).
Furthermore, there is a wide range of workouts available to choose from, including differentiation of yoga types. This gives this watch massive appeal to yogis who can now distinguish between their Ashtanga practice and their restorative or Yin Yoga. It might not seem like a big deal to non-yogis, but different types of yoga require different levels of energy, with some being more dynamic and others more slow and steady, meaning stats per yoga session can vary widely. With the Motorola Moto Watch Fit, you can now capture your yoga sessions far more accurately.
Another great feature of this watch is the screen, with a 1.9-in OLED display that's a good size without being too bulky. The visibility is great in all light conditions, and we found it to be sufficiently durable and resistant to dust and other particles for a budget fitness tracker. After two weeks of continuous daily testing, there wasn't a mark or scratch to be found on the screen, which is possibly thanks to its Gorilla Glass.
The screen itself feels quite slender on your wrist, and there are minimal external buttons, meaning this watch isn't prone to getting stuck on clothing while working out (one of our bugbears!) There is one button on the side that can be used to turn the screen on (if you don't have always-on mode activated) and to pause workouts. Other than that, most operations are handled by swiping or touching the screen.
Motorola Moto Watch Fit: Performance
Stats are presented clearly both on the watch itself and via the accompanying app. (Image credit: Kat Bayly)
Outstanding battery life for a budget fitness tracker
Sleep and heart rate monitoring are largely accurate
The stress monitor appears to be inaccurate
For a budget fitness tracker, the Motorola Moto Watch Fit performed well. It logged most of our workouts accurately, including the length of time we were exercising for, the length of the walks we took and our heart rate. It also has exceptional battery life, offering two weeks on a single charge, and we can attest this was the case for our testing period. We never needed to charge it during our two-week testing period and still had 32% of battery life at the time of writing this review. However, we should note that we had the "always-on" feature turned off during this period, as a personal preference. Having this feature on would certainly drain the battery faster.
While walking outdoors, with the watch using its own built-in GPS, the watch automatically acknowledges when you have paused and when you start walking again. This is a great feature that allows you to stay present in your surroundings, rather than having to constantly stop and start your workout whenever you pause to look at something on your walk. You also have the option to pause workouts by tapping the screen or pressing the button on the side, which is perfect for indoor workouts when automatic acknowledgement of a pause in a workout doesn't work.
Although overall we were impressed with this watch's performance, we did notice a few nuances in its accuracy functions. The Motorola Moto Watch Fit can't recognize when you have finished a workout, so it's important to remember to finish your workout manually. To do so, it's a simple swipe to the right when on the workout screen and a press of the Finish button. Unlike other budget watches we've reviewed, such as the Xiaomi Smart Band 10, you only need to tap the Finish button rather than hold it down to end a workout. This made ending workouts quick, which we liked.
The reason we say to end your workouts promptly is that, when doing a yoga class, we forgot to end our workout and realized an hour later, after having sat down for lunch. The watch had continued monitoring our "workout" and couldn't distinguish between us doing yoga and eating lunch! This was slightly disappointing, but as this is a budget fitness watch, it was understandable.
The accompanying app displays stats in an easy-to-digest format. (Image credit: Kat Bayly)
Another feature that left us unsatisfied was the stress monitor. The stress monitor appears to use your heart rate as a monitor for your stress. Currently being six months pregnant means our heart rate is always higher than average, with a resting BPM of somewhere between 90-100bpm. This put us in the Medium category for stress; however, we did not experience any level of stress during our testing period, as we were on holiday. Consequently, we found this measurement unreliable and void, which was a shame.
However, being pregnant also meant that we could tell the heart rate monitoring on the Motorola Moto Watch Fit was largely accurate. Capturing our resting BPM often in the 90s, and our exercising BPM reaching a maximum of 142 when doing light exercise, we felt happy that this aligned with our current heart rate due to the pregnancy.
While we found the heart rate monitoring to be impressively accurate for a budget fitness tracker, we were also surprisingly happy with the sleep monitoring function. Again, being six months pregnant, we are often up in the night for toilet trips. The watch accurately captured our awake windows, including how long we were actually awake for. Not only this, but we found the sleep data to be interesting to look at the following day, with it capturing the length of our sleep, the time spent in deep sleep, light sleep and REM, our awake periods and sleep heart rate. The data also gives you an idea of the quality of your sleep.
Motorola Moto Watch Fit: Functionality
There were many things to like about the Motorola Moto Watch Fit, including how it captured health stats. (Image credit: Kat Bayly)
Simple interface is ideal for beginners
Lack of smart features
Additional useful features
Overall, we felt the Motorola Moto Watch Fit did a great job, especially for a budget fitness tracker. The combination of the design, including many personalization options, and strong performance allows us to confidently give this fitness watch 4.5 stars out of 5. We would happily have given it five stars if some of the features provided more accurate stats.
However, we can't fault the interface of this fitness watch. There are only six actions required to get what you want from this watch. These are: • pressing the button on the side to activate the screen • tapping the screen to wake it up • swiping right to access the main menu (including workout features) • swiping left to access your daily activity goals • swiping up for any notifications • swiping down for the quick menu, including water lock, torch and sleep mode.
It really is as simple as that — once you've spent a few minutes familiarizing yourself with these actions, you can confidently move around the watch. We think it's a good option for beginners to fitness tracking.
As far as we can make out, the Motorola Moto Watch Fit is primarily a fitness tracker, as it lacks smart features such as NFC payments. While we didn't personally miss these features, those looking for a fitness tracker-cum-smartwatch may want to look elsewhere. This is a "basic" fitness watch — as you'd expect at this price.
We loved the amount of features that allow you to personalize this fitness tracker. (Image credit: Kat Bayly)
While the primary function of this fitness watch is to track your workouts, there are some additional features that are handy to have. These include breathing exercises, a torch and 5ATM water resistance. There is sadly only one breathing exercise, but you can increase how long you want to practice it for by increasing the number of minutes. For those looking for more of a rounded approach to their health and fitness, the inclusion of breathing exercises is a nice touch that can help people destress and unwind — especially as health isn't just about the workouts we do.
The 5ATM water resistance and water lock function mean you can wear this fitness tracker while swimming. It also has its own "Pool swimming" workout mode — great news for those who prefer working out in water rather than on land.
Previously, we haven't felt the need to use the additional features, such as a torch, when reviewing fitness trackers. However, due to our pregnancy and many trips to the loo each night, we can say that having a torch on your wrist is actually a worthwhile thing! It's bright enough to light up a room and safely walk in the dark — we only used it indoors, but this feature might also prove useful when rooting around in the car or trunk when returning home in the dark from the shops, for example. It unfortunately won't suffice for using outside while exercising, as it turns off after a few minutes.
Overall, we feel the Motorola Moto Watch Fit is a fantastic budget fitness tracker that feels more premium than it is. Some of its features are outstanding, and only a few could be a tad better.
Should you buy the Motorola Moto Watch Fit?
Buy it if:
✅ You're a regular yoga class attendee: We loved the amount of yoga types you could select from on this watch.
✅ You want a fitness watch you can personalize to your needs: The personalization features on this watch are seriously impressive for its price point.
Don't buy it if:
❌ You want a smartwatch: This is a basic fitness watch, so you'll need to look elsewhere for features like NFC payments.
❌ Accuracy is important to you: While the accuracy was generally acceptable, if you want complete peace of mind, you'll need to up your budget and spend more.
The Motorola Moto Watch Fit has some impressive features, such as its personalization abilities, multiple yoga workout options, 5ATM water resistance, built-in GPS, user-friendly interface, extensive battery life and useful additional features, to name a few. We found the benefits and ease of use of this watch far outweighed the few things we noted as disappointments. It's also worth remembering that this is a budget fitness tracker, and as such, it can't be directly compared to the likes of Garmin watches, which are renowned for their accuracy but cost considerably more.
Saying that, there are a few groups of people who would particularly like this tracker. Beginners to fitness trackers will find the interface accessible, while the accompanying app is also a breeze to look through and understand — there is nothing overly complex in the data that could overwhelm those new to the world of fitness tracking.
Keen yogis will also be delighted with the ability to choose more than just "Yoga" on their workouts. The variety of yoga types means yogis can accurately capture their workout and look back at their data knowing exactly the type of yoga they practised at the time. This is useful as not all yoga requires the same amount of energy and thus calories burned and heart rate measurements may look quite different depending on the style being practiced.
Finally, this watch will appeal to anyone looking to make fitness tracking easy. With the ability to personalize your workout menu and set the strap to your exact wrist size, all the faff is removed, and it literally takes a second to start and end your workout.
While we think the Motorola Moto Watch Fit is a great budget fitness tracker, it may not suit your needs. If you're looking for a slender fitness watch, the Xiaomi Smart Band 10 is a good option, receiving 4.5 out of 5 stars in our review and featuring as the best budget fitness tracker in our best fitness trackers guide. We complimented its slender design, which allowed it to be unobtrusive, both during workouts and to wear at night, and it features over 150 workout modes. Plus, the battery life is around 21 days — a tad better than the Motorola Moto Watch Fit.
If you have more money to spend but are new to fitness tracking, consider the Garmin Vivoactive 6. With a similar battery life of 11 days, accurate fitness tracking and exercise animations, the Vivoactive 6 is a great introduction to Garmin's fitness tracking technology without feeling overwhelmed.
Depending on your needs and budget, you might want to try the Garmin Fenix 8 if you're looking for a reliable fitness watch to track your workouts — we rate it as the best fitness tracker for tracking workouts. However, this might be a bit too expensive for some, especially if you're new to the fitness tracking world.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/health/exercise/motorola-moto-watch-fit-fitness-tracker-review
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+ RTJ3WjZfLrNuU2MgdMs8Ye
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+ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 12:30:00 +0000Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:55:00 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Nebra Sky Disc: The world's oldest depiction of astronomical phenomena — and it may depict the Pleiades ]]>
+
QUICK FACTS
Name: Nebra Sky Disc
What it is: Abronze disc with gold accents
Where it is from: Nebra, Germany
When it was made: Circa 1800 to 1600 B.C.
The Nebra Sky Disc was discovered in an artifact hoard in 1999, when metal detectorists illegally excavated it from an ancient religious site on a hill near Nebra, a town in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. After police recovered the disc in 2002, archaeologists studied the unique object, revealing it's up to 3,800 years old and the world's oldest depiction of astronomical phenomena. (The next oldest is astar map on the ceiling of an ancient Egyptian tomb from about 3,500 years ago.)
The Sky Disc was crafted from about 8.8 pounds (4 kilograms) of bronze, according to the State Museum of Prehistory in Halle, Germany, where the object is on display. The bronze was flattened into a disc 12.6 inches (32 centimeters) in diameter and then decorated with 1.8 ounces (50 grams) of gold inlay representing a boat, a crescent moon, a full moon or a sun, and a series of stars.
Based on the style of the axes and the carbon dating of wood in the hilts of swords recovered along with the disc in the metal hoard, experts think the Sky Disc was buried around 1600 B.C., during the Early Bronze Age, but it may have been created two centuries earlier.
Some research has questioned the disc's authenticity, saying that it probably didn't come from Nebra and was about 1,000 years more recent, based on a soil and chemical analysis of the artifact. A subsequent study countered those claims and found that the disc was authentic and from Nebra but that it was made in several stages.
Close examination of the disc revealed that it was made in at least five phases. Initially, the bronze disc included the full moon or sun, the crescent moon and 32 stars. Then, two arcs were placed on each side of the disc. A third arc, perhaps representing a boat, was then added to the bottom. In the fourth phase, the rim of the disc was perforated, suggesting it may have been attached to a support, like a pole for ceremonial use. Finally, the left arc was removed before the disc was buried with the metal hoard. But experts don't know exactly when the disc was made or how much time passed between the phases of decoration.
The Nebra Sky Disc appears to represent the night sky, with several stars forming the Pleiades, or "Seven Sisters," star cluster. The golden arcs on each side of the disc may represent the horizons, marking the summer and winter solstices, and the boat may be a mythical one that brought the sun across the sky from east to west in the daytime and back at night.
By aligning the Sky Disc with the plateau on Mittelberg Hill, where it was found, the western horizon arc aligns with the Brocken, a high mountain that the sun disappears behind on the summer solstice. This suggests the Sky Disc may have been used to keep track of important astronomical dates in prehistory.
But who used the Sky Disc and who buried it are still mysteries, partly because it was recovered by treasure hunters and not in a scientific excavation. The treasure hunters damaged the gold sun or full moon, scratched the surface, and cleaned it improperly. Given the numerous well-furnished burial mounds of important people that dotted the landscape of central Germany as early as 2000 B.C., however, perhaps the Sky Disc once belonged to a Bronze Age chieftain.
For more stunning archaeological discoveries, check out our Astonishing Artifacts archives.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/nebra-sky-disc-the-worlds-oldest-depiction-of-astronomical-phenomena-and-it-may-depict-the-pleiades
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+ 2Ucni5PbrTXcZxHec5WpE4
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+ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:50:37 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ James Webb telescope reveals sharpest-ever look at the edge of a black hole — and it could solve a major galactic mystery ]]>
+ Astronomers have revealed theJames Webb Space Telescope's (JWST) sharpest-ever image of the area around a black hole. The spectacular view could help solve a decades-long mystery while reversing a long-held belief about space's most extreme objects.
Since the 1990s, astronomers have observed a curious brightness in infrared wavelengths surrounding the active supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the centers of some galaxies. Previously, they attributed these excess infrared emissions to the outflows — superheated streams of matter blasted from black holes.
But in a new study published Jan. 13 in the journal Nature Communications, an international team of researchers used JWST to look into the heart of the nearby Circinus galaxy, located only about 13 million light-years from Earth, to reveal the area around the galaxy's SMBH.
The data from JWST, paired with numerous ground-based observations, reveal that the infrared excess is coming from the disk of dusty material that's falling into the Circinus galaxy's central SMBH, rather than from material flowing away from it.
This galactic revelation can help astronomers better understand the growth and evolution of SMBHs, as well as these massive dark monsters' influence on their host galaxies.
Of doughnuts and disks
Active black holes like those at the centers of galaxies are fed by a giant ring of infalling gas and dust. As a black hole draws material from the inner wall of this "doughnut," known as a torus, the material forms a thinner accretion disk that spirals into the black hole like water spiraling into a drain.
An illustration of a supermassive black hole spewing an energetic outburst into space (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI))
The black hole's tidal forces accelerate the infalling matter to great speeds. The resulting friction within the disk causes the swirling matter to emit light that glows so brightly that it obscures astronomers' view of the inner region around the black hole.
Yetblack holes are not vacuum cleaners, and even they have a feeding limit. So they blast some of the swirling material back into space, in the form of jets or "winds." Therefore, an understanding of the nature of a black hole's torus, accretion disk and outflows is key to knowing how black holes of various sizes accrete and expel matter to potentially shape their host galaxies by quenching or enhancing star formation across galactic scales.
Resolving a long-standing mystery
The dense gas and bright starlight in Circinus previously prevented astronomers from viewing the galaxy's central region and SMBH in detail.
"In order to study the supermassive black hole, despite being unable to resolve it, they had to obtain the total intensity of the inner region of the galaxy over a large wavelength range and then feed that data into models," lead study author Enrique Lopez-Rodriguez, a galaxy evolution researcher at the University of South Carolina, said in aNASA statement.
Earlier models separately fit the observed spectra of the torus, accretion disk and outflows, but they couldn't resolve the region in its entirety. As a result, astronomers could not explain which part of the SMBH's surroundings caused the excess emissions in infrared light.
JWST's advanced capabilities allowed astronomers to peer through the dust and starlight of Circinus so they could get a sharper view of the SMBH's environment. To do so, they used an imaging technique known as interferometry.
Ground-based interferometry generally requires an array of telescopes or mirrors that work together to gather and combine light from a celestial object over a large area. By combining light from multiple sources, this method causes theelectromagnetic waves that form that light to create interference patterns that astronomers can analyze to reveal the sizes, shapes and other characteristics of those objects.
Unlike these terrestrial facilities, however, the space-based JWST can operate as its own interferometer array via its aperture masking interferometer (AMI), a component of the telescope's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument. Like a camera aperture, AMI is an opaque physical mask with seven small, hexagonal holes that control the amount and direction of light entering JWST's detectors.
Overall, AMI effectively doubles JWST's resolution. "This allows us to see images twice as sharp," Joel Sanchez-Bermudez, an astrophysicist at the National University of Mexico and co-author of the study, said in the statement. "Instead of Webb's 6.5-meter [21 feet] diameter, it's like we are observing this region with a 13-meter space telescope."
By doubling its resolution, JWST captured its sharpest-ever view of a 33-light-year-wide area at the center of Circinus. This unprecedented image allowed researchers to calculate that the majority — around 87% — of the excess infrared emissions come from the dusty disk that's actively feeding the central black hole; "the inner surface of the hole of the doughnut," Lopez-Rodriguez said via email. Whereas previous research had suggested that the excess may have come from hot dusty winds, or even the galaxy’s residual starlight, the team found that less than 1% of these emissions come from the energetic outflows streaming away from the SMBH.
The accretion may be extinguishing star formation in the center of Circinus, but confirming this will require a different type of JWST-based observation, Lopez-Rodriguez said.
An invaluable perspective
An illustration of the James Webb Space Telescope in orbit (Image credit: Getty Images)
In addition to revealing previously hidden SMBH mechanics, this research highlights the potential of JWST-based interferometry for studying various celestial objects, including other active SMBHs at the cores of nearby galaxies. By increasing the sample size, astronomers hope to determine whether the infrared emissions from other SMBHs are due to their dusty disks or to their hot outflows.
"AMI has to be used — in order to get precious JWST time — on targets which cannot be done from the ground, or at wavelengths that are blocked by the Earth's atmosphere," study co-author Julien Girard, a senior research scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, told Live Science via email.
AMI-based observations can better illuminate our own solar system; they recently offered a detailed look at the volcanoes onJupiter's hellish moon Io, Girard added. So AMI can observe diverse cosmic objects of varying shapes and sizes, from moons oozing with lava to black holes obscured by dust. In the future, it could help astronomers detect moons around prominent asteroids or reveal the orbits and masses of multistar systems, Girard added.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/james-webb-telescope-reveals-sharpest-ever-look-at-the-edge-of-a-black-hole-and-it-could-solve-a-major-galactic-mystery
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+ YWnkwYq75di4CGaAGcg98L
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+ Mon, 19 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:42:34 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Astronomers confirm earliest Milky Way-like galaxy in the universe, just 2 billion years after the Big Bang ]]>
+ Scientists continue to push the boundaries of astronomy and cosmology, thanks to next-generation instruments that can see farther and clearer than ever before.
Through these efforts, astronomers have observed some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. In turn, this has led to refined theories and timelines of galactic formation and evolution.
In a recent study, a team of astronomers led by the University of Pittsburgh (UPitt) uncovered what could be the earliest barred spiral galaxy ever observed. This finding helps constrain the timeframe in which bars first emerged in the Universe.
The research was led by Daniel Ivanov, a physics and astronomy graduate student in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) with data from Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), the team spotted a barred spiral galaxy (COSMOS-74706). Thanks to additional confirmation by the Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration (MOSFIRE) on the Keck I telescope, the team determined that this galaxy existed over 11.5 billion years ago.
He and his team presented their findings on Jan. 8th, 2026, at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Phoenix, Arizona.
According to the Hubble Sequence, galaxies are grouped into elliptical, spiral, and lenticular based on their morphological characteristics. Whereas galaxies generally begin as irregular disks, they evolve to form spiral arms extending from a central bulge (aka. a spiral galaxy).
Barred spirals, such as the Milky Way, also have a bar-shaped linear arrangement of stars across their centers, which play an important role in their evolution by funneling gas inward from the outer reaches, feeding the supermassive black hole in the center, and suppressing star formation throughout the stellar disk.
Hubble image of the Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300. (Image credit: NASA/ESA/The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)/P. Knezek (WIYN))
While researchers have reported barred spiral galaxies that are even older, analyses of these candidates have been less conclusive, as the observations were made using gravitational lensing or redshift measurements. Whereas the former method is hampered by the lensing effect, which often blurs the light from the more distant object, redshift measurements are subject to errors and uncertainties of 10-15%. Neither method is as definitive as spectroscopy, which was used to validate the age of COSMOS-74706.
The discovery of a barred spiral galaxy this early in the Universe was not entirely surprising, as some simulations suggest that bars were forming in galaxies as far back as 12.5 billion years. However, observational evidence of such structures has been much harder to come by, making this a significant discovery that helps constrain the timeline of galactic evolution. As Ivanov stated in a UPitt press release:
This galaxy was developing bars 2 billion years after the birth of the Universe. Two billion years after the Big Bang. It's the highest redshift, spectroscopically confirmed, unlensed barred spiral galaxy. In principle, I think that this is not an epoch in which you expect to find many of these objects. It helps to constrain the timescales of bar formation. And it’s just really interesting.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/astronomers-confirm-earliest-milky-way-like-galaxy-in-the-universe-just-2-billion-years-after-the-big-bang
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+ m2jtFKXtsAQPXFXjKgkigM
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 20:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:50:37 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Viruses that evolved on the space station and were sent back to Earth were more effective at killing bacteria ]]>
+ Bacteria and the viruses that infect them, called phages, are locked in an evolutionary arms race. But that evolution follows a different trajectory when the battle takes place in microgravity, a study conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) reveals.
As bacteria and phages duke it out, bacteria evolve better defenses to survive while phages evolve new ways to penetrate those defenses. The new study, published Jan. 13 in the journal PLOS Biology, details how that skirmish unfolds in space and reveals insights that could help us design better drugs for antibiotic-resistant bacteria on Earth.
In the study, researchers compared populations of E. coli infected with a phage known as T7. One set of microbes was incubated aboard the ISS, while identical control groups were grown on Earth.
The analysis of the space-station samples revealed that microgravity fundamentally altered the speed and nature of phage infection.
While the phages could still successfully infect and kill the bacteria in space, the process took longer than it did in the Earth samples. In an earlier study, the same researchers had hypothesized that infection cycles in microgravity would be slower because fluids don't mix as well in microgravity as they do in Earth's gravity.
"This new study validates our hypothesis and expectation," said lead study author Srivatsan Raman, an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
On Earth, the fluids bacteria and viruses exist within are constantly being stirred by gravity — warm water rises, cold water sinks, and heavier particles settle at the bottom. This keeps everything moving and bumping into each other.
In space, there is no stirring; everything just floats. So because the bacteria and phages weren't bumping into each other as often, phages had to adapt to a much slower pace of life and become more efficient at grabbing onto passing bacteria.
"If we can work out what phages are doing on the genetic level in order to adapt to the microgravity environment, we can apply that knowledge to experiments with resistant bacteria," Nicol Caplin, a former astrobiologist at the European Space Agency who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. "And this can be a positive step in the race to optimise antibiotics on Earth."
Whole-genome sequencing revealed that both the bacteria and the phages on the ISS accumulated distinctive genetic mutations not observed in the samples on Earth. The space-based viruses accumulated specific mutations that boosted their ability to infect bacteria, as well as their ability to bind to bacterial receptors. Simultaneously, the E. coli developed mutations that protected against the phages' attacks — by tweaking their receptors, for instance — and enhanced their survival in microgravity.
Then, the researchers used a technique called deep mutational scanning to examine the changes in the viruses' receptor-binding proteins. They found that the adaptations driven by the unique cosmic environment may have practical applications back home.
When the phages were transported back to Earth and tested, the space-adapted changes in their receptor-binding protein resulted in increased activity against E. coli strains that commonly cause urinary tract infections. These strains are typically resistant to the T7 phages.
"It was a serendipitous finding," Raman said. "We were not expecting that the [mutant] phages that we identified on the ISS would kill pathogens on Earth."
"These results show how space can help us improve the activity of phage therapies," said Charlie Mo, an assistant professor in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the study.
"However," Mo added, "we do have to factor in the cost of sending phages into space or simulating microgravity on Earth to achieve these results."
In addition to helping fight infections in Earthbound patients, the research could help yield more effective phage therapies for use in microgravity, Mo suggested. "This could be important for astronauts' health on long-term space missions — for example, missions to the moon or Mars, or prolonged ISS stays."
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+ https://www.livescience.com/health/viruses-infections-disease/viruses-that-evolved-on-the-space-station-and-were-sent-back-to-earth-were-more-effective-at-killing-bacteria
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+ 3koxtHsy4aF98We8u6krTk
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000Mon, 19 Jan 2026 17:13:23 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Why is flu season so bad this year? ]]>
+ If it feels like everyone around you has come down with the flu, you're not imagining it.
As of Jan. 9, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that at least 15 million people have gotten sick with the flu this season. Of those, 180,000 have been hospitalized, and 7,400 people have died from flu so far, including 17 children.
These numbers make the current flu season one of the worst the U.S. has seen in decades. According to Syra Madad, an epidemiologist at the Harvard Belfer Center and chief biopreparedness officer at NYC Health + Hospitals, who publishes a weekly analysis of respiratory virus trends in her newsletter Critical Health Voices, the country is experiencing the highest number of flu cases in nearly 30 years.
At Phoenix Children's Hospital, flu cases have been high since mid-December 2025, said pediatric infectious disease specialist Dr. Monica Abdelnour.
"Although the CDC [currently] estimates this flu season to be of moderate severity, the rates we are seeing are similar to, and in some cases slightly higher than, those observed in the 2024-2025 season, which was deemed high-severity," she told Live Science in an email. "It remains possible this flu season may ultimately be categorized as high severity as well."
While the CDC reported a slight dip in the number of lab-confirmed flu cases in the first week of 2026, compared to the last week of 2025, Madad told Live Science that it's "too early to declare we are past the peak." Flu activity in the U.S. usually peaks sometime between December and February. The CDC also noted that the small drop in confirmed cases could be linked to expected decreases in doctor visits and testing during the holidays, not an actual drop in flu spread.
What is subclade K?
A lot of the talk about this year's flu season has centered on something called "subclade K."
To understand what this is, it's important to know that flu viruses are constantly evolving, gaining small genetic mutations as they spread. Scientists keep track of how flu viruses change using a system similar to a family tree, Madad said.
The big branches of this tree are called "types." This includes influenza A and B, which are broad groups of flu viruses. These big branches sprout off into smaller branches called subtypes, such as A(H3N2) or B/Victoria lineage.
The letters H and N, which are used to differentiate influenza A subtypes, stand for two proteins on the virus's surface: hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). There are many possible versions of each protein — 18 and 11 versions, respectively — which consequently gives rise to a large variety of flu viruses, of which only a few routinely infect humans.
Going even further down a branch, scientists identify "clades," which are groups of viruses that came from a common ancestor and share similar genetic traits. A subclade is an even smaller group within a clade — a newer "twig" on the tree — that shares recent mutations.
Subclade K carries distinct mutations in parts of the virus that our immune systems usually recognize, Madad said. Because of this, our immunity from past flu infections or vaccinations is lower than it might be if the subclade looked more "familiar." This enables the virus to spread more easily, resulting in more cases and, as a result, more hospitalizations.
However, that does not automatically mean subclade K is more deadly or causes more severe illness than other circulating flu viruses, Madad said. Current epidemiologic data show that subclade K does not lead to more severe disease than other seasonal flu strains than are spreading now, she noted.
"Flu symptoms this year are similar to those seen in previous seasons," Abdelnour added.
People with the flu commonly experience fever or chills, cough, nasal congestion, muscle and/or body aches, headaches and fatigue. In severe cases, flu infections can lead to complications such as sepsis and pneumonia. Adults 65 and up; young children, especially those under 2; pregnant people; and people with chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes or heart disease are at highest risk for severe flu complications.
Is this year's flu vaccine working, and is it too late to get it?
The flu vaccine "may be a less perfect match for subclade K" than it could be, Madad said, but she stressed that vaccination still plays a critical role in preventing serious illness. Abdelnour said that the annual flu vaccine reduces the risk of serious complications, such as sepsis, pneumonia and significant neurologic symptoms, such as seizures.
Data from the Southern Hemisphere, which experiences flu season before the Northern Hemisphere, suggests that this year's flu vaccine works just as well as past vaccines at lowering the risk of being hospitalized with the flu, Abdelnour said. This past flu season, the flu vaccine reduced flu-related doctor visits and hospitalizations by 50% in the Southern Hemisphere, according to a CDC report published in September 2025.
"This is within the typical range, and it's anticipated we should experience similar levels of protection in the United States," Abdelnour said.
Unfortunately, fewer people are getting vaccinated against the flu this year, and that's especially true of children, Madad said. "Only about 42% of U.S. children have received the flu vaccine so far this season, down from roughly 53% at the same point in 2019–2020." As of Jan. 3, about 44.1% of adults reported having received a flu vaccination.
Poor vaccination rates can have real consequences, Madad said. During the 2024-2025 flu season, 280 children in the U.S. died of flu-related illness, and of those, about 9 in 10 had not been vaccinated against the virus. Madad, who is also a mother of four, noted that all of her children receive the flu shot every year.
Even though flu season started in the fall, "it is not too late to get the flu shot," Abdelnour emphasized. "Given the current surge in cases, getting vaccinated now is strongly recommended to protect yourself and those around you."
Madad echoed that advice, urging anyone who hasn't yet received a flu shot this season to do so, especially adults ages 65 and older, pregnant people, those with weakened immune systems, and people living with chronic health conditions, who are at higher risk of severe cases.
How else can you protect yourself from flu?
Vaccination is just one layer of protection. Madad emphasized wearing a well-fitting mask in crowded indoor spaces and improving ventilation for indoor gatherings. Additionally, people should stay home when sick to avoid the risk of spreading flu to others. These steps help limit the spread not only of flu, but of other respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), as well.
Abdelnour also noted the importance of practicing proper hand hygiene. "Special attention should be given to childcare environments such as schools and daycare centers," she said. "This includes recommending children get their flu shot, encouraging handwashing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds and keeping children home when they are ill to prevent the spread of infection to others."
The CDC recommends prompt treatment for people with suspected flu symptoms who are at increased risk of serious flu complications, including pregnant women and people with chronic health conditions, such as asthma, lung disease, diabetes, or heart disease.
Madad said that flu antivirals are "underused" and reminds people at high risk of severe flu or who are caring for someone who is high risk to ask their doctors about antivirals shortly after they suspect an infection. The good news is that current data show subclade K is still responsive to the standard antiviral medications doctors use for influenza, she said.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
]]>
+ https://www.livescience.com/health/flu/why-is-flu-season-so-bad-this-year
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:50:37 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ How the ancient Romans managed their wealth (it wasn't just by hiding hoards) ]]>
+ "All I want is an income of 20,000 sesterces from secure investments", proclaims a character in a poem by Juvenal (first to second century A.D.), the Roman poet.
Today, 20,000 sesterces would be equivalent to about [Australian] $300,000 in interest from investments. Anyone would be very happy with this much passive annual income.
Like today, people in ancient times understood that investing money could help them consolidate and grow their wealth.
As the Roman novelist Petronius (first century A.D.) once wrote,
Whoever has money sails with a fair breeze, and governs his fortune as he wishes.
So, how exactly did ancient people invest their money?
A lofty house with hidden silver
In ancient Greek and Roman times, there was no stock market where you could buy and trade shares in a company.
If you wanted to invest your cash, one of the more popular options was to obtain gold or silver.
People did this to protect against currency fluctuations and inflation. They usually kept the metals either in bullion form or in the form of ware like jewelry. Storing these items could be risky and prone to theft.
The Roman poet Virgil (70 to 19 B.C.) describes the estate of a wealthy person that included "a lofty house, where talents of silver lie deeply hidden" alongside "weights of gold in bullion and in ware".
A talent was the largest unit of currency measurement in ancient Greece and Rome, equivalent to about 25 kg [55 pounds] of weighed silver.
A detail from a mosaic of Virgil Writing the Aeneid, held in the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia. (Image credit: Roger Wood/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Usually the metals were stored in a special vault or security cupboard.
The Roman writer Cicero (106 to 43 B.C.) recalls how a wealthy lady named Clodia would take gold (perhaps bars or ingots or plates) out of a security cupboard when she wished to lend money to someone. The gold could then be exchanged for coinage.
Market booms — and busts
The price of these metals could, however, occasionally be subject to unpredictable fluctuations and crashes in price, though less often than currency.
The Greek historian Polybius (c. 200 to 118 B.C.) says that when a new gold vein was discovered in Aquileia, Italy, only two feet deep, it caused a gold rush. The new material flooded the market too quickly and "the price of gold throughout Italy at once fell by one-third" after only two months. To stabilize the gold price, mining in the area was quickly monopolized and regulated.
When people wanted to trade precious metals, they would sell them by weight. If the gold or silver or bronze had been worked into jewelry or other objects, this could be melted down and turned into bullion.
People must have delighted in owning these precious metals.
The Athenian writer Xenophon (c. 430 to 350 B.C.) gives a clue about the mindset of ancient silver investors:
Silver is not like furniture, of which a man never buys more once he has got enough for his house. No one ever yet possessed so much silver as to want no more; if a man finds himself with a huge amount of it, he takes as much pleasure in burying the surplus as in using it.
A number of Roman wills reveal people leaving their heirs silver and gold in the form of bars, plates or ingots.
Roman gold ingot, dating to circa 375 A.D., in the Bank of England Museum collection. (Image credit: Joyofmuseums, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Commodities that could not be 'ruined by Jupiter'
Aside from metals, agricultural commodities were also very popular, especially grain, olive oil, and wine.
To profit from agricultural commodities, people bought farmland and traded the commodities on the market.
The Roman statesman Cato thought putting money into the production of essential goods was the safest investment. He said these things "could not be ruined by Jupiter" – in other words, they were resistant to unpredictable movements in the economy.
A bust of Emperor Caligula in the Louvre museum (Image credit: anonymous, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Whereas precious metals were a store of wealth, they generated no income unless they were sold. But a diversified portfolio of agricultural commodities guaranteed a permanent income.
People also invested and traded in precious goods, like artworks.
When the Romans sacked the city of Corinth in 146 B.C., they stole the city's collection of famous artwork, and later sold the masterpieces for huge sums of money at auction in order to bring profit for the Roman state.
At this auction, the King of Pergamon, Attalus II (220 to 138 B.C.), bought one of the paintings, by the master artist Aristeides of Thebes (fourth century B.C.), for the incredible sum of 100 talents (about 2,500 kg [5,500 pounds] of silver).
Eccentric emperors
Political instability or uncertainty sometimes raised the price of these metals.
The Greek historian Appian (secondnd century A.D.) records how during the Roman civil war in 32. to 30 B.C.:
the price of all commodities had risen, and the Romans ascribed the cause of this to the quarreling of the leaders whom they cursed.
Eccentric emperors might also impose new taxes or charges on commodities, or try to manipulate the market.
The Roman historian Suetonius (c. A.D. 69 to 122 ) tells us the emperor Caligula (A.D. 12 to 41) "levied new and unheard of taxes […] and there was no class of commodities or men on which he did not impose some form of tariff."
Another emperor, Vespasian (A.D. 17 to 79), went so far as to "buy up certain commodities merely in order to distribute them at profit", says Suetonius.
Clearly, investing in commodities 2,000 years ago could help build personal wealth — but also involved some risk, just like today.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/how-the-ancient-romans-managed-their-wealth-it-wasnt-just-by-hiding-hoards
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 14:00:00 +0000Mon, 12 Jan 2026 22:48:50 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ NASA launches Pandora telescope, taking JWST's search for habitable worlds to a new level ]]>
+ On Jan. 11, 2026, I watched anxiously at the tightly controlled Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as an awe-inspiring SpaceXFalcon 9 rocket carriedNASA's new exoplanet telescope, Pandora, into orbit.
Exoplanets are worlds that orbit other stars. They are very difficult to observe because — seen from Earth — they appear as extremely faint dots right next to their host stars, which are millions to billions of times brighter and drown out the light reflected by the planets. The Pandora telescope will join and complement NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in studying these faraway planets and the stars they orbit.
I am an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona who specializes in studies of planets around other stars and astrobiology. I am a co-investigator of Pandora and leading its exoplanet science working group. We built Pandora to shatter a barrier — to understand and remove a source of noise in the data — that limits our ability to study small exoplanets in detail and search for life on them.
Observing exoplanets
Astronomers have a trick to study exoplanet atmospheres. By observing the planets as they orbit in front of their host stars, we can study starlight that filters through their atmospheres.
These planetary transit observations are similar to holding a glass of red wine up to a candle: The light filtering through will show fine details that reveal the quality of the wine. By analyzing starlight filtered through the planets' atmospheres, astronomers can find evidence for water vapor, hydrogen, clouds and even search for evidence of life. Researchers improved transit observations in 2002, opening an exciting window to new worlds.
For a while, it seemed to work perfectly. But, starting from 2007, astronomers noted that starspots — cooler, active regions on the stars — may disturb the transit measurements.
In 2018 and 2019, then-Ph.D. student Benjamin V. Rackham, astrophysicist Mark Giampapa and I published a series of studies showing how darker starspots and brighter, magnetically active stellar regions can seriously mislead exoplanets measurements. We dubbed this problem "the transit light source effect."
Most stars are spotted, active and change continuously. Ben, Mark and I showed that these changes alter the signals from exoplanets. To make things worse, some stars also have water vapor in their upper layers — often more prominent in starspots than outside of them. That and other gases can confuse astronomers, who may think that they found water vapor in the planet.
In our papers — published three years before the 2021 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope — we predicted that the Webb cannot reach its full potential. We sounded the alarm bell. Astronomers realized that we were trying to judge our wine in light of flickering, unstable candles.
Members of the Pandora SmallSat team with the completed satellite in Blue Canyon Technologies’ cleanroom in Boulder, Colorado, before Pandora was shipped to California for integration into the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. (Image credit: Blue Canyon Technologies)
The birth of Pandora
For me, Pandora began with an intriguing email from NASA in 2018. Two prominent scientists from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Elisa Quintana and Tom Barclay, asked to chat. They had an unusual plan: They wanted to build a space telescope very quickly to help tackle stellar contamination — in time to assist Webb. This was an exciting idea, but also very challenging. Space telescopes are very complex, and not something that you would normally want to put together in a rush.
Pandora breaks with NASA's conventional model. We proposed and built Pandora faster and at a significantly lower cost than is typical for NASA missions. Our approach meant keeping the mission simple and accepting somewhat higher risks.
What makes Pandora special?
Pandora is smaller and cannot collect as much light as its bigger brother Webb. But Pandora will do what Webb cannot: It will be able to patiently observe stars to understand how their complex atmospheres change.
By staring at a star for 24 hours with visible and infrared cameras, it will measure subtle changes in the star's brightness and colors. When active regions in the star rotate in and out of view, and starspots form, evolve and dissipate, Pandora will record them. While Webb very rarely returns to the same planet in the same instrument configuration and almost never monitors their host stars, Pandora will revisit its target stars 10 times over a year, spending over 200 hours on each of them.
With that information, our Pandora team will be able to figure out how the changes in the stars affect the observed planetary transits. Like Webb, Pandora will observe the planetary transit events, too. By combining data from Pandora and Webb, our team will be able to understand what exoplanet atmospheres are made of in more detail than ever before.
After the successful launch, Pandora is now circling Earth about every 90 minutes. Pandora's systems and functions are now being tested thoroughly by Blue Canyon Technologies, Pandora's primary builder.
About a week after launch, control of the spacecraft will transition to the University of Arizona'sMulti-Mission Operation Center in Tucson, Arizona. Then the work of our science teams begins in earnest and we will begin capturing starlight filtered through the atmospheres of other worlds — and see them with a new, steady eye.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/nasa-launches-pandora-telescope-taking-jwsts-search-for-habitable-worlds-to-a-new-level
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000Mon, 19 Jan 2026 13:56:04 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Strange 'missing link' star system 'fundamentally changes' our understanding of planet formation ]]>
+ Astronomers have gotten a rare glimpse at four baby planets as they're growing up, and it reveals something surprising: These toddler worlds are getting lighter as they age.
The quadruplet worlds orbit in tightly packed paths around the star V1298 Tau, a young system that's just 20 million years old (compared with our sun's 4.5 billion years) located about 350 light-years from Earth. A new analysis, which drew on a decade of observations, shows that the planets are surprisingly lightweight, with low densities — so puffed up, in fact, that researchers likened them to Styrofoam.
The findings offer a rare snapshot of planetary architecture just after formation, the researchers said — a long-sought-for "missing link" between newborn disks of gas and dust and the mature planetary systems astronomers commonly observe across the Milky Way.
Those older systems are often crowded with planets between the sizes of Earth and Neptune on tight, Mercury-like orbits. The origins of such worlds have remained one of astronomy's enduring mysteries.
"What's so exciting is that we're seeing a preview of what will become a very normal planetary system," study lead author John Livingston, an assistant professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, said in a statement. "We've never had such a clear picture of them in their formative years."
Over time, the bloated worlds around V1298 Tau are expected to shrink as they shed their thick atmospheres, eventually becoming super-Earths and sub-Neptunes — planetary types that are absent from our own solar system but ubiquitous throughout the galaxy.
By capturing the planets at such a pivotal stage of development, the study, published Jan. 7 in the journal Nature, enables astronomers to trace the chaotic processes that sculpt planetary systems over billions of years.
'I couldn't believe it!'
The four planets orbiting V1298 Tau were first identified in 2019 in data from NASA's Kepler space telescope. One is roughly Jupiter-size, while the other three fall between the sizes of Neptune and Saturn.
What immediately set the system apart was its crowded layout of multiple oversized planets packed into relatively tight orbits — a configuration known in only one other system, Kepler-51, among more than 500 known multi-planet systems.
A collage of planet-forming discs seen in 32 infant star systems. The new research offers insights into how and when baby planets form. (Image credit: ESO, ESA/Gaia/DPAC, M. Vioque et al.)
While the planets' existence was clear, their fundamental properties remained elusive. To pin them down, Livingston and his team embarked on a nearly decade-long observation campaign using half a dozen telescopes in space and on the ground. They tracked the planets as they passed in front of their star — events known as transits, which cause tiny dips in starlight that reveal a planet's size and orbital period.
Crucially, small variations in the timing of the transits, caused by the planets tugging gravitationally on one another, enabled the team to measure their masses. The technique is especially powerful because it is largely immune to interference from stellar flares common around young stars, the study noted.
But the method only works if astronomers know each planet's orbital period precisely — and for the outermost planet, V1298 Tau e, that information was missing. Only two of its transits had ever been observed, separated by 6.5 years across observations from Kepler and NASA's exoplanet-hunting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) telescope, leaving astronomers unsure how many transits had gone unseen in between, according to the study.
A stroke of good luck came when the ground-based Las Cumbres Observatory network — which operates telescopes in the United States, Chile and South Africa — spotted a third transit, enabling the researchers to finally lock down the planet's orbit and model the system's full gravitational choreography.
"I couldn't believe it!" study co-author Erik Petigura, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCLA, said in the statement. "The timing was so uncertain that I thought we would have to try half a dozen times at least. It was like getting a hole-in-one in golf."
The results showed that despite being five to 10 times Earth's radius, the planets have masses only five to 15 times greater than Earth's, making them among the least dense planets ever discovered, Livingston said.
"By weighing these planets for the first time, we have provided the first observational proof," study co-author Trevor David, an astrophysicist formerly at the Flatiron Institute in New York, who led the system's discovery in 2019, said in the statement. "They are indeed exceptionally 'puffy,' which gives us a crucial, long-awaited benchmark for theories of planet evolution."
The team then simulated the planets' evolution and found that they have already lost much of their original atmospheres and cooled faster than predicted by standard models.
"But they're still evolving," study co-author James Owen, an associate professor of astrophysics at Imperial College London, said in the statement. The planets are expected to continue shedding gas and contracting into super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, he said.
"Over the next few billion years, they will continue to lose their atmosphere and shrink significantly, transforming into the compact systems of super-Earths and sub-Neptunes we see throughout the galaxy," Owen added.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/exoplanets/strange-discovery-offers-missing-link-in-planet-formation-this-fundamentally-changes-how-we-think-about-planetary-systems
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000Mon, 19 Jan 2026 17:12:06 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ James Webb telescope spots 'failed stars' in a breathtaking cluster near Earth — Space photo of the week ]]>
+
Quick facts
What it is: The star cluster Westerlund 2
Where it is: 20,000 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Carina
When it was shared: Dec. 19, 2025
Bordered by orange and brown clouds of gas and dust and filled with shimmering stars, this new image from the James Webb Space Telescope appears to show a portal to a cosmic wonderland.
In reality, it features a prominent star cluster known as Westerlund 2, which is located within a star-forming nebula known as Gum 29. The entire scene is playing out 20,000 light-years from Earth, within the Milky Way galaxy.
The sparkling cluster is compact, measuring between 6 light-years and 13 light-years in diameter, and it is home to approximately 3,000 stars, according to a statement from the European Space Agency. Seen here at a young age of about 2 million years, this cluster contains some of the hottest, brightest and most massive stars in our galaxy.
Westerlund 2 was also captured by the Hubble Space Telescope 10 years ago to commemorate Hubble's 25th anniversary in orbit. That image, created using visible light and some near-infrared data, revealed the complex features of the cluster and its surrounding nebula, showcasing a stunning landscape of pillars, ridges, and valleys of dust.
Now, the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed an even more vibrant view of the cluster, which is teeming with bright young stars. This latest portrait combines infrared data from the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera and Mid-Infrared Instrument.
A full-size view of Westerlund 2 (Image credit: Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, V. Almendros-Abad, M. Guarcello, K. Monsch, and the EWOCS team)
The stunning image highlights not only the young, massive stars but also the clouds and walls of dust shaped by their intense light. These sculpted regions are surrounded by wisps of orange and red gas, brilliantly illuminated by the powerful light of the nearby stars.
The entire scene is interconnected by a network of blue and pink wisps that appear to be material drifting off the scene. Several tiny stars look like they have just begun shining, still embedded in the thick cloud in which they formed. Larger and brighter stars that are much closer to us display an eight-pronged diffraction pattern created by the interaction of starlight with the telescope's instruments.
The twinkling display of countless stars is a result of a continuous cycle of star formation in which the baby stars in the stellar nursery blast out intense radiation that then heats the surrounding nebula and triggers new stars to form.
The new observations, taken across a wide range of infrared wavelengths, include bands that are sensitive to methane and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission. While PAH emission traces heated gas and dust, methane traces low-mass cold objects. As a result, astronomers identified a population of brown dwarfs — or "failed stars" — including objects only about 10 times the mass of Jupiter.
Brown dwarfs are peculiar objects that straddle the line between stars and planets. They have masses in between those of typical stars and those of planets, ranging between 10 and 90 times the mass of Jupiter. However, they do not have enough mass to trigger nuclear fusion in their cores. The James Webb telescope's new observations could reveal insight into the different stages in a star's life and how planet-forming disks around massive stars work.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/james-webb-telescope-spots-failed-stars-in-a-breathtaking-cluster-near-earth-space-photo-of-the-week
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:50:37 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ Could there ever be a worldwide internet outage? ]]>
+ Whether it disrupts access at work or makes your favorite show buffer at its most suspenseful moment, the inconvenience of an unreliable internet connection is something we've all experienced. Large-scale outages over the years have served as reminders that the internet can also face more widespread issues and bring everyday tasks to a halt. But would it ever be possible for the entire internet, all across the world, to go down?
The internet is often called a "network of networks," including those linking devices across homes, businesses, public spaces and more. For the entire internet to go down, therefore, many pieces of infrastructure would need to be impacted within a short time.
"It is possible but would require significant resources and/or huge coincidences which makes it a highly unlikely, but possible, event," George Cybenko, a professor of engineering who specializes in information systems and theory at Dartmouth College, told Live Science in an email.
Quite a bit of "heterogeneity, randomness and distributed asynchronicity" were built into the internet from the start, so a whole-system failure is very unlikely and would be extremely difficult to cause, Cybenko said. "We have local networks as well, say within a home or a business, that could continue to function even if the global nature of the internet has failed," he explained.
When information is shared over the internet — for example, as a text message is sent from one smartphone to another — it is broken into small packets of information, each of which is routed through the quickest available path through the network. That means that, even if one of these routes is compromised, the message can still travel because it has a long list of alternatives, according to The Open University.
This design consideration alone protects the entire network from completely failing due to either physical damage — for example, if an undersea cable were cut or a large internet hub lost power — or software damage, whether caused by systems issues or hackers. Even when a large infrastructure provider, like Cloudflare, goes down, the disruption may last only a few hours and cannot spread to other providers or systems.
If a larger outage were to occur — for instance, from a powerful and unexpected solar storm — repairs could take time to resolve. However, many governments and large companies have plans for how to recover from a large internet outage and resume operations as quickly as possible, which often include tools like cloud storage systems and backup power generators, Cybenko said.
A rendering of an underwater communication fiber optic cable in a deep sea bed. (Image credit: Getty Images)
Conversely, some governments have shut off the internet in times of massive protests. This is accomplished by dismantling or destroying internet infrastructure like power grids and fiber optic cables, or throttling — intentionally limiting the processing speed of an internet connection via broadband providers, according to the World Economic Forum. But even those intentional outages can be resolved relatively quickly.
"It is surprising how rapidly people can recover [the internet] — it continues to befuddle people how resilient the internet is," William Dutton, a senior fellow and advisory board member at the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Oxford's first professor of internet studies, told Live Science.
In the meantime, though, the impacts of such an outage could go much further than inconvenience. Critical infrastructure, such as hospital IT systems, often depend on the internet, and essential services, like power grids and traffic management, could be shut off indefinitely.
"The more central the internet becomes to so many different functions, from health care to even warfare, the more critical it is that it be secure and that it be reliable," Dutton said. "These kinds of outages and so forth are obviously concerning, even for short periods of time."
Since the internet's invention, fears have circulated that as it continues to expand, its foundations run the risk of being strained or overloaded. But Dutton said this is a common misconception.
"The more you add nodes and so forth, the internet actually becomes more resilient — growth actually makes it stronger rather than weaker," Dutton said. "It's certainly possible, but I doubt that it will collapse at all."
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+ https://www.livescience.com/technology/communications/could-there-ever-be-a-worldwide-internet-outage
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+ AiE9YMmFaa5iKTbHr5FDUU
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+ Sun, 18 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 20:19:01 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ This is SPARDA: A self-destruct, self-defense system in bacteria that could be a new biotech tool ]]>CRISPR kick-started a golden age of genetic research — but in nature, there are hundreds of similar systems with unexplored potential for gene editing. Now, scientists have made huge strides in explaining how an enigmatic system called SPARDA works.
CRISPR systems have enabled scientists to edit genetic information more easily than ever before. Although it's best known for its use in gene editing, CRISPR is actually an adapted bacterial immune defense system that was repurposed for human use.
A recent study in the journal Cell Research highlights another bacterial defense system, known as SPARDA (short prokaryotic Argonaute, DNase associated), and the advances raise the potential for SPARDA-derived biotechnology tools that could enhance diagnostics that currently use CRISPR.
Molecular argonautes
Study co-author Mindaugas Zaremba, a biochemist at Vilnius University in Lithuania, told Live Science that before the new work, researchers had conducted only limited studies of SPARDA systems. They had established that the proteins that make up the system adopt a kamikaze-like approach to cell defense, guarding the wider population of bacteria against foreign DNA, including free-floating DNA called plasmids and viruses called phages.
"SPARDA systems were demonstrated to protect bacteria from plasmids and phages by degrading the DNA of both infected cells and invaders, thereby killing the host cell but at the same time preventing further spread of the infection within the bacterial population," Zaremba said.
How SPARDA worked at a molecular level remained unclear, prompting Zaremba and his team to use the AI protein analysis tool AlphaFold, among a suite of other analysis techniques, to dig into SPARDA's setup. AlphaFold uses machine learning to predict the 3D shape of proteins based on the sequence of their underlying building blocks.
The SPARDA system is built from argonaute proteins, named for their resemblance to argonaut octopuses (Argonauta). The proteins were originally identified in plants, where seedlings affected by mutations in these proteins developed narrow leaves that reminded scientists of an octopus’s tentacles. These argonaute proteins are evolutionarily conserved and are present in cells across the three kingdoms of life.
An argonaut octopus, for which argonaute proteins are named. (Image credit: atese/Getty Images)
Zaremba's analysis looked at SPARDA systems randomly selected from two different bacteria. The first, Xanthobacter autotrophicus, is a soil-dwelling microbe that shuns sunlight and builds its food from locally sourced nitrogen. The second, Enhydrobacter aerosaccus, was first found in Michigan's Wintergreen Lake and has built-in airbags that help it float around watery environments.
Zaremba's team chopped the SPARDA systems out of these bacteria and placed them in the reliable model organismE. coli for study. A molecular analysis revealed that each of their argonaute proteins included a critical "activating region." They called this area the beta-relay, because it resembled electrical relay switches that control machinery by flicking between "on" or "off" states.
When the SPARDA systems detected external threats, these switches changed shape. The new shape enabled the proteins to form complexes with other activated argonaute proteins. When that happens, the proteins line up like soldiers on parade, forming long, spiraling chains. These chains chop up any surrounding DNA that they encounter in an extreme reaction that spares neither the host nor the invader. This stops the infection from spreading to other cells.
Zaremba's team then used AlphaFold to scan for beta-relays in similar bacterial proteins. The same switches popped up repeatedly, suggesting that the relays are a universal feature of this protein type.
SPARDA in diagnostics
SPARDA is essential for bacterial defense, but Zaremba's team argues that the system could also help humans.
Activating SPARDA is a last-ditch maneuver for bacterial cells, to be used only when an infection is definitively present. Therefore, the system includes an incredibly accurate recognition system for spotting foreign DNA that would warrant self-destruction.
Researchers could repurpose the system for diagnostics, Zaremba suggested. In that scenario, the beta-relay could be altered to be activated only when a genetic sequence of interest is identified — so it would react only to the genetic material of a flu virus or SARS-CoV-2, for instance. This mechanism underlies existing CRISPR-based diagnostic tools.
The CRISPR diagnostics, however, are currently limited in their function — they recognize targets only when certain DNA sequences, called PAM sequences, flank them. These sequences are like the prongs on the end of a plug; if they don't match a socket, the system will have no power. This means choosing the right CRISPR protein to match a particular target is essential.
"We already know that SPARDA systems do not require a PAM sequence," Zaremba said. This means they could act like a universal adapter, giving future DNA diagnostics more flexibility and ultimately making the tests better at detecting a range of germs.
CRISPR research won a Nobel Prize and changed science forever. While SPARDA research is at a far earlier stage of research, its inner workings suggest that the design of tiny organisms could hold lessons for the biggest questions in science.
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- Sat, 17 Jan 2026 16:00:00 +0000Fri, 16 Jan 2026 21:21:43 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Science news this week: ISS medical evacuation, Mars Sample Return canceled, and woolly rhino flesh found in permafrost wolf ]]>
- This week's science news was way over our heads, as astronauts and space agencies rocketed to the front pages. Topping the list is the early return of the International Space Station's (ISS) Crew-11 on Thursday (Jan. 15) due to a medical event.
News of the crew's early return, the first in the station's 25-year history, was announced less than a week before. It was prompted when one of its astronauts experienced an undisclosed medical issue. The evacuation leaves the ISS occupied by only four astronauts until the arrival of the replacement Crew-12 next month.
That wasn't the only news from NASA this week. The agency also announced it was making the final preparations to roll out its Artemis 2 mega moon rocket ahead of a targeted early February launch. The Artemis program, which plans to return American astronauts to the moon's surface, survived potential cuts from the Trump administration's FY2026 budget. Also rescued from the chopping block is NASA's now-complete Roman Space Telescope, which will work alongside the Hubble and James Webb telescopes to survey alien worlds.
However, not all NASA missions were as fortunate: The Mars sample return mission, slated to retrieve rocks collected by the Perseverance rover, saw its funding officially dropped this week.
The cancellation of the mission means that The China National Space Administration (CNSA) will likely be the first to return Martian samples — which may hold evidence for life on the Red Planet — to Earth, with the agency this week announcing separate plans to build a reliable relativistic clock for the moon.
Our world is rapidly warming, so it's no surprise that rising sea levels are the biggest cause of land loss in coastal regions.
Yet a startling study revealed that this isn't the case everywhere. The research published this week found that the world's biggest river deltas — including the Nile, Amazon and Ganges — are now sinking faster than the seas are rising.
The biggest culprit is groundwater pumping, with rapid urban growth and shrinking sediment flows worsening the problem. The combination of rising oceans and sinking land means the world's largest cities will face even greater challenges from catastrophic floods in the future.
Monty Python's Black Knight may insist that losing all four of his limbs in quick succession is "only a flesh wound," but just how much of the human body can be removed without a person dying? As it turns out, it's much more than you might think.
The last meal of a wolf pup that was naturally mummied 14,400 years ago in Siberian permafrost is helping scientists unravel the fate of the woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and the reasons behind the ice age giant's extinction.
By extracting a piece of woolly rhino flesh from the wolf's stomach and sequencing the genome of the partially digested chunk, scientists discovered that the horned beast existed in a genetically uniform population that may have struggled to adapt to ancient climate change.
But the new genome is just one strand of evidence in the mystery of the rhino's extinction. In a win for science, this is the first time scientists have recovered the DNA of an ice age animal from the stomach of another one.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado (Image credit: Sandra Baker/Alamy)
In December, The Trump administration announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), describing it as "one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country."
Yet whether it is forecasting high winds, wildfires, floods or hazards in the air and space, the research center is at the forefront of world weather and climate research and vital for reducing risk. In this long read, Live Science investigated the work done by the center and the likely consequences of shutting it down.
Something for the weekend
If you're looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the crosswords, book excerpts and quizzes published this week.
The Hubble Space Telescope's shot of "Dracula's Chivito" — a protoplanetary disk that earned its nickname due to its gothic-tinged likeness to a Uruguayan sandwich — has captured a stunning insight into how planets form.
Spanning nearly 400 billion miles (640 billion kilometers) and containing a hot star at its center, the system is the largest planet-forming disk ever observed around a young star.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/science-news-this-week-iss-medical-evacuation-mars-sample-return-canceled-and-woolly-rhino-flesh-found-in-permafrost-wolf
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- Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:40:52 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Is there anything 'below' Earth in space? ]]>If you've seen illustrations or models of the solar system, maybe you noticed that all the planets orbit the Sun in more or less the same plane, traveling in the same direction.
But what is above and below that plane? And why are the planets' orbits aligned like this, in a flat pancake, rather than each one traveling in a completely different plane?
I'm a planetary scientist who works with robotic spacecraft, such as rovers and orbiters. When my colleagues and I send them out to explore our solar system, it's important for us to understand the 3D map of our space neighborhood.
Which way is 'down'?
Earth's gravity has a lot to do with what people think is up and what is down. Things fall down toward the ground, but that direction depends on where you are.
Imagine you're standing somewhere in North America and point downward. If you extend a line from your fingertip all the way through the Earth, that line would point in the direction of "up" to someone on a boat in the southern Indian Ocean.
In the bigger picture, "down" could be defined as being below the plane of the solar system, which is known as the ecliptic. By convention, we say that above the plane is where the planets are seen to orbit counterclockwise around the Sun, and from below they are seen to orbit clockwise.
Even more flavors of 'down'
Is there anything special about the direction of down relative to the ecliptic? To answer that, we need to zoom out even farther. Our solar system is centered on the Sun, which is just one of about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way.
Each of these stars, and their associated planets, are all orbiting around the center of the Milky Way, just like the planets orbit their stars, but on a much longer time scale. And just as the planets in our solar system are not in random orbits, stars in the Milky Way orbit the center of the galaxy close to a plane, which is called the galactic plane.
This plane is not oriented the same way as our solar system's ecliptic. In fact, the angle between the two planes is about 60 degrees.
A side view of galaxy NGC 4217 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows how all the stars and their planetary systems lie on one plane. (Image credit: NASA Goddard, CC BY)
Going another step back, the Milky Way is part of a cluster of galaxies known the the Local Group, and — you can see where this is going — these galaxies mostly fall within another plane, called the supergalactic plane. The supergalactic plane is almost perpendicular to the galactic plane, with an angle between the two planes of about 84.5 degrees.
How these bodies end up traveling paths that are close to the same plane has to do with how they formed in the first place.
Collapse of the solar nebula
The material that would ultimately compose the Sun and the planets of the solar system started out as a diffuse and very extensive cloud of gas and dust called the solar nebula. Every particle within the solar nebula had a tiny amount of mass. Because any mass exerts gravitational force, these particles were attracted to each other, though only very weakly.
The particles in the solar nebula started out moving very slowly. But over a long time, the mutual attraction these particles felt thanks to gravity caused the cloud to start to draw inward on itself, shrinking.
There would have also been some very slight overall rotation to the solar nebula, maybe thanks to the gravitational tug of a passing star. As the cloud collapsed, this rotation would have increased in speed, just like a spinning figure skater spins faster and faster as they draw their arms in toward their body.
As the cloud continued shrinking, the individual particles grew closer to each other and had more and more interactions affecting their motion, both because of gravity and collisions between them. These interactions caused individual particles in orbits that were tilted far from the direction of the overall rotation of the cloud to reorient their orbits.
For example, if a particle coming down through the orbital plane slammed into a particle coming up through that plane, the interaction would tend to cancel out that vertical motion and reorient their orbits into the plane.
On much bigger scales, similar sorts of interactions are probably what ended up confining most of the stars that make up the Milky Way into the galactic plane, and most of the galaxies that make up the Local Group into the supergalactic plane.
The orientations of the ecliptic, galactic and supergalactic planes all go back to the initial random rotation direction of the clouds they formed from.
So there's not really anything special about the direction we define as "down" relative to the Earth, other than the fact that there's not much orbiting the Sun in that direction.
If you go far enough in that direction, you'll eventually find other stars with their own planetary systems orbiting in completely different orientations. And if you go even farther, you might encounter other galaxies with their own planes of rotation.
This question highlights one of my favorite aspects of astronomy: It puts everything in perspective. If you asked a hundred people on your street, "Which way is down?" every one of them would point in the same direction. But imagine you asked that question of people all over the Earth, or of intelligent life forms in other planetary systems or even other galaxies. They'd all point in different directions.
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+ <![CDATA[ Science news this week: ISS medical evacuation, Mars Sample Return canceled, and woolly rhino flesh found in permafrost wolf ]]>
+ This week's science news was way over our heads, as astronauts and space agencies rocketed to the front pages. Topping the list is the early return of the International Space Station's (ISS) Crew-11 on Thursday (Jan. 15) due to a medical event.
News of the crew's early return, the first in the station's 25-year history, was announced less than a week before. It was prompted when one of its astronauts experienced an undisclosed medical issue. The evacuation leaves the ISS occupied by only four astronauts until the arrival of the replacement Crew-12 next month.
That wasn't the only news from NASA this week. The agency also announced it was making the final preparations to roll out its Artemis 2 mega moon rocket ahead of a targeted early February launch. The Artemis program, which plans to return American astronauts to the moon's surface, survived potential cuts from the Trump administration's FY2026 budget. Also rescued from the chopping block is NASA's now-complete Roman Space Telescope, which will work alongside the Hubble and James Webb telescopes to survey alien worlds.
However, not all NASA missions were as fortunate: The Mars sample return mission, slated to retrieve rocks collected by the Perseverance rover, saw its funding officially dropped this week.
The cancellation of the mission means that The China National Space Administration (CNSA) will likely be the first to return Martian samples — which may hold evidence for life on the Red Planet — to Earth, with the agency this week announcing separate plans to build a reliable relativistic clock for the moon.
Our world is rapidly warming, so it's no surprise that rising sea levels are the biggest cause of land loss in coastal regions.
Yet a startling study revealed that this isn't the case everywhere. The research published this week found that the world's biggest river deltas — including the Nile, Amazon and Ganges — are now sinking faster than the seas are rising.
The biggest culprit is groundwater pumping, with rapid urban growth and shrinking sediment flows worsening the problem. The combination of rising oceans and sinking land means the world's largest cities will face even greater challenges from catastrophic floods in the future.
Monty Python's Black Knight may insist that losing all four of his limbs in quick succession is "only a flesh wound," but just how much of the human body can be removed without a person dying? As it turns out, it's much more than you might think.
The last meal of a wolf pup that was naturally mummied 14,400 years ago in Siberian permafrost is helping scientists unravel the fate of the woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) and the reasons behind the ice age giant's extinction.
By extracting a piece of woolly rhino flesh from the wolf's stomach and sequencing the genome of the partially digested chunk, scientists discovered that the horned beast existed in a genetically uniform population that may have struggled to adapt to ancient climate change.
But the new genome is just one strand of evidence in the mystery of the rhino's extinction. In a win for science, this is the first time scientists have recovered the DNA of an ice age animal from the stomach of another one.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado (Image credit: Sandra Baker/Alamy)
In December, The Trump administration announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), describing it as "one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country."
Yet whether it is forecasting high winds, wildfires, floods or hazards in the air and space, the research center is at the forefront of world weather and climate research and vital for reducing risk. In this long read, Live Science investigated the work done by the center and the likely consequences of shutting it down.
Something for the weekend
If you're looking for something a little longer to read over the weekend, here are some of the crosswords, book excerpts and quizzes published this week.
The Hubble Space Telescope's shot of "Dracula's Chivito" — a protoplanetary disk that earned its nickname due to its gothic-tinged likeness to a Uruguayan sandwich — has captured a stunning insight into how planets form.
Spanning nearly 400 billion miles (640 billion kilometers) and containing a hot star at its center, the system is the largest planet-forming disk ever observed around a young star.
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+ https://www.livescience.com/space/science-news-this-week-iss-medical-evacuation-mars-sample-return-canceled-and-woolly-rhino-flesh-found-in-permafrost-wolf
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+ Sat, 17 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:40:52 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ How much of your body could you lose — and still survive? ]]>In the classic 1975 British comedy film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," King Arthur battles a mysterious Black Knight who refuses to let him pass. Arthur handily vanquishes his foe by cutting off his limbs one by one, all while the knight, reluctant to admit defeat, insists the damage is "only a flesh wound."
Dark humor aside, it raises the question of just how much of your body you could lose and still survive. Of the roughly 80 organs in the human body, only five are defined as vital organs that are crucial for sustaining life: the brain, which orchestrates bodily functions; the lungs and heart, which take in and distribute the oxygen cells need throughout the body; the liver, which has important roles in digestion and blood detoxification; and the kidneys, which filter waste and excess fluid from the body.
Other important structures that are not traditionally considered vital organs include the intestines, which absorb nutrients from food; the pancreas, which makes essential hormones like insulin; and the skin, which guards against infection, according to Dr. Jessica Weaver, a trauma surgeon at UC San Diego Health.
Scientists debate whether some features, such as wisdom teeth and the tailbone, serve any purpose at all. Other body parts, like the eyes and the tongue, have major impacts on a person's quality of life, but they are not strictly necessary for survival.
Limbs may be handy (pun intended!), but people can survive without arms and legs if they need to be amputated. "In general, we will try harder to save an arm than a leg, because the functional outcome with a prosthetic for a leg is pretty good, especially if it's below the knee, whereas our hands are so important to what we do," Weaver told Live Science.
This means the Black Knight could have likely survived his ordeal if he had made it to a modern hospital, though Weaver said heavy blood loss would have likely stopped him from mustering his iconic taunt.
Stopping that blood loss before it turns deadly is the most pressing need in treating trauma patients. This threshold varies, but losing more than 3 of the roughly 5 liters of blood in an adult body is "pretty hard to come back from," she said.
Still, everybody's different. "I've definitely seen people survive things that I was sure they would die from, which is why I keep showing up to work," she added.
Can you survive without parts of your vital organs?
It is possible to survive without portions of the core vital organs. A person can live without much of the liver and a big chunk of their brain, as long as the brain stem remains intact to regulate involuntary functions, like breathing. Humans need only one kidney, and they sometimes donate one to a person in need. While an injury that damages all of these organs at once would be difficult to survive, Weaver said a patient could hypothetically live if the tissue were removed more gradually.
Vital organs can also be replaced, either through a transplant or with life-support organ-sustaining technologies, such as kidney dialysis and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which performs the functions of the heart and lungs. The only two vital organs that cannot be replaced by a machine are the liver and the brain, Weaver said, though a liver transplant is possible.
"We are increasingly able to replace organ function mechanically or chemically," said Jason Wasserman, a professor of foundational medical studies at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine.
These medical advances complicate what it means to survive the loss of a given organ. Wasserman noted that while some organ-sustaining technologies like ventilators and dialysis can be used long-term, others like ECMO are a "bridge to treatment," such as an eventual transplant, not a "bridge to nowhere" used indefinitely. The decision to start or continue one of these interventions depends on its medical appropriateness for a patient's situation as well as the patient's personal values, he said.
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- <![CDATA[ Famed archaeologist Zahi Hawass says he's close to finding Nefertiti's tomb in new documentary ]]>
+ <![CDATA[ Nefertiti's tomb close to discovery, famed archaeologist Zahi Hawaas claims in new documentary ]]>Zahi Hawass, perhaps the world's most famous archaeologist, hopes to discover the tomb of the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti before he retires, and he says he may be getting close.
"If I made this discovery, I think I would be happy to end my career with the most important discovery of the most important queen of Egypt — Queen Nefertiti," Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian antiquities minister, says in "The Man with the Hat," a new documentary about his life and career. The film, directed by Jeffrey Roth, will premiere on multiple streaming platforms Jan. 20.
Nefertiti was the wife of Akhenaten, a pharaoh who reigned from 1353 to 1336 B.C. and unleashed a religious revolution aimed at focusing Egypt's polytheistic religion around the worship of the Aten, the sun disk. At times, Nefertiti was displayed in ways that normally only a pharaoh would be shown, such as smiting an enemy. Some Egyptologists, including Hawass, believe she ruled as a pharaoh for a time after Akhenaten's death, taking on the new name Neferneferuaten.
Hawass and his team have been excavating in Egypt's Valley of the Kings for years. Previously, they found two tombs, known as KV 65 (found in 2006) and KV 66, that had been plundered, likely in antiquity. KV 66 was originally believed to be the room of another tomb, but follow-up work in 2015 determined that it was a separate tomb and it was named KV 66.
While the two tombs don't shed direct light on Nefertiti's tomb they, and the other discoveries made by Hawass' team show that there are still significant discoveries to be found in the Valley of the Kings. They also help map out more of the valley and help determine areas where Nefertiti's tomb is not located.
Now, his team is excavating in the eastern Valley of the Kings, close to the tomb of Hatshepsut, a powerful female pharaoh who ruled between 1479 and 1458 B.C. They hope Nefertiti's tomb will be found there. Hawass says that he doesn't have evidence to support this theory, but has a feeling it could be there.
"There is one area now that we are working in the east valley, near the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut," Hawass told Live Science. I'm hoping that this could be the tomb of Queen Nefertiti." Work is continuing, and "this discovery could happen soon," he said.
Zahi Hawass said he may be getting close to finding the tomb of Nefertiti in the Valley of the Kings. (Image credit: OLIVER LANG/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)
Repatriation to Egypt
Hawass has been involved in many other excavations and projects that are described in the new documentary. One initiative seeks to have the Rosetta Stone (now in the British Museum), the Dendera Zodiac (now in the Louvre) and the bust of Nefertiti (now in the Neues Museum in Germany) repatriated to Egypt. Hawass told Live Science he believes these three artifacts "are the icon of the Egyptian identity and their home should be the Grand [Egyptian] Museum," which opened in November.
It's "fair [for] these three objects to come back to Egypt because the Europeans, in the last century," took countless artifacts from the Nile region in the 19th and early 20th centuries, he said. These priceless treasures were brought to private households and museums in Europe at a time when Egypt was often controlled or heavily influenced by European powers.
Zahi Hawass at the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings. (Image credit: (c) Playground Productions)
Controversies
In addition to covering Hawass' life and work, the documentary discusses a few controversies he's been involved in. One of the most serious ones occurred after the 2011 Egyptian revolution that forced out longtime president Hosni Mubarak.
In April 2011, Hawass was sentenced to one year in prison for allegedly failing to uphold a court decision over a shop inside the Egyptian Museum, a decision that was later overturned on appeal. The dispute is complicated: When the museum was being remodeled and a new gift shop was built, the previous shop owner was barred from bidding because of disputes the owner and museum had had in the past. The owner went to court and got a legal order that he be allowed to bid on the new shop. But Hawass refused to implement the court order, saying that the winner of the bid had been decided.
Egyptian officials also investigated Hawass over other complaints. While he couldn't travel outside of Egypt for a time, he was never charged, and in 2013 he was able to travel outside the country again, one of hisfirst stops was the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to kick off a lecture tour that aimed to promote tourism in Egypt.
He addressed this and other controversies in the documentary, saying that as he became better known, he found himself being criticized and attacked more frequently. He maintains that he conducted himself with integrity throughout his career.
How to watch "The Man with the Hat"
"The Man With The Hat" is streaming on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video, from Saturday January 19.
Home to some huge shows and blockbuster movies, Apple TV plans start from $12.99 / £9.99 per month. You can try it for free with a seven-day free trial. View Deal
"The Man with the Hat" is available to purchase through Amazon Prime Video in the US from $9.99, or $12.99 for high-definition. It is not available to UK users.View Deal
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https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-egyptians/famed-archaeologist-zahi-hawass-says-hes-close-to-finding-nefertitis-tomb-in-new-documentary
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- <![CDATA[ New map of Antarctica reveals hidden world of lakes, valleys and mountains buried beneath miles of ice ]]>
- Scientists have mapped the bedrock beneath Antarctica's massive ice sheet in unprecedented detail, revealing hidden structures that form the glacier.
The ice sheet, which spans more than 5.4 million square miles (14 million square kilometers), shrouds underlying mountains, valleys, lakes and basins, according to a new study published in the journal Science on Thursday (Jan. 15).
This polar landscape below the ice has long been one of the inner Solar System's least mapped planetary surfaces, the team wrote in the study. Geological features shape how ice flows from below, sculpting the glacial surface, and a clearer picture of this process could help scientists predict how ice changes in response to warming.
Yet much about the landscape under the ice has been uncertain, because ground and air surveys are difficult in the region. Scientists often estimate information between distant or irregular survey points, for example, which can miss valleys in the bedrock that guide ice flow.
In the new study, researchers addressed this gap by combining high-resolution satellite images of the ice sheet surface with ice thickness measurements, and an ice flow analysis based on the physics of how ice flows over bedrock. The scientists integrated these data to create a continent-scale map of Antarctica's topography under the ice.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Helen Ockenden)
A new map of the hidden features beneath Antarctica's ice shows the icy continent in unprecedented detail.
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: Helen Ockenden)
The new topography map details previously unknown features in the landscape beneath Antarctica, including hills and ridges and even details of entire mountain ranges.
The extensive map revealed features 1.2 to 18.6 miles (2 to 30 kilometers) beneath the ice sheet that were previously unknown or unclear to science, such as river channels stretching hundreds of miles, which could be traces of the landscape predating the ice sheet.
The map also uncovered sharp transitions between highland and lowland terrain, suggesting tectonic boundaries. In one region where previous air surveys had predicted an ancient river landscape covered by ice, the new map actually identified deep valleys underneath.
The map enables scientists to observe how the ice sheet has evolved and interacted with underlying topography. Visualizing the processes affecting these glaciers can improve models of ice sheets and make projections of climate change-driven ice melt and sea-level rise more exact.
Antarctica quiz: Test your knowledge on Earth's frozen continent
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- https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/new-map-of-antarctica-reveals-hidden-world-of-lakes-valleys-and-mountains-buried-beneath-miles-of-ice
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- Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000Fri, 16 Jan 2026 17:13:34 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Fragment of lost tectonic plate discovered where San Andreas and Cascadia faults meet ]]>A fragment of a long-lost tectonic plate is sliding under the North American continent in the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone, scientists have discovered. This leftover plate fragment could pose a new earthquake risk to the region.
New research, published Thursday (Jan. 15) in the journal Science, revealed that the Pioneer Fragment — a leftover bit of an oceanic plate that disappeared under the North American Plate some 30 million years ago — is now stuck to the floor of the Pacific Ocean and is moving northwest along with that plate.
This is happening at a spot called the Mendocino triple junction, where California's famous San Andreas Fault abuts the Cascadia subduction zone. Along the San Andreas, the North American and Pacific plates move alongside one another. At Cascadia, which extends from Cape Mendocino, California, to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, the Juan de Fuca and Gorda oceanic plates dive below North America. That tectonic motion is capable of setting off earthquakes of magnitude 9 and above, according to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.
Some evidence suggests that earthquakes in the Cascadia subduction zone might trigger earthquakes along the San Andreas, a possibility that would widen the danger from the Cascadia fault.
While the new findings don't make the risk clear, said study first author David Shelly, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colorado, they are a step toward understanding this relationship.
The Pioneer Fragment "does increase the area of contact between what’s effectively the Pacific Plate and the subduction zone," Shelly told Live Science.
Shelly and his colleagues probed the Mendocino triple junction using tiny low-frequency earthquakes and tremors — a kind of seismic shiver that originates deep in the crust and can't be felt without sensitive seismometers. "They’re teeny-tiny events but they often occur on the biggest faults," Shelly said.
By analyzing these events, the researchers determined the direction of subtle plate motions. At Mendocino, the Pacific Plate is sliding northwest against the North American Plate, bumping against the Gorda Plate as it pushes under North America. It's a complex situation, and there are competing explanations for exactly where all the pieces are and where the faultlines run.
Shelly and his colleagues found that the situation is even more complex, because a surprise piece of long-gone Farallon Plate still has an influence on the triple junction. This ancient tectonic plate started subducting under North America 200 million years ago, during the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea. The Juan de Fuca is one remnant of the Farallon. But now, the researchers found that another remnant got stuck to the Pacific plate. This remnant, the Pioneer Fragment, isn't subducting but rather moving sidelong against the continent.
Meanwhile, bits of the Gorda Plate that got scraped off onto the North American Plate as the two ground together have now seemingly been passed back to the Gorda like a "tectonic hot potato" and may be diving back below North America, Shelly said.
This bit of geological messiness may explain why one of the largest triple junction quakes, the 1992 Cape Mendocino earthquake, had a shallower origin than scientists expected. Because of the extra bits and pieces, "the fault may not be following the oceanic crust itself. It may be shallower than that," Shelly said.
Beyond increasing the surface area of the Pacific Plate that interacts with Cascadia, the Pioneer Fragment might have the potential to cause earthquakes itself. Between the fragment and the North American Plate is a nearly horizontal fault, like the icing in a layer cake.
"We don’t know whether that fault can generate large earthquakes, but it is a fault that isn’t currently in the hazard models," Shelly said. "So it’s something we need to consider in the future."
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+ <![CDATA[ New map of Antarctica reveals hidden world of lakes, valleys and mountains buried beneath miles of ice ]]>
+ Scientists have mapped the bedrock beneath Antarctica's massive ice sheet in unprecedented detail, revealing hidden structures that form the glacier.
The ice sheet, which spans more than 5.4 million square miles (14 million square kilometers), shrouds underlying mountains, valleys, lakes and basins, according to a new study published in the journal Science on Thursday (Jan. 15).
This polar landscape below the ice has long been one of the inner Solar System's least mapped planetary surfaces, the team wrote in the study. Geological features shape how ice flows from below, sculpting the glacial surface, and a clearer picture of this process could help scientists predict how ice changes in response to warming.
Yet much about the landscape under the ice has been uncertain, because ground and air surveys are difficult in the region. Scientists often estimate information between distant or irregular survey points, for example, which can miss valleys in the bedrock that guide ice flow.
In the new study, researchers addressed this gap by combining high-resolution satellite images of the ice sheet surface with ice thickness measurements, and an ice flow analysis based on the physics of how ice flows over bedrock. The scientists integrated these data to create a continent-scale map of Antarctica's topography under the ice.
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Helen Ockenden)
A new map of the hidden features beneath Antarctica's ice shows the icy continent in unprecedented detail.
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: Helen Ockenden)
The new topography map details previously unknown features in the landscape beneath Antarctica, including hills and ridges and even details of entire mountain ranges.
The extensive map revealed features 1.2 to 18.6 miles (2 to 30 kilometers) beneath the ice sheet that were previously unknown or unclear to science, such as river channels stretching hundreds of miles, which could be traces of the landscape predating the ice sheet.
The map also uncovered sharp transitions between highland and lowland terrain, suggesting tectonic boundaries. In one region where previous air surveys had predicted an ancient river landscape covered by ice, the new map actually identified deep valleys underneath.
The map enables scientists to observe how the ice sheet has evolved and interacted with underlying topography. Visualizing the processes affecting these glaciers can improve models of ice sheets and make projections of climate change-driven ice melt and sea-level rise more exact.
Antarctica quiz: Test your knowledge on Earth's frozen continent
]]>
+ https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/new-map-of-antarctica-reveals-hidden-world-of-lakes-valleys-and-mountains-buried-beneath-miles-of-ice
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+ Cveb3knT7ahLjtwD2dqrGD
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+ Thu, 15 Jan 2026 19:00:00 +0000Fri, 16 Jan 2026 17:13:34 +0000
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+ <![CDATA[ These genes were thought to lead to blindness 100% of the time. They don't. ]]>Genetic variants believed to cause blindness in nearly everyone who carries them actually lead to vision loss less than 30% of the time, new research finds.
The study challenges the concept of Mendelian diseases, or diseases and disorders attributed to a single genetic mutation. The idea is that Mendelian diseases — such as the neurological disease Huntington's and the bleeding disorder hemophilia — are passed down in predictable ways in families, and if a given person carries a disease-causing mutation, they will have it.
These diseases stand in contrast to those caused by multiple genes and environmental factors, which makes their occurence harder to predict in family lines.
"What we suggest is that there is overlap there," senior study author Dr. Eric Pierce, director of the Ocular Genomics Institute at Mass Eye and Ear and an ophthalmologist at Harvard Medical School, told Live Science. In other words, many diseases thought to have simple, Mendelian causes might be a lot more complex than previously thought.
And this doesn't only apply to inherited blindness. Similar results have been found for other genes once thought to be strongly linked to health conditions. A 2023 study on ovarian insufficiency, a condition that causes infertility and early menopause, found that 99.9% of supposedly disease-causing variants were actually present in healthy women. And certain kinds of inherited diabetes also have more complex genetics than previously believed, according to 2022 research.
"We're in an era of discovering a lot more about the complexity of our genomes," said Anna Murray, a geneticist at the University of Exeter who led the ovarian insufficiency research.
Simple or complex?
Pierce and his colleagues focused on inherited retinal disorders (IRDs), a group of diseases that cause significant vision loss, sometimes as early as age 10 but certainly by age 40, said study co-author Dr. Elizabeth Rossin, a vitreoretinal surgeon and scientist in Mass Eye and Ear’s Retina Service and a Harvard ophthalmologist. Researchers have teased out the genetic roots of these diseases by doing genetic testing on affected patients and their families.
But that method can lead to a problem called ascertainment bias, Pierce said. True, you'll learn that some genetic variants are associated with the disease. But because you're studying only people with the disease and their relatives, you don't get a clear notion of how many people have the same gene variants and don't go blind.
To widen their view, the researchers used data from two large biobanks that contain genetic sequencing data from people, as well as their medical diagnoses and demographic information. One, the All of Us biobank, is a program run by the National Institutes of Health and included nearly 318,000 individuals with both genetic and electronic health record data at the time of the study. The other, the UK Biobank, is comparatively less diverse but contains data from 500,000 individuals, including about 100,000 with images of their retinas submitted to the database.
The researchers picked the 167 genetic variants thought to have the strongest causal link to IRDs and searched for them in the All of Us database. They then used the health record data to see if the people with the variants had vision loss. To their surprise, depending on which diagnostic codes they used, only 9.4% to 28.1% of people with the variants had any indication of a retinal disorder or vision problems.
"You would expect, given what we know about these diseases, that nearly 100% of the people would have blindness," Rossin told Live Science. "But it was far fewer than that."
To validate their findings, the researchers turned to the UK Biobank, this time using the included retinal imagery to seek out evidence of IRDs themselves. They found that only between 16.1% and 27.9% carriers of the gene variants had indications of possible retinal disease.
People who were older who carried these retinal disease genes weren't any likelier to have gone blind. And there was no other evidence that their results were because they were catching people who might later lose their vision. Instead, Pierce says, it seems that the complexity of these presumed Mendelian diseases has been underestimated.
"The mutation we used to think caused disease 100% of the time doesn't exist in isolation," he said. Instead, people carry tens or hundreds of thousands of other genes, some of which may protect against retinal disease, he added.
New avenues for treatment
In theory, those protective gene variants could lead to ways to treat these retinal disorders.
"It's going to take a lot of data in order to find these types of low-effect variants," Pierce said. "There are likely many of them, each contributing a little bit to the protection against disease."
There are good reasons to study the genes of patients with particular disorders, Murray said. For instance, finding genes associated with a condition — even if they don't always cause it — can help researchers pinpoint the biology underlying the disease. In ovarian insufficiency, these kinds of patient-centered studies have shown that genes associated with DNA repair are important for the disorder. But such studies should still be taken with a grain of salt.
"It is only now that we have the ability to look at the granular detail of the genetic sequence in hundreds of thousands of people," she said. To learn more, these databases need to become more diverse, she added. And at the same time, she added, biomedical researchers need better lab models of diseases in which to test certain gene mutations and their effects.
"There are likely some [diseases] where it really is a one-to-one correspondence," Pierce said. "But my prediction would be [that] the majority of these disorders are going to share this new complexity."
Editor's note: This story was updated on Jan. 16, 2026, to add mention of Dr. Eric Pierce's and Dr. Elizabeth Rossin's affiliations with Mass Eye and Ear, where the work was conducted.
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- <![CDATA[ NASA astronauts back on Earth after unprecedented medical emergency on ISS ]]>
- Four astronauts have landed back on Earth after being evacuated from the International Space Station (ISS) due to an unprecedented medical event.
NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov emerged from NASA's SpaceX Crew-11 Dragon spacecraft, which splashed down in darkness off the coast of California at 3:41 a.m. ET on Thursday (Jan. 15).
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told a news conference that all members of the crew are "safe and in good spirits."
Welcome home, Crew-11! At 3:41am ET (0841 UTC), the @SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of San Diego, California. pic.twitter.com/8LFpdKwizcJanuary 15, 2026
The landing marks the completion of an unprecedented early return of the astronauts due to an undisclosed medical issue affecting one of the crew. This is the first time that an ISS mission has been cut short for health reasons, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.
Crew-11 launched into space on Aug. 1, 2025, and was scheduled to remain aboard the ISS until another crew replaced them in mid-February. However, on Jan. 7, NASA postponed a spacewalk outside of the ISS because of a medical issue that arose with one of the astronauts, before announcing the early return of the whole crew the following day.
The Dragon capsule undocked from the ISS at 5.20 p.m. ET on Wednesday (Jan. 14), before heading back to Earth. After the capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean, it was loaded onto a SpaceX recovery ship. The astronauts were then assisted out of the capsule and placed on stretchers, which is standard practice for all returning astronauts, before being taken to routine medical checks.
All four crew members are now attending a local hospital. NASA has not named the astronaut who experienced the medical problem or provided any details on the medical issue, citing medical privacy. The agency previously confirmed that the issue only involved one individual.
"The crew member of concern is doing fine," Isaacman said. "We will share updates on their health as soon as it's appropriate to do so."
The crew was originally meant to be replaced at the ISS by Crew-12, which won't arrive there until next month. Such a disruption to staff rotation is unusual. However, there are other astronauts living on the ISS, including NASA's Christopher Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasa-astronauts-back-on-earth-after-unprecedented-medical-emergency-on-iss
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- Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:06:15 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:06:15 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Chinese scientists unveil reliable lunar clock that accounts for Einstein's relativity ]]>
- Did you ever wonder what time it is on the moon? A software package developed by researchers in China can finally tell you.
The model, built by a team from the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing and the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, was detailed in apaper published in December 2025 in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. The new lunar timekeeping method promises to remain accurate over a 1,000-year time span.
But why create a distinct lunar clock in the first place? For the answer, we turn — as we so often do — to Albert Einstein.
Because the moon has less gravity than Earth does, time passes slightly differently there. This effect was first predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. For every 24 hours that pass here on terra firma, the moon gains about 56 microseconds, according to NASA.
While small, this discrepancy adds up over prolonged periods — a fact that could pose major issues for future crewed moon missions, like NASA's Artemis initiative or Russia and China's joint International Lunar Research Station. (Mars is an even bigger challenge, with clocks there ticking about 477 microseconds faster per Earth day.)
Astronauts living and working on the moon will need to be able to coordinate video calls, data sharing, and navigation with their Earthbound colleagues — hence the need for an algorithm that can reliably convert Earth time to moon time. In 2024, researchers introduced the idea ofLunar Coordinate Time (TCL), an equation that resolves this relativistic time dilation based on the distance from a particular point on the moon relative to Earth's gravitational field.
"This is not just about telling time — it's about navigation, communication, and safety,"Sergei Kopeikin, an astronomer at the University of Missouri and co-author of the TCL paper, told Live Science in an email.
The new system from the team in China builds on Kopeikin's original algorithm. It essentially calculates a version of the TCL equation very quickly while considering some additional factors, like Barycentric Coordinate Time (TCB), an International Astronomical Union standard. The researchers dubbed the system "lunar time ephemeris," or LTE440.
Kopeikin called LTE440 "a solid piece of engineering." It shows that China is serious about moving forward with its ambitious moon program. However, he noted that NASA is still developing itsown lunar time system, called Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC). The agency aims to finalize the system, which will be anchored in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) for maximum interoperability across time zones, by the end of this year.
Likewise, the European Space Agency is currentlyfielding applications for its own moon clock. These systems may use LTE440 as a benchmark to cross-check space agencies' calculations, but it remains to be seen whether the Chinese system will become the international standard.
Ultimately, the moon's time standard needs to be coordinated across countries, or else we risk plunging lunar research into chaos. "If we fail," Kopeikin said, "we risk a 'time zone war' in space."
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/chinese-scientists-unveil-reliable-lunar-clock-that-accounts-for-einsteins-relativity
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- Thu, 15 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:35:26 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Black hole butterflies? James Webb telescope spots dozens of black hole 'cocoons' in early universe. ]]>
- Scientists may have finally pinned down the nature of some of the most baffling objects in the night sky.
In a new study, researchers investigated the identity of "little red dots." These mysterious objects from the early universe have characteristics of both galaxies and supermassive black holes but don't quite fit the description of either.
The new study found that these enigmatic dots may be young supermassive black holes after all, cocooned in dense clouds of gas that mask telltale signs of their true nature. The researchers published their findings Wednesday (Jan. 14) in the journal Nature.
Little red dots were first observed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shortly after the spacecraft began collecting data in 2022. They were initially thought to be compact, star-filled galaxies, but they were present too early in the universe to have formed so many stars — at least under our current understanding of galaxy evolution.
Instead, other researchers suggested that the unusual objects might be early supermassive black holes. Light emitted by energized hydrogen atoms around the dots suggests that the gas is moving at thousands of miles per second, tugged along by the gravitational pull of the object at the center.
"Such extreme speeds are a smoking gun of an active galactic nucleus," meaning a hungry supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy that's pulling in matter, Rodrigo Nemmen, an astrophysicist at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, wrote in an accompanying article published in the journal Nature.
But unlike supermassive black holes, little red dots haven't been observed emitting X-rays or radio waves. And regardless of whether the dots are black holes or early galaxies, they appear to have too much mass to have formed as early in the universe as they did.
Black hole metamorphosis
A composite image of various "little red dots" spotted by JWST in its surveys of the deep universe. (Image credit: Darach Watson/JWST)
In the new study, the researchers looked closely at the light emitted from these objects to better understand their nature. The scientists studied spectra from 30 little red dots, each one collected by JWST's infrared instruments.
The light emitted from the little red dots closely matches the light that the team predicted would be emitted from a supermassive black hole surrounded by a dense cloud of gas. That gaseous cocoon could have trapped X-ray and radio emissions from the growing black holes, blocking them from reaching JWST.
When the team recalculated the masses of the little red dots under the new interpretation, they found that the dots were about 100 times less massive than previously thought. Together, the evidence suggests that little red dots are growing supermassive black holes that are accreting the surrounding gas.
"These are the lowest mass black holes at high redshift, to our knowledge, and suggest a population of young [supermassive black holes],"the researchers wrote in the study. (Redshift describes how light stretches toward the redder end of the electromagnetic spectrum as it crosses the expanding cosmos; a higher redshift signifies a more distant object.)
"With the corrected mass estimates, [little red dots] fit standard theories of cosmic evolution," Nemmen wrote. Confirming the findings will involve studying more little red dots to explore whether this "cocoon" phase is common, and determining what role it plays in black hole growth.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/cosmology/james-webb-telescope-saw-black-holes-emerging-from-cocoons-near-the-dawn-of-time-new-study-hints
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:04:34 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:35:26 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Woolly rhino flesh pulled from ancient wolf stomach gives clues to ice age giant's extinction ]]>
- Scientists have analyzed the genome of a 14,400-year-old woolly rhino from a piece of its flesh found in the stomach of an ancient wolf pup. The results are giving experts insight into the woolly rhino's extinction, which probably happened rapidly due to climate change.
The woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) tissue was found inside the mummified remains of a wolf pup, which was initially discovered in the Siberian permafrost in 2011. A subsequent necropsy of the pup revealed its final meal: It dined on one of the last woolly rhinos on Earth. But now, scientists have worked out how to sequence the animal's full genome from the undigested bits of rhino flesh.
"Sequencing the entire genome of an Ice Age animal found in the stomach of another animal has never been done before," Camilo Chacón-Duque, a bioinformatician at Uppsala University in Sweden and co-author of the new study, said in a statement.
In the new research, published Wednesday (Jan. 14) in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution, researchers analyzed the woolly rhino muscle tissue and compared it with older examples to investigate the species' population size and level of inbreeding just prior to its extinction. That chunk of meat has provided unprecedented information about the demise of the woolly rhino.
Many species that go extinct leave clues to their decline in their geographic range, their population size, and their genomes. As populations of an animal decrease, they can become concentrated in a particular area. For example, woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) persisted until about 4,000 years ago on a remote island in Siberia. But their small population contributed to inbreeding, and this lack of genetic diversity may have ultimately doomed the mammoth. (Although another study suggests that these island mammoths died in a random mystery event.)
Scientists were able to sequence the genome from the woolly rhino tissue inside the stomach of the wolf. (Image credit: Love Dalén)
The woolly rhino, however, was widespread across northern Eurasia until about 35,000 years ago. Its geographic range contracted over time, and the species became concentrated in northeastern Siberia, before going extinct around 14,000 years ago. The piece of woolly rhino tissue discovered in the wolf pup's stomach was carbon-dated to 14,400 years ago, meaning the woolly rhino was likely one of the last of its kind.
Researchers generated the woolly rhino's genome from the preserved muscle tissue and compared it with two older genomes dated to 18,000 and 49,000 years ago. They discovered that the three rhinos had similar levels of inbreeding and genetic diversity, suggesting that there was a relatively stable woolly rhino population in northern Siberia until at least 14,400 years ago, and that their extinction must have happened rapidly after that.
An ancient wolf puppy that ate woolly mammoth meat was found in Tumat, Siberia, in 2011. (Image credit: Mietje Germonpré)
"Our results show that the woolly rhinos had a viable population for 15,000 years after the first humans arrived in northeastern Siberia, which suggests that climate warming, rather than human hunting, caused the extinction," study co-author Love Dalén, an evolutionary genomics professor at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden, said in the statement. The results build on previous work by several of the same researchers.
Rapid changes in the world's climate happened toward the end of the Pleistocene epoch (the last ice age), and many large mammals went extinct. The disappearance of the woolly rhino lines up with a period called the Bølling-Allerød interstadial, which involved an abrupt warming of the Northern Hemisphere's climate from around 14,700 to 12,900 years ago. This dramatically warmer climate may have wiped out the favored foods of the cold-adapted, herbivorous woolly rhino and thus contributed to their swift decline.
While the new genome does not resolve all the mysteries surrounding the extinction of the woolly rhino, the researchers demonstrated that it is possible to recover the DNA of one animal from inside another one.
"It was really exciting, but also very challenging, to extract a complete genome from such an unusual sample," study lead author Sólveig Guðjónsdóttir, a researcher at Stockholm University, said in the statement.
The researchers hope their achievement will pave the way for future DNA and genomic analysis of animal tissues from "unlikely sources."
Mammoth quiz: Test your knowledge of the ice age beasts
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- https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/one-of-the-last-woolly-rhinos-to-walk-earth-was-eaten-by-a-wolf-pup-and-scientists-have-now-sequenced-its-genome-from-the-undigested-meat
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- yQrUMhU2CZ6FdsmWGCBi7c
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 17:01:00 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:35:25 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ 'One of those rare 'wow' moments': Zombie star near Earth has a rainbow shockwave that 'shouldn't be there' ]]>
- Stunned astronomers have discovered a zombie star relatively near Earth that is inexplicably emitting a persistent, rainbow-like shock wave as it speeds through the Milky Way. The undead stellar remnant, which is currently devouring its companion star, has left researchers scratching their heads.
Every star in the Milky Way is constantly spinning around the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy, dubbed Sagittarius A*. Most of these stars, including the sun, are preceded by a bow shock, which pushes material around the star, similar to the waves generated around the bow of a ship as it moves through the water. These bow shocks are created by outflowing gas and dust from the star, which collides with and pushes against the interstellar medium — the leftover matter and radiation that exists in the gaps between stars.
Other, smaller and less active stars do not have bow shocks because they lack outflowing material, meaning they offer up little to no resistance against the interstellar medium. Some of the best examples of bow shock-free stars are white dwarfs, the shriveled husks left behind from the cores of massive stars that have died in violent supernova explosions.
But in a new study, published Jan. 12 in the journal Nature Astronomy, a group of astronomers discovered a white dwarf, named RXJ0528+2838, that is surrounded by a bow shock. The rule-breaking star is located roughly 730 light-years from Earth and is part of a binary system, alongside another sun-like star that is slowly being devoured by the cosmic zombie.
Using observations from the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the study team mapped out this surprising shock wave, which extends around 4,000 Earth-sun distances from the stellar pair and is at least 1,000 years old. Images also show that the bow shock contains a dense cloud of multicolored gas and dust, or a nebula, which only adds to its mystery.
White dwarf stars are superdense stellar remnants leftover from the cores of massive stars that have exploded via supernova. (Image credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: D. De Martin)
"We found something never seen before and, more importantly, entirely unexpected," the study's other co-lead author Simone Scaringi, an astronomer at Durham University in the U.K., said in an ESO statement.
"Our observations reveal a powerful outflow that, according to our current understanding, shouldn’t be there," added the study's other co-lead author Krystian Iłkiewicz, a postdoctoral researcher at Poland's Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center. "This discovery challenges the standard picture of how matter moves and interacts in these extreme binary systems."
Given that RXJ0528+2838 is part of a binary star system, the obvious explanation for its bow shock is that its partner star is outflowing material that is colliding with the interstellar medium. However, the researchers strongly believe this is not the case.
In a binary system like this, the most massive star — which, in this case, is the superdense white dwarf — slowly devours its partner by pulling material from its surface. This means that RXJ0528+2838's partner does not outflow like similar stars of its size, because the white dwarf also hoovers up any outflowing material.
This process normally leaves a disk of excess stellar material circling the more massive star, which could also generate a similar type of stellar outflow. However, there is no visible disk around RXJ0528+2838, which strongly suggests this isn't happening.
White dwarfs are often found in binary systems, stealing matter from their companions. This usually creates an accretion disk around the undead stars. However, RXJ0528+2838 does not have one of these disks. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI))
"The surprise that a supposedly quiet, diskless system could drive such a spectacular nebula was one of those rare 'wow' moments," Scaringi said.
Instead, the researchers suspect that RXJ0528+2838's mysterious "outflow" may be tied to its immensely strong magnetic field. This invisible energy source is also the reason why the white dwarf has no disk, because it is sucking up everything around it, similar to a black hole.
However, the researchers cannot identify the exact mechanism by which the magnetic field acts to replicate the effects of a stellar outflow, which they have dubbed the "mystery engine."
The researchers are now on the hunt for similar systems that may offer clues as to what is going on with RXJ0528+2838. Luckily, ESO's upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) — the successor of VLT, which is due to go online as early as 2028 — will likely help with this.
ELT will allow astronomers "to map more of these systems as well as fainter ones and detect similar systems in detail, ultimately helping in understanding the mysterious energy source that remains unexplained," Scaringi said.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/one-of-those-rare-wow-moments-zombie-star-near-earth-has-a-rainbow-shockwave-that-shouldnt-be-there
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:41:16 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:35:26 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ 18 of Earth's biggest river deltas — including the Nile and Amazon — are sinking faster than global sea levels are rising ]]>
- Many of the world's biggest river deltas — including the Nile, Amazon and Ganges — are sinking faster than global sea levels are rising, a new study shows.
This means subsidence is becoming the main driver of land loss, coastal flooding and saltwater intrusion at river deltas — surpassing the impacts of sea-level rise from climate change. Researchers also found that groundwater extraction is the biggest cause of subsidence at deltas globally, with urban expansion and declines in rivers' sediment loads contributing to the overall sinking trend.
Deltas are facing a "double burden" of sea-level rise and sinking land that increases the risk of catastrophic flooding and displacement for millions of people in some of the world's biggest cities, the study's authors warn.
"To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive, high-resolution, delta-wide assessment of contemporary land subsidence ever conducted at the global scale," co-author Manoochehr Shirzaei, an associate professor of geophysics and remote sensing at Virginia Tech, told Live Science in an email. "Across the deltas we analyzed, groundwater storage change emerged as the single most influential anthropogenic factor explaining subsidence patterns in many systems."
Shirzaei and his colleagues used data from the Sentinel-1 satellite to examine subsidence at 40 of the world's largest river deltas between 2014 and 2023. Sentinel-1 captures changes in ground elevation resulting from subsidence, as well as sediment deposition and erosion, according to the study, which was published Wednesday (Jan. 14) in the journal Nature.
Of the 40 deltas, 18 had average annual subsidence rates greater than the current rate of global sea-level rise, which is about 0.16 inches (4 millimeters) per year.
Zooming in, the researchers found that every studied river delta except the Rio Grande Delta was in some places sinking faster than global sea levels are rising. In 38 deltas, more than 50% of the delta area sank during the study period, and in 19 of them — including the Mississippi Delta, the Nile Delta and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta — more than 90% of the delta area had subsided.
The worst-affected deltas in the study were the Chao Phraya Delta in Thailand, the Brantas Delta in Indonesia and the Yellow River Delta in China. These showed average sinking rates of about 0.3 inches (8 mm) per year — double the rate of global sea level rise.
Two main points arose from the study, Shirzaei said. "First, land subsidence often exceeds sea-level rise as the dominant driver of relative sea-level rise in river deltas today, meaning that many coastal risks are increasing faster than climate-only projections suggest. Second, there is a profound mismatch between risk and capacity: the deltas sinking fastest are often in regions with the least resources to respond."
River deltas are home to between 350 million and 500 million people around the world. They host 10 of the world's 34 megacities, along with vital infrastructure such as ports, meaning the impacts of subsidence and sea-level rise — such as shoreline retreat and more frequent floods — are immense.
Bangkok is a megacity and the capital of Thailand. It is built on the Chao Phraya River Delta, one of the fastest-sinking deltas in the world. (Image credit: Jackyenjoyphotography via Getty Images)
And these huge populations are themselves a driver of subsidence, because cities pile enormous weight onto the land, compressing the soil. Huge populations typically also require massive amounts of water, which exacerbates groundwater pumping. This causes further compaction of the soil.
"In rapidly urbanizing deltas, urban growth can substantially exacerbate land sinking," Shirzaei said. However, groundwater extraction for all purposes, including agriculture and industry, remains the biggest cause of subsidence at deltas, he said. "Groundwater pumping is a well-known local driver of subsidence, but what stood out was how consistently dominant it appears at the global scale, even when compared alongside other major anthropogenic pressures."
The Mississippi River Delta has lost thousands of square miles of land due to erosion and declines in sediment deposition. (Image credit: Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2022 via Getty Images)
Another cause of subsidence is a reduction in the amount of sediment that rivers flush into the ocean due to dams and other river-control strategies. Sediment delivery can offset subsidence and sea-level rise to some extent, but human modifications to natural river flow have disturbed this balance. For example, about 1,900 square miles (5,000 square kilometers) of land has been lost in the Mississippi River Delta since 1932 due to the combined effects of dams, levees and erosion.
The main drivers of subsidence at river deltas are human-made, which presents an opportunity for intervention, Shirzaei said. "One of the most important messages of the study is that subsidence is often manageable," he said.
Alongside efforts to limit climate change, countries should consider reducing groundwater extraction and replenishing aquifers with floodwater or treated wastewater, Shirzaei said. Controlled flooding and sediment diversions can help increase sediment deposition. And restricting heavy infrastructure in the areas most prone to subsidence could also help slow subsidence, he said.
"When combined with flood protection and climate adaptation, these measures can significantly reduce long-term risk," he said.
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- https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/18-of-earths-biggest-river-deltas-including-the-nile-and-amazon-are-sinking-faster-than-global-sea-levels-are-rising
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:15:50 +0000Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:15:51 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Strange, 'starved' galaxy died 'a death of 1,000 cuts' in the ancient universe, JWST reveals ]]>
- New observations of a strange galaxy show it was slowly starved to death by its own black hole.
Two telescopes peered deep into space at the galaxy GS-10578, nicknamed "Pablo's Galaxy," after the name of the astronomer who previously studied it. The galaxy is large for its age: roughly 200 billion times the mass of the sun, with most of its stars lighting up between 11.5 billion years and 12.5 billion years ago. (For reference, the universe is roughly 13.8 billion years old.)
To scientists' surprise, they learned a supermassive black hole embedded in the galaxy slowly removed the cold gas needed for stars to grow, instead of (as models predict) tearing the galaxy apart.
"Pablo’s Galaxy appears to have 'lived fast and died young'," researchers wrote about the new work, published in Nature Astronomy on Monday, in a University of Cambridge statement. "It stopped forming new stars, despite its relatively young age, due to an almost total absence of the cold gas stars need to form."
The research team described the death as happening "by a thousand cuts," because the black hole heated up gas moving through the galaxy. This meant any cold gas was choked off from resupplying the galaxy, making it more difficult for stars to form.
"There was essentially no cold gas left. It points to a slow starvation, rather than a single dramatic death blow," lead author Jan Scholtz, from Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and the Kavli Institute for Cosmology, said in the statement.
The results came by analyzing data from both the James Webb Space Telescope, as well as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA revealed no traces of carbon monoxide, which is an indicator of cold, star-forming hydrogen gas, in the galaxy. JWST, meanwhile, showed the supermassive black hole shooting out neutral gas at 400 kilometers per second (nearly 900 mph). At such rates, the galaxy would have run out of star fuel in only 16 million to 220 million years, a fraction of the typical billions of years for stars to die out.
Pablo's Galaxy appears to be representative of galaxies from the young universe that appear to be aging faster than expected. "Before Webb, these were unheard of," Scholtz said. "Now we know they're more common than we thought – and this starvation effect may be why they live fast and die young."
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/james-webb-telescope-solves-cosmic-murder-mystery-in-pablos-galaxy-and-it-was-a-black-hole-who-done-it
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 15:08:40 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:37:30 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ MIT's chip stacking breakthrough could cut energy use in power-hungry AI processes ]]>
- Engineers from MIT say that stacking circuit components on top of each other could be the answer to creating more energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI) chips. The logic and memory components, which respectively perform computations and store data, can transfer data more easily when in direct contact as opposed to when apart.
The team created a so-called "memory transistor" comprising both a logic element that can perform computations (the transistor) and a memory element. This nanoscale device has relatively few electrical defects, meaning it can operate more quickly while using less electricity, the scientists said in twostudies presented Dec. 9 and Dec. 10 at the International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco.
The breakthrough is particularly relevant for energy-intensive applications like AI, deep learning and computer vision. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global electricity consumption by data centers is projected to rise by about 130% to reach around 945 Terawatt-hours by 2030, largely due to a growing dependence on AI.
Just a single interaction with ChatGPT can generate enough heat that you need the equivalent of a bottle of water for cooling. But most of the energy associated with AI is used for shuttling data between components rather than performing computations. Even just a small saving on-chip could have a huge impact, the scientists believe.
"We have to minimize the amount of energy we use for AI and other data-centric computation in the future because it is simply not sustainable,” lead author of the study Yanjie Shao, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, said in a statement. "We will need new technology like this integration platform to continue that progress."
Stacking saves energy — but it's not easy
Modern chips contain logic circuits made of transistors; these are on/off switches that control the flow of current. These transistors combine to represent binary 1s and 0s, which is how chips process information. They also have memory circuits, containing transistors alongside other materials that can store the data.
Logic and memory circuits are traditionally kept separate, and data must travel between them through wires and interconnects, wasting energy in the process. While stacking the active components may seem an obvious solution, the challenge lies in doing so without causing damage. Deposition, the controlled formation of ultrathin layers that form these components, needs to be done at low temperatures, for example, because some transistors cannot withstand heat.
To overcome this issue, the scientists built their logic transistor with an active channel layer (the region where electricity flows) made from indium oxide. Crucially, the material can be deposited in a two-nanometer layer at around 302 degrees Fahrenheit (150 degrees Celsius). This is a temperature low enough not to affect other transistors.
Beyond the indium oxide transistor, the scientists vertically stacked a memory component — a 10-nanometer layer of ferroelectric hafnium-zirconium-oxide — that allows the device to store data as well as process it. The resulting memory transistor can switch on or off in just 10 nanoseconds and operates at less than 1.8 volts. The switching speeds of typical ferroelectric memory transistors tend to be orders of magnitude lower, and require voltages between 3 and 4V.
The memory transistor is made even more efficient by being built on the chip’s "back-end," where the wires and metal bonds that connect the front-end’s active components are found. Shao said that doing this makes the integration density of the chip much higher.
For the two studies, the memory transistor was only installed on a chip-like structure rather than in a functional circuit. The team hopes to improve the transistor’s performance such that it can be integrated first into a single circuit, and then into larger electronic systems.
"Now, we can build a platform of versatile electronics on the back end of a chip that enable us to achieve high energy efficiency and many different functionalities in very small devices," Shao said. "We have a good device architecture and material to work with, but we need to keep innovating to uncover the ultimate performance limits."
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- https://www.livescience.com/technology/computing/mits-chip-stacking-breakthrough-could-cut-energy-use-in-power-hungry-ai-processes
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- jTBcJR8bcHv4jn6C2Gakan
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:30:00 +0000Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:26:10 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ How to watch 'Pole to Pole with Will Smith' — TV and streaming details as Oscar-winning actor blends adventure and scientific discovery ]]>
- "Pole to Pole with Will Smith," which is released this week (Jan. 13), promises "a thrilling adventure," and Live Science is here with all the TV and streaming details.
How to watch "Pole to Pole with Will Smith" — Quick Guide
► Premieres: January 13 at 9pm ET on National Geographic (US)
► TV: National Geographic (US & UK)
► Stream: Disney+ (International, from January 14)
"Pole to Pole with Will Smith" is a seven-part documentary series following the actor and musician across a series of expeditions, starting in the South Pole and ending in the North Pole, taking in the Amazonian rainforest, Himalayas, Pacific islands and African deserts.
The series aims to blend personal adventure with scientific discovery, while helping various field scientists undertake research.
How to watch "Pole to Pole with Will Smith" in the U.S.
"Pole to Pole with Will Smith" premieres in the U.S. on National Geographic and will be available to stream on Disney+.
The first two episodes will air from 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT on Tuesday Jan. 13 on TV. Then, on Jan. 14, all seven episodes will be available to stream in one go on Disney+.
You can get access to Disney+ from $11.99/month for the ad-supported service, or you can go ad-free for $18.99/month.
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How to watch "Pole to Pole with Will Smith" in the U.K.
"Pole to Pole with Will Smith" will also air on the National Geographic TV channel and the Disney+ streaming platform in the U.K.
The premiere is a day later than the U.S. release, landing on Jan. 14 at 8 p.m. GMT. All seven episodes will be available to stream on Disney+ for U.K. subscribers from Jan. 14.
Disney+ plans start from £5.99/month for ad-supported streaming, or you could strip out ads for £9.99/month. View Deal
Watch "Pole to Pole with Will Smith" from anywhere
If you're travelling abroad you can access your usual streaming services from anywhere, thanks to a VPN.
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"Pole to Pole with Will Smith": Trailer
What to expect from "Pole to Pole with Will Smith": Synopsis
"Pole to Pole with Will Smith" is a seven-episode documentary series in which the Oscar-winning actor Will Smith travels to several continents in search of adventure and scientific discovery.
We can expect "cutting-edge science, environmental storytelling, and bold exploration", according to a Disney statement.
The first episode is based in the South Pole and sees Smith ski and trek across giant ice fields, while the series ends at the North Pole with Smith helping polar ecologist Allison Fong capture scientific samples beneath the ice.
In between, there are a pair of episodes in the Amazon, where venom is extracted from a giant tarantula and a single scale removed from a 17-foot (5 meters) green anaconda. There are also visits to Pacific islands threatened by rising seas, high-altitude villages in the Himalayas, and the inhospitable plains of the Kalahari Desert.
"This journey was unlike anything I’ve ever done — at times I feared I might not make it home! It’s an exploration not just of the planet’s edges, but of some of the most extraordinary people living there," Smith said in the statement. "From the coldest ice to the deepest jungles, the beauty of our world inspired my every step with awe and hope."
The series, said to be five years in the making, is produced by Westbrook Studios, Nutopia and Protozoa for National Geographic and Disney+.
"We’re inviting audiences to see our planet through Will’s eyes — with all the wonder, humor, and humanity he brings to every experience," said Tom McDonald, EVP, content at National Geographic. "It’s a thrilling adventure that embodies what National Geographic does best: combining jaw-dropping cinematography, powerful storytelling and a deeper understanding of how our world works — and why it matters."
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
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- https://www.livescience.com/animals/how-to-watch-pole-to-pole-with-will-smith-tv-and-streaming-details-as-oscar-winning-actor-blends-adventure-and-scientific-discovery
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- RHFtJtKAEt69qnUb4D4EAN
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:14:03 +0000Wed, 14 Jan 2026 14:23:16 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Most complete Homo habilis skeleton ever found dates to more than 2 million years ago and retains 'Lucy'-like features ]]>
- Paleoanthropologists have announced the world's most complete skeleton of Homo habilis, a human ancestor that lived more than 2 million years ago in northern Kenya. The collection of fossil bones has revealed unusually strong arms that distinguished H. habilis from later species.
The bones were initially found in 2012 by a team of researchers led by Meave Leakey, of the Turkana Basin Institute, and were subsequently announced in 2015 at a research conference. Now, the complete analysis of the remains has been described in a paper published Tuesday (Jan. 13) in the journal The Anatomical Record.
The skeleton, designated KNM-ER 64061, was found in geological layers dated to between 2.02 million and 2.06 million years ago. A complete set of lower teeth clearly identified the skeleton as H. habilis. The skeleton included the collarbones; pieces of the shoulder blades; all of the upper and lower arm bones; and fragments of a vertebra, a rib, an upper leg bone, and the pelvis, making it the most complete H. habilis skeleton ever recovered, as well as one of the oldest, the researchers noted in the study. (The oldest H. habilis skeleton on record is from Ethiopia and dates to 2.33 million years ago.)
"There are only three other very fragmentary and incomplete partial skeletons known for this important species," study lead author Fred Grine, a paleoanthropologist at Stony Brook University in New York, said in a statement. The find is significant because it represents both the most complete and the oldest partial skeleton of early Homo, the researchers wrote in the study.
H. habilis was a transitional species, in that it's the first named species to kick-start our genus after evolving from australopithecines — the lineage that includes the celebrity fossil skeleton "Lucy" — but was distinct from our much better understood ancestor Homo erectus, which spread around the world. Fossils from H. habilis are therefore key to understanding the adaptations of our early hominin ancestors. Hominins include modern humans and our extinct relatives.
A close analysis of the KNM-ER 64061 fossils revealed that the arm bones of H. habilis were similar to those of other early Homo specimens and to those of some australopithecines. For example, H. habilis had a longer forearm than did the later H. erectus and had heavy, thick arm bones more similar to those of australopithecines.
Two views of a modern-human skeleton showing the bones of H. habilis that were discovered in 2012. (Image credit: Adapted from Grine, F. E. et al., 2026)
Based on the length of the humerus (the upper arm bone), the researchers determined that KNM-ER 64061 was a young adult who was about 5 feet, 3 inches (160 centimeters) tall. From the leg bone fragment, they estimated that the individual weighed only about 67.7 pounds (30.7 kilograms). These anatomical traits suggest that H. habilis retained upper-limb proportions similar to australopithecines' and was shorter and weighed less than H. erectus.
But those traits don't necessarily mean H. habilis could swing through the trees, according to the researchers. "The relatively long forearm of H. habilis may have enabled a greater degree of arboreal locomotion in this species than in H. erectus, but whether arboreality was indeed practiced by H. habilis must remain a matter of speculation," they wrote in the study.
"Homo habilis limbs have been coming more and more into focus," study co-author Ashley Hammond, a paleoanthropologist at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont, said in the statement, and the new skeleton "confirms that the arms were fairly long and strong. What remains elusive is the lower limb build and proportions."
Only a few fragments of KNM-ER 64061's pelvis were recovered, but they suggest that this H. habilis individual may have walked more like H. erectus than like earlier australopithecines, the researchers noted in the study.
"Going forward, we need lower limb fossils of Homo habilis, which may further change our perspective on this key species," Hammond said in the statement.
The discovery of a surprisingly complete H. habilis skeleton may also help paleoanthropologists sort out the abundance of hominin groups that lived in eastern Africa between 2.2 million and 1.8 million years ago.
Researchers have found that up to four hominin species — Paranthropus boisei, H. habilis, Homo rudolfensis and probably H. erectus — lived in the same place around the same time. And because H. erectus appeared nearly 500,000 years before H. habilis disappeared from the fossil record, it is currently unclear whether H. habilis was the ancestor to H. erectus or a related species.
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- https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-evolution/most-complete-homo-habilis-skeleton-ever-found-dates-to-more-than-2-million-years-ago-and-retains-lucy-like-features
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- CFuHsdTTYS5LuM7rbqSqrT
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:37:30 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Some objects we thought were planets may actually be tiny black holes from the dawn of time ]]>
- What if some of the alien worlds we've discovered are not actually planets at all?
Astronomers have spent years cataloging thousands of worlds orbiting distant stars, assuming that if something has the mass of a planet and exerts a gravitational pull on its parent star, it must be a planet.
But there may be a ghostly alternative lurking in the early universe. In a recent paper that was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server but has not been peer-reviewed, researchers suggest that some "exoplanets" we've detected might actually be something far more exotic — primordial black holes.
These are not your garden-variety black holes, born from dying stars. Instead, they are hypothetical leftovers from the Big Bang itself, formed when the newborn universe was a chaotic, high-pressure soup of energy. These "mini" black holes could have the mass of Earth or Jupiter but be the size of a grapefruit.
Our current methods for finding planets are exceptionally good at measuring mass but less so at determining the physical size of a planet. For example, we often use the radial velocity method — a technique that involves watching a star "wobble" because the gravity of an orbiting object is yanking on it. If the wobble is big, the object is heavy. If the wobble is small, the object is light.
But here's the catch: A planet with the mass of Neptune and a black hole with the mass of Neptune produce the exact same wobble.
In an attempt to separate the two, the authors of the new study looked at exoplanets that have been detected via these wobbles but have never been seen crossing the face of their star — a process called a transit. When a planet transits, it blocks some light, telling us its physical size. If an object pulls on a star but never blocks any light, it might be because it is too small to see, or it might be because it is a black hole.
The researchers identified several intriguing suspects, including Kepler-21 Ac, HD 219134 f and Wolf 1061 d. These objects are heavy enough to make their stars wobble, yet they remain invisible to our telescopes. The team pointed to microlensing events — brief flashes of light caused when a massive object passes in front of a distant star and acts like a magnifying glass — as potential hiding spots for these ancient nomads.
The authors admitted that these candidates are merely representative possibilities, rather than a definitive gallery of tiny black holes. Most will likely turn out to be ordinary planets that just happen to have tilted orbits that prevent them from transiting.
The next decade of data from missions like the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — a NASA telescope that will take a broad survey of exoplanets, due to launch as soon as this fall — will be crucial for learning more about these objects. We might catch one evaporating via Hawking radiation, a theoretical process whereby black holes slowly leak energy until they vanish. If so, we might discover that the universe is a lot more crowded with ancient black holes than we ever imagined.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/black-holes/some-objects-we-thought-were-planets-may-actually-be-tiny-black-holes-from-the-dawn-of-time
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- DaBKfmNVNamuVH7HyeBPJQ
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 22:28:13 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Diagnostic dilemma: A man's sudden seizures were set off by sudoku ]]>
- The patient: A 25-year-old man in Germany
The symptoms: The man was on a ski trip in November 2008 when an avalanche knocked him unconscious and left him buried under snow for 15 minutes. His body tissues were starved of oxygen while he was trapped, leading him to develop a condition called hypoxia. His friend rescued him and immediately began CPR upon releasing him from the snow, Berend Feddersen, a neurologist at the University of Munich in Germany, and the lead author of a report on the case, previously told Live Science. He was then taken to a hospital.
The hypoxia left the man with a movement disorder that caused uncontrollable twitching in the muscles of his legs and mouth when he walked and talked, respectively. He didn't experience these muscle jerks in his arms.
What happened next: After a stint in the hospital, the man was moved to a rehabilitation facility. While at this center, he started a sudoku puzzle — a regular pastime of his prior to the injury.
As he solved the sudoku, the muscles in his left arm repeatedly jerked. But these movements immediately ceased when he stopped work on the puzzle.
The diagnosis: The man appeared to be having clonic seizures — repeated jerking movements — in his arm while solving sudoku, so the medical team ran brain scans to better understand what was happening.
An electroencephalogram, which measures activity on the brain's surface, revealed the patient was experiencing a right centroparietal seizure pattern — meaning the seizures stemmed from the central and parietal regions in the right hemisphere of his brain. MRI did not show any evidence of disease or abnormality that might be driving this seizure activity.
The medical team then performed a functional MRI (fMRI) on the patient while he solved a sudoku; this type of scan tracks activity throughout the brain via blood flow. The scan revealed "widespread activation," although activity in the centroparietal cortex was particularly high, the doctors wrote in a report of the case. A closer inspection using a form of MRI called diffusion tensor imaging, which creates maps of the brain's white-matter fibers, showed fewer inhibitory fibers in this brain region.
The loss of those inhibitory fibers — which help keep the activity of brain cells in check — resulted in a three-fold increase in activity of the nerve running down the patient's left arm. The doctors wrote that the hypoxia the man experienced during the avalanche is the "most likely" cause of this damage.
In turn, the over-activation of the right centroparietal cortex resulted in focal epileptic seizures, which are seizures focused in one discrete region of the brain. Specifically, the patient had developed reflex epilepsy, in which seizures are triggered by certain stimuli, like particular lights or music.
In this case, the three-dimensional image the patient imagined while solving sudoku triggered the seizures, Feddersen said. The patient did not experience clonic seizures when reading, writing or calculating. But the doctors could prompt a seizure by giving the man other visual-spatial tasks, such as placing a random string of numbers in order from smallest to largest.
The treatment: The patient was prescribed anti-epileptic medication, which stopped his seizures; he was more than five years seizure-free as of 2015, the report says. He also received physical therapy, which helped ease the twitches he experienced when walking and talking.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical advice.
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- https://www.livescience.com/health/mind/diagnostic-dilemma-a-mans-sudden-seizures-were-set-off-by-sudoku
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- qsoet6y3HehS5TeriWXt8M
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- Wed, 14 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000Thu, 15 Jan 2026 12:37:30 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Largest crowd-sourced hunt for alien intelligence reveals 12 billion 'signals of interest' in collapsed Arecibo Observatory data ]]>
- One of the largest searches for alien intelligence in history is nearing completion, thanks to the help of more than 2 million citizen scientists and the legendary Arecibo Observatory.
Launched in 1999, the SETI@Home project enlisted millions of volunteers around the world to help identify unusual radio signals in data from the Arecibo Observatory — a massive radio telescope in Puerto Rico that collapsed in 2020 due to a cable failure. Though the project ended prematurely with the telescope's demise, citizen scientists nonetheless identified more than 12 billion signals of interest in 21 years of data.
Now, the researchers behind the project have narrowed that daunting list down to the top 100 candidate signals, which they are studying in detail with China's Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) — now the world's largest single-dish radio telescope, following the death of Arecibo.
So far, there is no smoking-gun evidence of alien transmissions from any of these radio sources. However, the team is enthusiastic that their vast dataset will help make future hunts for extraterrestrials even more effective.
"If we don't find ET, what we can say is that we established a new sensitivity level. If there were a signal above a certain power, we would have found it," computer scientist and project co-founder David Anderson said in a statement. "We have a long list of things that we would have done differently and that future sky survey projects should do differently."
ET enters the group chat
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a branch of science that aims to detect and communicate with advanced alien civilizations using radio signals — the idea being that, if humans have made it this far technologically, hypothetical alien lifeforms might have too.
The Arecibo telescope was a star player in the SETI field; in 1974, a team of scientists including Carl Sagan and Frank Drake sent a radio transmission from Arecibo to a nearby star cluster in hopes of reaching an intelligence audience. The famous "Arecibo Message," transmitted in binary code, included a human stick figure, a double-helix DNA structure, a model of a carbon atom and a diagram of a telescope. (Sadly, E.T. has yet to phone home about it.)
One big challenge for SETI is that space is overflowing with radio waves; everything from cold hydrogen molecules to exploding stars emits some form of radio energy. Finding a meaningful detection of radio signals from intelligent aliens among all this cosmic noise borders on the impossible.
To help narrow the search, the co-founders of SETI@Home turned to crowd sourcing. The team asked volunteers to download a free software program to their home computers, borrowing each computer's processing power to analyze Arecibo's latest scans of the night sky.
Starting in the mid-1990s, the team planned their project with 50,000 volunteers in mind. But within a year of the project starting, more than 2 million users in 100 countries were running SETI@Home on their computers.
"It went way, way, way beyond our initial expectations," Anderson said. "I would like to let that community and the world know that we actually did some science."
Damage to the 305-meter telescope at Arecibo Observatory, after its collapse on Dec. 1, 2020. (Image credit: Michelle Negron, National Science Foundation)
Expanding the search
In twopapers published in 2025 in The Astronomical Journal, Anderson and his colleagues describe the vast dataset their contributors collected, and how the team analyzed it for the top candidate signals.
The project focused on radio signals coming from the Milky Way near the radio wavelength of 21 centimeters, which is the wavelength used to map hydrogen gas in the galaxy. Astronomers routinely observe the universe at this frequency; a hypothetical alien civilization would know that, and make use of that frequency to boost their chances of being detected, the researchers explained.
Using a supercomputer provided by the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Germany, the team eliminated billions of false signals and Earth-based sources of radio interference, dropping the candidate pool down to a million. The team then analyzed the most promising 1,000 radio sources manually, whittling them down to the top 100 contenders.
So far, nothing unusual has jumped out of the results.
"We are, without doubt, the most sensitive narrow-band search of large portions of the sky, so we had the best chance of finding something," astronomer and SETI@Home project director Eric Korpela said in the statement. "So yeah, there's a little disappointment that we didn't see anything."
However, what is computationally possible today far outpaces what was possible in 1999, when the project began, Korpela added. Similar surveys are being conducted by FAST and other radio telescopes around the world; the hunt for alien intelligence will continue, and the data analysis will only get faster and more reliable going forward.
"There's still the potential that ET is in that data and we missed it just by a hair," Korpela concluded.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/extraterrestrial-life/scientists-study-100-possible-alien-radio-signals-from-collapsed-arecibo-observatory-ending-groundbreaking-21-year-search
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- oSt6AonuENkPj9LCTTBJ9E
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- Tue, 13 Jan 2026 21:58:22 +0000Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:22:32 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Mega-iceberg A23a, formerly the world's largest, turns into bright 'blue mush' as it finally dies after 40 years at sea ]]>
- The world's formerly largest iceberg, A23a, has been transformed into a beautiful blob of stripy "blue mush," signaling its imminent demise, new satellite photos reveal. The dying ice mass, which until recently was three times larger than New York City, is one of the oldest bergs on record, now nearing its 40th birthday.
A23a is an oddity among icebergs. The megaberg, dubbed the "queen of icebergs," broke off from Antarctica's Filchner-Ronne Ice Sheet in the summer of 1986, but quickly became stuck in place when its submerged bottom caught on the seafloor. It remained trapped for most of the last four decades, barely shrinking in size due to its close proximity to its parent ice shelf. However, A23a finally broke free from its seafloor tether in 2020 and began drifting away from Antarctica.
Its subsequent journey has been eventful. First, the hefty ice mass was trapped again, this time in a massive ocean current, or gyre, which caused it to spin in place for months. Then, after breaking free from the vortex in December 2024, the dizzy berg made a beeline for the island of South Georgia, sparking fears among researchers that it would ground again and trigger a potential ecological disaster for the island's resident penguins. However, this worst-case scenario was avoided when A23a began to break apart in May 2025, shortly before reaching the island.
Since then, the largest remaining chunk of the iceberg has drifted further north into the South Atlantic Ocean, where warmer waters circulating down from South America are taking their toll.
New photos, captured on Dec. 26 by NASA's Terra satellite, reveal a completely unrecognizable version of A23a. The iceberg, which is now around a third of its original size, is shown covered with pools of blue water encircled by thick borders of white ice, dubbed "ramparts." In the image, A23a is also flanked by a pool of gray sludge, known as ice melange, which has likely leaked out from under the iceberg. It is also further surrounded by hundreds of smaller bergs that have broken off its edges.
Image 1 of 4
(Image credit: Samuel J Coe/Getty Images)
A23a was around three times the size of New York City before its run-in with South Georgia last year.
Image 2 of 4
(Image credit: NASA worldview)
A23a (circled) was previously trapped just offshore from Antarctica's Filchner-Ronne Ice Sheet between 1986 and 2020.
Image 3 of 4
(Image credit: UK MOD Crown Copyright via Getty Images)
Large chunks have been breaking off from A23a for months as it's moved into warmer waters.
Image 4 of 4
(Image credit: NASA/Aqua)
A23a temporarily became stuck off the coast of South Georgia, but quickly began to break apart before moving further North.
The "blue mush" visible on A23a is made up of melt ponds, which form when surface ice loses its structural integrity, Ted Scambos, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a NASA statement. These ponds align into streaks, likely caused by the "weight of the water sitting inside cracks in the ice and forcing them open," Scambos added.
The cracks likely run parallel to grooves on the iceberg's underside, which were carved into the ice by centuries of movement over the ground while still attached to the Filchner-Ronne Ice Sheet, Walter Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC), said in the statement. "It's impressive that these striations still show up after so much time has passed," added Chris Shuman, a retired glaciologist formerly with the University of Maryland.
The vibrant striations may have already started to disappear, according to another photo, snapped on Dec. 27 by an unnamed astronaut onboard the International Space Station. This subsequent image shows a more uniform pool of blue water on the iceberg's surface (see below).
It is currently unclear how much of A23a remains or if it has already begun to disappear fully.
An astronaut photo snapped on Dec. 27 revealed a more uniform melt pond on the surface of A23a, suggesting its vibrant stripes have already disappeared. (Image credit: NASA/ISS program)
Due to its persistent massive size, A23a has repeatedly held the title of "world's largest iceberg" throughout its long lifespan.
The world's current largest iceberg is now D15A, which has a surface area of around 1,200 square miles (3,100 square kilometers), according to NSIDC, making it a few hundred square miles smaller than A23a at its peak.
For more incredible satellite photos and astronaut images, check out our Earth from space archives.
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- https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/antarctica/mega-iceberg-a23a-formerly-the-worlds-largest-turns-into-bright-blue-mush-as-it-finally-dies-after-40-years-at-sea
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- vi88EmPxZvHUWEYzoqTEqi
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- Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:35:20 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:35:20 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Artemis 2 mission update: Rollout imminent as NASA prepares first crewed Artemis mission to the moon ]]>
- NASA is on track to send humans around the moon as early as Feb. 6 as it makes final preparations for the imminent rollout of its Artemis 2 mega moon rocket.
The Artemis Program aims to send humans back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The program will also take the first woman to the moon.
Artemis 2 is the first crewed spaceflight in the mission program. Four astronauts will take a 10-day flight around the moon and back to Earth, testing systems ahead of the Artemis 3 mission, which aims to deliver astronauts to the lunar surface by 2028.
"We are moving closer to Artemis II, with rollout just around the corner," Lori Glaze, the acting associate administrator for NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, said in a statement released Jan. 9. "We have important steps remaining on our path to launch and crew safety will remain our top priority at every turn, as we near humanity's return to the Moon."
In preparation for the test flight, NASA is planning to move the giant Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, which will hold the crew, to the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than Saturday (Jan. 17). The rocket has a 212-foot-tall (65 meters) core stage and will stand 322 feet (98 m) tall — higher than the Statue of Liberty — when capped with the crew capsule.
The distance between NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building and the launch pad is only 4 miles (6 kilometers), but moving massive rockets is a slow and delicate process, and the journey is expected to take up to 12 hours, according to the statement.
The crew of NASA’s Artemis II mission (left to right): NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (Image credit: NASA)
NASA will delay the rollout if weather conditions are unfavorable or there are technical issues. The space agency noted that its engineers have been troubleshooting in the lead-up to launch. For example, they worked on leaky ground support hardware that is needed to supply Orion with oxygen.
After the rollout, NASA plans to run a wet dress rehearsal at the end of January. This is a prelaunch test to fuel the rocket, which is composed of more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of cryogenic propellants. The test will also include things like a launch countdown, practice removing the rocket propellant, and safety procedures. Assuming all goes well, NASA will then conduct a flight readiness review before committing to a launch date.
The space agency wants to have a sustained presence on the moon as part of the Artemis Program, with the moon also serving as a stepping stone to the ultimate goal of putting humans on Mars.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/artemis-2-mission-update-rollout-imminent-as-nasa-prepares-first-crewed-artemis-mission-to-the-moon
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- pbCLESn8GvwPtuEUa6dcRA
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- Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:15:14 +0000Wed, 14 Jan 2026 12:33:16 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Parkfield, San Andreas, and the quest for a 'crystal ball' for predicting earthquakes before they happen ]]>
- Predicting earthquakes before they happen is currently impossible, but scientists are edging closer and closer with new and innovative ways to monitor movements in Earth's crust. In this excerpt from "When Worlds Quake: The Quest to Understand the Interior of Earth and Beyond" (Princeton University Press, 2026), author Hrvoje Tkalčić, the head of geophysics at the Australian National University, delves into the reasons why earthquake prediction is so tricky, looking at the "Parkfield Experiment," where scientists waited nearly 20 years for an earthquake on the San Andreas Fault to strike.
You can often read rude and even vulgar comments under online newspaper articles about the purpose of the seismological profession when people in their post-earthquake trauma realize that seismologists don't forecast like meteorologists do, such as forecast hail or tornadoes with high accuracy.
An approximate answer to these comments could be given with the following targeted question: "We still can't beat malignant diseases, but should we stop researching because of that?"
We are used to discussions about earthquake causes after every event, particularly in the places where the world's earthquakes occur. There are discussions about their frequency, and quite often, there are those who claim they could recognize the coming earthquake in something else. Whether it's a full moon, a planetary conjunction, too much rainfall, bone pain, overexploitation of the planet's resources or greed, people tend to believe that earthquakes have simpler explanations than physical forces in the interior of the Earth and, of course, that they can be predicted.
Let's travel to California in the 1970s and 80s, to a small, picturesque town of only 18 inhabitants — Parkfield — located between San Francisco and Los Angeles, near the central part of the San Andreas Fault. You’re probably wondering why. Well, this small town is known to the seismological world for its turbulent geological history. Namely, on average, significant earthquakes have occurred in Parkfield every 22 years since the middle of the 18th century.
But it was fascinating that the recorded seismograms for the earthquakes of 1922, 1934 and 1966 were almost identical, one wiggly seismogram line to the other. In addition, the 1934 and 1966 earthquakes had foreshocks — about 17 minutes before the main shock — whose seismograms also looked very similar.
You wonder how such a thing is even possible. Such similarity of seismograms is possible only if the same fault surface is always activated and recorded with the same instrument at sufficiently long waves. Of course, the shorter the waves, the greater the differences. In other words, you have a source — an earthquake and a receiver — a seismometer at fixed locations, and waves propagating between them through the same material. So, you have a perfect natural laboratory and an experiment set up in it. You just have to wait long enough.
Scientists, therefore, had good maps in hand to investigate the mechanisms of earthquakes that recur from time to time on an active, well-monitored fault. Since the mid-1980s, they have installed a whole arsenal of instruments near Parkfield and along the fault: powerful seismographs, then strainmeters, which measure rock deformation at a depth of 650 feet (~200 meters) along the fault, magnetometers for measuring the intensity of the magnetic field, creepmeters, which measure displacements on the surface along the fault, and other scientific "weaponry." They forecasted with 90 to 95% confidence that the next earthquake there would occur between 1985 and 1993. Some of the key questions were:
1. How is stress distributed in space and time on the fault due to the action of tectonic forces before and after the earthquake?
2. Do earthquakes repeat at an average time interval, or is each earthquake unique, a story in itself?
3. How do the structure of faults and surrounding rocks affect the nucleation of smaller earthquakes and the possibility of larger ones and their distribution in time and space?
A seismograph records earthquake data on Mount St. Helens in Washington State. (Image credit: Furchin/Getty Images)
They wondered what the deformation we measure on the surface could tell us about the stress distribution on the fault, and they hoped for a positive result — confirmation of the predictions for earthquake occurrences between 1985 and 1993. They waited and waited. In those years, I worked once a week with colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey California office in Menlo Park, in the northwestern part of Silicon Valley, where I was able to observe some scientists involved in the experiment.
Eventually, a magnitude 6.0 earthquake did happen in Parkfield, but not until 2004. We greeted the most watched and studied earthquake in human history with a huge question mark above our heads; it occurred 11 years after its forecasted time. Devastating. That’s why the "Parkfield Experiment" left a bitter taste of disappointment in the mouth. But, as they say, only those who dare to fail eventually succeed. Research continued.
Why is earthquake prediction so tricky? Each fault is different — some of them we know about, but many we don't — earthquake catalogs don't go back far enough, and, after all, underground architecture is entirely invisible to us.
We do not know how deep the fault reaches, whether it is a flat or curved surface, whether its surface is smooth or rough, whether and where it touches other faults, the chemical composition of the rocks on one and the other side of the fault, or their physical properties, for example, strength and porosity. We do not know precisely how the deformation we observe on the surface of the Earth can be related to the deformation and stress in the depth of the fault. We also do not know many other factors. A forecast can be made, but by its very nature, it must be probabilistic and taken with a grain of salt. So, how do we proceed?
Tectonic plates move constantly, making new areas of ocean floor, building mountains, causing earthquakes and creating volcanoes around the world. (Image credit: Naeblys/Getty Images)
Not everything is so negative. The first good news is that seismic hazard maps exist in most countries. They are well made, but of course, they must be constantly updated. The other good news is that, based on fundamental knowledge of physics and the propagation of seismic waves through the interior and across the surface of the Earth, we can predict how the ground and some buildings will behave during an earthquake, and that is already a major benefit.
This is possible because of basic science and seismological research on the nature of the subsurface, in a similar way that radiologists can illuminate the inside of the human body. Ironically, earthquakes help us because they serve as a source of waves illuminating the Earth's interior. It is possible to predict infrastructure behavior during earthquakes due to the development of engineering, construction, computer science and numerical methods. Either way, those hazard maps serve as input for engineers, builders and insurance companies.
In the end, the most positive thing is that modern studies involving laboratory models and artificial intelligence are being carried out across the world, aimed in the direction that one day we will be able to predict earthquakes. Certainly not without major investment in science and technology, which will need to continue to develop. This might even take us to the point where we will have to place thousands or millions of microsensors on every fault in the Earth's interior and then monitor the strain in real time.
In a way, we will have a "crystal ball" — an insight into the dynamics and future behavior of faults. In fact, we are already doing it today, but we have only scratched the surface of the Earth with the help of satellites. InSAR, LIDAR and GPS are just some of the networks and methods that give us an insight into where the Earth's crust is most stressed from surface deformations.
The stress or tension build-up mechanism on a fault is still under investigation. It is most likely that the hot rocks of the Earth's continental crust beneath approximately 9.3 miles (15 kilometers) of depth are ductile, and this rock mass "flows" at a higher speed than on the surface, but without earthquakes, and the upper part of the crust therefore bends and the stress along the fault surface increases. However, how this stress is distributed in space is not yet known.
Furthermore, laboratory experiments at high pressures and temperatures give us insight into how hard rocks are and how strain and stress are related. The chemical and physical structure of the soil is examined by drilling around the fault. Old tree trunks are explored, and excavations are made to detect historical earthquakes on rock samples.
Investments are made in studying the deeper interior of the Earth and the mechanism of earthquakes using seismic waves and tomography methods. Investments are also made in mathematical geophysics, as well as in machine learning and improved techniques for processing enormous amounts of digital data. Investments are also made in alarm systems based on the detection of P waves. Even a few seconds of warning before the arrival of S waves can be crucial to saving people and infrastructure. Likewise, investments are being made in modern construction resistant to earthquakes.
But the conclusion is that, unless you want to move to stable parts of the continents, somewhere in Siberia, to the northernmost, permanently frozen parts of Canada, or the remote regions of the Australian Outback seldom struck by earthquakes, we need to learn to live with earthquakes.
When Worlds Quake: The Quest to Understand the Interior of Earth and Beyond (Kindle Edition)
When Worlds Quake is a fascinating account of how scientists around the globe seek to use quakes to answer tantalizing questions about the structure and inner dynamics of our planet and to discover the deepest secrets of our nearest neighbors in the solar system. View Deal
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- https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/earthquakes/parkfield-san-andreas-and-the-quest-for-a-crystal-ball-for-predicting-earthquakes-before-they-happen
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- mY9gqhhhJD2a6uVqhUczwg
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- Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:22:28 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 16:22:29 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Ötzi the Iceman mummy carried a high-risk strain of HPV, research finds ]]>
- The 5,300-year-old Ötzi the Iceman mummy and a prehistoric man who lived in Siberia 45,000 years ago both carried a cancer-causing strain of human papillomavirus (HPV), new research finds.
Scientists analyzed ancient genetic data previously collected from the individuals, and found that both were likely infected with HPV16, a preprint paper posted to bioRxiv on Dec. 16, reported. In the study, which has yet to undergo peer-review, the authors present what they say is the "earliest molecular evidence" of HPV16 in modern humans.
This extremely early evidence of HPV16 in modern humans challenges the idea that Neanderthals, who overlapped with us in Eurasia from around 60,000 to 34,000 years ago in Eurasia, were the ones who transmitted the virus to us, the researchers said. But the team acknowledged that their sample size of two is small, so it's still hard to know where HPV16 originated.
HPV in ancient humans
HPV encompasses a diverse family of viruses that are primarily transmitted through direct skin-to-skin or sexual contact, and they are commonly found in humans today. Most infections are symptomless but in a small fraction of cases, HPV16 and other high-risk types (known as "oncogenic" papillomaviruses) can fuel the development of some cancers.
While the clinical significance of papillomaviruses is well understood, little is known about their occurrence among prehistoric human populations. In the study, the authors explored a long-standing question of how far back cancer-linked papillomaviruses — particularly HPV16 — have circulated in modern humans, study co-author Marcelo Briones, a professor at the Center for Medical Bioinformatics at the Medical School of the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil, told Live Science in an email.
"The results indicate that HPV16 has been associated with anatomically modern humans for a very long time, likely well before major population splits outside Africa," or before 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, Briones said. "This supports the idea that oncogenic human papillomaviruses are not recent pathogens but long-term companions of their hosts, evolving alongside primates and humans over extended evolutionary timescales."
The researchers re-analyzed publicly available genome sequencing datasets for both Ötzi and the Siberian man, known as Ust'-Ishim. These individuals were chosen because they represent two of the best-preserved and best-characterized ancient human genomes available, Briones said.
Ötzi is a naturally mummified man whose 5,300-year-old remains were discovered in 1991 high in the Alps mountain range on the Austria-Italy border. His remarkably well-preserved body, clothing and tools have since provided a rare glimpse into prehistoric life in the region. The Ust'-Ishim man, meanwhile, who was discovered in 2008, lived around 45,000 years ago in what is now western Siberia. His remains — a single leg bone — yielded one of the oldest modern human genomes ever to be fully sequenced.
Briones and colleagues searched the genetic datasets for DNA fragments matching known HPV genomes. They found multiple DNA fragments matching HPV16 (specifically, a lineage known as HPV16A) in both individuals, suggesting the virus was present in them.
Ötzi the Iceman mummy was found in 1991 high in the Italian Alps. (Image credit: Paul HANNY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
Most previous hypotheses about when HPV16 emerged in modern humans relied on computer models of how the virus evolves over time. These suggest the virus has ancient evolutionary origins but lacked direct biological confirmation, according to the researcher. In general, computer models suggest that papillomaviruses likely co-evolved with vertebrates for hundreds of millions of years.
While the preprint does not address the ultimate origins of HPVs as a group, it does show at least one high-risk type was present in modern humans at least 45,000 years ago.
Given this early date, the new findings challenge a previously proposed hypothesis that Neanderthals transmitted HPV16A to prehistoric Homo sapiens populations through interbreeding, Briones said. Although he said the new study's conclusions are "limited" by the small dataset.
Koenraad Van Doorslaer, interim co-chair of the immunobiology department at the University of Arizona who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email he "largely" agreed with the paper's conclusions, noting the authors "rigorously demonstrated" that both individuals were likely infected with HPV16.
"I am genuinely excited about the implications of this study because it supports some critical assumptions about the history of this family of important viruses," Van Doorslaer said.
However, Van Doorslaer said the proposal of the study authors that their findings present a challenge to the idea that HPV16A first entered our species due to Neanderthal interbreeding "may be overstated" in light of the data presented. In part, because Ust'-Ishim was previously shown to have Neanderthal DNA in his genome, "suggesting that the interbreeding pre-dates Ust'-Ishim's life," Van Doorslaer said. "So since this sample both has Neanderthal DNA and HPV16 DNA, it does not prove that HPV16 does not come from Neanderthals."
Ötzi quiz: What do you know about the Iceman mummy who was murdered 5,300 years ago in the Alps?
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- https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/otzi-the-iceman-mummy-carried-a-high-risk-strain-of-hpv-research-finds
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- y9xV2GWxfPMtZQbPq4sArE
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- Tue, 13 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000Mon, 12 Jan 2026 23:13:33 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Is there such a thing as 'too much' protein? ]]>
- The U.S. federal government just released a new version of the food pyramid, along with a recommendation that Americans eat more protein than previously advised.
The previously recommended daily intake of protein was around 0.8 grams for each kilogram of body weight. That recommendation aimed at meeting the nutritional needs of an average, sedentary adult. Now, the new dietary guidelines suggest people should consume between 1.2 and 1.6 grams of protein per kg of body weight per day.
So, to meet the new recommendations, a person weighing 154 pounds (70 kg) would need to consume around 84 to 112 grams (3 to 4 ounces) of protein per day, as opposed to 56 grams (2 ounces) under the old recommendation.
"It is unclear why the [Dietary Guidelines for Americans] increased the recommendation by 50% to 100%," Alice Lichtenstein, an American Heart Association fellow and nutrition science professor at Tufts University, told Live Science in an email.
Notably, scientists previously estimated that the average U.S. adult's protein consumption generally exceeded the old guideline. A 2013 study estimated it at 1.2 to 1.4 grams per kg of body weight per day, while a 2021 dietary data brief noted men and women were consuming 97 grams and 69 grams on a given day, respectively.
Nonetheless, the shift in guidance raises some questions: Are there benefits to upping your protein intake? And is there an upper limit you shouldn't cross?
Experts told Live Science that there's no single, agreed-upon maximum amount of protein you can eat in a day. That said, if you're not particularly active, pushing your protein intake beyond what the old recommendation suggested is unlikely to be very beneficial, they said. Additionally, it would be harmful to boost your protein intake at the expense of eating other macronutrients, like fat and carbs.
Why is protein important?
Proteins are the body's building blocks, forming everything from muscles and hormones to digestive enzymes and the hemoglobin that carries oxygen in the blood.
Protein-rich foods include meat, fish and eggs, as well as tofu, beans and nuts. The proteins in these foods get broken down by our bodies into their component parts — amino acids — which cells can use to produce the proteins we need. While the body can produce some amino acids on its own, there are nine, called essential amino acids, that we can get only through our diet.
A given person's protein requirements vary depending on a number of factors, with one of the more crucial ones being how much they exercise. So generally, increases in protein intake should be accompanied by increases in activity levels, Lichtenstein told Live Science.
"Most of the studies that I am aware of have not demonstrated that increasing protein intake above current recommendations increases lean muscle mass," she said. "If it does, it needs to be coupled with certain types of physical activity, not a strong point for most people." Those types of activity might include strength and endurance training, for instance.
Historically, it's been recommended that people who regularly exercise get about 1.1 to 1.5 grams per kg per day, while people training for athletic events might eat up to 1.7 grams per kg per day.
Notably, active people still need to take in adequate energy from carbs and fats. If they don't, the body may resort to using amino acids as fuel, effectively increasing the amount of protein they need to make up for the loss of protein building blocks in the body.
Research has tied high-protein diets, typically considered around 1.2 to 2 grams per kg of body weight per day, to both positive and negative health outcomes.
An overconsumption of protein may increase levels of the amino acid leucine, which can then interfere with how immune cells clear plaque from blood vessels, one study of humans and lab mice found. This could boost the risk of heart attack or stroke. Based on this finding, the study authors suggested that getting more than 22% of your daily calories from protein — around 1.6 grams per kg of body weight — could do more harm than good.
Leucine is found in a variety of animal- and plant-based protein sources. Additionally, protein sources that are high in purine — such as red meat, organs like kidney, and certain types of seafood — can lead to gout and kidney stones if consumed in excess.
"It's important to note that there is no single, official upper limit," Bridget Cassady, a registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) at Abbott, told Live Science in an email. "An amount that is considered 'excessive' will be different based on your needs varying with age, body weight, activity level, health status."
Broadly speaking, though, Cassady said that healthy individuals can safely consume "moderately high" amounts of protein — around 2 grams per kg per day — as long as it's part of a balanced diet. Protein consumption should not come at the expense of other nutrients; if it starts crowding out fiber-rich plants, healthy fats, or whole-food carbohydrates, that's when protein intake could start becoming a concern, she said.
At the extreme, a super high-protein diet could put strain on the kidneys, which can filter only so much urea — a protein waste product — from the blood at a given time. That's why people with existing kidney problems are advised to avoid high-protein diets, according to Cleveland Clinic. If your urine turns bubbly or foamy, that can mean there's a high level of protein in the urine, which could signal kidney damage.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer medical or dietary advice.
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- https://www.livescience.com/health/food-diet/is-there-such-a-thing-as-too-much-protein
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- UG2BUSR6ibVd8GeKSuyAe4
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- Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000Wed, 14 Jan 2026 12:33:16 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Ethereal ice structures swirl alongside Chicago during extreme cold snap fueled by polar vortex — Earth from space ]]>
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What's in the photo? Ice swirling around the edge of Lake Michigan
Which satellite took the photo? Landsat 8
When was it taken? Jan. 24, 2025
This striking satellite photo shows rippling ribbons of ethereal ice swirling like turbulent clouds on the surface of Lake Michigan, alongside a snow-covered Chicago. The wintery scene occurred during an extreme cold snap triggered by changes to the polar vortex, experts say.
The greater Chicago region is home to around 9.5 million people and is near the southernmost end of Lake Michigan — the third-largest of the Great Lakes, which covers an area of around 22,300 square miles (57,750 square kilometers) across Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Between Jan. 19 and Jan. 24, 2025, the Windy City and other parts of the eastern U.S. were hit by an unusual cold snap, partially triggered by a sudden expansion of the polar vortex — the persistent area of cold, low-pressure air circulating high in the stratosphere above the Arctic. During this time, temperatures in Chicago fell to as low as minus 33 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 36 degrees Celsius), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This sudden drop in temperature, coupled with strong offshore winds, caused ice to form around the coastline and be pushed outward, creating the beautiful swirls. These flowing ribbons look a lot like clouds when viewed from above, but they are entirely ice, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
In total, around 20% of Lake Michigan was covered by ice when the satellite photo was taken, which is just above average for the time of year, according to NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (GLERL).
Up to 20% of Lake Michigan's surface was covered by ice during the 2025 cold snap, which was slightly over average for the time of year. This photo was taken during the winter of 2022. (Image credit: Zhangying Huang via Getty Images)
While lake ice is common in January, the extent of ice on Lake Michigan doesn't normally peak until February or March. It is also more common to see uniform sheets of ice rather than the flowing patterns visible in this image.
In this case, the darker, wispy ice near the lakeshore likely accumulated into thicker offshore constructs with rough edges that appear more white when viewed from above, Jia Wang, an ice climatologist at GLERL, told the Earth Observatory.
Other Great Lakes were also impacted by the cold snap, including Lake Erie, which saw up to 80% of its surface frozen, according to GLERL. Erie's ice was so thick and emerged so quickly that a Canadian cargo freighter was trapped in place for three days, according to the New York Times.
This is not the first time that satellite photos have revealed something unusual about Lake Michigan. In 2024, aerial images helped researchers identify more than 40 mysterious craters scattered across the lake's bed, which currently have no definitive explanation.
The low temperatures and strong winds around Chicago can also cause other unusual winter sights, such as bizarre chess piece-like sand sculptures along Lake Michigan's beaches, known as "hoodoos," which form when frozen chunks of sand are exposed to strong gusts.
For more incredible satellite photos and astronaut images, check out our Earth from space archives.
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- https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/weather/ethereal-ice-structures-swirl-alongside-chicago-during-extreme-cold-snap-fueled-by-polar-vortex-earth-from-space
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- AsQ5B5U3yXpcJRUPVujB6D
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- Tue, 13 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:27:47 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ DNA from ancient viral infections helps embryos develop, mouse study reveals ]]>
- A stretch of DNA in the mouse genome left by ancient viral infections is crucial for early development in the womb, new research shows.
According to the study, published in December in the journal Science Advances, this viral DNA switches on genes that give cells in early-stage mouse embryos the potential to become almost any cell type in the body. The viral DNA — known as MERVL — itself gets activated by a protein called the "Dux transcription factor," which binds to the sequence and essentially kick-starts the embryo's development.
Although it's important in the womb, if Dux stays activated too long, it kills cells. The human version of Dux, called DUX4, causes a progressive muscle-wasting disorder when quirks in its genetic code cause it to be active for too long in muscle cells. That inherited disease, called facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), currently has no cure.
The new study not only unravels the roles of MERVL and Dux in the womb but also teases apart these harmful effects that can appear later in life. It's an "important piece of work," said Sherif Khodeer, a postdoctoral research fellow who focuses on stem cell and developmental biology at the university KU Leuven but was not involved in the study.
A powerful gene-editing tool
Researchers at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Medical Sciences in England used a gene-editing tool called CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) to untangle the close relationship between Dux and MERVL. Unlike traditional CRISPR, which cuts DNA to change its code, CRISPRa boosts the activity of specific genes without changing the underlying DNA sequence.
The team used CRISPRa to switch on either Dux or MERVL in mouse embryonic stem cells. This enabled the researchers to examine how each factor influenced early embryonic development.
When the researchers switched on only MERVL, the stem cells showed "totipotency," or the ability to become any cell type — an important feature of the very earliest embryos. But the cells were missing key traits, the researchers found. This suggests that, while MERVL plays an important role in early mouse embryo development, Dux is also required.
Turning on Dux alone, on the other hand, produced cells that looked much more like natural early embryonic cells. So, the researchers think Dux activates the genes necessary for the embryo's development, independently of MERVL.
Because Dux and MERVL are so closely linked during the earliest stages of embryonic development, scientists previously suspected that MERVL might also contribute to Dux's harmful effects later in life. But the new study suggests this isn't the case.
The researchers tested how Dux causes cell damage by looking at its effects in stem cells with and without a gene called NOXA, which is known to be involved in cell death triggered by various stressors. They found that Dux turns on this NOXA gene, which produces a protein that triggers cell death. When the team removed NOXA, Dux caused much less harm. That showed that NOXA is responsible for the toxicity, not MERVL.
A potential therapeutic target
NOXA was already known to be elevated in FSHD, the human muscle-wasting disease. It's possible that developing a drug to inhibit NOXA could prevent cell death in the condition, thereby helping to improve the survival of muscle cells, the study authors think.
"Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy is a complex disease," senior study author Michelle Percharde, head of the chromatin and development group at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Medical Sciences , said in a statement.
"Even though all cells of a patient have the genetic changes that cause it, only a subset of cells activate DUX4," she explained. "Understanding what triggers DUX4 activation just in muscle cells, as well as how this compares to activation in early development, are key questions we hope to explore in future research."
It would be "valuable to compare" how mouse Dux and human DUX4 function, Khodeer said, adding that future studies should also explore precisely how MERVL controls nearby genes and when and how MERVL is switched off during mouse embryo development.
Crucially, Khodeer pointed out that MERVL is not present in the human genome. But scientists suspect that certain parts of the human genome could be equivalent to MERVL. As in mice, these stretches of DNA are leftover from ancient viral infections.
Khodeer said the new results raise several questions. For example, do early human embryos develop via the same mechanisms seen in mice? And which bits of ancient viral DNA in humans might play roles similar to MERVL at this early stage of development? "Answering these questions could clarify species-specific differences in early developmental regulation," he told Live Science in an email.
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- https://www.livescience.com/health/genetics/dna-from-ancient-viral-infections-helps-embryos-develop-mouse-study-reveals
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- bCFyxqfYSRa8gG9wLXDijb
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- Mon, 12 Jan 2026 19:10:00 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:46:24 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Metal compounds identified as potential new antibiotics, thanks to robots doing 'click chemistry' ]]>
- An iridium metal complex has been identified as a promising, if unconventional, new antibiotic drug, a new study finds.
The compound is one of more than 600 produced in a study published in December in the journalNature Communications. The researchers used a robot to synthesize the compounds, combining metal and organic molecule building blocks to generate a huge chemical library in just a week.
This streamlined approach, which also produced five other potential antibiotics, could dramatically accelerate both drug discovery and parallel areas of chemical research, study lead author Angelo Frei, an inorganic chemist at the University of York in the U.K., told Live Science.
As the prevalence of drug-resistant bacterial infections increases, there's a need for new, effective antibiotics that can kill germs that no longer respond to existing drugs. So far, the search has focused on organic — meaning carbon-based — molecules, leaving metal complexes almost completely unexplored.
These metal-containing compounds significantly differ in shape compared to their flatter organic alternatives; and their three-dimensional shapes give rise to distinct chemical and biological properties. This attribute, combined with their ease of synthesis, makes these molecules an exciting potential source of future antibiotics, the study authors say.
But as there's little existing data on the antimicrobial properties of metal complexes, Frei's team needed an efficient method to rapidly make and test as many compounds as possible. Their solution was to merge straightforward and robust chemistry with state-of-the-art automation.
The team began by creating a panel of 192 different ligands, the organic molecules that bind to the metal center and determine the overall complex's final properties. They did so by using a liquid-handling robot to perform "click chemistry." This robust reaction fuses two types of starting materials — called azides and alkynes — to construct nitrogen-containing rings known as triazoles. These nitrogen rings bond strongly to metals.
In the next step of the process, the robot combined each of the 192 ligands with five different metals to generate a total of 672 metal complexes.
"We opted to use liquid-handling robots to do the chemistry because it's just combining different reagents in the right ratios," Frei said. After making the azides, "then we added the alkynes and the catalyst to do the click reaction, and then we used those ligands on different metals. It can all be done in one pot with robots," he said.
Each product was analyzed to confirm the expected complex had formed and then immediately tested for antibacterial activity and potential toxicity to human cells. In this way, the team quickly identified the safest and most potent compounds, without wasting time on lengthy purification steps.
"It allows us to go from hundreds of compounds to maybe dozens of compounds that are interesting," Frei explained.
Complexes containing iridium and rhenium exhibited particularly high levels of antibacterial activity. Overall, 59 of the iridium compounds and 61 of the rhenium compounds inhibited the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, an important cause of hospital-associated infections that can range from mild to deadly. For both metals, the toxicity toward human cells was variable. From these initial screening results, the team selected the six compounds that most effectively balanced antibacterial activity with low toxicity for further study.
"When we have identified those really promising ones, we can then go back to the bench and remake them, isolate them, and characterize them, to confirm what we saw previously with the [unpurified] mixture," Frei said.
In this second round of tests, one of the iridium complexes was the clear standout winner. The compound was about 50 to 100 times more active against bacteria than it was toxic to human cells. This large difference is vital to ensure that the complex is simultaneously effective in treating an infection but safe to use on human tissues.
Mark Blaskovich, a molecular bioscientist at the University of Queensland in Australia who wasn't involved in the work, was impressed by the efficiency of Frei's approach and the diversity of the compounds created by the automated synthesis. However, substantial work remains to transform their antibiotic candidates into viable clinical drugs, he said.
The "most important next steps" are to show that the most promising compounds have drug-like properties, meaning they are chemically stable and don't have a lot of off-target effects on the body, he told Live Science in an email. In addition, research needs to demonstrate how these compounds work in a living body, "ideally in the 'gold standard' mouse models of infection," he said.
In order to get these potential antibiotics approved for clinical use, eventually, studies in lab animals would be followed by clinical trials that could definitively show the drugs are both safe and effective for people.
For the time being, though, Frei intends to build upon this initial library of compounds, leveraging artificial intelligence to help target specific properties.
"We can use this data to make smarter decisions," he said. "So we can do machine learning and train models to correlate which structural features lead to good activity and low toxicity and then have the model predict for us which compounds we should make next."
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- https://www.livescience.com/health/medicine-drugs/metal-compounds-identified-as-potential-new-antibiotics-thanks-to-robots-doing-click-chemistry
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- m3fvjmvqLeJkwPtPTyQEAC
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- Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:40:00 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 17:46:24 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Astronomers may have already spotted the 'Great Comet of 2026' — and it could soon be visible to the naked eye ]]>
- We may be less than two weeks into 2026, but a new comet is already leading the charge to become the "Great Comet" of the year. The highly anticipated ice ball, which could potentially be seen with the naked eye, will reach its closest point to us less than four months from now.
Scientists discovered the incoming comet, dubbed C/2025 R3 (PanSTARRS), on Sept. 8, 2025, in images captured by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) — a pair of 5.9-foot (1.8 meters) reflector telescopes located on the summit of Hawaii's Haleakalā volcano. It is currently around 216 million miles (348 million kilometers) from Earth, around halfway between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, according to TheSkyLive.com.
C/2025 R3 is a long-period comet, meaning it likely takes more than 1,000 years to orbit the sun, and probably originates from the Oort cloud — a giant reservoir of comets and other icy objects near the edge of the solar system. Astronomers have yet to narrow down the comet's orbital pathway, so they do not know how long the ice ball takes to circle our home star. But similar discoveries in recent years have revealed comets that have not passed by Earth for tens of thousands of years.
C/2025 R3 is currently speeding toward the sun and will reach perihelion — its closest point to our home star — on April 20. It will come within 47.4 million miles (76.3 million km) of the sun, which is somewhere between the orbits of Mercury and Venus.
Just one week later, on April 27, the comet will make its closest approach to Earth, coming within 44 million miles (70.8 million km) of our planet, which is more than 180 times farther from us than the moon is.
C/2025 R3 (Pan-STARRS) will reach its closest point to Earth on April 27. However, it will be most visible around a week earlier when it is near perihelion. (Image credit: NASA/JPL/Small-Body Database Lookup)
Astronomers don't yet know how brightly the comet will shine during its solar flyby, Live Science's sister site Space.com recently reported. Some researchers have predicted that it will reach an apparent magnitude of 8, meaning it would be visible only via a decent telescope or pair of stargazing binoculars. But others estimate that it could reach magnitude 2.5, which would make it clearly visible to the naked eye. (Apparent magnitude is measured on a reverse logarithmic scale, meaning a lower number equates to a greater brightness.)
When to see comet C/2025 R3
The best chance to see C/2025 R3 will likely be just before perihelion, around April 17, when a new moon will darken the night sky, making it easier to spot objects on the cusp of naked-eye visibility. But by its closest approach to Earth, the comet may become obscured by the sun, making it harder to spot. Viewers in the Southern Hemisphere may also get a good look at the comet in early May.
Whether the comet becomes visible to the naked eye may depend on a phenomenon known as forward scattering, which occurs when a comet is positioned directly between Earth and the sun, as C/2025 R3 will be. If this happens, the comet's tail will likely scatter more sunlight, thereby increasing its brightness, according to Space.com.
A comet's brightness also depends on how it reacts to increased solar radiation: When a comet gets closer to the sun, it soaks up more sunlight, causing it to release trapped ice and gases, which reflect sunlight toward Earth. But it is too early to predict exactly how this will affect C/2025 R3.
During its perihelion and flyby of Earth, C/2025 R3 will be located in the constellation Pisces, just beneath the Great Square of Pegasus, according to Space.com.
A number of interesting comets passed us by in 2025, including the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS. These photos of the alien comet were taken by various NASA spacecraft during its flyby of Mars. (Image credit: NASA/Goddard/LASP/CU Boulder/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Southwest Research Institute/Lowell Observatory/Qicheng Zhang/ASU/MSSS )
At present, there are not many noteworthy comets predicted to pass by us this year, which has led many to speculate that C/2025 R3 will be 2026's "Great Comet" — a superlative title often used to describe the brightest comet of a given year.
However, there is always a chance that an even better and brighter comet will soon be discovered and make a similar spectacular flyby later in the year.
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/comets/astronomers-may-have-already-spotted-the-great-comet-of-2026-and-it-could-soon-be-visible-to-the-naked-eye
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- VeWPLMCLiAE7JnjBYGuJEE
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- Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:57:15 +0000Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:57:16 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Our expert's favorite running shoes have just hit their lowest-ever price in January ]]>
- January is one of the best times of the year for upgrading your running shoes. However, even some of the most experienced runners can be left confused by the sheer number of available discounts, never mind those who are only just starting their fitness journey. Do not worry, though. In this deluge of January fitness sales, we managed to find a real gem. The New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 are excellent everyday running shoes, suitable for both the pros and first-time runners — and they have just hit their lowest-ever price.
Save up to 69% on the New Balance Women's Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 running shoes. With its well-cushioned midsole, durable design and a wide range of colorful designs, this excellent trainer is just as good for 10k runs as it is for casual hiking and recovery training.
Kate Carter reviewed the New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 running shoes in June last year. (Image credit: Kate Carter)
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Kate has clocked hundreds of miles in her New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 — the pictures above clearly show how much she has worn them out over the past year or so! But what makes these running shoes so special, then? The answer is simple. Hardly any other trainer delivers such an impeccable combination of comfort, cushioning, durability and functionality. The New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 does just as well in marathon training as it does for casual hiking and recovery runs. It is a real workhorse.
That said, the New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 may not be for everyone. These running shoes are extremely well-cushioned, meaning they were designed to prioritise comfort over responsiveness. As Kate pointed out, they may not have enough bounce and power transfer to see you through speedwork and racing competitions. When it comes to anything else, however, the New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 is a fabulous pick — and now, you can get this excellent daily trainer at its lowest-ever price.
Key features: Fresh Foam X platform, drop 6 mm, heel stack height 38 mm, forefoot stack height 32 mm
Product launched: October 2024
Price history: Before today's deal, the lowest price on the New Balance Women's Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 running shoes was $67.34, and for the better part of last year, the price sat at $164.95. Today's offer from Amazon brings the price down to $51.30, which is the lowest price we have ever seen.
Review's consensus: The New Balance Fresh Foam X 1080 V14 is widely praised for its robust cushioning, breathable design and durable build, with many reviewers considering it one of the best-value daily trainers on the market. Many testers also commended its extensive functionality and a wide range of color options. Negative remarks, though few and far between, often revolved around its level of cushioning, and some reviewers also complained about the lack of notable upgrades to the previous Fresh Foam X 1080 model.
✅ Buy it if: You are a casual runner looking for comfortable, well-cushioned running shoes.
❌ Don't buy it if: You want highly responsive, racing-focused running shoes, such as the New Balance Women's FuelCell Rebel V4 (now up to 55% off at Amazon).
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- https://www.livescience.com/health/exercise/dont-miss-out-our-experts-favorite-running-shoes-have-just-hit-their-lowest-ever-price
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- u9v2TAUjzN63SmzS6jBRUV
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- Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:40:39 +0000Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:40:39 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Tumba Madžari Great Mother: A boxy goddess figurine from North Macedonia designed to protect Stone Age houses 7,800 years ago ]]>
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QUICK FACTS
Name: Tumba Madžari Great Mother
What it is: A clay sculpture
Where it is from: Skopje, North Macedonia
When it was made: Sixth millennium B.C.
In 1981, a clay sculpture called the "Great Mother" was discovered in an ancient village in North Macedonia known as Tumba Madžari. The unusual cube shape of the woman's lower half is thought to mimic the design of the Stone Age houses that she was intended to protect nearly 8,000 years ago.
The terracotta Great Mother measures 15.4 inches (39 centimeters) tall. The top half of the sculpture depicts a human figure with a prominent nose, belly button and breasts, as well as linear eyes positioned beneath arched eyebrows. The woman's arms are bent downward at the elbows, and her hands are placed flat on her boxy bottom half. Her hair is gathered into a ponytail or braid on the back of her head, and traces of brown paint remain on her forehead, perhaps suggesting bangs.
The Great Mother was found in a house in the Tumba Madžari settlement, which archaeologists believe was in use between 5800 and 5200 B.C. The square structure measured about 26 by 26 feet (8 by 8 meters) and was built in a traditional Neolithic style: Wooden posts were interwoven with branches and covered by a layer of clay. Near the center of the house, which contained a hearth and an oven, archaeologists found the Great Mother statue, along with dozens of complete ceramic pots, cups and jugs.
The Great Mother's lower half is as box-shaped as the house where she was found. She appears to be rising above the house; this positioning suggests she is watching over the home, which is also a part of her. The hollow bottom hints that the sculpture was used as a kind of altar where incense, dried herbs or grain offerings were burned.
According to the Archaeological Museum of the Republic of North Macedonia, where artifacts from Tumba Madžari are on display, "the role of woman as child bearer and mother was equated with a fertility cult or the cult of the Great Mother goddess."
Other "Great Mother" figurines have been found at Neolithic European and Near Eastern archaeological sites. However, the unusual shape of the Tumba Madžari sculpture that reflects a symbiotic relationship between the mother goddess and the house is found only in the Balkans.
For more stunning archaeological discoveries, check out our Astonishing Artifacts archives.
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- https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/tumba-madzari-great-mother-a-boxy-goddess-figurine-from-north-macedonia-designed-to-protect-stone-age-houses-7-800-years-ago
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- WtRycDYRwoQFfCr92f5nCF
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- Mon, 12 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:13:26 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Monumental tomb discovered in Turkey might be of royal from King Midas' kingdom ]]>
- An ancient tomb discovered in Turkey may have been made for a member of the family of the legendary King Midas, who lived in the eighth century B.C. and is renowned for his mythical "golden touch."
The possibly royal tomb, from the ancient kingdom of Phrygia (1200 to 675 B.C.), is more than 100 miles west of the kingdom's ancient capital at Gordion. Its distant location suggests Phrygian society wasn't politically concentrated in the capital city, a new study finds. Rather, it seems that political power was distributed over the ancient kingdom in central Anatolia.
"Historically, Phrygia was often viewed as a centralized kingdom similar to theAssyrian or Urartian empires," archaeologist Hüseyin Erpehlivan of Turkey's Bilecik University told Live Science in an email.
But the tomb, in the Karaağaç Tumulus in Turkey's northwestern Bozüyük district, suggests otherwise; the fact that an elite tomb was made so far from the capital "supports the idea that the Phrygian political organization was not limited to a strictly-centralized, urban-focused system" at Gordion, Erpehlivan said.
However, he acknowledged that the tomb's lavish grave goods might not indicate a royal burial, but rather a royal gift exchange with an important person who had regal connections, such as the area's governor.
Remote tumulus
The tumulus (or burial mound) now stands about 26 feet (8 meters) above a natural hillock and more than 100 ft (30 m) above the surrounding plain, with a diameter of about 110 ft (60 m). It was discovered in 2010 when satellite photographs showed damage from looting, and researchers have been academically excavating it since 2013.
In a new investigation of the tumulus, published in the January issue of the American Journal of Archaeology, Erpehlivan analyzed the tomb's architecture and grave goods.
Erpehlivan said the monumental architecture of the wooden-chambered tomb inside the tumulus is comparable to elite burials near Gordion, while grave goods in the tomb are similar to those found in royal burials at the capital. These aspects of the burial in the Karaağaç Tumulus "exceed what would be expected for a purely local, non-elite individual, instead pointing to a figure embedded within Phrygian power structures," he said.
Archaeologists from Bilecik University have excavated parts of the burial mound over more than a decade. (Image credit: Bilecik Museum)
Erpehlivan and his colleagues determined that the grave goods included numerous ceramic jars, one of which was inscribed with a Phrygian name, and several situlas — elaborately-crafted bronze vessels, often decorated with scenes of battles, hunts and processions — that could indicate the person in the grave had a local royal rank or ties to the royal family of Midas.
The presence of situlas is important because, before this study, the only documented examples were discovered in the "Midas Mound" at Gordion, which was likely the tomb of his father Gordias. Erpehlivan wrote that the artifacts also help date the tomb to between 740 and 690 B.C.
Ancient kingdom
Midas is widely known today for the myth of his "Golden Touch" or "Midas Touch" that turned everything to gold — including his food, his drink and his daughter. This cautionary tale was known to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, who cited it in fourth century B.C. as an example of greed. The myth was embellished by later writers; the daughter was added in the 19th century by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne.
But Midas was also a real king of Phrygia in central Anatolia who lived in the eighth century B.C. The ancient Greeks thought he was fabulously wealthy, and that part of the legend seems to have been true: Ornate metalwork, jewelry, pottery, rare wooden furniture and traces of fine textiles have been discovered in several Phrygian royal tombs. There are more than 120 burial mounds near Gordion, of which about half have been investigated; the tomb of Midas, however, has not yet been found.
The ornate grave goods found in the ancient tomb include valuable bronze vessels, which are a distinctive feature of Phrygian tombs. (Image credit: Bilecik Museum)
Old bones
Erpehlivan and his colleagues discovered human remains inside the Karaağaç Tumulus, but they don't think they belong to the tomb's original occupant. Some of the bones are from an ancient cemetery that already existed at the site, while others are from burials made after the Phrygian burial mound and tomb were built.
"The newly discovered tumulus is unique in that it contains graves spanning a period of nearly three millennia," University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Brian Rose told Live Science in an email. Rose was not involved in the latest study but has excavated tombs at Gordion for decades. "Especially welcome is the information that it dates to the reign of King Midas in the late eighth century, since two other newly excavated burial mounds at the Phrygian capital of Gordion date to the same period," he said.
Archaeologists also found jars and pots made from fine clay, including one inscribed with a Phrygian name. (Image credit: Bilecik Museum)
Archaeologist Maya Vassileva of the New Bulgarian University in Sofia, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that the Karaağaç Tumulus is "very important evidence" for an elite Phrygian burial far from Gordion.
But Vassileva is not convinced that the situla fragments from the tomb are a sign of royal links. "I would not consider the presence of situlae as evidence for a local royal status or royal ties," she said. "The other suggested hypothesis for an elite gift exchange seems more plausible."
Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:01 a.m. ET on Jan. 12 to change the image credits to Bilecik Museum.
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- https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/monumental-tomb-discovered-in-turkey-might-be-of-royal-from-king-midas-kingdom
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- Du8WcyeLneaqgADYoxxmG
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- Sun, 11 Jan 2026 12:00:00 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:13:27 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ Giant cosmic 'sandwich' is the largest planet-forming disk ever seen — Space photo of the week ]]>
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This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the largest planet-forming disk ever observed around a young star. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Kristina Monsch (CfA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))
QUICK FACTS
What it is: IRAS 23077+6707, the largest planet-forming disk ever observed
Where it is: 978 light-years away, in the constellation Cepheus
When it was shared: Dec. 23, 2026
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a spectacular new image of the largest and most unusual protoplanetary disk ever observed around a single star. The object, officially known as IRAS 23077+6707 and nicknamed "Dracula's Chivito," is a dusty disk that resembles a sandwich.
Rich in gas and dust, a protoplanetary disk is where planets — both rocky worlds, like Earth, and gas giants, like Jupiter — can form around young stars. Dracula's Chivito could, in theory, contain a vast planetary system. Its name references both its appearance and its discoverers, who come from Transylvania, Romania (home of the fictional Dracula), and Uruguay, where the national dish is the chivito, a sandwich of sliced beef, ham, mozzarella, tomatoes and olives — which resembles the layers of gas and dust in the protoplanetary disk.
In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, astronomers estimate that the cosmic sandwich spans nearly 400 billion miles (640 billion kilometers) — more than 100 times the diameter of our inner solar system, where all the known planets orbit. Tilted nearly edge-on as seen from Earth, the object was first identified in 2016 and has now been confirmed as a massive planet-forming disk.
Thought to contain a hot, massive star or a pair of stars at its center, the enormous disk is surprisingly chaotic, with bright wisps of material seen far above and below the disk.
"The level of detail we're seeing is rare in protoplanetary disk imaging," Kristina Monsch, an astronomer at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and lead author of the paper, said in a statement. "These new Hubble images show that planet nurseries can be much more active and chaotic than we expected."
The system contains bright, vertically stretched filaments of gas on only one side, while the opposite side has a sharp edge.
"We were stunned to see how asymmetric this disk is," co-investigator Joshua Bennett Lovell, also an astronomer at the CfA, said in the statement. "Hubble has given us a front row seat to the chaotic processes that are shaping disks as they build new planets — processes that we don't yet fully understand but can now study in a whole new way."
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- https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/giant-cosmic-sandwich-is-the-largest-planet-forming-disk-ever-seen-space-photo-of-the-week
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- eYNZqh9n9QEfhg8R5ifqw6
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- Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:13:27 +0000
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- <![CDATA[ What's the oldest river in the world? ]]>
- Rivers may seem as old as the hills, but they have life cycles just like other natural features do. Many grow and make their meandering mark on the landscape, before ultimately drying up. Some rivers last longer than others, however. So which river is the oldest in the world today?
The winner is older than the dinosaurs: The Finke River in Australia, or Larapinta in the Indigenous Arrernte language, is between 300 million and 400 million years old.
This network of streams and channels extends more than 400 miles (640 kilometers) across Northern Territory and South Australia. The arid conditions in the center of the continent mean the river flows only intermittently; most of the year, it exists as a string of isolated water holes. However, a combination of geological records, weathering profiles and radionuclide measurements in the surrounding sediments and rocks has enabled scientists to date this river system to the Devonian (419 million to 359 million) or Carboniferous (359 million to 299 million) period.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence for its ancient age is a geological anomaly calledcross-axial drainage, saidVictor Baker, a geomorphologist at the University of Arizona. Rather than flowing parallel to resistant rock structures, such as quartzite, the Finke River cuts across these tough mineral formations as it passes through the MacDonnell Ranges in central Australia.
Flowing water always takes the easiest path, making it counterintuitive that a river would flow against these hard rocks rather than alongside them. Consequently, the presence and origin of this cross-axial drainage reveal crucial details about the historic course of the Finke.
"There is some suggestion that there was a preexisting drainage that was flowing as this range was building up," Baker told Live Science. "It's called antecedence ��� basically, the river is there before the mountains form and as the crust is being thrust up, the river is cutting down."
The Finke River cuts into a sand dune at the edge of the Simpson Desert in Australia's Northern Territory. (Image credit: Auscape/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The MacDonnell Ranges (or Tjoritja in Arrernte) formed as part of the Alice Springs Orogeny — a tectonic mountain-building event that occurred 300 million to 400 million years ago — making the Finke at least as old as these mountains.
Later evidence comes from erosion and weathering, which generate specific chemical profiles. This information indicates how and where the surface interacted with the atmosphere and water flow through time. Using the radioactive signatures of certain isotopes (elements with different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei), scientists can also infer the ages of these rocks. Because radioactive isotopes decay at a fixed rate, it's possible to estimate when rocks formed by working backward from the relative proportions of different isotopes. Together these data points create a roadmap for piecing together the history and evolution of the Finke River.
But rivers are constantly in flux, with some growing bigger from year to year and others drying up completely. So why has the Finke system lasted so long?
The New River, seen here at New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia, is about 300 million years old. (Image credit: Eli Wilson/Getty Images)
"Rivers can disappear if a massive influx of sediment overwhelms them (e.g., volcanic eruptions) or if topography changes so dramatically that the flowing water takes a new course across the landscape (e.g., glacial advance and retreat)," Ellen Wohl, a geologist at Colorado State University, told Live Science in an email.
Additionally, "rivers can cease to flow because of climate change and/or human consumptive use of water," Wohl said. "Long duration is promoted by tectonic stability and lack of glaciation during the Pleistocene" (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago).
In the case of the Finke, Australia has been an unusually stable landscape for a very long time. Resting in the middle of the Australian Plate, the continent has experienced virtually no significant tectonic activity for the past several 100 million years, Baker explained. Consequently, the Finke River system has been able to develop and expand almost uninterrupted for most of its history.
As for the future, it's difficult to say how much longer the Finke will last.
"Long-persisting [rivers] will probably continue to persist," Wohl said. However, "many rivers in dry lands" — such as the Finke — "are highly altered by human consumptive water use."
This, she added, "is likely to increase in future as global water consumption continues to rise and global warming makes many dry regions even drier."
If the Finke ever dries up, the runner up may be the New River, which today is about 300 million years old, Baker said, and runs through Virginia, West Virginia and North Carolina.
