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  • Daniel Ricciardo shares how he ended up with ‘Honey Badger’ nickname during time in F1

    Daniel Ricciardo shares how he ended up with ‘Honey Badger’ nickname during time in F1

    Daniel Ricciardo has revealed the story behind the ‘Honey Badger’ nickname he took on during his time in Formula 1, explaining that the animal represented his “alter ego” whenever he jumped into the cockpit.

    Found across Africa, Southwest Asia and the Indian subcontinent, the honey badger is famous for its aggression, strength and toughness, with skin so thick that it can withstand various stings and bites.

    Speaking in an interview at Ray White’s Connect conference in Australia earlier this month, Ricciardo shared how his relaxed nature off the track, mixed with his hunger to succeed on it, led to the amusing label being adopted.

    “Honey badgers are cuddly and cute, super good-looking,” he began with a laugh. “But when something takes what’s theirs, they fight back, and I think that was sort of like my alter ego when I got behind the wheel.”

    Given his easy-going ways, Ricciardo admitted that he had to work hard on extracting that alter ego, or “killer instinct”, as his F1 career developed.

    “I have had a competitor in me since when I was a kid; I was always competitive in everything I did,” he commented. “But the killer instinct I needed to develop and work on extracting it out of myself. I’m naturally more easy-going.

    “One of my first trainers at the time, Stu Smith, he really brought it out of me. I did have to work at it, but when I let it out it did feel kinda nice – it’s nice to be a badass sometimes.

    “I would use too much energy trying to be tough all the time because it’s not natural for me. I would see other drivers who had that killer instinct from morning to night and I wished I could be like them.

    “I think people would see me laughing and joking, and they would see that as weakness and underestimate me. But I would put the helmet on and think, ‘Okay, now it’s time to be tough like the others’.”

    Ricciardo’s killer instinct was perhaps best represented through overtaking – the Australian catching the eye with an array of late lunges and bold passes across his career.

    “There’s a lot of drivers who could go on the track by themselves and be fast, but go on the track with 20 others and it’s about race craft, and overtaking is a big part of that,” he emphasised.

    “It becomes quite scary because there’s some unpredictability and risk involved. You might be in third place and think, ‘Well, I’ve got a podium, do I need to risk crashing?’, but it’s the most fun, and I always thought it was better to crash than not try.

    “It got to a point [where] to me it was just instinct. You accept that if it doesn’t work you can be proud that you gave it a crack. I loved it, and I felt like the competitors would see me coming and knew I’d have a go, so I was already one step ahead.”

    Ricciardo recently opened up about his journey of “self-exploration” since leaving the F1 world, with the 36-year-old “trying to figure out who I am” beyond racing.

    In just under a decade-and-a-half as an F1 driver, he amassed 257 starts, three pole positions, eight victories, 32 podium finishes and more than 1,300 points, while representing HRT, Toro Rosso (later AlphaTauri/RB), Red Bull, Renault and McLaren.

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  • Popular HIV Therapy Linked to Higher BMI and Cholesterol

    Popular HIV Therapy Linked to Higher BMI and Cholesterol

    TOPLINE:

    Patients who initiated the dolutegravir/abacavir/lamivudine (DTG/ABC/3TC) antiretroviral regimen during acute HIV infection had greater increases in BMI, systolic blood pressure, and cholesterol levels than those who initiated efavirenz/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (EFV/TDF/FTC), over nearly 2 years of follow-up.

    METHODOLOGY:

    • Researchers conducted a retrospective study to evaluate changes in blood pressure and various metabolic parameters among patients with acute HIV infection who initiated either EFV- or DTG-based antiretroviral therapy regimens.
    • They analyzed 304 patients (median age, 26 years; 98% men) from the RV254 acute HIV infection cohort, of whom 160 initiated EFV/TDF/FTC and 144 initiated DTG/ABC/3TC.
    • From treatment initiation through 96 weeks of follow-up, researchers tracked BMI, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and lipid profiles (total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, and low-density lipoprotein) for all patients.

    TAKEAWAY:

    • At treatment initiation, both groups had similar HIV viral load-related parameters, diastolic blood pressure, and levels of total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein; however, the DTG/ABC/3TC group had a higher BMI and lower systolic blood pressure.
    • By week 96, 97% of patients on DTG/ABC/3TC achieved viral suppression (HIV RNA < 50 copies per mL) compared with 100% of those on EFV/TDF/FTC (P = .023).
    • Over 96 weeks of follow-up, DTG/ABC/3TC initiators had greater median increases in BMI (1.0 vs 0.3; P < .001) and systolic blood pressure (9 mm Hg vs 4 mm Hg; P < .001) than EFV/TDF/FTC initiators.
    • The DTG/ABC/3TC group also showed greater median increases in levels of total cholesterol (= .003) and low-density lipoprotein (= .023) than the EFV/TDF/FTC group.

    IN PRACTICE:

    “Clinicians should remain vigilant about long-term body weight and blood cholesterol changes following ART [antiretroviral therapy] initiation, especially in those with pre-existing cardiovascular risk factors,” the authors wrote.

    SOURCE:

    This study was led by Phillip Chan, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut. It was published online on July 30, 2025, in HIV Medicine.

    LIMITATIONS:

    These study findings may not be generalizable to other populations, such as women and older adults with HIV infection. The analysis excluded patients who were intolerant to EFV or DTG as well as those who switched from EFV/TDF/FTC to DTG/ABC/3TC before completing 96 weeks. Fasting blood glucose and triglyceride levels and the occurrence of metabolic syndrome were not assessed.

    DISCLOSURES:

    This study was supported by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Institute of Mental Health; and National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Two authors reported receiving research grants from the National Institutes of Health and/or National Institute of Mental Health.

    This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.

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  • Magnets improve water-splitting efficiency in microgravity, offering simpler oxygen production for deep space missions

    Magnets improve water-splitting efficiency in microgravity, offering simpler oxygen production for deep space missions

    Commercially available magnets could significantly improve the efficiency of water splitting in a microgravity environment. These types of device would be used to supply astronauts with oxygen during long-term missions but they are less effective in low gravity. The international team of researchers, from the US, UK and Germany, who made the discovery, also developed two proof-of-concept devices which they claim could, with further testing in low gravity environments, be used in future space missions.

    Ensuring astronauts have access to a reliable and continuous supply of oxygen during deep space missions has been a challenge since the early days of space exploration in the 1960s. Currently, in microgravity environments oxygen is produced using electrochemical water-splitting, which requires complex mechanical components and a significant amount of energy. The process is further complicated by the fact that in the weightlessness of microgravity, gas bubbles do not float upwards like they do on Earth. Instead, they tend to stick to the surface of the electrode, inhibiting the reaction.

    Putting Mars within reach

    To address these challenges, the team set out to engineer electrochemical cells that would help to simplify the way oxygen is generated in space. ‘In the case of a Mars transit mission, the reliability of the oxygen production system … is still not high enough to support a long-term mission,’ explains Álvaro Romero-Calvo, an aerospace engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a member of the team. ‘The problem is that there are so many moving components and centrifuges and pumps and hydrogen sensors and so on in a closed loop operating in reduced gravity, that all those spare components stack up and add a lot of mass to your system.’

    Incorporating off-the-shelf neodymium magnets into electrolysis devices, the team developed a passive phase separation system that pushed the bubbles away from the electrodes and collected them at designated spots. Romero-Calvo explains that there are two main forces being demonstrated in their work: diamagnetic force and magnetohydrodynamics. The magnetohydrodynamic effect works to improve gas bubble detachment from the electrode surface causing them to swirl around, while the diamagnetic effect helps to direct the gas bubbles to specific collection points.

    ‘What we’re ultimately trying to do is to separate gas bubbles – oxygen and hydrogen – from the water or the electrolyte, without moving parts or centrifuges or pumps or anything like that,’ says Romero-Calvo.

    To investigate the impact of these two forces the researchers used a drop tower to generate brief periods of microgravity during free fall lasting a total of 9.3 seconds. Using this approach, they found that the magnet enhanced water electrolysis with current density improvements of up to 240% in microgravity, compared with electrolysis devices without a magnet.

    ZARM Bremen

    To exploit these effects, the researchers developed two simple proof-of-concept devices – one a proton-exchange membrane electrolyser cell that uses diamagnetic forces for efficient oxygen and hydrogen gas collection and the other a magnetohydrodynamic drive cell that causes vortical gas–liquid phase separation. In microgravity, they found that the  devices achieved water splitting with an efficiency close to that achievable on Earth.

    ‘The goal of these two proof-of-concept devices is, can we induce gas separation in microgravity to produce oxygen and separate it within the same device … in a very simple way?’ says Romero-Calvo.

    Long-term testing

    The team are now looking to assess the long-term performance of the system. ‘We need long-term microgravity conditions, either through a suborbital rocket, which is something we’re going to launch in the near future, or through orbital experiments,’ he adds. ‘The second part is that many innovations that happen at the electrode or the cell level … work very well in a tiny, little cell but when you try to make it fit for astronauts for six months, it doesn’t really work that well. So, the scale up is something we’re working on as well.’

    Set-up

    Mark Symes, an electrochemist at the University of Glasgow, described the work as ‘super cool’ and ‘a tour de force’ of doing electrolysis in difficult conditions. ‘Electrolysis in space is a huge issue, particularly if you’re going to go and live or have a semi-permanent base on the moon or Mars, you’re not going to want to ferry oxygen backwards and forwards from Earth endlessly,’ he explains.

    ‘What’s really cool about this magnetic work, is there are no moving parts, so you just have a standard electrolyser with a magnet. Basically, the magnetic field is producing a convection and a sort of jitter that pushes these bubbles off before they get too large.’

    However, Symes says he was left with several questions about the work. ‘I didn’t see, at least in the main paper, that they measure the purity of those gases, and that’s obviously something that you would want to do; you would want to make sure that your level of hydrogen and your oxygen was below the explosion limit, otherwise you wouldn’t want to put that on the spacecraft.’

    ‘The other question I had was around their current density, so the rate at which they can make gas per unit area of electrode,’ he adds. ‘For both the devices … they’re very much towards the lower end of what you’d want – 150 milliamps per centimetre squared. It’s not great – for reference, a conventional electrolyser on Earth would run at least an amp per centimetre squared, so at least 10 to 20 times more. So, you’d want to boost that current density whilst keeping the gases separate.’

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  • Jellyfish Could be Ideal Models for Deep-Sea Robots

    Jellyfish Could be Ideal Models for Deep-Sea Robots

    In a towering aquarium in a darkened laboratory, moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) hover as if floating in space.

    The glow of neon lights illuminates their translucent, bell-shaped bodies as they expand and contract rhythmically, their graceful tentacles flowing in wavelike patterns.

    CU Boulder engineer Nicole Xu watches them with fondness. Xu, an assistant professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering, first became fascinated with moon jellies more than a decade ago because of their extraordinary swimming abilities. Today, Xu has developed a way to harness their efficiency and ease at moving through the water in ways that could make some types of aquatic research much easier.

    She fits the jellies with microelectronic devices that activate key swimming muscles, enabling researchers to steer them toward remote ocean areas that are hard to access in any other way. Eventually, she plans to add sensors to the devices that can gather critical data on temperature, pH and other environmental characteristics.  

    “Think of our device like a pacemaker on the heart,” Xu said. “We’re stimulating the swim muscle by causing contractions and turning the animals toward a certain direction.”

    Going where humans can’t go

    As climate change accelerates, ocean waters are becoming less hospitable for a variety of marine life. The ocean is getting warmer and more acidic as it absorbs growing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

    Measuring changes in the ocean is essential to understanding how human activities are impacting all life on Earth. But because the ocean is so vast and deep, some parts are hard to study without prohibitively expensive equipment. The cyborg jellies could offer a way for humans to wade into these relatively uncharted waters.

    Moon jellyfish are the most energy-efficient animals on the planet. They’re prehistoric, with a simple body structure that has stayed the same for more than 500 million years. As invertebrates, they also lack a brain or spinal cord, though they do have basic organs and a pair of overlapping nerve nets. Importantly, the jellies do not have nociceptors, or sensory receptors that can detect potentially harmful stimuli.

    Moon jellies can range from a centimeter to more than a foot in diameter. Their short, fine tentacles help them sting and catch prey like zooplankton, crustacean larvae and small fish. But thankfully for Xu, their sting cells can’t penetrate human skin.

    Though they’re often found near coastlines, close to their favorite food sources, moon jellies live in diverse habitats worldwide and can swim to incredible depths: They’ve been found in some of the lowest places on Earth, including the Mariana Trench, which sits roughly 36,000 feet beneath the western Pacific Ocean’s surface at its deepest point.

    Xu co-created the biohybrid robotic jellyfish concept with her former academic advisor about five years ago, and she first tested them in the field in 2020, steering them around shallow ocean waters off the coast of Woods Hole, Mass.

    On top of the implications for ocean and climate research, Xu believes we can draw inspiration from the jellyfish.

    “There’s really something special about the way moon jellies swim. We want to unlock that to create more energy-efficient, next-generation underwater vehicles,” she said.

    Striving for ethical research

    Today, Xu spends much of her time studying precisely how moon jellies move through the water with such ease.

    Xu, research associate Yunxing Su and graduate student Mija Jovchevska published a new study late last month that involved adding biodegradable particles to a jellyfish tank. The researchers then shone a laser through the tank to illuminate the suspended particles in the water and visualize how water flows when jellies swim.

    In the past, researchers have used synthetic tracers such as silver-coated glass beads to look at underwater flow patterns, but the new study suggests biodegradable particles, such as corn starch, could be more sustainable, more affordable and less toxic alternatives.

    She and graduate student Charlie Fraga are also working on making the jellyfish easier to steer in the wild. Going forward, Xu hopes to design other nature-inspired tools for studying the ocean.

    There’s more to learn about the ethics of studying invertebrates. In a paper published earlier this year, Xu and others pointed out the need for more investigation of how research affects invertebrates. It was once widely believed that invertebrates couldn’t feel pain, but there is growing evidence that some do react to aversive stimuli.

    Through all of her research, Xu says she strives to minimize harm to the animals she works with. When they’re stressed, moon jellies may secrete extra mucus, and they often stop reproducing. But Xu’s jellies have not shown increased mucus production, and small polyps—baby jellyfish the size of a pinhead whose tentacles are just beginning to form—line the inside of Xu’s jellyfish tanks.

    “It’s our responsibility as researchers to think about these ethical considerations up front,” Xu said. “But as far as we can tell, the jellyfish are doing well. They’re thriving.”

    This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here.

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  • Shameik Moore and Jharrel Jerome deliver major update about ‘Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse’

    Shameik Moore and Jharrel Jerome deliver major update about ‘Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse’

    Shameik Moore and Jharrel Jerome have shared a major update on Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, confirming that they have officially started voice recording for the long-awaited film.

    The announcement comes after years of speculation, delays and creative setbacks that left fans uncertain about when the project would move forward. The movie is now scheduled to arrive in cinemas on June 25, 2027.

    Moore revealed through Instagram that he has begun recording lines for his return as Miles Morales. Jerome also confirmed he is back to voice Earth-42’s Miles G. Morales, also known as the Prowler, who was teased at the end of 2023’s Across the Spider-Verse when Miles became trapped in another alternate universe.

    The film is being directed by Bob Persichetti and Justin K. Thompson from a screenplay by Dave Callaham, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

    The returning cast includes Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, Nicolas Cage as Spider-Noir, John Mulaney as Spider-Ham, Issa Rae as Spider-Woman, Daniel Kaluuya as Spider-Punk, Karan Soni as Spider-Man India, Oscar Isaac as Spider-Man 2099, Jason Schwartzman as The Spot, Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis, and Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales.

    Beyond the threequel, Sony Pictures Animation has also been expanding the Spider-Verse. Development is underway on a Spider-Punk spin-off with Daniel Kaluuya co-writing the screenplay alongside Ajon Singh. Meanwhile, MGM+ is producing a live-action Spider-Man Noir series with Nicolas Cage reprising his role.

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  • Scientists Just Solved a 70-Year-Old Earthquake Mystery

    Scientists Just Solved a 70-Year-Old Earthquake Mystery

    A long-misunderstood 1954 quake may reveal Cascadia’s hidden ability to break in unexpected ways. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

    In 1954, a mysterious earthquake rattled Northern California near Humboldt Bay, puzzling scientists for decades.

    A new investigation now suggests it originated not in the usual Gorda Plate faults but on the Cascadia subduction interface—the same fault capable of producing a massive magnitude 9 quake like the one in 1700.

    Unearthing a Seismic Mystery

    What lies beneath Fickle Hill in Northern California? The ground there may hold the explanation for an earthquake mystery that has puzzled scientists for nearly seventy years.

    For decades, the cause of the magnitude 6.5 earthquake that struck near Humboldt Bay on December 21, 1954, remained uncertain. A recent study now points to an unexpected culprit: the Cascadia subduction interface.

    Writing in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, researchers describe how they pieced together the evidence. Their work relied on a mix of old paper archives, modern analytical tools and models, and the memories of people who experienced the quake firsthand.

    The Triple Junction: America’s Most Seismic Corner

    This part of coastal northern California is no stranger to earthquakes. It is home to the Mendocino Triple Junction, where three major tectonic plates—the Pacific, the Gorda, and the North American—converge. The region is recognized as the most earthquake-prone area in the continental United States.

    Yet the 1954 quake did not fit the usual pattern. Its location, size, and level of shaking make it stand out. Historically, large quakes in this region tend to originate within the Gorda Plate, either offshore or in the section that plunges beneath the North American Plate. In contrast, no significant quakes have been recorded on the mapped surface faults of the North American Plate itself, even though those faults are known to be active.

    Peggy Hellweg, a retired seismologist from the University of California, Berkeley’s Seismological Laboratory, and her colleagues determined that the event was a thrust earthquake about 11 kilometers beneath Fickle Hill, just east of Arcata. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the quake most likely originated on the Cascadia subduction interface.

    Cascadia’s Hidden Power

    The Cascadia Subduction Zone along the Pacific Northwest coast looms large in the scientific and public minds, as it has the potential to generate great earthquakes. The magnitude 9.0 Cascadia earthquake in 1700 drowned forests, sunk coastlines by six feet, and led to a massive tsunami that caused damage as far away as Japan.

    The Fickle Hill earthquake could help answer questions that seismologists have been working diligently to solve: Does the Cascadia subduction interface only rupture in large, 1700-style earthquakes? Does the entire interface always rupture, or can smaller parts of it rupture on their own?

    There’s only one other large recorded earthquake in the area—the 1992 magnitude 7.2 Cape Mendocino event—that may have its origins on the subduction interface, said Hellweg.

    “And then we have the big one from 1700 when it was the entire fault,” she said. “But we really don’t know of any earthquakes that we’ve measured with instruments that were on the interface. And people have postulated that it is locked and nothing’s going to happen until the next big one comes.”

    Cascadia’s Eerie Quiet

    “Cascadia is really unusual in that in the instrumental era, it has been eerily quiet,” said Lori Dengler, a retired seismologist from Cal Poly Humboldt and one of the study’s co-authors. “We don’t have smaller earthquakes, and that’s not something you usually see in subduction zones.”

    In Humboldt County, Dengler added, there’s the question of whether mapped faults in the overlying North American plate that are related to the subduction interface “rupture on their own or do they only rupture as part of a megathrust event? It looks like this is a little patch on the megathrust that did rupture. So this is really new in terms of our understanding of how Cascadia works.”

    Revisiting a 70-Year-Old Enigma

    Hellweg and colleagues spent three years revisiting the enigma of the 1954 event, which has gone by many names over the years. They analyzed published earthquake catalogs, unpublished data from the Berkeley archives and newly identified data from accelerometers that were operated at the time of the earthquake by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (USCGS).

    Along the way, Hellweg recruited colleagues to contribute their expertise in locating and digitizing records, creating a probability cloud for the earthquake’s hypocenter using modern software, and determining a mechanism for the earthquake.

    Preserving Scientific Memory

    It was especially helpful to find records of how these data were collected, including how the relevant stations and instruments operated, and what calculations were made with these data throughout the years, Hellweg said, noting the importance of preserving those types of records.

    “Even when we think about our modern data collection, and what we preserve, we need to think about it in terms of somebody who in 50 years might want to go back and look at it,” she said. “The metadata are really important.”

    Shaking Memories and Eyewitness Accounts

    The researchers also revisited estimates of the earthquake’s intensity, with the help of reports that detailed damaging and felt shaking that had been gathered by the USCGS, newspaper archives, photos, maps of damage to the water supply for the nearby town of Eureka, and newly collected eyewitness accounts.

    As part of the study, the researchers placed a call for earthquake stories in local newspapers and Facebook groups. Stories came in from people who were children when the earthquake happened 71 years ago, but they had remarkably consistent memories of sloshing bathtubs, toppling chimneys, and rolling ground that allowed Hellweg and colleagues to estimate the earthquake’s intensity.

    Childhood Memories of Rolling Ground

    One 11-year-old girl was riding her bicycle with a friend when they felt the shaking, and the two of them immediately dropped to the ground and covered their heads, doing what they had been taught in their school’s atomic bomb drills.

    She remembers rolling ground, toppling chimneys, and sparking power lines, but one of the images that stuck with her was the unheard-of sight (in 1954) of a woman coming out of her home with her hair still in curlers.

    Reference: “Revisiting an Enigma on California’s North Coast: The Mw 6.5 Fickle Hill Earthquake of 21 December 1954” by Margaret Hellweg, Thomas A. Lee, Douglas S. Dreger, Anthony Lomax, Lijam Hagos, Hamid Haddadi, Robert C. McPherson, Lori Dengler, Susan E. Hough and Jason R. Patton, 19 August 2025, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America.
    DOI: 10.1785/0120250080

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  • 4 killed in Karachi fireworks warehouse blast – DW – 08/22/2025

    4 killed in Karachi fireworks warehouse blast – DW – 08/22/2025

    An explosion at a fireworks warehouse in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi on Thursday killed at least four people and injured more than 30 others, according to local police.

    The blast triggered a fire that engulfed the warehouse and several nearby shops and damaged vehicles in an area known as Jinnah Road.

    The force of the explosion shattered windows in surrounding buildings, sending shards of glass flying into the streets and pedestrians running for safety, according to witnesses. 

    What caused the blast?

    Authorities have yet to determine the official cause of the initial explosion.

    A Karachi police spokesperson told Germany’s DPA news agency that raw materials used to manufacture fireworks were illegally stored at the accident site. Two owners of the warehouse have been arrested, according to police. 

    A fire truck in front of a smoking building in Karachi on August 21, 2025
    It is unclear what caused the explosionImage: Sabir Mazhar/Anadolu Agency/IMAGO

    “More than 50 kilograms of raw material could have been stored in the basement. This is used to manufacture fireworks, but also bombs,” another spokesperson for Karachi’s anti-terror unit said.  

    The blast Thursday is similar to an explosion in January at a fireworks storage site in the eastern Punjab province that killed 6 people. 

    As Pakistan’s financial capital and home to over 20 million residents, Karachi frequently grapples with infrastructure challenges and safety concerns.

    Edited by: Louis Oelofse

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  • Denisovan DNA Helped Early Americans Survive

    Denisovan DNA Helped Early Americans Survive

    Thousands of years ago, ancient humans undertook a treacherous journey, crossing hundreds of miles of ice over the Bering Strait to the unknown world of the Americas.

    Now, a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder suggests that these nomads carried something surprising with them—a chunk of DNA inherited from a now-extinct species of hominin, which may have helped humans adapt to the challenges of their new home.

    The researchers published their results Aug. 21 in the journal “Science.”

    “In terms of evolution, this is an incredible leap,” said Fernando Villanea, one of two lead authors of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at CU Boulder. “It shows an amount of adaptation and resilience within a population that is simply amazing.”

    The research takes a new look at a species known as Denisovans. These ancient relatives of humans lived from what is today Russia south to Oceania and west to the Tibetan Plateau. The Denisovans likely went extinct tens of thousands of years ago. Their existence, however, remains poorly understood: Scientists identified the first known Denisovan just 15 years ago from the DNA in a fragment of bone found in a cave in Russia. Like Neanderthals, Denisovans may have had prominent brows and no chins.

    “We know more about their genomes and how their body chemistry behaves than we do about what they looked like,” Villanea said.

    A growing body of research has shown that Denisovans interbred with both Neanderthals and humans, profoundly shaping the biology of people living today.

    To explore those connections, Villanea and his colleagues including co-lead author David Peede from Brown University, examined the genomes of humans from across the globe. In particular, the team set its sights on a gene called MUC19, which plays an important role in the immune system.

    The group discovered that humans with Indigenous American ancestry are more likely than other populations to carry a variant of this gene that came from Denisovans. In other words, this ancient genetic heritage may have helped humans survive in the completely new ecosystems of North and South America.

    A little-known gene

    Villanea added that MUC19’s function in the human body is about as mysterious as Denisovans themselves. It’s one of 22 genes in mammals that produce mucins. These proteins make mucus, which, among other functions, can protect tissues from pathogens.

    “It seems like MUC19 has a lot of functional consequences for health, but we’re only starting to understand these genes,” he said.

    Previous research has shown that Denisovans carried their own variant of the MUC19 gene, with a unique series of mutations, which they passed onto some humans. That kind of admixture was common in the ancient world: Most humans alive today carry some Neanderthal DNA, whereas Denisovan DNA makes up as much as 5% of the genomes of people from some populations in Oceania. 

    In the current study, Villanea and colleagues wanted to learn more about how these genetic time capsules shape our evolution.

    The group pored through already published data on the genomes of modern humans from Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Colombia where Indigenous American ancestry and DNA is common.

    They discovered that one in three modern people of Mexican ancestry carry a copy of the Denisovan variant of MUC19—and particularly in portions of their genome that come from Indigenous American heritage. That’s in contrast to people of Central European ancestry, only 1% of whom carry this variant.

    The researchers discovered something even more surprising: In humans, the Denisovan gene variant seems to be surrounded by DNA from Neanderthals.

    “This DNA is like an Oreo, with a Denisovan center and Neanderthal cookies,” Villanea said.

    A new world

    Here’s what Villanea and his colleagues suspect happened: Before humans crossed the Bering Strait, Denisovans interbred with Neanderthals, passing the Denisovan MUC19 to their offspring. Then, in a game of genetic telephone, Neanderthals bred with humans, sharing some Denisovan DNA. It’s the first time scientists have identified of DNA jumping from Denisovans to Neanderthals and then humans.

    Later, humans migrated to the Americas where natural selection favored the spread of this borrowed MUC19.

    Why the Denisovan variant became so common in North and South America but not in other parts of the world isn’t yet clear. Villanea noted that the first people who lived in the Americas likely encountered conditions unlike anything else in human history, including new kinds of food and diseases. Denisovan DNA may have given them additional tools to contend with challenges like these.

    “All of a sudden, people had to find new ways to hunt, new ways to farm, and they developed really cool technology in response to those challenges,” he said. “But, over 20,000 years, their bodies were also adapting at a biological level.”

    To build that picture, the anthropologist is planning to study how different MUC19 gene variants affect the health of humans living today. For now, Villanea said the study is a testament to the power of human evolution.

    “What Indigenous American populations did was really incredible,” Villanea said. “They went from a common ancestor living around the Bering Strait to adapting biologically and culturally to this new continent that has every single type of biome in the world.”

    Reference: Villanea FA, Peede D, Kaufman EJ, et al. The MUC19 gene: An evolutionary history of recurrent introgression and natural selection. Science. 2025;389(6762):eadl0882. doi: 10.1126/science.adl0882

    This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here.

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  • Astronomers Detect One of the Brightest, Closest FRBs Ever, And Track Its Exact Location

    Astronomers Detect One of the Brightest, Closest FRBs Ever, And Track Its Exact Location

    Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are like space’s version of a flash mob- super loud, super brief, and gone before you blink. They happen far away and vanish in milliseconds, making them challenging to study.

    But when scientists catch one in the act and pinpoint its location, it’s like opening a cosmic treasure map. They can explore its galaxy, measure its distance, and determine the cause of the burst.

    And guess what? An international team of scientists just spotted a record-breaking FRB only 130 million light-years away in Ursa Major. It’s not just close, it’s blindingly bright. So bright, they nicknamed it RBFLOAT: Radio Brightest Flash of All Time.

    On March 16, 2025, CHIME picked up an ultrablinding burst of radio waves. It was so intense that scientists wondered if it was just a glitch from Earth, maybe a spike in cellphone signals.

    That notion was put to rest as the CHIME Outrigger telescopes zoomed in and tracked the flash to its source: NGC4141, a spiral galaxy in Ursa Major, just 130 million light-years away, practically our galactic neighbor!

    It wasn’t a local hiccup. It was a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), one of the closest and brightest ever recorded. Pinpointing the location helps scientists study the galaxy’s environment and uncover what causes these powerful, fleeting signals from deep space.

    Want to turn this into a visual explainer, comic, or carousel? I’ve got ideas that’ll make it pop like an FRB!

    Astronomers observed the largest-ever set of mysterious fast radio bursts

    Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics and affiliate of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said, “Cosmically speaking, this fast radio burst is just in our neighborhood. This means we get this chance to study a pretty normal FRB in exquisite detail.”

    For the first time, CHIME and its Outriggers teamed up and nailed a big one, a blazing fast radio burst (FRB). Not only did they spot it, they tracked it to its home galaxy: NGC4141.

    They zoomed in even further and found the burst came from the edge of the galaxy, just outside a star-forming zone. This pinpoint accuracy is a game-changer. Now scientists can study the burst’s surroundings and hunt for clues about what causes these mysterious space signals.

    MIT physics postdoc Adam Lanman said, “As we’re getting these much more precise looks at FRBs, we’re better able to see the diversity of environments they’re coming from.”

    Fast radio bursts (FRBs) remain one of the universe’s most cryptic signals, but scientists are closing in on a prime suspect: magnetars. These hyper-magnetic neutron stars can unleash flares powerful enough to ripple across the cosmos. These stellar beasts are usually born in the heart of star-forming regions, where young stars ignite in clouds of gas and dust. But the latest FRB, pinpointed by the CHIME telescope array, came from just outside such a region, a curious offset that’s raising eyebrows.

    Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics and affiliate of MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said, “These are mostly hints. But the precise localization of this burst is letting us dive into the details of how old an FRB source could be. If it were right in the middle, it would only be thousands of years old — very young for a star. This one, being on the edge, may have had a little more time to bake.”

    The findings are fascinating, given the burst’s proximity. Because it is so close and so bright, scientists can probe the environment in and around the burst for clues to what might produce a nonrepeating FRB.

    Masui said, “Right now, we’re in the middle of this story of whether repeating and nonrepeating FRBs are different. These observations are putting together bits and pieces of the puzzle.”

    MIT Kavli graduate student Shion Andrew said, “There’s evidence to suggest that not all FRB progenitors are the same. We’re on track to localize hundreds of FRBs every year. The hope is that a larger sample of FRBs localized to their host environments can help reveal the full diversity of these populations.”

    Journal Reference:

    1. The CHIME/FRB Collaboration. FRB 20250316A: A Brilliant and Nearby One-off Fast Radio Burst Localized to 13 pc Precision—the Astrophysical Journal Letters. DOI 10.3847/2041-8213/adf62f

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  • Scientists discover coniotins: new antifungal compounds effective against drug-resistant Candida auris and Aspergillus fumigatus

    Scientists discover coniotins: new antifungal compounds effective against drug-resistant Candida auris and Aspergillus fumigatus

    A previously uncharacterised class of antifungals that is effective against several critical fungal pathogens has been discovered.

    The researchers at McMaster University in Canada demonstrated a novel platform for antifungal discovery using prefractionation – a method that allows for specific molecules to be teased out from complex chemical mixtures – to screen for, and uncover, previously overlooked bioactive compounds.

    Using this approach, the team isolated a family of lipopeptaibiotics from the plant-dwelling fungus Coniochaeta hoffmannii. The lipopeptaibiotics have a unique structure, terminating in a polar amino acid residue, rather than a C-terminal amino alcohol, representing a distinct subclass the researchers called coniotins.

    Assessing the antifungal activity of coniotin A in comparison to first-line antifungals, including caspofungin, amphotericin B and fluconazole, the researchers found it had broad-spectrum activity against various Candida yeasts, Cryptococcus neoformans, Nakaseomyces glabratus and baker’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

    Coniotin A also exhibited potent activity against multidrug-resistant Candida auris and Aspergillus fumigatus, both of which have been identified as critical threats by the World Health Organization, surpassing the efficacy of caspofungin and fluconazole.

    The antifungal has a rare mechanism of action, selectively acting on the fungal cell wall, causing damage by binding beta-glucan – an essential cell wall polysaccharide. Through this action, coniotin A increased the pathogen’s sensitivity to another antifungal, casofungin, and overall the researchers said there was low potential for resistance development.

    The researchers said the coniotins were a candidate for combating multidrug-resistant fungal pathogens and that, due to their physicochemical properties, they could be suitable for topical or intravenous administration.

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