Category: 7. Science

As the ozone layer recovers, it’s also intensifying global warming. Researchers predict that by 2050, ozone will rank just behind carbon dioxide as a driver of heating, offsetting many of the benefits from banning CFCs.

The planet is now expected to heat up more than scientists once predicted, and a major reason lies in the future behavior of ozone. This gas shields life on Earth from dangerous ultraviolet radiation, yet it also acts as a greenhouse gas by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The ban on ozone-depleting chemicals such as CFCs has allowed the protective layer to steadily recover. But researchers warn that when this rebound is combined with rising levels of air pollution, ozone could drive 40% more warming than earlier estimates suggested.

Measuring Ozone’s Warming Impact

Research led by the University of Reading shows that between 2015 and 2050, ozone will be responsible for an additional 0.27 watts per square meter (Wm⁻²) of trapped energy. This measurement refers to the amount of extra heat retained per square meter of the Earth’s surface. By mid-century, this would make ozone the second most important cause of warming, behind only carbon dioxide (1.75 W m⁻² of extra warming).

Professor Bill Collins, who led the study, explained: “Countries are doing the right thing by continuing to ban chemicals called CFCs and HCFCs that damage the ozone layer above Earth. However, while this helps repair the protective ozone layer, we have found that this recovery in ozone will warm the planet more than we originally thought.

“Air pollution from vehicles, factories, and power plants also creates ozone near the ground, causing health problems and warming the planet.”

Simulating the Atmosphere’s Future

The research, published on August 21 in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, used computer models to simulate how the atmosphere will change by the middle of the century. The models followed a scenario with low implementation of air pollution controls, but with CFCs and HCFCs being phased out as mandated by the Montreal Protocol (1987).

The findings show that stopping CFC and HCFC production – done mainly to protect the ozone layer – provides less climate benefit than previously calculated. CFCs and HCFCs are greenhouse gases that warm the planet. Countries banned them to save the ozone layer, expecting this would also help fight climate change. But as the ozone layer heals, it creates more warming that cancels out most of the climate benefits from removing CFCs and HCFCs.

Unavoidable Warming Ahead

Countries that reduce air pollution will limit some ozone formation near the ground. However, the ozone layer will continue repairing itself for decades regardless of air quality policies, creating unavoidable warming.

Protecting the ozone layer remains crucial for human health and preventing skin cancer. The ozone layer shields Earth from dangerous ultraviolet radiation that can harm people, animals and plants. However, the research suggests climate policies need updating to account for ozone’s larger warming effect.

Reference: “Climate forcing due to future ozone changes: an intercomparison of metrics and methods” by William J. Collins, Fiona M. O’Connor, Rachael E. Byrom, Øivind Hodnebrog, Patrick Jöckel, Mariano Mertens, Gunnar Myhre, Matthias Nützel, Dirk Olivié, Ragnhild Bieltvedt Skeie, Laura Stecher, Larry W. Horowitz, Vaishali Naik, Gregory Faluvegi, Ulas Im, Lee T. Murray, Drew Shindell, Kostas Tsigaridis, Nathan Luke Abraham and James Keeble, 21 August 2025, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.
DOI: 10.5194/acp-25-9031-2025

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Paleontologists have unearthed a beautifully preserved skull and jaws as well as part of the postcranial skeleton of a previously unknown peirosaur species in Patagonia, Argentina.

Kostensuchus atrox roamed Earth during the Maastrichtian age of the Cretaceous period, around 70 million years ago.

The ancient species was a large predator, approximately 3.5 m (11.5 feet) long and 250 kg in weight.

The animal had a wide, powerful jaw and big teeth capable of devouring large prey, likely including medium-sized dinosaurs.

Kostensuchus atrox belonged to Peirosauridae, a Gondwanan family of crocodylomorphs within the suborder Notosuchia.

“This new species belongs to the notosuchian clade Peirosauridae, representing the latest and southernmost record for this group of crocodyliforms,” said Dr. Fernando Novas, a paleontologist at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales ‘Bernardino Rivadavia,’ and his colleagues.

The fossilized skull and bones of Kostensuchus atrox were found in the Chorrillo Formation, about 30 km south-west of the town of El Calafate in the province of Santa Cruz.

“The Chorrillo Formation formed around 70 million years ago,” the paleontologists said.

“At this time, southern Patagonia was a warm, seasonally humid landscape of freshwater floodplains, home to creatures like dinosaurs, turtles, frogs, and various mammals.”

“The new fossil unearthed in this formation is largely intact, including a skull and jaws with visible details, as well as multiple bones from the body.”

Kostensuchus atrox is the second-largest predator known to scientists from the Chorrillo Formation, and was likely one of the top predators in the region.

The new species is also the first crocodyliform fossil found in this formation, and one of the most intact peirosaurid crocodyliforms ever found, giving scientists unique new insight into these prehistoric animals and their ecosystem.

“The discovery of Kostensuchus atrox considerably expands the knowledge about the anatomy of broad-snouted peirosaurids, previously known from extremely fragmentary remains from South America and Madagascar,” the researchers said.

“The new anatomical information sheds light on both, the similarities and differences between broad-snouted peirosaurids and baurusuchids, the other crocodyliform clade that independently evolved into apex predators during the Cretaceous of Gondwana.”

“Kostensuchus atrox formed part of the latest Cretaceous ecosystem of southern Patagonia, in a freshwater ecosystem under a temperate to warm climate with seasonal humidity, alongside a diverse fauna of dinosaurs, mammals, and other vertebrates,” they added.

“The broad and high snout of Kostensuchus atrox, with notably large and robust ziphodont teeth, along with a broad adductor chamber in the skull and deep mandibular ramus, and robust forelimb anatomy suggests that the new species was capable of subduing large prey.”

“These features imply that Kostensuchus atrox played the role of a top predator within this end-Cretaceous ecosystem.”

The discovery of Kostensuchus atrox is described in a paper published this week in the journal PLoS ONE.

_____

F.E. Novas et al. 2025. A new large hypercarnivorous crocodyliform from the Maastrichtian of Southern Patagonia, Argentina. PLoS One 20 (8): e0328561; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0328561

At current emission rates, the world has just over three years before surpassing the carbon budget needed to limit warming to 1.5 °C.

Rising seas, hotter oceans, and record-breaking global temperatures underline how rapidly the climate crisis is accelerating and why urgent action is critical.

Carbon Budget Nears Critical Threshold

The latest Indicators of Global Climate Change report warns that the world’s remaining carbon budget to limit warming to 1.5 °C is estimated at just 130 billion tonnes of CO₂ (from the start of 2025). At today’s rate of emissions, that budget will be fully used up in just over three years, and the thresholds for 1.6 °C or 1.7 °C could be crossed in less than nine years.

Prof. Piers Forster, Director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study, explained: “Our third annual edition of Indicators of Global Climate Change shows that both warming levels and rates of warming are unprecedented. Continued record-high emissions of greenhouse gases mean more of us are experiencing unsafe levels of climate impacts. Temperatures have risen year-on-year since the last IPCC report in 2021, highlighting how climate policies and pace of climate action are not keeping up with what’s needed to address the ever-growing impacts.”

Ten Key Climate Indicators Updated

This year’s analysis involved more than 60 international scientists and expanded its scope to include sea-level rise and global land precipitation, bringing the total to 10 critical indicators.^[1] The data provides policymakers with an up-to-date and comprehensive view of the state of the planet’s climate system.

For 2024, researchers estimate that global surface temperatures were 1.52 °C higher than pre-industrial levels, with 1.36 °C of that warming directly linked to human activities.^[2] The study attributes this sharp rise to greenhouse gas emissions staying at record highs in recent years, driving both rapid and unprecedented warming.

Alarming Temperatures and the Paris Agreement

According to the study, 2024’s high temperatures are “alarmingly unexceptional,” given the level of human-caused climate change. This human influence is at an all-time high and, combined with natural variability in the climate system (which causes temperatures to vary naturally year-to-year), has pushed global average temperature rise to record levels.

While reaching 1.5 °C of global temperature rise in a single year does not mean there has been any breach of the landmark Paris Agreement – for that, average global temperatures would need to exceed 1.5 °C over multiple decades – these results do reaffirm how far and fast emissions are heading in the wrong direction. And the impacts will only stop worsening when CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation reach net zero.

Decade of Warming Entirely Human-Induced

When analyzing longer-term temperature change, best estimates show that between 2015-2024 average global temperatures were 1.24 °C higher than in pre-industrial times, with 1.22 °C caused by human activities, meaning that, essentially, our best estimate is that all of the warming we have seen over the last decade has been human-induced.

Human activities have resulted in the equivalent of around 53 billion tonnes of CO2 (Gt CO2e) being released into the atmosphere each year over the last decade, primarily due to increasing emissions from burning fossil fuels and deforestation. In 2024, emissions from international aviation – the sector with the steepest drop in emissions during the pandemic – also returned to pre-pandemic levels.

GHG emissions have also led to higher levels of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. Combined with declines in emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) leading to planet-cooling aerosols, the outcome is that the planet is continuing to heat up. The damage caused by aerosols to human health far outweighs any minimal cooling ‘gains’, and there are other short-lived GHGs that can and should be tackled alongside CO2, such as methane (CH4), that could provide a short-term cooling compensating for the aerosol decline.

Earth’s Energy Imbalance Doubles Heating Rate

Human activities have also been affecting the Earth’s energy balance. Surplus heat accumulating in the Earth’s system at an accelerating rate is driving changes in every component of the climate system. The rate of global heating seen between 2012 and 2024 has about doubled from the levels seen in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to detrimental changes of vital components, including sea level rise, ocean warming, ice loss, and permafrost thawing.

Dr. Karina Von Schuckmann, Senior Advisor, Ocean Science for Policy at Mercator Ocean International said: “The ocean is storing about 91% of this excess heat driven by greenhouse gas emissions, which leads to ocean warming. Warmer waters lead to rising sea levels and intensified weather extremes, and can have devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and the communities that rely on them. In 2024, the ocean reached record values globally.”

Sea Levels Rising at Accelerating Pace

Between 2019 and 2024, global mean sea level has also increased by around 26 mm, more than doubling the long-term rate of 1.8 mm per year seen since the turn of the twentieth century.

Dr. Aimée Slangen, Research Leader at the NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research said: “Since 1900, the global mean sea level has risen by around 228 mm. This seemingly small number is having an outsized impact on low-lying coastal areas, making storm surges more damaging and causing more coastal erosion, posing a threat to humans and coastal ecosystems. The concerning part is that we know that sea-level rise in response to climate change is relatively slow, which means that we have already locked in further increases in the coming years and decades.”

Rapidly Closing Window to 1.5 °C

IPCC’s last assessment of the climate system, published in 2021, highlighted how climate change was leading to widespread adverse impacts on nature and people, with rapid and deep reductions in GHGs emissions needed to limit warming to 1.5 °C.

Prof. Joeri Rogelj, Research Director at the Grantham Institute and Climate Science & Policy Professor at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London said: “The window to stay within 1.5 °C is rapidly closing. Global warming is already affecting the lives of billions of people around the world. Every small increase in warming matters, leading to more frequent, more intense weather extremes. Emissions over the next decade will determine how soon and how fast 1.5 °C of warming is reached. They need to be swiftly reduced to meet the climate goals of the Paris Agreement.”

Other key findings:

• Human-caused warming has increased at a rate of around 0.27 °C/decade (2015-2024).
• The most recent decade (2015-2024) was 0.31 °C warmer than the previous decade (2005-2014). These changes, although amplified somewhat by the exceptionally warm years in 2023 and 2024, are broadly consistent with warming rates over the last few decades.
• The rapid warming over the last few decades has resulted in record extreme temperatures over land, with average maximum temperatures reaching 1.9 °C over the decade 2015-2024 and rising at a substantially faster rate than global mean surface temperature.

Notes

1. Full list of indicators:
   • Greenhouse gas emissions
   • Greenhouse gas concentrations and emissions of short-lived climate forcers
   • Effective radiative forcing;
   • Earth energy imbalance
   • Observations of global surface temperature change
   • Human-induced temperature change
   • Remaining carbon budget for policy-relevant temperature thresholds
   • Maximum land surface temperatures
   • Global land precipitation
   • Global mean sea-level rise
2. The study calculated 1.52 °C as the best estimate of observed global surface temperature in 2024. This number differs from the 1.55 °C given by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) State of the Global Climate 2024 report. This is owed to slightly distinct selections from the available datasets included. The number has varied by similar amounts in past years. Future work will aim to harmonise the approaches.

Reference: “Indicators of Global Climate Change 2024: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence” by Piers M. Forster, Chris Smith, Tristram Walsh, William F. Lamb, Robin Lamboll, Christophe Cassou, Mathias Hauser, Zeke Hausfather, June-Yi Lee, Matthew D. Palmer, Karina von Schuckmann, Aimée B. A. Slangen, Sophie Szopa, Blair Trewin, Jeongeun Yun, Nathan P. Gillett, Stuart Jenkins, H. Damon Matthews, Krishnan Raghavan, Aurélien Ribes, Joeri Rogelj, Debbie Rosen, Xuebin Zhang, Myles Allen, Lara Aleluia Reis, Robbie M. Andrew, Richard A. Betts, Alex Borger, Jiddu A. Broersma, Samantha N. Burgess, Lijing Cheng, Pierre Friedlingstein, Catia M. Domingues, Marco Gambarini, Thomas Gasser, Johannes Gütschow, Masayoshi Ishii, Christopher Kadow, John Kennedy, Rachel E. Killick, Paul B. Krummel, Aurélien Liné, Didier P. Monselesan, Colin Morice, Jens Mühle, Vaishali Naik, Glen P. Peters, Anna Pirani, Julia Pongratz, Jan C. Minx, Matthew Rigby, Robert Rohde, Abhishek Savita, Sonia I. Seneviratne, Peter Thorne, Christopher Wells, Luke M. Western, Guido R. van der Werf, Susan E. Wijffels, Valérie Masson-Delmotte and Panmao Zhai, 19 June 2025, Earth System Science Data.
DOI: 10.5194/essd-17-2641-2025

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Apple Watch wearers just got a whole lot more outdoorsy. In a long-awaited push toward greater accessibility, the global mapping platform Trailforks (which is owned by Outside’s parent company, Outside Inc.) announced the rollout of its new Apple Watch app this month. The move provides mountain bikers, trail runners, gravel grinders, moto riders, and hikers with instant, phone-free access to real-time trail maps and activity statistics—directly on their wrist.

Nearly 800,000 already connected Trailforks users across 141 countries now have access to an unmatched database of global trails across mountain biking, trail running, ski touring, and hiking disciplines.

“Our community asked—loudly—for Apple Watch support. Today we’re delivering a true map-on-wrist experience that lets athletes stay present on the trail while still capturing every stat,” said Trailforks general manager Devin Lehman.

Trailforks is the world’s most comprehensive crowd-sourced trail discovery and management platform. For more than a decade, it has helped outdoor enthusiasts get outside by providing users with the best tool for planning their next destination and navigating on-trail experiences with safety in mind.

Now, those tools are ready to hit the trail—just like you.

App users can access real-time map information and multi-activity stats right on their wrist, keeping recreationalists on route and off their phone. Users can view their exact position on the Trailforks basemap and scope out nearby trailheads and points of interest.

Detailed offline maps can be downloaded, allowing the adventure to continue even when cell service is unavailable. Traildar™ proximity alerts gently buzz or notify users as they approach waypoints, intersections, or user-defined POIs to stay on course.

Multi-activity recording provides users with a one-tap start for various activities, featuring auto-pause, distance, speed, vertical, heart-rate, and calorie metrics displayed live. Health and performance-tracking metrics ensure users are pushing their limits. Every session can be synced into Apple Health through HealthKit integration, closing rings, and providing insight into long-term trends.

Together, these tools keep users in the flow, regardless of their location.

The Trailforks Apple Watch app is available as a free companion download with the latest Trailforks iOS release on the App Store. As part of the Outside Interactive network, Trailforks empowers millions of adventurers to explore confidently, plan responsibly, and give back to the trails they love.

Download Now

The textbook picture of how planets form – serene, flat discs of cosmic dust – has just received a significant cosmic twist. New research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is set to reshape this long-held view. An international team of scientists, wielding the formidable power of the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), has found compelling evidence that many protoplanetary discs, the very birthplaces of planets, are in fact subtly warped.

These slight bends and twists in the disc plane, often just a few degrees, bear a striking resemblance to the subtle tilts observed among the planets in our own Solar System. This discovery suggests the initial conditions for planetary systems might be far less orderly than previously thought, with profound implications for how planets grow and settle into their final orbits.

Dr Andrew Winter, the lead author of the study from Queen Mary University of London where he is Royal Society University Research Fellow in astronomy, said: “Our results suggest that protoplanetary discs are slightly warped. This would be quite a change in how we understand these objects and has many consequences for how planets formParticularly interesting is that the couple of degree warping is similar to the differences in inclination between our own Solar System planets.”

Dr Myriam Benisty, director of the Planet and Star Formation Department at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy said, “exoALMA has revealed large scale structures in the planet forming discs that were completely unexpected. The warp-like structures challenge the idea of orderly planet formation and pose a fascinating challenge for the future.

To uncover these subtle twists, the team meticulously analysed Doppler shifts – tiny changes in the radio waves emitted by carbon monoxide (CO) molecules swirling within the discs. These shifts act like a cosmic speedometer, revealing the gas’s exact motion. As part of a major ALMA programme called exoALMA, researchers used this flagship observatory to map the gas’s velocity across each disc in unprecedented detail. By carefully modelling these intricate patterns, they were able to detect when different regions of a disc were slightly tilted, thus revealing the warps.

“These modest misalignments may be a common outcome of star and planet formation,” Dr Winter added, noting the intriguing parallel with our own Solar System. The research not only provides a fresh perspective on the mechanics of planet formation but also raises new questions about why these discs are warped – a mystery the team is eager to unravel.

Is it the gravitational pull of unseen companion stars, or perhaps the chaotic dance of gas and dust that twists these stellar cradles? The findings show that these subtle disc warps, often tilting by as little as half a degree to two degrees, can naturally explain many of the prominent large-scale patterns observed in the gas’s motion across the discs. They even suggest these warps could be responsible for creating intriguing spiral patterns and slight temperature variations within these cosmic nurseries.

If these warps are a key driver of how gas moves within the disc, it profoundly changes our understanding of critical processes like turbulence and how material is exchanged – ultimately dictating how planets form and settle into their final orbits. Intriguingly, the nature of these warps appears to be connected to how much material the young star is actively drawing in towards its centre. This hints at a dynamic link between the disc’s innermost regions, where the star is fed, and its outer, planet-forming areas.

This discovery offers a thrilling glimpse into the complex and often surprising realities of planet formation, fundamentally changing our cosmic blueprint and opening new avenues for understanding the diverse worlds beyond our Sun.

This research was conducted by the ‘exoALMA’ collaboration that is an international collaboration of institutions including the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), University of Florida, Leiden Observatory (Leiden University), European Southern Observatory, Università degli Studi di Milano, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Universidad de Chile, University of St. Andrews, Université Côte d’Azur, The University of Georgia, Monash University, University of Leeds, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, University of Cambridge, Ibaraki University, Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Wesleyan University, and The Pennsylvania State University.

exoALMA. XVIII. Interpreting large scale kinematic structures as moderate warping, The Astrophysical Journal Letters preprint (open access)

Astrobiology, Astrogeology,

Climate change is inducing a global atmospheric contraction above the tropopause (~10 km), leading to systematic decrease in neutral air density.

The impact of climate change on small meteoroids has already been observed over the last two decades, with documented shifts in their ablation altitudes in the mesosphere (~50-85 km) and lower thermosphere (~85-120 km).

This study evaluates the potential effect of these changes on meteorite-dropping fireballs, which typically penetrate the stratosphere (~10-50 km). As a case study, we simulate the atmospheric entry of the fragile Winchcombe carbonaceous chondrite under projected atmospheric conditions for the year 2100 assuming a moderate future emission scenario.

Using a semi-empirical fragmentation and ablation model, we compare the meteoroid’s light curve and deceleration under present and future atmospheric density profiles. The results indicate a modest variation of the ablation heights, with the catastrophic fragmentation occurring 300 m lower and the luminous flight terminating 190 m higher.

The absolute magnitude peak remains unchanged, but the fireball would appear 0.5 dimmer above ~120 km. The surviving meteorite mass is reduced by only 0.1 g. Our findings indicate that century-scale variations in atmospheric density caused by climate change moderately influence bright fireballs and have a minimal impact on meteorite survival.

Eloy Peña-Asensio, Denis Vida, Ingrid Cnossen, Esteban Ferrer

Comments: Accepted in Meteoritics & Planetary Science
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2508.19745 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2508.19745v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2508.19745
Focus to learn more
Related DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1111/MAPS.70046
Focus to learn more
Submission history
From: Eloy Peña-Asensio Dr.
[v1] Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:19:18 UTC (816 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19745

Astrobiology, Astrochemistry, Astrogeology,

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 12 p.m. EDT on Thursday, Sept. 4, to discuss the agency’s upcoming Sun and space weather missions, IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe) and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory. The two missions are targeting launch on the same rocket no earlier than Tuesday, Sept. 23.

The IMAP mission will map the boundaries of our heliosphere, the vast bubble created by the Sun’s wind that encapsulates our entire solar system. As a modern-day celestial cartographer, IMAP will explore how the heliosphere interacts with interstellar space, as well as chart the range of particles that fill the space between the planets. The IMAP mission also will support near real-time observations of the solar wind and energetic particles. These energetic particles can produce hazardous space weather that can impact spacecraft and other NASA hardware as the agency explores deeper into space, including at the Moon under the Artemis campaign.

NASA’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory will image the ultraviolet glow of Earth’s exosphere, the outermost region of our planet’s atmosphere. This data will help scientists understand how space weather from the Sun shapes the exosphere and ultimately impacts our planet. The first observation of this glow – called the geocorona – was captured during Apollo 16, when a telescope designed and built by George Carruthers was deployed on the Moon.

Audio of the teleconference will stream live on the agency’s website at:

NASA Live

Participants include:

• Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington
• Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla, director, Moon to Mars Space Weather Analysis Office, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
• David J. McComas, IMAP principal investigator, Princeton University
• Lara Waldrop, Carruthers Geocorona Observatory principal investigator, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

To participate in the media teleconference, media must RSVP no later than 11 a.m. on Sept. 4 to Sarah Frazier at: sarah.frazier@nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.

The IMAP and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory missions will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also launching on this flight will be the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On – Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1), which will monitor solar wind disturbances and detect and track coronal mass ejections before they reach Earth.

David McComas, professor, Princeton University, leads the IMAP mission with an international team of 27 partner institutions. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, built the spacecraft and will operate the mission. NASA’s IMAP is the fifth mission in NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Probes Program portfolio.

The Carruthers Geocorona Observatory mission is led by Lara Waldrop from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Mission implementation is led by the Space Sciences Laboratory at University of California, Berkeley, which also designed and built the two ultraviolet imagers. BAE Systems designed and built the Carruthers spacecraft.

The Solar Terrestrial Probes Program Office, part of the Explorers and Heliophysics Project Division at NASA Goddard, manages the IMAP and Carruthers Geocorona Observatory missions for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at NASA Kennedy, manages the launch service for the mission.

To learn more about IMAP, please visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/imap

-end-

Abbey Interrante / Karen Fox
Headquarters, Washington
301-201-0124 / 202-358-1600
abbey.a.interrante@nasa.gov / karen.c.fox@nasa.gov

Sarah Frazier
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
202-853-7191
sarah.frazier@nasa.gov

Researchers at McGill University and the Douglas Institute have identified two specific types of brain cells that are altered in people with depression.

The study, published in Nature Genetics, opens the door to developing new treatments that target these cells and deepens our understanding of depression, a leading cause of disability worldwide that affects more than 264 million people.

This is the first time we’ve been able to identify what specific brain cell types are affected in depression by mapping gene activity together with mechanisms that regulate the DNA code. It gives us a much clearer picture of where disruptions are happening, and which cells are involved.”

Dr. Gustavo Turecki, senior author, professor at McGill, clinician-scientist at the Douglas Institute and Canada Research Chair in Major Depressive Disorder and Suicide

Rare brain bank enables breakthrough

The researchers used post-mortem brain tissue from the Douglas-Bell Canada Brain Bank, one of the few collections in the world with donated tissue from people who had psychiatric conditions.

They used single-cell genomic techniques to analyze RNA and DNA from thousands of brain cells, identifying which cells worked differently in depression and what DNA sequences could explain those differences. They studied samples from 59 people who had depression and 41 people without it.

The results revealed altered gene activity in a certain type of excitatory neuron involved in mood and stress regulation, and in a subtype of microglia cells, which help manage inflammation. In both cell types, many genes were functioning differently in people with depression, suggesting potential disruptions in these key brain systems.

By pinpointing brain cells affected in depression, the study adds new insight into its biological basis and, more broadly, challenges lingering misconceptions about the disorder.

“This research reinforces what neuroscience has been telling us for years,” Turecki said. “Depression isn’t just emotional, it reflects real, measurable changes in the brain.”

As a next step, the researchers plan to study how these cellular changes affect brain function and whether targeting them could lead to better therapies.

About the study

“Single-nucleus chromatin accessibility profiling identifies cell types and functional variants contributing to major depression” by Anjali Chawla and Gustavo Turecki et al., was published in Nature Genetics.

The study was funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Brain Canada Foundation, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Santé and Healthy Brains, Healthy Lives initiative at McGill University.