Category: 7. Science

Space weather experts warn that a moderate-strength geomagnetic storm could hit Earth Friday or Saturday (Aug. 8 or 9) — possibly bringing auroras to northern U.S. skies.

On Wednesday (Aug. 6), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a geomagnetic storm watch and suggested that the storm is likely associated with a recent solar flare that erupted from an active region of the sun.

Not all giant meat-eating dinosaurs were the terrifying, bone-crushing predators we imagine. 

A new study published in the journal Current Biology has found that while many theropods – the group of bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus rex, Spinosaurus and Allosaurus – evolved massive bodies, only some developed the skull strength needed for high-powered bites.

Using 3D scans and computer modelling, researchers analysed the skull biomechanics of 18 theropod species. 

They discovered that while T. rex had a skull optimised for delivering enormous bite forces – capable of breaking through bone – other giants had comparatively weaker jaws and relied on different hunting strategies.

“Tyrannosaurids like T. rex had skulls that were optimised for high bite forces at the cost of higher skull stress,” said lead author Dr Andrew Rowe of the University of Bristol, UK. But in some other giants, like Giganotosaurus, we calculated stress patterns suggesting a relatively lighter bite. It drove home how evolution can produce multiple ‘solutions’ to life as a large, carnivorous biped.”

Rather than following a single evolutionary route to apex status, giant carnivores evolved a variety of skull shapes and feeding styles. Some, like T. rex, bit down like a crocodile. Others, such as Allosaurus or Spinosaurus, used slashing or ripping techniques more comparable to modern Komodo dragons or big cats.

“Tyrannosaurs did something different,” Steve Brusatte, a professor and palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in the study, told BBC Science Focus. “They supersized their heads and developed enormous bite forces, enough to break the bones of their prey. This was a risky and high-stress lifestyle, quite literally, as it put huge stress on its skull bones and muscles.”

The findings also challenge the assumption that bigger dinosaurs had stronger bites. Some smaller species actually placed more stress on their skulls due to increased muscle volume. This suggests that size alone wasn’t the main factor in bite power.

The diversity in bite strength and skull design suggests that dinosaur ecosystems were more specialised than previously assumed, with multiple ways to dominate the prehistoric food chain.

“There wasn’t one ‘best’ skull design for being a predatory giant; several designs functioned perfectly well,” Rowe said. “This biomechanical diversity suggests that dinosaur ecosystems supported a wider range of giant carnivore ecologies than we often assume, with less competition and more specialisation.”

Read more:

About our expert

Steve Brusatte is a professor and palaeontologist at the University of Edinburgh and the author of the book The Rise And Reign Of The Mammals (£20, Picador), a 325-million-year odyssey of mammalian evolution and the people who study mammal fossils.

A new study shows that nanoflowers—a type of metallic flower-shaped nanoparticle—can protect and heal brain cells by promoting the health and turnover of mitochondria.

Mitochondria are the molecular machines responsible for producing most of our cells’ energy.

These findings suggest a promising new approach to neurotherapeutics that targets the underlying mechanisms of diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, rather than just managing symptoms.

The study was conducted by Charles Mitchell, a doctoral student in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences biochemistry and biophysics department, and research specialist Mikhail Matveyenka. Both are members in the lab of Dmitry Kurouski, associate professor and Texas A&M AgriLife Institute for Advancing Health through Agriculture researcher, who supervised the project.

“These nanoflowers look beautiful under a microscope, but what they do inside the cell is even more impressive,” Kurouski says.

“By improving the health of brain cells, they help address one of the key drivers of neurodegenerative diseases that have long resisted therapeutic breakthroughs.”

Mitochondria, often called the “powerhouses of the cell,” are responsible for turning food into energy the body can use. However, like any energy system, they produce some waste in the process, including elevated reactive oxygen species—unstable molecules that can damage cells if not properly managed.

To assess the therapeutic potential of nanoflowers, Kurouski’s team, which specializes in neurodegenerative diseases, tested how two nanoflowers affect neurons and supportive brain cells called astrocytes. Within 24 hours of treatment, they saw a dramatic drop in levels of reactive oxygen species, along with signs of improved mitochondrial integrity and quantity.

“Even in healthy cells, some oxidative stress is expected,” Kurouski says. “But the nanoflowers seem to fine-tune the performance of mitochondria, ultimately bringing the levels of their toxic byproducts down to almost nothing.”

Because brain health and mitochondrial function are tightly linked, Kurouski believes protecting mitochondria in brain cells could lead to meaningful improvement in brain function after damage from disease, particularly those like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

“If we can protect or restore mitochondrial health, then we’re not just treating symptoms—we’re addressing the root cause of the damage,” Kurouski says.

After seeing the effects in individual cells, researchers next evaluated the nanoflowers in Caenorhabditis elegans, a well-established model organism used in neurological research, to test the effects on whole organisms.

Worms treated with one of the nanoflowers survived for days longer than their untreated counterparts, which have a typical lifespan of about 18 days. Those treated also had lower mortality during early life stages, another indication of the nanoflowers’ neuroprotective potential.

Looking forward, Kurouski plans to conduct toxicity and distribution studies in more complex animal models, a key step prior to clinical trials.

Despite decades of research, effective neuroprotective drugs remain elusive. Most therapies for neurodegenerative diseases rely on managing symptoms without addressing the underlying cell damage. However, Kurouski believes that, by directly targeting mitochondrial health and oxidative stress, nanoflowers could offer an innovative new approach to treatment.

His team recently worked with Texas A&M Innovation to file a patent application for the use of nanoflowers in neuroprotective treatments, and it plans to collaborate with the Texas A&M College of Medicine when it’s ready to explore the nanoflowers’ effect further for the treatment of stroke, spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases.

“We think this could become a new class of therapeutics,” Kurouski says. “We want to make sure it’s safe, effective, and has a clear mechanism of action. But based on what we’ve seen so far, there’s incredible potential in nanoflowers.”

The research appears in Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Source: Texas A&M University

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the best picture yet of a high-speed comet visiting our solar system from another star.

NASA and the European Space Agency released the latest photos Thursday.

Discovered last month by a telescope in Chile, the comet known as 3I-Atlas is only the third known interstellar object to pass our way and poses no threat to Earth.

Astronomers originally estimated the size of its icy core at several miles (tens of kilometers) across, but Hubble’s observations have narrowed it down to no more than 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers). It could even be as small as 1,000 feet (320 meters), according to scientists.

READ MORE: NASA says new interstellar comet it spotted will keep a safe distance from Earth

The comet is hurtling our way at 130,000 mph (209,000 kph), but will veer closer to Mars than Earth, keeping a safe distance from both. It was 277 million miles (446 million kilometers) away when photographed by Hubble a couple weeks ago. The orbiting telescope revealed a teardrop-shaped plume of dust around the nucleus as well as traces of a dusty tail.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Two four-legged robots recently explored a practice Mars yard, with a little help from an astronaut in space and several robot buddies.

The robot team, along with the “Neal AI” chatbot and NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, worked together on tough tasks in a German site meant to simulate Mars terrain.

Key Points

• Free fatty acids can play diverse roles in biological processes, including maintaining the structure of cells.
• The scientists combined stable isotope derivatization coupled with liquid chromatography–triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (ID-LC-QQQ-MS) to thoroughly identify and relatively quantify FAs in serum samples.

After the method’s viability was tested, the method was tested against the fatty acid metabolisms of Syrian golden hamsters.

Chinese researchers, led by Liu Yang of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China, used stable isotope derivatization coupled with liquid chromatography–triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (ID-LC-QQQ-MS) to better analyze fatty acids in biological samples. Their findings were published in the Journal of Chromatography B (1).

Fatty acids (FAs) are generally comprised of 12–26 carbon atoms, with the majority of them falling within the 16–20 carbon range. FAs containing 16 and 18 carbon atom free FAs (FFAs) are the most prevalent in various organisms, whereas FAs with carbon chain lengths shorter than 12 or exceeding 22 carbon atoms are less frequently encountered. Despite their relatively simple molecular structure, FAs play crucial roles in biological regulation: 1) they are vital constituents of cell membrane lipids and are essential for membrane-mediated cellular activities; and 2) they not only serve as an energy source for cells and regulate energy metabolism but also contribute to systemic immune responses.

Abnormal FAs are linked to various health issues, including cardiovascular diseases, insulin resistance, and Alzheimer’s disease. Consequently, profiling FAs using innovative analytical techniques is critical for elucidating their functions in physiological and pathological contexts.

FFAs, which are characterized by a hydrocarbon chain terminated at one end by a carboxylic acid group (COOH), can fulfill diverse roles in biological processes, including cellular structure integrity, energy storage, and signaling (2). Various methods have proven useful for (FFAs. Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) is commonly used for FFA analysis; however, it is most effective for thermally stable and readily volatile analytes. FFAs can also be directly quantified using liquid chromatography–MS (LC–MS) in negative-ion mode. Regardless, the negative ion mode of ESI-MS/MS lacks the sensitivity needed for detecting low-abundance FFAs.

In this experiment, the scientists used a method combining stable isotope derivatization coupled with liquid chromatography–triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (ID-LC-QQQ-MS) to thoroughly identify and relatively quantify FAs in serum samples. This method involves the derivatization of FFAs’ carboxyl groups using a pair of isotope reagents; this process results in the formation of trimethylaminoethyl ester (FA-TMAE-h₃/d₃). This FA can yield two distinct neutral fragments with masses of 59 and 62 Da during collision-induced dissociation (CID). A quadruple neutral loss scan (QNLS) approach was utilized for the non-targeted profiling of FFAs in serum samples. The derivative peak pairs displaying matching retention times and distinct mass differences were extracted from the two QNLS spectra, after which they were recognized as potential FFAs.

Following these efforts, a multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) detection protocol was established for the relative quantification of FA in the serum of Syrian golden hamsters. These hamsters, which were observed under diverse conditions, including a standard chow diet, a high-fat diet (HFD), and fenofibrate treatment, were subjected to various treatments, utilizing a pooled sample labeled with a heavy isotope as an internal standard. When partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was used, notable variations were found in these 23 FAs across the four groups.

Overall, the approach created in this study was deemed promising for identifying and quantifying FFAs in real samples.

References

(1) Yang, L.; Wang, Q; Chen, W.; Yang, J.; Lin, Y.; Lubman, D. M. Trimethylaminoethyl Ester Derivatization and Stable Isotope Derivatization for Enhanced Analysis of Fatty Acids in Biological Samples by Electrospray Ionization Tandem Mass Spectrometry. J. Chromatogr. B 2025, 1264, 124733. DOI: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2025.124733

(2) What are Free Fatty Acids: Properties, Sources, and Significance. MetwareBio 2025. https://www.metwarebio.com/what-is-free-fatty-acids/ (accessed 2025-8-6)

The full moon this August is more than just a pretty sight – it’s part of a long-standing seasonal rhythm tied to both tradition and survival.

Known as the Sturgeon Moon, it will reach peak brightness at 3:55 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, August 9, but the best time to catch it is Friday night.

The moon isn’t just putting on a solo performance. It will have some company – including some of the brightest planets in the solar system.

The meaning behind the name

The full moon in August has traditionally been called the Sturgeon Moon. That name comes from the giant freshwater fish that once filled the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. 

Native American communities who lived in the region knew that this time of year was when lake sturgeon were easiest to catch. The fish were a major source of food in late summer and early fall.

The name itself has staying power. The Old Farmer’s Almanac helped preserve the tradition, which blends Native American, Colonial American, and European influences. 

These names weren’t just poetic – they were practical. The full moon marked a moment in time, signaling what kind of work needed doing that month. Whether that meant harvesting crops, drying herbs, or going fishing, people used the moon to keep track of the season.

Ancient fish with a modern struggle

Sturgeon aren’t just any fish. They’ve been swimming in Earth’s waters for about 136 million years, earning them the nickname “living fossils.”

Their bodies still look like something from a prehistoric age – armor-like scales, long snouts, and massive size. Some sturgeon are as small as a bass, while others can grow to the size of a Volkswagen.

Female lake sturgeon don’t start reproducing until they’re about 20 years old. Even then, they only spawn once every four years. Despite that slow start, they can live for over a century – up to 150 years in some cases.

But their long lifespan hasn’t protected them. In the 19th century, sturgeon were overfished heavily. Their populations took a major hit, and they’ve struggled ever since. 

Pollution and habitat destruction have made things even worse. Today, they’re rare in many parts of their original range, especially the massive lake sturgeon that once dominated the Great Lakes.

Saturn and Neptune join the moon

There’s more to this month than just the full moon. On August 12, just a few days after the moon peaks, it will appear close to both Saturn and Neptune in the sky. They’ll share what’s called a right-angle conjunction – a kind of visual alignment – which will make them seem huddled together in the night sky.

To the naked eye, the view might be subtle. But a decent pair of binoculars should reveal a better view of the trio. Saturn will likely be the easiest to spot with its bright, steady glow. Neptune, much fainter, will appear close by.

Another conjunction: Venus and Jupiter

Saturn and Neptune aren’t the only planets making an appearance this month. Venus and Jupiter have been gradually drawing closer to one another.

Around August 11 and 12, they’ll appear to be just one degree apart – which is about the width of your pinky held out at arm’s length.

These kinds of planetary alignments aren’t rare, but they do offer a special chance to see multiple bright objects packed into a small section of the sky. Venus will be the brightest of the bunch, with Jupiter glowing just behind it.

A moon with many names

While “Sturgeon Moon” is the name most people associate with August, it’s far from the only one. Different communities had their own ways of labeling this time of year.

According to NASA, it has also been called the Red Moon, Corn Moon, Herb Moon, Grain Moon, and Dog Moon.

In medieval Europe, it was often referred to as the Barley Moon or Fruit Moon – a signal that it was time to harvest grain and preserve fruit before the season changed. 

All of these names tie the moon to survival. They reflect a time when people closely followed natural cues to know when to sow, reap, or fish.

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Both for research and medical purposes, researchers have spent decades pushing the limits of microscopy to produce ever deeper and sharper images of brain activity, not only in the cortex but also in regions underneath such as the hippocampus. In a new study, a team of MIT scientists and engineers demonstrates a new microscope system capable of peering exceptionally deep into brain tissues to detect the molecular activity of individual cells by using sound.

“The major advance here is to enable us to image deeper at single-cell resolution,” said neuroscientist Mriganka Sur, a corresponding author along with mechanical engineering Professor Peter So and principal research scientist Brian Anthony. Sur is the Paul and Lilah Newton Professor in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

In the journal Light: Science and Applications, the team demonstrates that they could detect NAD(P)H, a molecule tightly associated with cell metabolism in general and electrical activity in neurons in particular, all the way through samples such as a 1.1 mm “cerebral organoid,” a 3D-mini brain-like tissue generated from human stem cells), and a 0.7 mm thick slice of mouse brain tissue.

In fact, said co-lead author and mechanical engineering postdoc W. David Lee, who conceived the microscope’s innovative design, the system could have peered far deeper but the test samples weren’t big enough to demonstrate that.

That’s when we hit the glass on the other side. I think we’re pretty confident about going deeper.”

W. David Lee, co-lead author and mechanical engineering postdoc 

Still, a depth of 1.1 mm is more than five times deeper than other microscope technologies can resolve NAD(P)H within dense brain tissue. The new system achieved the depth and sharpness by combining several advanced technologies to precisely and efficiently excite the molecule and then to detect the resulting energy all without having to add any external labels, either via added chemicals or genetically engineered fluorescence.

Rather than focusing the required NAD(P)H excitation energy on a neuron with near ultraviolet light at its normal peak absorption, the scope accomplishes the excitation by focusing an intense, extremely short burst of light (a quadrillionth of a second long) at three times the normal absorption wavelength. Such “three-photon” excitation penetrates deep into tissue with less scattering by brain tissue because of the longer wavelength of the light (“like fog lamps,” Sur said). Meanwhile, though the excitation produces a weak fluorescent signal of light from NAD(P)H, most of the absorbed energy produces a localized (~10 microns) thermal expansion within the cell, which produces sound waves that travel relatively easily through tissue compared to the fluorescence emission. A sensitive ultrasound microphone in the microscope detects those waves and, with enough sound data, software turns them into high-resolution images (much like a sonogram does). Imaging created in this way is “three-photon photoacoustic imaging.”

“We merged all these techniques-three-photon, label-free, photoacoustic detection,” said co-lead author Tatsuya Osaki, a research scientist in The Picower Institute in Sur’s lab. “We integrated all these cutting-edge techniques into one process to establish this ‘Multiphoton-In and Acoustic-Out’ platform.”

Lee and Osaki combined with research scientist Xiang Zhang and postdoc Rebecca Zubajlo to lead the study, in which the team demonstrated reliable detection of the sound signal through the samples. So far, the team has produced visual images from the sound at various depths as they refine their signal processing.

In the study the team also shows simultaneous “third-harmonic generation” imaging, which comes from the three-photon stimulation and finely renders cellular structures, alongside their photoacoustic imaging, which detects NAD(P)H. They also note that their photoacoustic method could detect other molecules such as the genetically encoded calcium indicator GCaMP, that neuroscientists use to signal neural electrical activity.

Alzheimer’s and other applications

With the concept of label free, multiphoton, photoacoustic microscopy (LF-MP-PAM) established in the paper, the team is now looking ahead to neuroscience and clinical applications.

Through the company Precision Healing Inc., he founded and sold, for instance, Lee has already established that NAD(P)H imaging can inform wound care. In the brain, levels of the molecule are known to vary in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Rett syndrome, and seizures, making it potentially valuable biomarker. Because the new system is label free (i.e. no added chemicals or altered genes), it could be used in humans, for instance, during brain surgeries.

The next step for the team is to demonstrate it in a living animal, rather than just in in vitro and ex-vivo tissues. The technical challenge there is that the microphone can no longer be on the opposite side of the sample from the light source (as it was in the current study). It has to be on top, just like the light source.

Lee said he expects that full imaging at depths of 2 mm in live brains is entirely feasible given the results in the new study.

“In principle it should work,” he said.

Mercedes Balcells and Elazer Edelman are also authors of the paper. Funding for the research came from sources including the National Institutes of Health, the Simon Center for the Social Brain, the lab of Peter So, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Freedom Together Foundation.