Category: 7. Science

A groundbreaking study led by Vera Korasidis, Lecturer in Environmental Geoscience at the University of Melbourne, has unveiled a remarkable picture of Earth’s ancient polar forests that once supported thriving dinosaur populations.

During the Early Cretaceous period, some 130 to 110 million years ago, what is today southern Victoria lay well within the polar circle, shrouded in months of darkness each winter.

Yet, despite these extreme conditions, the region hosted vibrant, cool-temperate rainforests. “What is now Victoria was located within the polar circle … and was shrouded in darkness for months,” Korasidis explained. Towering conifer trees formed the forest canopy, while the ground below was dominated by primitive ferns, mosses and liverworts.

Drawing on nearly 300 fossil pollen and spore samples from 48 sites across Victoria, researchers have reconstructed these lost ecosystems in extraordinary detail. Their work reveals lush river-crossed forests teeming with life. Small herbivorous ornithopods grazed on foliage, while carnivorous theropods prowled the undergrowth–dinosaurs uniquely adapted to months without sunlight.

A dramatic transformation unfolded around 113 million years ago with the arrival of flowering plants. This botanical revolution altered the structure of the forests, driving many understorey ferns to extinction. By 100 million years ago, the landscape featured open conifer-dominated canopies, with flowering plants flourishing alongside ferns and mosses on the forest floor.

The study not only brings to life the lost world of polar dinosaurs but also carries urgent lessons for today. As Korasidis noted, these ancient ecosystems demonstrate how plant and animal life respond to rapid climate and environmental shifts. For a world now facing accelerating global warming, biodiversity decline, and ecosystem disruption, the story of Earth’s polar forests serves as both a scientific marvel and a sobering warning.

The slender crescent moon will be positioned close to the bright star Spica at sunset on Aug. 27, but you’ll have to be quick to catch a glimpse of the cosmic duo before they follow the sun below the horizon!

Look to the west as the sun sets on Aug. 27 to find the 18%-lit waxing crescent moon a little over 15 degrees above the western horizon, with Spica — the brightest star in the constellation Virgo — positioned less than 6 degrees to the right of the lunar disk. Remember, the width of your middle three fingers held at arm’s length accounts for roughly 5 degrees in the night sky.

Archaeologists routinely uncover pottery, coins, and bones, but the scents of the past are much more elusive. An innovative interdisciplinary study has now traced fragrances that were once at the heart of Phoenician culture. Through the analysis of 51 ceramic oil vessels from the site of Motya, a small island off Sicily’s coast, researchers have uncovered how fragrant oils contributed to identity, memory, and cultural exchange in the Iron Age Mediterranean. The research was published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

The vessels—plain, narrow bottles between 15 and 18 centimeters high—were used from the 8th to the 6th centuries BCE. They were discovered in domestic locations, cemeteries, and sacred areas, demonstrating that they were used for various purposes over a wide geographic area. Analytical tests of the ceramic material indicate that their production began in southern Phoenicia, in a region stretching from modern Beirut to the Carmel coast.

The organic residue analysis offered further information. Eight of the vessels examined contained traces of plant oils combined with pine and mastic resin, substances long associated with perfume and preservation. This is a strong indication that these vessels carried aromatic unguents. These oils were more than commodities to be traded; they embodied connections to homeland traditions. For Phoenician settlers establishing communities across the Mediterranean, these scented oils would have acted as sensory links to their place of origin, consolidating shared practices among dispersed peoples while also being exchanged with local populations.

The Phoenicians, renowned seafarers and merchants, were also innovators in the migration of cultural practices. Aromatic materials held a central position in both everyday life and ritual practice, and their exchange facilitated the creation of links between migrant and indigenous groups. At Motya, the ongoing appearance of oil bottles over more than two centuries implies a consistent supply of what was perhaps a recognizable product tradition, one that possessed both practical and symbolic value.

These vessels were used not only in Phoenician communities but also appeared in elite contexts among non-Phoenician peoples. Their presence in these contexts indicates that scented oils became part of the strategies for building alliances and projecting influence outside of their own communities. Thus, the use of perfume was instrumental in cross-cultural interactions and helped spread Phoenician practices throughout the western Mediterranean world.

The study places these findings in the larger framework of Iron Age history. The disappearance of the bottles has often been linked to the rise of Carthage, but researchers now suggest that instability in the Levant, particularly during the Neo-Babylonian period, could have disrupted both production and exchange. These changes in political and economic conditions might explain the reduction in the circulation of these bottles by the end of the 6th century BCE.

Beyond the immediate findings, the study illustrates the value of exploring the sensory aspects of the past. Migration and cultural exchange were not just matters of people and goods moving but also of the spread of more intangible factors, such as smell, memory, and sensory experience. Scents—elusive to preserve but potent in identity-shaping—were part of how communities brought their heritage to new lands.

By applying advanced scientific methods, archaeologists have shed light on a previously overlooked aspect of ancient life. The Motya artifacts provide an evocative reminder that the past was not only seen and heard, but also smelled, with perfumes acting as an invisible thread binding distant places and peoples across the Mediterranean.

Scientists have developed a better model to understand “steam worlds,” which are planets smaller than Neptune and larger than Earth that are too hot to have liquid water at their surface and thus have atmospheres filled with water vapor. Though steam worlds are unlikely to harbor life, modeling them more precisely could help scientists better comprehend ocean planets better, which in turn would aid in directing our search for life beyond the solar system.

Though absent from the solar system, the most common extrasolar planets, or “exoplanets,” are so-called sub-Neptune planets. The size and mass of these planets suggest they have interiors rich with water. Many of these planets are closer to their stars than Earth is to the sun, meaning many sub-Neptunes are too hot to have liquid water at their surfaces. This also means water on these planets exists in atmospheric layers, and in exotic states, that don’t act like liquids or gases; they tend to have atmospheres made of steam.

Engineer Emmanuel Decrossas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California makes an adjustment to an antenna’s connector, part of a NASA telecommunications payload called User Terminal, at Firefly Aerospace’s facility in Cedar Park, Texas, in August 2025.

Figure A shows members of the team from JPL and NASA (dark blue) and Firefly (white) with the User Terminal antenna, radio, and other components on the bench behind them.

Managed by JPL, the User Terminal will test a new, low-cost lunar communications system that future missions to the Moon’s far side could use to transfer data to and from Earth via lunar relay satellite. The User Terminal payload will be installed atop Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 2 lunar lander, which is slated to launch to the Moon’s far side in 2026 under NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative.

NASA’s Apollo missions brought large and powerful telecommunications systems to the lunar near-side surface to communicate directly with Earth. But spacecraft on the far side will not have that option because only the near side of the Moon is visible to Earth. Sending messages between the Moon and Earth via a relay orbiter enables communication with the lunar far side and improves it at the Moon’s poles.

The User Terminal will for the first time test such a setup for NASA by using a compact, lightweight software defined radio, antenna, and related hardware to communicate with a satellite that Blue Ghost Mission 2 is delivering to lunar orbit: ESA’s (the European Space Agency’s) Lunar Pathfinder. The User Terminal radio and antenna installed on the Blue Ghost lander will be used to commission Lunar Pathfinder, sending test data back and forth.

After the lander ceases operations as planned at the end of a single lunar day (about 14 Earth days), a separate User Terminal radio and antenna installed on LuSEE-Night – another payload on the lander – will send LuSEE-Night’s data to Lunar Pathfinder, which will relay the information to a commercial network of ground stations on Earth. LuSEE-Night is a radio telescope that expected to operate for at least 1½ years; it is a joint effort by NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and University of California, Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory.

Additionally, User Terminal will be able to communicate with another satellite that’s being delivered to lunar orbit by Blue Ghost Mission 2: Firefly’s own Elytra Dark orbital vehicle.

The hardware on the lander is only part of the User Terminal project, which was also designed to implement a new S-band two-way protocol, or standard, for short-range space communications between entities on the lunar surface (such as rovers and landers) and lunar orbiters, enabling reliable data transfer between them. The standard is a new version of a space communications protocol called Proximity-1 that was initially developed more than two decades ago for use at Mars by an international standard body called the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS), of which NASA is a member agency. The User Terminal team made recommendations to CCSDS on the development of the new lunar S-band standard, which was specified in 2024. The new standard will enable lunar orbiters and surface spacecraft from various entities – NASA and other civil space agencies as well as industry and academia – to communicate with each other, a concept known as interoperability.

At Mars, NASA rovers communicate with various Red Planet orbiters using the Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) radio band version of the Proximity-1 standard. On the Moon’s far side, use of UHF is reserved for radio astronomy science; so a new lunar standard was needed using a different frequency range, S-band, as were more efficient modulation and coding schemes to better fit the available frequency spectrum specified by the new standard.

User Terminal is funded by NASA’s Exploration Science Strategy and Integration Office, part of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, which manages the CLPS initiative. JPL manages the project and supported development of the new S-band radio standard and the payload in coordination with Vulcan Wireless in Carlsbad, California, which built the radio. Caltech in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

SpaceX shared stunning photos of its Falcon 9 rocket carrying the U.S. Space Force’s secretive X-37B space plane into orbit last week.

The pictures capture the nighttime launch on Aug. 21, when the robotic X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida at 11:50 p.m. EDT (0350 GMT on Aug. 22).

That same night, SpaceX shared four striking views in a post on X (formerly Twitter). The shots showcase different stages of the awe-inspiring launch, from the fiery plumes of smoke in the wake of liftoff to rocket separation in the starry night sky and the Falcon 9’s first-stage booster returning to Earth for a successful landing.

The X-37B, a reusable robotic mini-shuttle built by Boeing, helps researchers conduct mostly classified experiments in low Earth orbit.

While much of the current mission — called OTV-8, because it’s the eighth X-37B flight overall — remains under wraps, the plane’s payloads include cutting-edge laser-communication systems and a quantum inertial sensor designed to enhance navigation where GPS is unavailable.

One of the SpaceX launch photos captures a breathtaking moment from the Falcon 9 launch: The rocket’s exhaust plume interacts with the upper atmosphere, producing vivid, colorful patterns against the starry night sky. Two bright streaks trace the paths of the rocket’s booster and upper stage carrying the X-37B after separation.

Meanwhile, clouds of exhaust expand outward in glowing hues of purple and pink, illuminated by the sun below the horizon, creating what some observers call a “space jellyfish.” The interplay of light, exhaust and high altitude turned the rocket’s climb to orbit into a spectacular celestial display reminiscent of a bright purple nebula in deep space.

Another mesmerizing photo from the launch captures the bright streak of the rocket’s exhaust flame, glowing orange-white as its engines burn fuel. The plume of smoke trailing behind the rocket shows bluish clouds closer to the rocket, fading into purple and pink higher up.

This is caused by the exhaust gases expanding and interacting with sunlight in the thin upper atmosphere. The rocket’s motion was captured in real time as it travelled through the star-studded night sky.

Mice

All procedures described below were performed with the approval of the animal welfare committee of the UCLouvain. In addition, generally speaking, all experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations, including the ARRIVE guidelines.

Mice received humane care according to the criteria listed by the National Academy of Sciences. The source of mice used in the present study was our own mouse facility. Mice were maintained in an enriched CD1 background. Sox9Cre^ER5, PdxCre⁶, LSL Kras^G12D7, Ift20f.^/f8, Ift88f.^/f9 mice have been described. Inactivation of Ift20 or Ift88 prevents the formation of primary cilia^8,9. Matings were performed between Cre/LSL Kras^G12D/Ift^f/+ and Ift^f/f mice. Cre/Ift^f/+, LSL Kras^G12D, and Ift^f/f mice did not show any pancreatic phenotype, and Cre/LSL Kras^G12D/IFT^f/+ mice were used as controls.

A table listing the different genotypes generated, the abbreviations we assigned to them, and their respective composition in terms of transgene combinations is shown in Supplementary Fig. 1. To summarize this table, S = Sox9Cre^ER, P = PdxCre, K = LSL Kras^G12D, I20 = Ift20, and I88 = Ift88.

Histological staining, immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry

Dissected pancreata were fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde at 4 °C for 4 h before embedding in paraffin. Immunofluorescence and immunohistochemistry (IHC) were performed on 6 μm tissue sections as previously described^8,10. Primary antibodies were the following: pericentrin (Eurogentec, PRB-432C, 1/1000), HNF6 (GP4079c, 1/1000), acetylated tubulin (Sigma, T6793, 1/2000), glucagon (Abcam, Ab10988, 1/200), insulin (Dako, A0564, 1/500), CD45 (Abcam, Ab10558, 1/500).

For IHC, antibody binding was visualised by a biotinylated secondary antibody (1/1000), a streptavidin-POD conjugate (1/1000) (Sigma-Aldrich, Bornem, Belgium) and 3,3’-diaminobenzidine tetrachloride (Abcam, Cambridge, UK) as a substrate, and haematoxylin was used to counterstain the tissue. Slides stained by IHC were scanned with confocal microscope (Cell Observer Spinning Disk, Zeiss, Germany). Mirax Imaging system and the Mirax Viewer (Zeiss, Zaventem, Belgium) software was used to capture images.

For immunofluorescence labelling, secondary antibodies were applied at 1/1000 dilution and nuclei were labelled by DAPI (4’,6′-diamidino-2-phenylindole). Photographs were taken by Axiovert 200 fluorescent microscope (Zeiss) using the Axio-Vision program.

To detect fibrosis, slides were incubated into a picric acid solution with Sirius Red (Direct Red 80, Sigma-Aldrich) and Fast Green (Sigma-Aldrich) for 4 h. Neoplastic lesions were detected by Alcian Blue staining with an eosin counterstaining. To quantify the percentage of PanIN within the pancreas, the entire surface area of each Alcian blue/eosin-stained section was imaged at 2 × magnification. The total surface area and Alcian blue staining intensity were measured using ImageJ software. Statistical comparisons between groups were conducted using the Student’s t-test.

All assessments of staining and lesion development were based on analysis of at least three sections from a minimum of three mice, for each genotype.