Category: 7. Science

In 2014, a lake hidden beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet suddenly began to drain. The event occurred with such force that a surge of water was sent directly upwards, splitting through the ice to create a crater almost one kilometre deep.

In the 10 days that followed, 90 million cubic metres of water were released from the lake – roughly equivalent to nine hours of water crashing over Niagara Falls during peak flow. It was one of the largest subglacial floods ever recorded in Greenland.

Despite the drama of the event itself, researchers were even more surprised by what they discovered downstream: 385,000 square metres (54 football pitches) of fractured and distorted ice – a chaotic scene that comprised enormous blocks 25 metres high, along with six square kilometres of scoured ice. None of this was there before the flood.

Now, in a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers from Lancaster University reveal further insights not only on the discovery of the great flood but also how this little-understood process may affect the way the ice sheet responds to future climate change.

The flood

The study explains that “one of the most recently discovered, yet poorly understood, components of Greenland’s subglacial hydrological system is its network of active subglacial lakes.” The 2014 lake drainage event therefore presented an opportunity to find out more.

Using high-resolution surface models and multiple satellite sources from NASA and the European Space Agency, the team were able to study the lake – and the flood event – in striking detail. They were surprised at what they found.

“When we first saw this, because it was so unexpected, we thought there was an issue with our data,” explains lead author Dr Jade Bowling. “However, as we went deeper into our analysis, it became clear that what we were observing was the aftermath of a huge flood of water escaping from underneath the ice.”

Previously, it was thought that meltwater flowed from the surface down to the bed and out to the ocean. This event, however, shows that water can also be forced in the opposite direction, tearing upwards through the ice under pressure.

Approximately one kilometre downstream of the collapsed basin, a newly formed zone of fractures appeared in the ice surface, “consisting of crevassing and uprooted ice blocks with a combined height (crevasse depth plus ice block height) of 40 metres,” the study explains.

“Downslope of the fracture zone, an ~6-km²region of the ice surface had been scoured clean. Together, these observations indicate that a substantial volume of water broke up through the ice at this location and flooded across the surface.”

The scientists were also surprised to find that the flood occurred in a region where models previously predicted that the ice was frozen at the bed. Given the existence of the lake, this can’t be the case.

The researchers suggest perhaps the pressure-driven fracturing of ice along the ice bed created a pathway for the water to flow.

Lessons from the flood

“What we have found in this study surprised us in many ways,” says Dr Amber Leeson, an expert in ice sheet hydrology. “It has taught us new and unexpected things about the way that ice sheets can respond to extreme inputs of surface meltwater.”

The findings raise questions about whether current models accurately capture the behaviour of the Greenland Ice Sheet under a warming climate, say the researchers, who explain that as global temperatures rise, more meltwater events like this could happen – yet we still have much to learn about how they affect the future of our ice sheets.

Find out more about the study: Outburst of a subglacial flood from the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Top image: the outburst fracture zone, based on satellite imagery acquired on 28 April 2015. Credit: CPOM, Lancaster University | DigitalGlobe, Inc. (2015), provided by European Space Imaging

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Questions and answers: 

What is the purpose of NASA’s EPIC parachute research project? NASA’s EPIC (Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy) project aims to improve the performance and reliability of supersonic parachutes used in planetary missions by testing flexible sensors embedded in the parachute canopy.

How do the sensors used in the EPIC project work? The sensors are designed to measure strain without interfering with parachute function. They provide real-time data during test flights to validate computer models and inform future designs.

Who is leading the EPIC research and where is it based? The EPIC team is led by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., with support from Ames Research Center and Langley Research Center.

EDWARDS, Calif. – National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) researchers are conducting a series of flight tests to improve the reliability and safety of supersonic parachutes used in Mars missions by outfitting them with flexible, nonintrusive sensors.

Led by the EPIC (Enhancing Parachutes by Instrumenting the Canopy) team at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, the tests aim to gather data to refine parachute performance models. In a June demonstration, a quadrotor drone dropped a test capsule that successfully deployed a parachute embedded with strain-measuring sensors. As expected, the sensors did not interfere with the parachute’s function and also provided valuable performance data.

“Reviewing the research flights will help inform our next steps,” said EPIC project manager Matt Kearns. The team is now working on temperature testing, data analysis, and future instrumentation while engaging with potential partners to explore broader applications.

AeroVironment, JPL unveil Skyfall Mars helicopter concept for 2028 mission

The effort is part of NASA’s Entry Systems Modeling project, funded by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. The parachute and capsule system was developed by NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia, while interns at NASA Armstrong helped integrate a test version for flight.

Initially, the project focused on identifying and bonding commercial flexible sensors. The ongoing work could also benefit other industries, such as aerospace and auto racing, by improving high-speed parachute systems.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they unexpectedly found new information about a protein’s special role in getting brain cells to communicate at the right time and place in experiments with genetically engineered mice.

The finding about the protein intersectin, they say, advances scientific understanding of a key process in how the mammalian brain forms memories and learns, and may help advance treatments for cognitive disorders including Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease.

A report of the new findings, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, was published July 8 in the journal Nature Neuroscience. 

Specifically, the researchers found that intersectin keeps tiny, message-carrying bubbles inside brain cells in a particular location until they are ready to be released to activate a neighboring brain cell. The protein does so by creating a physical boundary between these bubbles, similar to how oil separates from water.

Message transfer from brain cell to brain cell is key to information processing, learning and forming memories. The bubbles, synaptic vesicles, are housed within the synapse — the connection point where brain cells communicate. In typical synapses within the brains of mammals, 300 synaptic vesicles are clustered together in the intersection between any two brain cells, but only a few of these vesicles are used for such message transfer, researchers say. Pinpointing how a synapse knows which vesicles to use has long been a target of research by those who study the biology and chemistry of thought.

“We found that these tiny bubbles have a distinct domain where they want to be,” says Shigeki Watanabe, Ph.D., associate professor of cell biology at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who led the research. “Keeping them at particular locations within a synapse enables the brain to decide how and when to use them while thinking and processing information.”

In an effort to better understand the operation of these synaptic vesicles, Watanabe and his team designed a study that first focused on endocytosis, a process in which brain cells recycle synaptic vesicles after they are used for neuronal communication.

Already aware of intersectin’s general role in endocytosis and neuronal communication, the scientists genetically engineered mice to lack the gene that codes for intersectin. However, and somewhat to their surprise, Watanabe says removing the protein did not appear to halt endocytosis in brain cells.

The research team refocused their experiments, taking a closer look at the synaptic vesicles themselves.

Using a high-resolution fluorescence microscope to observe where intersectin is in a synapse, the researchers found it in between vesicles that are used for neuronal communication and those that are not, as if they are physically separating the two.

To further understand the role of intersectin at this location, they used an electron microscope to visualize synaptic vesicles in action across one billionth of a meter. In all the nerve cells from mice lacking this protein, the scientists say synaptic vesicles close to the membrane were absent from the release zone of the synapse, the place where the bubbles would discharge to nearby neurons.

“This suggested that intersectin regulates release, rather than recycling, of these vesicles at this location of the synapse,” says Watanabe.

Using a technique called zap and freeze microscopy, the scientists stimulated neurons in the brains of mice to capture the movement of synaptic vesicles on a millisecond timescale and at a nanometer resolution.

In normal mice, the scientists saw vesicles fusing with the brain cell membrane within a millisecond after stimulation. Then, new synaptic vesicles came and filled the vacated release sites of the synapse within about 15 milliseconds.

In two genetically engineered lines of mice, one lacking intersectin and another lacking the endophilin protein, which binds to intersectin, new vesicles could not be recruited to the vacated release sites. Similarly, vesicles within nerve cells of mice with mutations that blocked the interaction of these two proteins also slowed the local replenishment of synaptic vesicles that carry information from neuron to neuron.

“When information is processed in the brain, this replenishment process needs to happen in just a few milliseconds,” says Watanabe. “When you don’t have vesicles staged and ready to go at the release sites or the active zones, then neurotransmission cannot continue.”  

In future research, the scientists say they aim to better understand how intersectin shuttles new synaptic vesicles to release sites.

Reference: Ogunmowo TH, Hoffmann C, Patel C, et al. Intersectin and endophilin condensates prime synaptic vesicles for release site replenishment. Nat Neurosci. 2025. doi: 10.1038/s41593-025-02002-4

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The world’s largest lava lake lies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), nestled within Mount Nyiragongo. Stretching about 250 meters (820 feet) across at a depth of 600 meters (1,970 feet), it’s quite the hot tub of bubbling magma.

Part of the Virunga Mountains, it sits within the UNESCO World Heritage Site Virunga National Park, close to the city of Goma in eastern DRC. A chain of eight active volcanoes stretches across the landscape, experiencing eruptions at regular intervals every few years. Nyiragongo joins Nyamuragira in being the most active in Africa, the two being responsible for two-fifths of the historic eruptions on the continent, according to UNESCO. 

The highly active pair are notable for the extreme fluidity of their basaltic lava flows, meaning eruptions are particularly dangerous as the lava can move at speeds of 60 kilometers per hour (37 miles per hour). This was demonstrated in the deadly 2002 eruption, which resulted in dozens of fatalities and displaced almost 500,000 DRC citizens as fissures along its southern slope leaked lava into the environment.

The reason why the lava is so dangerous is that it’s low in silica, and it’s the strong silicon-oxygen bonds that usually make lava thick and slow-moving. The difference is so significant that fast-flowing lavas were responsible for 90 percent of recorded lava-related deaths in the 20th century.

Deep inside Nyiragongo’s crater sits the largest lava lake in the world, filled with semi-permanent lava that empties every now and then in the event of catastrophic eruptions. Lava lakes are characterized by large quantities of molten lava, meaning it’s not solidified, and so puts on a smoky display in the day before lighting up at night with hues of orange you love to look at but don’t want to touch.

(Side bar: If you’ve ever wondered what lava would taste like, good news! You’re not alone. We put that exact question to the raised eyebrows of Scientist-in-Charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Michael Poland, and University of Buffalo Associate Professor of Geology and expert on planetary volcanology, Tracy Gregg, in our first-ever issue of CURIOUS.)

Its high rate of activity, fast-moving lava, and proximity to humans make Nyiragongo one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world. As such, scientists keep tabs on its movements for early warning signs of an eruption. 

For all its ferocity, Mount Nyiragongo is also a breathtaking sight to behold, surrounded by lowland forests that are home to a variety of animals, including chimpanzees, monkeys, beautiful birds, and three-horned chameleons. If you’re up for a bit of hiking, you can take it all in along the Nyiragongo Volcano Trek.

This article first appeared in Issue 26 of our digital magazine CURIOUS. Subscribe and never miss an issue.

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David MacMillan

eLife is offering open access agreements for research institutions “in support of a more equitable and sustainable system for scientific publishing”.

Under these agreements, known as “uncapped schemes”, corresponding authors affiliated with a partner organisation can publish an unlimited number of articles in eLife during a two-year term, with their organisation agreeing to cover a preset fee for that period. The publisher says uncapped schemes are a step towards a more equitable and sustainable publishing landscape, and typically help institutions support their researchers in publishing open access.

eLife’s first adopter of the agreement is the MIT Libraries, which runs until the end of April 2027 and applies to research submitted and sent for peer review through the eLife model. Launched in 2023, the publish–review–curate (PRC) approach used by eLife combines the speed and openness of preprints with the scrutiny offered by peer review.

Once an article has been selected for peer review, the authors can be sure that it will be published in eLife as a Reviewed Preprint. This is a new type of scientific publication that includes the article, feedback from the reviewers, and an eLife Assessment that summarises the significance of the findings being reported and the strength of the evidence. This approach emphasises the scientific content of individual articles rather than journal name.

Adding to these benefits, eLife’s says the uncapped scheme makes the system more equitable by moving away from a publication fee per published article and allowing unlimited publications for eligible authors, regardless of their ability to pay. It is also aimed at speeding up the process for authors, as they can select their institute during submission and thereby bypass the payment process.

eLife has also developed a centralised scheme to help transition away from traditional author fees for publication.

“We’ve garnered strong support from the research community for our efforts to reform science publishing and assessment,” says Fiona Hutton, eLife Head of Publishing. “With our uncapped and centralised schemes, we hope to partner with other like-minded organisations that support alternative approaches to publishing so we can move towards a better system for all, together.”

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Venus is the brightest planet that can be seen from Earth. At its peak brightness, when 22% illuminated, Venus approaches mag. –5 – that’s so bright that it can cast shadows, if conditions allow.

Jupiter is bright too, able to reach mag. –2.94 under optimum conditions (coincidentally, that’s the same maximum brightness as Mars). Mercury isn’t far behind, able to attain a peak magnitude of –2.48.

Find out more about observing the planets in August and the August 2025 planet parade.

Of course, catching all four near one another at peak brightness can’t actually happen, as Jupiter and Mars need to be opposite the Sun, a position that Mercury and Venus can never attain.

That’s not to say that a meeting between some of these worlds isn’t impressive.

And in August 2025, you’ll have a chance to take a look and see for yourself.

Key dates

On 1 August, it’s just mag. –3.9 Venus and mag. –1.8 Jupiter that appear together in the dawn twilight.

They appear a little under 11° apart on this date, both being above the horizon just after 03:00 BST (02:00 UT).

But you’ll need to give them a bit more time to get to a decent altitude for viewing, say from around 04:00 BST (03:00 UT).

Over the course of the following mornings, the apparent gap between them closes due to Venus making a dash to the east, running under the stars that form the Gemini twin Castor’s foot.

Catch Venus early enough on 2 August, when the sky is still dark, and you might be able to see it 2.3° south of the open cluster M35. Binoculars will give the best view of this meeting. 

On the morning of 7 August, the separation will be just 5°, Venus’s eastward rush far greater than the slow eastward crawl currently exhibited by Jupiter.

Mercury is around too, but stubbornly refuses to be seen on this date, being too far entrenched in the Sun’s glare.

By 10 August, Jupiter and Venus will appear a little over 2° apart, now a striking pair for those who get up early enough to see them.

The closest approach occurs on the morning of 12 August, the planets being separated by 52 arcminutes.

Telescopically, Venus is showing a 13-arcsecond disc, 78%-illuminated.

Jupiter appears 33 arcseconds across. 

After 12 August, the pair start to separate once again, but another element is now ready to come into play.

Mercury is now brightening, appearing as a star-like dot in the morning twilight further to the east of the main pair.

Between 19 and 22 August, the waxing crescent Moon skips along the line of planets, augmenting what is sure to be an already dynamic Solar System display.

If you observe or photograph Venus and Jupiter in August 2025, we’d love to hear from you! Email us via contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com