Category: 7. Science

(Web Desk) – Salt giants and other striking formations in the Dead Sea reveal how evaporation and fluid dynamics shape Earth’s geological past and present.

The Dead Sea represents a unique convergence of conditions: it lies at the lowest point on Earth’s surface and contains one of the planet’s highest salt concentrations. This extreme salinity makes the water unusually dense, and its distinction as the deepest hypersaline lake produces remarkable, often temperature-driven processes beneath the surface that scientists are still working to understand.

Among the most intriguing features are the so-called salt giants — vast accumulations of salt within the Earth’s crust.

“These large deposits in the earth’s crust can be many, many kilometers horizontally, and they can be more than a kilometer thick in the vertical direction,” said UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Eckart Meiburg, lead author of a paper published in the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics. “How were they generated? The Dead Sea is really the only place in the world where we can study the mechanism of these things today.”

Although massive salt deposits are also present in places such as the Mediterranean and Red seas, the Dead Sea is the only location where they are actively forming. This makes it an unparalleled site for investigating the physical processes that govern their development, including how their thickness varies across space and time.

“It used to be such that even in the winter when things cooled off, the top layer was still less dense than the bottom layer,” Meiburg explained. “And so as a result, there was a stratification in the salt.”

This balance shifted in the early 1980s when partial diversion of the Jordan River reduced freshwater inflow, allowing evaporation to dominate. At that point, surface salinity reached levels comparable to the deep waters, enabling the two layers to mix. This change transformed the lake from meromictic to holomictic (a lake in which the water column overturns annually). Today, stratification still occurs, but it persists only for roughly eight months during the warmer part of the year.

 

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured astonishing new images of the planetary nebula NGC 1514, unveiling ghostly, infrared-bright rings around a dying star system located approximately 1,500 light-years from Earth. These structures, seen in unprecedented detail, provide astronomers with an extraordinary glimpse into the complex history and evolution of this stellar remnant.The findings, published in The Astronomical Journal under the title “JWST/MIRI Study of the Enigmatic Mid-infrared Rings in the Planetary Nebula NGC 1514,” reveal details never seen before. They allow scientists to study the turbulent 4,000-year history of the nebula and raise intriguing questions about the formation and behaviour of such celestial structures.

Unveiling NGC 1514: James Webb Space Telescope shows infrared rings of dying star

NGC 1514 was first discovered in 1790 by William Herschel, who observed its hazy glow surrounding a single star, a finding that challenged 18th-century ideas about nebulae. Over the centuries, astronomers repeatedly imaged the nebula, each time uncovering new layers of complexity.In 2010, NASA’s WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) detected a pair of infrared rings invisible in optical light. However, their precise structure and composition remained elusive-until the advent of JWST. Using the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), astronomers led by Michael Ressler of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory captured unprecedented images of the rings, showing fine-grained clumps, filaments, and turbulent features within the structures.

Inside NGC 1514: How a binary star system shapes ghostly rings

At the core of NGC 1514 lies a binary star system: a white dwarf and a giant companion star. The now-dead star expelled its outer layers as it evolved into a white dwarf, forming the glowing nebula. Its companion orbits closely, likely interacting gravitationally to shape the nebula’s peculiar hourglass structure.JWST’s images reveal a three-dimensional, pinched hourglass envelope, with the rings embedded across its midsection. The rings display asymmetries and unusual dust patterns, hinting at intense past interactions between the stars and complex processes that continue to puzzle astronomers.

JWST reveals unique thermal dust emission in NGC 1514

One of the most surprising discoveries is the nature of the rings’ emission. Unlike other planetary nebulae, which often show signals from molecules like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) or molecular hydrogen, over 98% of the light from NGC 1514’s rings comes from thermal radiation emitted by cool dust grains.This discovery suggests that the rings are fragile and structurally unique, and their formation mechanisms remain poorly understood. The striking clarity of JWST’s mid-infrared images emphasises the telescope’s transformative ability to reveal hidden geometries in complex nebulae.

How JWST transforms our understanding of NGC 1514 and dying star

NGC 1514 has evolved from a curious fuzzy patch in 18th-century telescopes to a scientific Rosetta Stone for understanding stellar death. The nebula’s symmetrical, ghostly rings challenge conventional theories about the final stages of stellar evolution and highlight the intricate interactions within binary star systems.These observations underscore JWST’s crucial role in expanding our understanding of planetary nebulae and the dynamic processes shaping them. Even as astronomers uncover more about NGC 1514, the nebula continues to redefine our knowledge of dying stars and cosmic evolution.

(Web Desk) – Giant impact structures, including the potential remains of ancient “protoplanets,” may be lurking deep beneath the surface of Mars, new research hints. The mysterious lumps, which have been perfectly preserved within the Red Planet’s immobile innards for billions of years, may date back to the beginning of the solar system.

In a new study, published Aug. 28 in the journal Science, researchers analyzed “Marsquake” data collected by NASA’s InSight lander, which monitored tremors beneath the Martian surface from 2018 until 2022, when it met an untimely demise from dust blocking its solar panels. By looking at how these Marsquakes vibrated through the Red Planet’s unmoving mantle, the team discovered several never-before-seen blobs that were much denser than the surrounding material.

The researchers have identified dozens of potential structures, measuring up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) across, at various depths within Mars’ mantle, which is made of 960 miles (1,550 km) of solid rock that can reach temperatures as high as 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius).

“We’ve never seen the inside of a planet in such fine detail and clarity before,” study lead author Constantinos Charalambous, a planetary scientist at Imperial College London, said in a NASA statement. “What we’re seeing is a mantle studded with ancient fragments.”

Based on the hidden objects’ size and depth, the researchers think the structures were made when objects slammed into Mars up to 4.5 billion years ago, during the early days of the solar system. Some of the objects were likely protoplanets — giant rocks that were capable of growing into full-size planets if they had remained undisturbed, the researchers wrote.

The researchers first noticed the buried structures when they found that some of the Marsquake signals took longer to pass through parts of the mantle than others. By tracing back these signals, they identified regions with higher densities than the surrounding rock, suggesting that those sections did not originate there. Mars is a single-plate planet, meaning that its crust remains fully intact, unlike Earth’s, which is divided into tectonic plates. As pieces of Earth’s crust subduct through plate boundaries, they sink into the mantle, which causes the molten rock within our planet to rise and fall via convection. But on Mars, this does not happen, which means its mantle is fixed in place and does not fully melt.

The newly discovered blobs are further proof that Mars’ interior is much less active than Earth’s.

“Their survival to this day tells us Mars’ mantle has evolved sluggishly over billions of years,” Charalambous said. “On Earth, features like these may well have been largely erased.”

Because Mars has no tectonic activity, Marsquakes are instead triggered by landslides, cracking rocks or meteoroid impacts, which frequently pepper the planet’s surface. These tremors have also been used to detect other hidden objects beneath the Red Planet’s surface, including a giant underground ocean discovered using InSight data last year.

In total, InSight captured data on 1,319 Marsquakes during its roughly four-year-long mission. However, scientists were still surprised that they could map the planet’s insides in such great detail.

“We knew Mars was a time capsule bearing records of its early formation, but we didn’t anticipate just how clearly we’d be able to see with InSight,” study co-author Tom Pike, a space exploration engineer at Imperial College London, said in the statement. 

Durham University scientists have unveiled a major advance in drone swarm technology that could transform the way unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used in real-world missions.

Their newly developed system, known as T-STAR, allows swarms of drones to fly faster, safer, and with unprecedented coordination, even in highly complex and obstacle-filled environments.

Drone swarms have long been seen as the future of applications such as search and rescue operations, disaster response, forest fire monitoring, environmental exploration, and parcel delivery.

Yet until now, drones working in groups have struggled to combine speed with safety.

When navigating unpredictable surroundings, traditional systems often force drones to slow down drastically or risk collisions, limiting their effectiveness in urgent or large-scale missions.

The T-STAR system tackles these challenges by enabling drones to communicate and share information in real time, the system allows each drone to adjust its path instantly in response to changing conditions or the movements of nearby drones.

This prevents collisions, keeps formations intact, and ensures the swarm continues towards its goal with minimal delay.

Importantly, the technology achieves this without compromising speed. Tests have shown that swarms guided by T-STAR complete their missions faster and with smoother, more reliable flight paths than existing methods.

Lead author of the study, Dr Junyan Hu of Durham University, said: “T-STAR allows autonomous aerial vehicles to operate as a truly intelligent swarm, combining speed, safety, and coordination in ways that were previously impossible.

“This opens up new possibilities for using cooperative robotic swarms in complex scenarios, where every second counts.”

In practice, this means drones could one day be deployed more effectively to save lives during emergencies such as earthquakes or floods, to track and contain wildfires, or to deliver supplies in hard-to-reach areas.

The researchers also believe the technology has strong potential for everyday applications, from agriculture to logistics, where teams of autonomous flying robots could operate at a scale and efficiency previously thought impossible.

What makes T-STAR especially pioneering is its balance between agility and teamwork.

Each drone operates with a high degree of independence, yet remains part of a coordinated network, much like birds in a flock.

This approach gives the swarm both resilience and flexibility, ensuring it can adapt to challenges on the fly.

Extensive simulations and laboratory experiments have already demonstrated T-STAR’s superiority over existing systems, and the researchers are now looking towards real-world trials in larger outdoor environments.

Media Information

Sept. 3 (UPI) — NASA said Wednesday the “next era” of lunar exploration demands a new kind of wheel as the space agency unveiled its “Rock and Roll” challenge.

The so-called “Rock and Roll with NASA” challenge seeks a clever inventor or team to design and create for NASA a special wheel that can, NASA said: “sprint across razor-sharp regolith, shrug off extremely cold nights and keep a rover rolling day after lunar day.”

“Whether you’re a student team, a garage inventor, or a seasoned aerospace firm, this is your opportunity to rewrite the playbook of planetary mobility and leave tread marks on the future of exploration,” officials at NASA said in a release.

The space agency added that an ultimately successfully idea could possibly “set the pace” for future surface missions.

Ideally, the wheel design would be a “lightweight, compliant wheel that stays tough at higher speeds while carrying lots of cargo,” NASA said.

The three-phase challenge starts by rewarding the best concepts and analyses and funding for prototypes in the second phase.

By phase three, the best wheels will be put through a live NASA obstacle course simulating lunar terrain at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Aside from the engineering glory, NASA’s contest also will award $155,000 in total prizes.

The open date for the phase one enrollment closes November 4, with phase two and three dates extending through next year.

“Follow the challenge, assemble your crew and roll out a solution that takes humanity back to the moon,” NASA officials added on Wednesday.

UPTON, N.Y. — Cell walls don’t just provide support and protection for plants — they’re also packed with energy-rich biomaterials that could open new pathways for additional fuel, chemical, and material sources in the U.S. That’s why biologists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are untangling the complex genetic mechanisms that regulate these useful plant materials, known as biomass.

In a study just published in The Plant Biotechnology Journal, the research team identified a plant protein that plays a key role in three important biological processes in poplar plants — iron deficiency responses, cell wall biosynthesis, and the synthesis of disease-fighting molecules.

“The protein is called PtrbHLH011, and it first caught our attention several years ago when we were identifying genes and proteins that influence how poplar plants respond to nutrition stresses,” said Meng Xie, a Brookhaven biologist and the lead author on the new paper. “We found that expression of the PtrbHLH011 gene was largely reduced in stressed plants growing in an iron-deficient medium.”

During photosynthesis, plants need iron to convert sunlight into chemical energy that powers growth. With a deeper understanding of how plant genes and proteins like PtrbHLH011 work, biologists are working to develop bioenergy crops that can hyperaccumulate this important mineral and thrive even on iron-deficient, marginal land.

Traditionally, researchers have worked to increase cell wall sugars that can be converted into biofuels. But in recent years, a rigid cell wall component called lignin has caught their attention because it can be used to produce valuable bioproducts with industrial applications, like cement and adhesives.

“Different environmental factors can affect not just cell wall biosynthesis but also the ratio of cell wall components, like sugars and lignin,” Xie explained. “We set out to study the molecular mechanism underlying this so-called ‘environmental plasticity.’”

Gene “knock out” with a big payoff

Because some proteins have overlapping roles — or several, seemingly unrelated roles — it can be difficult to untangle the function of one from another. So, biologists often “knock out,” or deactivate, a gene to better understand the function of the protein it codes for.

In this case, collaborators at the University of Maryland developed poplar plants lacking PtrbHLH011.

The knockout plants simultaneously produced twice as much lignin and exhibited enhanced growth for the first time ever. This was especially surprising because prior studies show that increasing lignin content — and consequently, stiffening cell walls — typically diverts energy from growth and limits the overall biomass yield.

The modified plants also accumulated three times more iron in their leaves and increased production of flavonoids, which are compounds that can help plants fight disease.

Consistent with these observations, plants engineered by Brookhaven biologists to overexpress the PtrbHLH011 gene exhibited the opposite traits: stunted growth, weaker cell walls, increased sensitivity to disease, and yellow leaves characteristic of nutrient stress.

“PtrbHLH011 is a special type of protein called a transcription factor, meaning it binds to specific sequences of plant DNA and regulates the expression of several target genes,” explained Yuqiu Dai, a postdoctoral fellow at Brookhaven Lab and a first author on the new paper. “So, we expected that disrupting the PtrbHLH011 gene would affect several biological processes associated with its target genes.”

However, the researchers were surprised to find that knocking out the PtrbHLH011 protein increased several processes that require significant amounts of energy, which would normally impose a significant metabolic burden for the plants.

“We suspect the three-fold increase in leaf iron content boosted photosynthesis in the plants, ultimately generating more energy to support plant growth and the synthesis of lignin and flavonoids,” said Xie.

The surge in flavonoid synthesis is especially compelling as biologists from Brookhaven and beyond ramp up bio-preparedness efforts to protect U.S. bioenergy plants from disease. Through future studies examining how plants respond to infection and disease, researchers aim to uncover underlying mechanisms that could be leveraged to strengthen crops’ resistance to pathogens that reduce biomass yield.

With the identification of a gene regulatory mechanism that is modulated by PtrbHLH011, the Brookhaven researchers are also working to fine tune the expression of its specific target genes.

“If we can modulate the individual ‘downstream’ target genes, rather than a transcription factor that regulates all of them, we’ll be able to more precisely control one biological process at a time,” Dai said.

Xie added, “The foundational understanding we established during this study will enable our biotechnology efforts to advance the production of bioenergy and bioproduct feedstocks.

“These findings were the result of successful integration of multiple DOE Office of Science facilities and capabilities,” said Xie. For example, collaborators at the Joint Genome Institute measured the levels of gene expression in the engineered plants, and a collaborator at the Molecular Foundry provided insights into how the newly discovered regulatory mechanism adapted as land plants, like poplar, evolved. The Brookhaven researchers used confocal microscopy at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) to visualize where PtrbHLH011 was expressed in plant cells. They measured biomass lignin content in Brookhaven’s Biology Department. And with collaborators from the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), the researchers conducted X-ray bio-imaging experiments at the Submicron Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy (SRX) and Life Science X-ray Scattering (LiX) beamlines to study iron accumulation and cell wall structure in the poplar plants.

The Joint Genome Institute and the Molecular Foundry are DOE Office of Science user facilities at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. CFN and NSLS-II are DOE Office of Science user facilities at Brookhaven Lab.

This research was supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

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Photo Credit: University of Minnesota

3D-Printed Scaffolds to Repair the Spinal Cord

The technique is based on the fabrication of a 3D-printed structure designed to host lab-grown tissues, which researchers call an organoid scaffold. This structure contains tiny microscopic channels into which spinal cord–specific neural progenitor cells are introduced. These cells, derived from human adult stem cells, have the ability to multiply and transform into different types of mature nerve cells. “We use the 3D printed channels of the scaffold to direct the growth of the stem cells, which ensures the new nerve fibers grow in the desired way,” explains Guebum Han, former postdoctoral researcher in mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota and first author of the study. “This method creates a relay system that, when placed in the spinal cord, bypasses the damaged area.“

In their experiment, the researchers implanted these scaffolds in rats with severe spinal cord injuries. The cells turned into neurons and developed nerve fibers in both directions, forming new connections with existing neural circuits. Over time, these new cells fully integrated into the spinal cord tissue, enabling the rats to regain certain motor functions. “Regenerative medicine has brought about a new era in spinal cord injury research,” says Ann Parr, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota. While this research is still in its early stages, it represents a new source of hope for people affected by such injuries. The team now plans to scale up production of these structures and continue their development for future medical applications.

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*Cover Photo Credit: Motion Array 

The next astronauts to travel around the moon seem plenty fit to make the trip.

The four astronauts who will fly on NASA’s Artemis 2 mission recently passed the “Bobby and Pete Challenge,” performing 50 pull-ups and 100 pushups in less than 10 minutes.

The quartet — NASA’s Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman, and Jeremy Hansen of the Canadian Space Agency — chronicled their achievement in a 50-second video, which NASA posted on X on Aug. 29.

The Bobby and Pete Challenge takes its name from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who popularized the viral fitness test in an Aug. 18 video.

As coral reefs decline at unprecedented rates, new research has revealed that some coral species may be more resilient to warming temperatures than others. 

By studying how six months of elevated ocean temperatures would affect a species of coral from the northern Red Sea called Stylophora pistillata, scientists found that although these organisms can certainly survive in conditions that mimic future warming trends, they don’t thrive.

Stylophora pistillata tend to be tolerant of high ocean temperatures, but when continuously exposed to temperatures of 27.5 and 30 degrees Celsius (81.5 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit) — baseline warming expected in tropical oceans by 2050 and 2100 — scientists saw various changes in coral growth, metabolic rates, and even energy reserves. For instance, coral in 27.5 degrees Celsius waters survived, but were 30% smaller than their control group; those placed in 30 degrees Celsius waters wound up being 70% smaller. 

“In theory, if corals in the wild at these temperatures are smaller, reefs might not be as diverse and may not be able to support as much marine life,” said Ann Marie Hulver, lead author of the study and a former graduate student and postdoctoral scholar in earth sciences at The Ohio State University. “This could have adverse effects on people that depend on the reef for tourism, fishing or food.”

Overall, the team’s results suggest that even the most thermally tolerant coral species may suffer in their inability to overcome the consequences of warming seas. 

The study was published today in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

While current predictions for coral reefs are dire, there is some good news. During the first 11 weeks of the experiment, researchers saw that corals were only minimally affected by elevated baseline temperatures. Instead, it was the cumulative impact of chronic high temperatures that compromised coral growth and caused them to experience a higher metabolic demand. 

The coral later recovered after being exposed for a month to 25 degree Celsius waters, but had a dark pigmentation compared to corals that were never heated. This discovery implies that despite facing ever longer periods of threat from high ocean temperatures in the summer months, resilient coral like S. pistillata can bounce back when waters cool in the winter, researchers say. 

Still, as ocean temperatures are expected to increase by 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, expecting coral reefs to predictably bend to projected climate models can be difficult, according to the researchers. 

This team’s research does paint a more detailed picture of how coral reefs may look and function in the next 50 years, said Andrea Grottoli, co-author of the study and a professor in earth sciences at Ohio State.

“Survival is certainly the No. 1 important thing for coral, but when they’re physiologically compromised, they can’t do that forever,” said Grottoli. “So there’s a limit to how long these resilient corals can cope with an ever increasing warming ocean.”

Gaining a more complex understanding of how warming waters can alter coral growth and feeding patterns may also better inform long-term conservation efforts, said Grottoli. 

“Conservation efforts could focus on areas where resilient coral are present and create protected sanctuaries so that there are some ecosystems that grow as high-probability-success reefs for the future,” she said. 

For now, all coral reefs are still in desperate need of protection, researchers note. To that end, Hulver imagines future work could be aimed at investigating the resilience of similar species of coral, including replicating this experiment to determine if sustained warming might cause trade-offs in other biological processes, such as reproduction. 

“For coral, six months is still a very small snapshot of their lives,” said Hulver. “We’ll have to keep on studying them.”

Other Ohio state co-authors include Shannon Dixon and Agustí Muñoz-Garcia as well as Éric Béraud and Christine Ferrier-Pagès from the Centre Scientifique de Monaco, and Aurélie Moya, Rachel Alderdice and Christian R Voolstra from the University of Konstanz. The study was supported by the National Science Foundation and the German Research Foundation. 

Activity associated with choice showed up in cortical areas, in line with previous findings, but it also occurred in subcortical areas such as the hindbrain and cerebellum, challenging the notion that only a few select areas encode information about decision-making and supporting the idea that it is widespread.

“It is interesting how much choice selectivity is everywhere,” says Long Ding, research associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the work.

Movement- and feedback-related signals also pervaded across the brain: 81 percent of recorded brain regions contained information that could predict the animal’s wheel speed, and activity from nearly all recorded brain regions—including those beyond the associated reward areas—accurately predicted whether the mouse had received a reward or not, with stronger activity in the thalamus, the midbrain and the hindbrain.

If the mice saw the circle more often on one side of the screen than the other, they eventually integrated that prior information into their next decision. This information was represented broadly across 20 to 30 percent of the brain, including in sensory processing areas, such as the dorsal lateral geniculate, that are located early in the visual pathway, the team reported in the second study.

The findings contradict the long-standing idea that prior information is integrated into the process only in higher-order cortical or decision-making regions “at the very last step,” Churchland says. Instead, priors shape decisions all along, the new findings suggest.

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ltogether, the studies suggest that the current model of decision-making and the brain regions that control it might be limited in scope and that other, unexplored brain areas might also be important, Churchland says.

And although the analyses show that a distributed network of brain regions contains information about decision-making even at early stages of sensory processing, the results do not show causality, so future studies need to determine how that information is used, Ding says. “Yes, [the information is] reflected everywhere, but where is it actually used for the next decision, for learning?”

The comprehensive map sets the stage for those next experiments and could even act as a “library” to help neuroscientists double-check results in their own labs, de Lange says, and ultimately, these studies underscore the importance of large-scale, multilab efforts, particularly for studying brain activity.

The global consortium has since expanded to include 21 experimental and theoretical neuroscience labs and has established a new group called IBL 2.0 that plans to share the tools and expertise it has amassed with new partners, Churchland says. “I hope that our work makes clear that when larger groups of folks team up, they can accomplish things that are beyond the scale of a single laboratory and that really generate critical insights for the field.”