In May, we reported on a first-of-its-kind video that captured surface rupture during Myanmar’s devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake. While the YouTube video now has 1.6 million views, two geophysicists spotted something many people probably didn’t notice.
The video seems like a gift that just keeps on giving. As the Kyoto University scientists explain in a study published last month in The Seismic Record, it also includes the first direct visual evidence of pulse-like rupturing and a curved fault slip. This means the two sides of the strike-slip fault didn’t just slip horizontally past each other—the slip path also dipped downward. While scientists have previously inferred both features from seismic data and post-earthquake observations and seismic data, the video provides direct visual evidence.
“Our results provide the first direct visual evidence of curved coseismic fault slip, bridging a critical gap among seismological observations, geological data, and theoretical models,” the researchers wrote in the study.
You might be wondering how the researchers inferred all that from a very brief video excerpt. The answer is that they analyzed Myanmar’s Sagaing Fault’s movement in the footage frame-by-frame. With this approach, they discovered that the fault slipped sideways 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) in 1.3 seconds, with a peak speed of 10.5 feet (3.2 meters) per second.
While the earthquake’s entire sideways movement was normal for strike-slip events, “the brief duration of motion confirms a pulse-like rupture, characterized by a concentrated burst of slip propagating along the fault, much like a ripple traveling down a rug when flicked from one end,” Jesse Kearse, a co-author of the study from Kyoto University, said in a university statement.
Kearse and co-author Yoshihiro Kaneko’s analysis also revealed that the fault’s slip path was slightly curved. This finding aligns with curved slickenlines—scratches caused by rocks scraping against each other along a fault—that earthquake geologists often find after earthquakes. The video provides the first visual proof of the curved slip behind the striations.
“Instead of things moving straight across the video screen, they moved along a curved path that has a convexity downwards, which instantly started bells ringing in my head,” Kearse explained in a statement by the Seismological Society of America. “The dynamic stresses of the earthquake as it’s approaching and begins to rupture the fault near the ground surface are able to induce an obliquity to the fault movement,” he adds. “These transient stresses push the fault off its intended course initially, and then it catches itself and does what it’s supposed to do, after that.”
More broadly, the Myanmar earthquake’s north-to-south rupture confirms the researchers’ previous conclusion that slip curvature types depend on the direction of said rupture. Accordingly, earthquake scientists can study slickenlines to understand bygone earthquakes, potentially informing future risks.
“Together these findings impose critical observational constraints on future rupture simulations,” the researchers conclude in the study, “and deepen our understanding of the physical mechanisms that control rapid fault slip during large earthquakes.”
The intriguing rules of quantum physics almost always fail when you move from atoms and molecules to much larger objects at high temperatures.
This is because the bigger an object gets and higher the temperature is, the harder it becomes to stop it from interacting with surroundings, a phenomenon that usually erases the delicate quantum behavior.
However, a new study has managed something that seriously pushes these limits. The research has shown that a tiny glass sphere—still over a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand but huge by quantum standards—can have its rotational motion cooled down to almost the quietest state allowed by quantum physics at about 92% purity, even while the particle itself is burning hot at several hundred degrees.
This is the first time scientists have reached such a pure quantum state without having to chill the entire object to near absolute zero, opening doors to experiments once thought impossible outside of deep-freeze labs.
“The purity reached by our room-temperature experiment exceeds the performance offered by mechanically clamped oscillators in a cryogenic environment, establishing a platform for high-purity quantum optomechanics at room temperature,” the study authors note.
A clever shortcut targeting object’s specific motion
Normally, to see quantum behavior in an object larger than a molecule, researchers have to go to extremes: levitating the particle in a vacuum to shield it from outside interference, and cooling its surroundings to near -273.15°C so its motion becomes as orderly as quantum rules allow.
Even then, it’s tricky. This is because motion in the quantum world is quantized—it can only happen in specific chunks called vibration quanta. There is a lowest-energy mode called the ground state, a first excited state with a little more energy, and so on.
Though the particle can exist in a mix of these states. Reaching the ground state for a large particle has been a milestone goal. Until now, it required cooling everything to frigid extremes.
The study authors took a clever shortcut. Instead of trying to chill the particle’s entire internal energy (which is massive compared to the energy of its motion), they targeted just one specific motion: its rotation.
Controlling laser light, mirror systems to drain rotational energy
The researchers used a nanoparticle shaped not as a perfect sphere, but as a slightly stretched ellipse. When trapped in an electromagnetic field, such a particle naturally rotates around a fixed alignment, like a compass needle wobbling around north.
By precisely controlling laser light and mirror systems, forming a high-finesse optical cavity, the team could influence this wobble. The trick here is that the laser can either feed energy into the rotation or take energy away from it.
By carefully adjusting the mirrors so that energy removal was far more likely than energy addition, scientists drained almost all the rotational energy away. While doing so, they also had to account for and control quantum noise from the lasers, random fluctuations that could otherwise ruin the delicate process.
This resulted in a rotational motion freezing into a state extremely close to the quantum ground state, with just 0.04 quanta of residual energy and about 92% quantum purity, even though the particle’s internal temperature was still hundreds of degrees Celsius.
The key to making quantum systems more practical
This result breaks a long-standing barrier in quantum research. It shows that one does not have to cool an entire object to ultra-low temperatures to study its quantum properties.
Instead, by treating different types of motion, like rotation, separately, one can selectively bring parts of a system into the quantum regime while the rest remains hot and messy.
This approach could make it much easier to explore quantum effects in bigger, more complex systems—from biological structures to engineered devices—without requiring massive cryogenic setups.
However, the work focused on one specific motion in a carefully chosen nanoparticle. Hence, it is not yet an universal recipe for every large object. Future research will likely explore whether the same principles can control other motions or work with different shapes and materials.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Physics.
The intriguing rules of quantum physics almost always fail when you move from atoms and molecules to much larger objects at high temperatures.
This is because the bigger an object gets and higher the temperature is, the harder it becomes to stop it from interacting with surroundings, a phenomenon that usually erases the delicate quantum behavior.
However, a new study has managed something that seriously pushes these limits. The research has shown that a tiny glass sphere—still over a thousand times smaller than a grain of sand but huge by quantum standards—can have its rotational motion cooled down to almost the quietest state allowed by quantum physics at about 92% purity, even while the particle itself is burning hot at several hundred degrees.
This is the first time scientists have reached such a pure quantum state without having to chill the entire object to near absolute zero, opening doors to experiments once thought impossible outside of deep-freeze labs.
“The purity reached by our room-temperature experiment exceeds the performance offered by mechanically clamped oscillators in a cryogenic environment, establishing a platform for high-purity quantum optomechanics at room temperature,” the study authors note.
A clever shortcut targeting object’s specific motion
Normally, to see quantum behavior in an object larger than a molecule, researchers have to go to extremes: levitating the particle in a vacuum to shield it from outside interference, and cooling its surroundings to near -273.15°C so its motion becomes as orderly as quantum rules allow.
Even then, it’s tricky. This is because motion in the quantum world is quantized—it can only happen in specific chunks called vibration quanta. There is a lowest-energy mode called the ground state, a first excited state with a little more energy, and so on.
Though the particle can exist in a mix of these states. Reaching the ground state for a large particle has been a milestone goal. Until now, it required cooling everything to frigid extremes.
The study authors took a clever shortcut. Instead of trying to chill the particle’s entire internal energy (which is massive compared to the energy of its motion), they targeted just one specific motion: its rotation.
Controlling laser light, mirror systems to drain rotational energy
The researchers used a nanoparticle shaped not as a perfect sphere, but as a slightly stretched ellipse. When trapped in an electromagnetic field, such a particle naturally rotates around a fixed alignment, like a compass needle wobbling around north.
By precisely controlling laser light and mirror systems, forming a high-finesse optical cavity, the team could influence this wobble. The trick here is that the laser can either feed energy into the rotation or take energy away from it.
By carefully adjusting the mirrors so that energy removal was far more likely than energy addition, scientists drained almost all the rotational energy away. While doing so, they also had to account for and control quantum noise from the lasers, random fluctuations that could otherwise ruin the delicate process.
This resulted in a rotational motion freezing into a state extremely close to the quantum ground state, with just 0.04 quanta of residual energy and about 92% quantum purity, even though the particle’s internal temperature was still hundreds of degrees Celsius.
The key to making quantum systems more practical
This result breaks a long-standing barrier in quantum research. It shows that one does not have to cool an entire object to ultra-low temperatures to study its quantum properties.
Instead, by treating different types of motion, like rotation, separately, one can selectively bring parts of a system into the quantum regime while the rest remains hot and messy.
This approach could make it much easier to explore quantum effects in bigger, more complex systems—from biological structures to engineered devices—without requiring massive cryogenic setups.
However, the work focused on one specific motion in a carefully chosen nanoparticle. Hence, it is not yet an universal recipe for every large object. Future research will likely explore whether the same principles can control other motions or work with different shapes and materials.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Physics.
🔍 Scientists propose two new theories that may explain the origins of dark matter.
🌌 Theories include a potential “mirror world” and a cosmic horizon acting like a particle factory.
🧪 These theories offer testable predictions to challenge established dark matter models.
🔬 Researchers are shifting focus from particle detection to understanding creation processes.
Recent developments in theoretical physics are providing new avenues for understanding the mysterious substance known as dark matter, which makes up approximately 85% of the universe’s mass. Two novel approaches are gaining attention: one proposes a “mirror world” composed of twin particles, and the other suggests that the young universe’s expanding edge could have generated particles similar to a black hole horizon. Both theories offer testable predictions and challenge established models, enriching the ongoing quest to uncover the origins of dark matter.
The Puzzle of Dark Matter
For decades, scientists have been puzzled by evidence of dark matter. Galaxies rotate faster than their visible mass should allow, and galaxy clusters bend light more than expected. These anomalies suggest a hidden mass that does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, making it invisible and detectable only through gravitational effects. Current estimates indicate that around 85% of the universe’s matter is dark, cold, and slow-moving on cosmic scales.
Despite numerous experiments, the most popular dark matter candidates have remained elusive. This lack of detection has pushed theorists to explore new ideas. Physicist Stefano Profumo from the University of California, Santa Cruz, observes that the speculative nature of these new theories offers fresh perspectives that do not rely on conventional particle dark matter models, which face increasing pressure from null experimental results.
Chinese Scientist Claims “We Mapped 27 Million Cosmic Objects in One Shot” as AI Space Tool Sparks Tensions Over Tech Dominance and Data Secrecy
Two New Theories Emerge
The first theory, recently published in the journal arXiv, envisions a mirror sector—a duplicate realm of known particles and forces that interacts weakly with our own. In this hidden world, a version of the strong force could bind “dark quarks” into heavy “dark baryons.” During the early universe, these baryons might have collapsed into tiny, stable relics akin to miniature black holes. If formed in the right quantities, they could explain the universe’s missing mass while remaining undetectable by current instruments.
The second theory, detailed in the journal Physical Review D, suggests that the expanding horizon of the early universe served as a particle factory. After inflation, the cosmos may have experienced a brief period of accelerated expansion. During this phase, the cosmic horizon would have had a temperature and emitted particles, much like a black hole. If stable particles were created this way, they could constitute dark matter across a wide range of masses.
Astrophysicist Says “We’re Trapped in a Black Hole” as James Webb Unleashes Panic Over Mind-Bending Discovery That Shakes All Known Physics
Testing the Mirror World Hypothesis
The mirror world theory has been around for years, but recent studies have sharpened its potential explanations for dark matter’s abundance. The theory posits two main possibilities: mirror electrons or mirror baryons as dark matter candidates. Both scenarios predict the existence of a “mirror photon” with a mass in the million-electron-volt range, which could explain the smoothness of small galaxies without conflicting with large-scale structures.
Future cosmic background surveys could potentially detect this model’s predicted small but measurable extra amount of early-universe radiation. Additionally, better mapping of stars in small galaxies could reveal self-interacting dark matter changes, supporting or refuting the mirror world hypothesis. Observations of the cosmic microwave background could also identify any extra radiation from the mirror world.
Galactic Horror Unleashed: The Star-Devouring Phenomenon That’s Splitting the Scientific Community and Defying Every Known Law
The Horizon of Creation Theory
Profumo’s second proposal offers a simpler setup. It imagines the universe just after inflation in a nearly steady expansion phase. In this state, the cosmic horizon acts like a hot surface, generating particles through quantum effects. If these particles are stable and interact only through gravity, they could persist as dark matter today. The final amount depends on conditions during this phase and the temperature when normal expansion resumed.
By measuring certain features of the early universe, scientists could narrow down the possible mass of this type of dark matter. Gravitational waves or small deviations in early expansion could indicate a brief accelerated phase, providing further evidence for this theory. Understanding the temperature at the end of this phase would help constrain the mass range for the dark matter particles.
As scientists continue to explore these bold theories, they open new pathways for discovering dark matter. Instead of solely focusing on particle detection in laboratories, researchers are now looking to galaxy surveys, cosmic background maps, and gravitational wave detectors for clues. These approaches reflect a broader shift in thinking, moving from identifying specific particles to understanding the processes that may have created them. Will these innovative theories lead to a breakthrough in our understanding of the universe’s hidden mass?
This article is based on verified sources and supported by editorial technologies.
During the early days of our Solar System, giant impacts were common occurrences. Earth likely experienced such an impact that created our Moon, and Mars may have been struck by objects that created its asymmetrical surface features. But what about Venus?
Venus captured by the Magellan spacecraft (Credit : NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Researchers led by M. Bussmann from the University of Zurich, used advanced computer simulations called smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to model what would happen if Venus were struck by massive objects early in its formation. These simulations can track how materials behave during extreme collisions, making them perfect for studying planetary impacts.
The team modelled Venus as it likely existed after its initial formation: a differentiated planet with an iron core making up 30% of its mass and a forsterite mantle comprising the remaining 70%. They then simulated impacts with objects ranging from 0.01 to 0.1 Earth masses, gigantic asteroids by today’s standards.
The simulations explored various impact scenarios with specific parameters; collision speeds between 10 and 15 km/s, different impact geometries (from head-on to oblique collisions), various primordial thermal profiles, and different pre-impact rotation rates of Venus. By running these digital experiments, researchers could analyse how such collisions might affect Venus’s post impact rotation periods and debris disc formation.
Ceres, the most massive asteroid today is a mere 0.00016 Earth masses. (Credit : Justin Cowart)
The study’s findings reveal that a wide range of impact scenarios are consistent with Venus’s current rotation rate. These include head-on collisions on a non-rotating Venus and oblique, hit and run impacts by Mars sized bodies on a rotating Venus. Most importantly however, they found that collisions matching Venus’s present day rotation rate typically produce minimal debris discs that reside within Venus’s synchronous orbit. This means the material would likely reaccrete back onto the planet, preventing the formation of long lasting satellites, perfectly explaining Venus’s lack of a moon.
The researchers conclude definitively that a giant impact can be consistent with both Venus’s unusual rotation and lack of a moon, potentially setting the stage for its subsequent thermal evolution.
The study serves as a foundation for future research into Venus’s long term thermal evolution. Understanding the initial thermal state created by these potential impacts is essential for modelling how Venus developed its thick atmosphere, extreme greenhouse effect, and geological features over billions of years.
As space agencies plan new missions to Venus in the coming decades, this research provides valuable help for interpreting the geological and atmospheric data these missions will collect. The story of Venus’s violent early history may finally be coming into focus, revealing how our sister planet became the hellish world we observe today.
Source : The possibility of a giant impact on Venus
Scientists apparently underestimated the aggression of itty-bitty male fiddler crabs when they deployed a friendly robot version during mating season.
In a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, animal behavior researchers from the UK’s University of Exeter detailed the embarrassing end to their experiment with “Wavy Dave,” a 3D-printed, Bluetooth-controlled crab-bot trained to wave at its fellow crustaceans.
Known for having one claw that’s much larger than the other, fiddler crabs not only wave their large pincers to attract mates, but actually hold diminutive competitions during their mating seasons in which females choose those whose claws are biggest — yes, seriously — and wave the fastest.
Though scientists already knew that male fiddler crabs will, as lead study author Joe Wilde said in a statement, “adjust their sexual displays if rivals are nearby,” less was known about what exactly those males do in response to the rivals themselves.
To test it out, Wilde — who is now at the Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland lab — and his Exeter colleagues took Wavy Dave out for a spin during fiddler crab mating season in the mudflats of Portugal’s Ria Formosa Natural Park.
Initially, the males left Dave alone, possibly because his larger claw was bigger — and therefore more likely to win the attention of females or pose a threat — than their own. At some point, however, “the females realized [the robot] was a bit odd,” Wilde said, which led some of the male fiddlers to confront him.
Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out so well for the little crab robot.
“One male broke Wavy Dave by pulling off his claw,” the lead author wrote. “We had to abandon that trial and reboot the robot.”
Despite their creation getting torn to pieces, however, Wilde and his team learned a lot from their short-lived experiment.
“If you own a shop and your rivals start selling things really cheaply, you might have to change how you run your business,” the researcher explained. “The same might be true for males signaling to attract females — and our study suggests males do indeed respond to competition.”
As with humans and other animals, the male fiddler crabs who took Dave down have “subtle ways” of adjusting how they act “to compete in a dynamic environment, investing more in [sexual] signaling when it is likely to be most profitable.”
Like so many drunk bros in bar fights, the male fiddlers only attacked Wavy Dave after assessing the situation and getting feedback from the females — and ultimately, nobody lost except for the robot.
More on responses to robots:As Waymo Debuts in Philadelphia, It May Want to Look Into the Time Furious Locals Tore Apart an Adorable Robot
Wanda Woods enrolled because her father advised that typing proficiency would lead to jobs. Sure enough, the federal Environmental Protection Agency hired her as an after-school worker while she was still a junior.
Her supervisor “sat me down and put me on a machine called a word processor,” Ms. Woods, now 67, recalled. “It was big and bulky and used magnetic cards to store information. I thought, ‘I kinda like this.’”
Decades later, she was still liking it. In 2012 — the first year that more than half of Americans over 65 used the internet — she started a computer training business.
Now she is an instructor with Senior Planet in Denver, an AARP-supported effort to help older people learn and stay abreast of technology. Ms. Woods has no plans to retire. Staying involved with tech “keeps me in the know, too,” she said.
Some neuroscientists researching the effects of technology on older adults are inclined to agree. The first cohort of seniors to have contended — not always enthusiastically — with a digital society has reached the age when cognitive impairment becomes more common.
Given decades of alarms about technology’s threats to our brains and well-being — sometimes called “digital dementia” — one might expect to start seeing negative effects.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that gave me hope, sent me back in time, and dragged me onto the dance-floor.
First, what’s your favorite cockatoo dance move? To be fully informed in your response, you will need to review the latest literature on innovations in avian choreography. Then: salvation for sea stars, a tooth extraction you’ll actually like, ancient vortex planets, and what to expect when you’re an expecting cockroach.
Everybody do the cockatoo
Lubke, Natasha et al. “Dance behaviour in cockatoos: Implications for cognitive processes and welfare.” PLOS One.
If you play your cards right as a scientist, you can spend all day watching cockatoos dance online and IRL. That’s what one team of researchers figured out, according to a new study that identified 17 cockatoo dance moves previously unknown to science.
“Anecdotally, parrots (Psittaciformes) have been reported to show ‘dancing’ behaviour to music in captivity which has been supported by studies on a few individuals,” said researchers led by Natasha Lubke of Charles Sturt University. “However, to date it remains unclear why parrots show dance behavior in response to music in captivity when birds are not courting or in the absence of any potential sexual partner.” Cockatoos, by the way, are a type of parrot.
It’s worth pursuing this mystery in part because parrots are popular pets and zoo attractions that require environmental enrichment for their welfare while in captivity. Listening to music and dancing could provide much-needed stimulation for these smart, social animals.
To that end, the authors watched dozens of videos of cockatoos on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, with search terms like “birds dancing Elvis,” “bird dancing to rap music” and “bird dancing to rock music.” They also played music and podcasts to a group of captive birds—two sulphur crested cockatoos (Cacatua galerita), two Major Mitchell cockatoos (Lophochroa leadbeateri) and two galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla)—housed at Wagga Wagga Zoo in Australia.
Illustration of the 10 most common recorded dance movements. Ethogram descriptors based on Keehn et al. [3] and illustrations by Zenna Lugosi. Image: Lubke et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
The results expanded the existing database of cockatoo dance moves from classics like headbang, foot-lift, and body roll to include new-wave choreography like jump turn, downward walk, and fluff (wherein “feathers are fluffed” in a “fluffing event” according to the study).
All the birds that the team studied onsite at the zoo also danced at least once to audio playback of the song “The Nights” by Avicii. They even danced when music was not playing, bopping around to silence or to tips from the financial podcast “She’s on the Money.”
“Dance behaviour is perhaps a more common behaviour in cockatoos than previously thought,” the team concluded. “Further research is required to determine the motivational basis for this behaviour in captivity.”
It will be interesting to see what forthcoming studies reveal, but my own prediction is that the motivational basis falls under Lady Gaga’s edict to “Just Dance.”
In other news…
Solving the mystery of what’s killing billions of sea stars
Prentice, Melanie et al. “Vibrio pectenicida strain FHCF-3 is a causative agent of sea star wasting disease.” Nature Ecology and Evolution.
Over the past decade, a devastating illness has killed off billions of sea stars in what is the largest marine epidemic on record. Scientists have finally identified the culprit that causes sea star wasting disease (SSWD) as the bacteria Vibrio pectenicida, which is from the same family that causes cholera in humans (Vibrio cholerae).
Sea stars infected with SSWD form lesions and rapidly disintegrate into goo in mass mortality events that have upended ecosystems on the Pacific coast from Alaska to Mexico. The isolation of the agent involved in these grotesque die-offs will hopefully help restore these vital keystone species.
Hakai Institute research scientist Alyssa Gehman checks on an adult sunflower sea star in the US Geological Survey’s Marrowstone Marine Field Station in Washington State. Image: Kristina Blanchflower/Hakai Institute
“This discovery will enable recovery efforts for sea stars and the ecosystems affected by their decline,” said researchers led by Melanie Prentice of the Hakai Institute and the University of British Columbia.
Psst…you have some ancient atmosphere stuck in your teeth
Feng, Dingsu et al. “Mesozoic atmospheric CO2 concentrations reconstructed from dinosaur tooth enamel.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
For the first time, scientists have reconstructed atmospheres that existed more than 100 million years ago by studying the teeth of dinosaurs that breathed in this bygone air.
A team analyzed oxygen remnants preserved in the dental enamel of roughly two dozen dinosaur teeth including sauropods (such as Camarasaurus), theropods (including Tyrannosaurus), and the ornithischian Edmontosaurus (go Oilers). This data enabled them to infer carbon dioxide concentrations of around 1,200 parts per million (ppm) and 750 ppm in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, respectively.
This is in line with other findings that have found wild swings in CO2 levels during the dinosaur age, likely due to volcanic activity. Earth’s current atmosphere is about 430 ppm, and is rapidly rising due to human-driven greenhouse gas emissions.
“Fossil tooth enamel can thus serve as a robust time capsule for ancient air [oxygen] isotope compositions,” said researchers led by Dingsu Feng of the University of Göttingen. “This novel form of analysis can “provide insights into past atmospheric greenhouse gas content and global primary productivity.”
Vortex planets from the dawn of light
Eriksson, Linn E J et al. “Planets and planetesimals at cosmic dawn: Vortices as planetary nurseries.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
The first planets ever born in the universe may have formed in vortices around ancient stars more than 13.6 billion years ago. These stars were made of light elements, such as hydrogen and helium, but each new generation forged an itty-bit of heavier elements in their bellies that could potentially provide basic planetary building blocks.
By running simulations of this early epoch, known as cosmic dawn, researchers led by Linn E.J. Eriksson of the American Museum of Natural History found that small rocky worlds, on the scale of Mercury or Mars, could coalesce from dust and pebbles trapped in so-called “vortices,” which are like cosmic eddies that form in disks around newborn stars.
As a consequence, this “suggests that vortices could trigger the formation of the first generation of planets and planetesimals in the universe,” the team said.
Congratulations to everyone who had “ancient vortex planets from cosmic dawn” on their bingo card this week.
Wash it all down with a glass of cockroach milk
Frigard, Ronja et al. “Daily activity rhythms, sleep and pregnancy are fundamentally related in the Pacific beetle mimic cockroach, Diploptera punctata.” Journal of Experimental Biology.
We began with cockatoos and we’ll close with cockroaches. Scientists have been bothering sleepy pregnant cockroaches, according to a new study on the Pacific beetle mimic cockroach, which is one of the few insects that produces milk and gives birth to live young.
“To our knowledge, no study has investigated the direct relationship between sleep and pregnancy in invertebrates, which leaves open the questions: do pregnant individuals follow similar sleep and activity patterns to their non-pregnant counterparts, and how important is sleep for successful pregnancy?” said researchers led by Ronja Frigard of the University of Cincinnati.
Biologists found that pregnant cockroaches need more sleep and those that are sleep-deprived have babies that require longer gestation to develop. Image: Andrew Higley
As it turns out, it’s very important! The team disrupted pregnant cockroaches by shaking their containers four times during their sleeping period for weeks on end. While the well-rested control group averaged 70 days for its gestation period, the sleep-deprived group took over 90 days to deliver their young. In addition, “when chronic sleep disturbance occurs, milk protein levels decline, decreasing nutrients available to the embryos during development,” the team concluded.
For those of us who have been woken up at night by the scuttling of cockroaches, this study is our revenge. Enjoy it while you can, because the smart money is on cockroaches outliving us all.
Ancient tools found in Indonesia may shed light on mystery of ‘Hobbit’ humans
Archaeologists have found primitive stone tools on the Island of Sulawesi, Indonesia that date back to 1.04 to 1.48 million years.
This marks the oldest human habitation in this region.
The study, published in Nature, is predicted to solve the mystery of Homo floresiensis.
They are diminutive “hobbit” humans who lived on nearby Flores Island until about 500,000 years ago.
The ancient discovered tools were used to cut and scrap due to their sharp edges.
Excavations revealed seven different stones
This suggests that early humans may have inhabited Sulawesi around the same time or even earlier than Flores.
Dr. Adam Brumm, co-lead author of the study, said: “We have long suspected that the Homo floresiensis lineage came originally from Sulawesi. This discovery adds further weight to that possibility.”
More discoveries at the Calio site found seven stones alongside animal fossils, including a jawbone of an extinct giant pig.
While there were no human remains found in the fossils, researchers believe that Homo erectus or an early relative may have made the tools.
The study sparked speculations about how the ancient humans reached the isolated islands.
Characteristics of hobbit humans
Brum noted “getting to Sulawesi would not have been easy.”
Experts suggest that the discovery highlights the gaps in the understanding of how early humans migrated.
Prof. John Shea of Stony Brook University stated: “If hominins reached these islands, they might have survived briefly before going extinct,” noting that only modern humans have clear evidence of successful ocean crossings.
To learn more about this mysterious chapter of human evolution, researchers continue to search Sulawesi for hominin fossils. Brumm said: “There’s a truly fascinating story waiting to be told on that island.”
A study analyzing data from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has uncovered evidence of a “helicity barrier” in the Sun’s atmosphere.
In 2018, NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe on a trajectory that would eventually have it dive into the Sun’s atmosphere (corona), getting seven times closer to our host star than any other spacecraft so far. In June 2025, the probe completed its 24th close approach to the Sun, whilst equaling its record for the fastest a human-made object has ever traveled, at a zippy 692,000 kilometers per hour (430,000 miles per hour).
The probe is aimed at studying the Sun’s atmosphere and will hopefully shed light on a few long-standing mysteries, such as how the solar wind is accelerated. One puzzle, first discovered in 1939, is that the Sun’s corona is far hotter than the solar surface. And not just by a little.
“The hottest part of the Sun is its core, where temperatures top 27 million °F (15 million °C). The part of the Sun we call its surface – the photosphere – is a relatively cool 10,000 °F (5,500 °C),” NASA explains. “In one of the Sun’s biggest mysteries, the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, gets hotter the farther it stretches from the surface. The corona reaches up to 3.5 million °F (2 million °C) – much, much hotter than the photosphere.”
This is known as the “coronal heating problem”. The basic problem is this: why is the atmosphere far hotter than the surface, when the surface is much closer to the core, where energy is generated through the fusion of hydrogen into helium?
There have been suggestions that the extra heat in the corona is caused by turbulence, or a type of magnetic wave known as “ion cyclotron waves”.
“Both, however, have some problem—turbulence struggles to explain why hydrogen, helium and oxygen in the gas become as hot as they do, while electrons remain surprisingly cold; while the magnetic waves theory could explain this feature, there doesn’t seem to be enough of the waves coming off the sun’s surface to heat up the gas,” Dr Romain Meyrand, author on the new paper, explained in a previous statement.
While both ideas have problems, together with a “helicity barrier”, they show some promise for explaining the coronal heating problem.
“If we imagine plasma heating as occurring a bit like water flowing down a hill, with electrons heated right at the bottom, then the helicity barrier acts like a dam, stopping the flow and diverting its energy into ion cyclotron waves,” Meyrand added. “In this way, the helicity barrier links the two theories and resolves each of their individual problems.”
Essentially, the helicity “barrier” alters turbulent dissipation, changing how fluctuations dissipate and how the plasma is heated. The team has now analyzed data from the Parker Solar Probe, and it appears to show evidence for the helicity barrier.
“The barrier can form only under certain conditions, such as when thermal energy is relatively low compared to magnetic energy. Since fluctuations in the magnetic field are expected to behave differently when the barrier is active versus when it is not, measuring how these fluctuations vary with solar wind conditions relevant to the barrier’s formation—including the thermal-to-magnetic energy ratio—provides a way to test for the barrier’s presence,” the team explains in their paper.
“By analyzing solar wind magnetic field measurements, we find that the fluctuations behave exactly as predicted with changes in solar wind parameters that characterize these conditions. This analysis also allows us to identify specific values for these parameters that are needed for the barrier to form, and we find that these values are common near the Sun.”
Further analysis is necessary, but the approach looks fairly promising for explaining the problem.
“This paper is important as it provides clear evidence for the presence of the helicity barrier, which answers some long-standing questions about coronal heating and solar wind acceleration, such as the temperature signatures seen in the solar atmosphere, and the variability of different solar wind streams,” Dr Christopher Chen, study author and Reader in Space Plasma Physics at Queen Mary University of London, said in a statement.
“This allows us to better understand the fundamental physics of turbulent dissipation, the connection between small-scale physics and the global properties of the heliosphere, and make better predictions for space weather.”
While conducted on our own Sun (we are far from ready to plunge spacecraft into the atmosphere of other stars), the study has implications for other stars, and other parts of the universe, in other collisionless plasmas.
“This result is exciting because, by confirming the presence of the ‘helicity barrier’, we can account for properties of the solar wind that were previously unexplained, including that its protons are typically hotter than its electrons,” said Jack McIntyre, lead author and PhD student from Queen Mary University of London.
“By improving our understanding of turbulent dissipation, it could also have important implications for other systems in astrophysics.”
The study was published in Physical Review X.
An earlier version of this story was published in July 2025.
Ceres, the most massive asteroid today is a mere 0.00016 Earth masses. (Credit : Justin Cowart)
